One Crate's Worth of White

You keep Gullwrack Light, and last night's gale cracked your lamp's patent burner clean through. This dawn the same gale put the brig Larkspur onto the rocks below — every soul safe, and her cargo of Lighthouse Board stores coming ashore by the basketful, including a replacement burner consigned to Depot Nine, forty miles down the coast. Mr. Ambrose Tick, Receiver of Wreck, has set up a folding table in your yard and impounded the lot pending proper paperwork. The paperwork takes three weeks. The night takes about ten hours to arrive.