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Updated: June 26, 2025
One who carried the blackest name along the coasts of the two American continents as a wrecker and smuggler; who in the days before the Civil War had brought cargoes of slaves from Africa, and who had enjoyed more marvelous escapes than any man in the history of piracy, with the exception of Black Jack Morgan? "Impossible!" you say.
The most greedy and cruel wrecker that ever put up false lights to lure mariners to their destruction will do his best to preserve a ship from going to pieces on the rocks, if he is taken on board of her and made pilot; and so the most profligate Chancellor of the Exchequer most wish that trade may flourish, that the revenue may come in well, and that he may be able to take taxes off instead of putting them on.
The poor old imbecile! Why, this child was a firebrand, a wrecker, if ever he had seen one; and the worst kind because she was unconscious of her gifts. As for the patient, his decision was immediate. Here was no crooked soul; a little weak perhaps, impulsive beyond common, but fundamentally honest. Given time and the right environment, and he would outgrow these defects.
Knowing one cousin and the books of the other, I should say it was Bob who, in their childhood, originated the drama of the Lantern-Bearers and the evil-smelling lantern under the great coat, symbol of adventure and daring that it was Bob who, in their gay youth, evolved the black flannel shirts to which they owed the honour of being, with Lord Salisbury, the only Britons ever refused admission to the Casino at Monte Carlo, and which were worn by the Stennis Brothers in The Wrecker, that it was Bob who impressed upon Louis the importance of being dressed for the scene until he surpassed himself in his amazing get-up for the Epilogue to an Inland Voyage.
"Oh, a wreck?" she exclaimed. "Will we have time to go up and see it?" "I'd say it's a wreck," grinned the trainman. "An' you've got all the time you want. We're a-goin' to pull in on the sidin' an' let the wrecker an' bridge crew at it. But even with 'em a-workin' from both ends it'll be tomorrow sometime 'fore they c'n get them box cars drug out an' a temp'ry trussle throw'd acrost."
And I did know my business in those days or people lied a lot. And it always meant more to me the name of bein' the great wrecker than all the money I made, and in those last few years I made plenty of it I did that. Me who once slaved for six dollars a month as boy in a Bangor coaster.
"The same one?" "The very same. There he goes, over the sandhill yonder, with old Peter the wrecker. We've got to hurry home now, but I'm going to set Ham Morris on his track before we get through." "You'll never find him again." "Do you s'pose old Peter'd befriend a man that did what he did? Right on the shore of the bay? No, indeed!
He was a man with an immense girth of chest, a rugged, clean-shaved face of mahogany colour, and two blunt tufts of iron-grey, thick, wiry hairs on his upper lip. He had been pearler, wrecker, trader, whaler too, I believe; in his own words anything and everything a man may be at sea, but a pirate.
Later, when he and Lloyd wrote "The Wrecker" together, this very episode figured in the story, Captain Otis under the name of Captain Nares performing a similar sail-carrying feat on the schooner Norah Creina. Mrs. Strong, Stevenson's stepdaughter, and her family were waiting in Honolulu and gave them a warm welcome. The travellers soon found themselves the centre of interest among Mrs.
The sketch was a house wrecker. It was one of those rare strokes of talent that inundates a theatre from the roof down. The gallery wept; and the orchestra seats, being dressed for it, swam in tears. After the show the booking agents signed blank checks and pressed fountain pens upon Hart and Cherry. Five hundred dollars a week was what it panned out.
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