The Card, a Story of Adventure in the Five TownsBennett, Arnold
General
The Card, a Story of Adventure in the Five Towns
Bennett, Arnold
Adventure stories; City and town life -- Fiction; Staffordshire (England) -- Fiction
But his fertility of invention did not stop there. One morning the
earliest excursionists saw a sort of Robinson Crusoe marooned on the
strip of beach near the wreck. All that heartless fate had left him
appeared to be a machine on a tripod and a few black bags. And there was
no shelter for him save a shallow cave. The poor fellow was quite
respectably dressed. Simeon steered the boat round by the beach, which
shelved down sharply, and as he did so the Robinson Crusoe hid his head
in a cloth, as though ashamed, or as though he had gone mad and believed
himself to be an ostrich. Then apparently he thought the better of it,
and gazed boldly forth again. And the boat passed on its starboard side
within a dozen feet of him and his machine. Then it put about and passed
on the port side. And the same thing occurred on every trip. And the
last trippers of the day left Robinson Crusoe on the strip of beach in
his solitude.
The next morning a photographer's shop on the Parade pulled down its
shutters and displayed posters all over the upper part of its windows.
And the lower part of the windows held sixteen different large
photographs of the lifeboat broad-side on. The likenesses of over a
hundred visitors, many of them with sou'-westers, cork belts, and
life-lines, could be clearly distinguished in these picturesque groups.
A notice said:--
"_Copies of any of these magnificent permanent holographs can be
supplied, handsomely mounted, at a charge of two shillings each. Orders
executed in rotation, and delivered by post if necessary. It is
respectfully requested that cash be paid with order. Otherwise orders
cannot be accepted._"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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