Also it's a place where full tide is at 10.17 tomorrow night.' Then an idea struck me.

'Is there no Inspector of Coastguards or some fellow like that who knows the East Coast ?' Whittaker said there was, and that he lived in Clapham.

He went off in a car to fetch him, and the rest of us sat about the little room and talked of anything that came into our heads.

I lit a pipe and went over the whole thing again till my brain grew weary.
About one in the morning the coastguard man arrived.

He was a fine old fellow, with the look of a naval officer, and was desperately respectful to the company.