be classed at once down there by the experts
assembled as an eager and useless person who had no right to the space
which he occupied. However, he witnessed the heaving arrival of the
lifeboat and the disembarking of the rescued crew of the Norwegian
barque, and he was more than ever decided to compose a descriptive
article for the _Staffordshire Signal._ The rescued and the
rescuing crews disappeared in single file to the upper floor of the
pier, with the exception of the coxswain, a man with a spreading red
beard, who stayed behind to inspect the lifeboat, of which indeed he was
the absolute owner. As a journalist Denry did the correct thing and
engaged him in conversation. Meanwhile, cheering could be heard above.
The coxswain, who stated that his name was Cregeen, and that he was a
Manxman, seemed to regret the entire expedition. He seemed to be unaware
that it was his duty now to play the part of the modest hero to Denry's
interviewing. At every loose end of the chat he would say gloomily:

"And look at her now, I'm telling ye!" Meaning the battered craft, which
rose and fell on the black waves.

Denry ran upstairs again, in search of more amenable material. Some
twenty men in various sou'-westers and other headgear were eating thick
slices of bread and butter and drinking hot coffee, which with foresight
had been prepared for them in the pier buffet. A few had preferred
whisky. The whole crowd was now under the lee of the pavilion, and it
constituted a spectacle which Denry said to himself he should refer to
in his article as "Rembrandtesque." For a few moments he could not
descry Ruth and Nellie in the gloom. Then he saw the indubitable form of
his betrothed at a penny-in-the-slot machine, and the indubitable form
of Nellie at another penny-in-the-slot machine. And then he could hear
the click-click-click of the machines, working rapidly. And his thoughts
took a new direction.

Presently Ruth ran with blithe gracefulness from her machine and
commenced a generous distribution of packets to the members of the
crews. There was neither calculation nor exact justice in her
generosity. She dropped packets on to heroic knees with a splendid
gesture of largesse. Some packets even fell on the floor. But she did
not mind.

Denry could hear her saying:

"You must eat it. Chocolate is so sustaining. There's nothing like it."

She ran back to the machines, and snatched more packets from Nellie, who
under her orders had