“No more,” shrilled Simeon, solemnly.  And the wader scrambled in and the boat slid away.

“Fares, please!” shrilled Simeon.

He collected one pound fifteen, and slowly buttoned it up in the right-hand pocket of his blue trousers.

“Now, my lads, with a will,” he gave the order.  And then, with deliberate method, he lighted his pipe.  And the lifeboat shot away.

Close by the planks stood a young man in a negligent attitude, and with a look on his face as if to say:  “Please do not imagine that I have the slightest interest in this affair.”  He stared consistently out to sea until the boat had disappeared round the Little Orme, and then he took a few turns on the sands, in and out amid the castles.  His heart was beating in a most disconcerting manner.  After a time he resumed his perusal of the sea.  And the lifeboat reappeared and grew larger and larger, and finally arrived at the spot from which it had departed, only higher up the beach because the tide was rising.  And Simeon debarked first, and there was a small blue and red model of a lifeboat in his hand, which he shook to a sound of coins.

“For the Lifeboat Fund! For the Lifeboat Fund!” he gravely intoned.

Every debarking passenger dropped a coin into the slit.

In five minutes the boat was refilled, and Simeon had put the value of fourteen more half-crowns into his pocket.

The lips of the young man on the beach moved, and he murmured: 

“That makes over three pounds!  Well, I’m dashed!”

At the hour appointed for dinner he went to St Asaph’s Road, but could eat nothing.  He could only keep repeating very softly to himself, “Well, I’m dashed!”

Throughout the afternoon the competition for places in the lifeboat grew keener and more dangerous.  Denry’s craft was by no means the sole craft engaged in carrying people to see the wreck.  There were dozens of boats in the business, which had suddenly sprung up that morning, the sea being then fairly inoffensive for the first time since the height of the storm.  But the other boats simply took what the lifeboat left.  The guaranteed identity of the lifeboat, and of the Norsemen (who replied to questions in gibberish), and of Simeon himself; the sou’westers, the life-belts and the lines; even the collection for the Lifeboat Fund at the close of the voyage:  all these matters resolved themselves into a fascination which Llandudno could not resist.

And in regard to the collection, a remarkable crisis arose.  The model of a lifeboat became full, gorged to the slot.  And the Local Secretary of the Fund had the key.  The model was despatched to him by special messenger to open and to empty, and in the meantime Simeon used his sou’-wester as a collecting-box.  This contretemps was impressive.  At night Denry received twelve pounds odd at the hands of Simeon Edwards.  He showered the odd in largesse on his heroic crew,