ght say, long before this government service was started. It was
managed--like this," resorting again to his finger and the imaginary
lines on the table. "A vessel came ashore on the bar. The first man
who saw it gave warning to the wracking-master, who took command of
the men ashore and the cargo in behalf of the insurance companies."

"Were there any signals then to rouse the coast in case of wreck?"

"Lord save you! no: every man warned his neighbor. There weren't but a
few scattered folks along the coast then, but in time of a wrack you'd
see them in the dead of night ready and waiting along the beach. No
need of your signal-flags for them, I reckon. They knew there'd be
dead men and plenty of wrack coming ashore before morning."

"And every man was ready to go out in his boat?" cried an enthusiastic
townsman, "or to carry a line to the sinking ship?"

"Well--hardly," said the captain with a dry smile. "Folks that
know the water don't go exactly that way to work. There was regular
wracking-boats, built for the surf, and crews for each, you see: best
man in the starn. The man in the starn, he generally owned the boat
and chose his crew. Picked men. He kept them year after year. Then the
wracking-masters hired him, his boat and his crew. Best crew chosen
first, of course. Two dollars a day each was reckoned good pay. They
got famous names, some of them surfboat crews," reflectively. "There
was William Chadwick--Bill Shattuck he goes by--his crew was known
from Sandy Hook to Hatteras. There's one of them now: he can tell you
about it better than me.--Hello, Jake!"

We looked out of the window and saw the fisherman whom we had met in
the afternoon lazily drawing his slow length along the beach, two
or three blue mackerel dangling from his hand: he had not enough of
energy, apparently, to hold them up. This was the fellow whom, an hour
before, we had pitied as a dull soul to whom the wreck was "timber"
and the life-saving station a "shed." We all had a vague ideal
before us of a gallant sailor, with eyes of fire and nerves of steel,
plunging into the cruel surf to rescue the sinking ship. We accepted
the slouching Jacob instead with disrelish. He was not the stuff of
which heroes in books are made.

"Jake," said the captain, "where is Shattuck's boat now? I was
speaking of it to the gentlemen here."

"Take a cigar," interpolated one of the party.

Jacob took a cigar, bit off the end and dropped easily into a
sea