Roxy can’t stop giggling at Alfie’s old-man impression. Under any other circumstances, I would be laughing too: it really is good. He stoops very slightly—barely more than dropping his neck forward a little—and tugs the brim of the hat down over his eyes. Stooping any more would make him look very short because he’s not especially tall. He makes his legs slightly stiff, and slaps his feet flatly and gently on the pavement, as if bending them any more would cause him discomfort.

It’s only a hundred yards or so from the Neptune Café to the little wooden kiosk on the harbor front with a big, colorful sign saying:

PUFFIN TOURS LTD

NEXT SAILING 12:00

There’s a man smoking a huge electronic pipe behind the glass front of the kiosk. As we approach, he puts away a phone, and I just know it. I don’t know how, but I do.

“Guys!” I say. “We’re not going to get away with this.”

In an annoying singsong voice, Roxy says, “You’re defeatist!” and carries on walking right up to the kiosk, Alfie shuffling alongside her.

There’s a rectangular hole in the glass for tickets and money, and a wisp of smoke is emerging. It’s only vape smoke, but there’s so much of it that it’s almost like the kiosk is on fire.

Alfie lowers his head to the gap in the glass and says in his deep voice, “I wonder if I can make it worth your while to venture a landing on the island, mate?”

For a moment—a tantalizing moment—I think we’ve got away with it. The man takes a long drag of his vaping pipe and murmurs, “You what?” and he pauses before exhaling a long plume of smoke.

Alfie extracts two fifty-pound notes from his jacket pocket.

“I was wondering if I could persuade you to make a landing on the island, mate? You know, on the east side, out of sight? My kids here are keen to see the puffins close up, you know wha’ I mean?”

The man eyes the two large banknotes. Alfie pushes them toward him beneath the glass. “It will be worth your while.”

The man reaches out two fingers with bitten nails, and pulls the notes toward him and puts them in his pocket. Alfie turns to us and grins.

“Get lost,” growls the man. “For a start, I’d lose me license. Second, do y’think I was born yesterday? You lot were in the Neptune earlier on, weren’t you? Go on—away with you.”

“Is that a no?”

“What did it sound like? Course it’s a no. Get lost!”

I see the dismay as Alfie’s shoulders slump. He half turns away, then straightens up and turns back again.

“May I have my money back, then?”

There’s a dreadful pause while the man takes a drag of his pipe, blows the smoke out again, and then says, “What money?”

Alfie’s whole body sinks and, without looking back at us, he slouches down onto a nearby bench.

He’s been quiet all morning, but, for the first time, poor Alfie really does look a thousand years old.