It was a bad enough piece of luck to be driven in on that bar, or another like it; but the wreckers made it as much worse as they knew how to." They were all listening now, even his sisters; and Dabney launched out into a somewhat highly-colored description of the terrors of the Long-Island "south shore," in old times and new, and of the character and deeds of the men who were formerly the first to find out if any thing or anybody had been driven ashore.
"What a prize to them that French steamer would have been!" said Annie; "the one you and Ford took Frank from." "No, she wouldn't.

Why, she wasn't wrecked at all.

She only stuck her nose in the sand, and lay still till the tugs came and pulled her off.
That isn't a wreck.

A wreck is where the ship is knocked to pieces, and people are drowned, and all that sort of thing.

The crew can't help themselves, after that.