"No difficulty in that, sir; there are always more men wanting to go out than there’s room for. Now suppose a gun was fired at this minute from any of the lightships to tell us that assistance was needed you would see men running from every quarter, all eager for a place. I know how they would scramble across those boats, for I’ve seen them, and I’ve done it myself. Many a time have I jumped out of my warm bed in the middle of a winter night when a gun has fired, and rushed down to the harbour with my clothes under my arm; even then I’ve often been too late." "What do you consider to be the best piece of service the _Bradford_ has done?" was my next question. "The rescue of the survivors of the _Indian Chief_ in the beginning of 1881. The men were out for over twenty-four hours in a terrible sea and dreadful cold. I was, unfortunately, away piloting when they started, but returned in time to see them come in. Though I knew all the boatmen well, I could not recognise a single one, the cold had so altered their faces, and the salt water had made their hair as white as wool. I can never forget it. Fish, the coxswain, received a gold medal from the Institution. There was a song made about the rescue, and us Ramsgate boatmen used to sing it. When the coxswain gave up his post, about three years ago, he got a gold second service clasp, the first ever given by the Institution. In twenty-six years he was out in the lifeboat on service nearly four hundred times, and helped to save about nine hundred lives. That’s the third _Bradford_ we’ve had here. The first was presented by the town of Bradford in Yorkshire, the sum for her equipment being collected in the Exchange there in an hour. That’s how she got her name, and it’s been kept up ever since.