He commenced by putting up the price of the afternoon
trips. There was a vast deal too much competition for seats in the
afternoon. This competition led to quarrels, unseemly language, and
deplorable loss of temper. It also led to loss of time. Denry was
therefore benefiting humanity by charging three shillings after two
o'clock. This simple and benign device equalised the competition
throughout the day, and made Denry richer by seven or eight pounds a
week.
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.
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