Excerpt from The Swindler and Other Stories Hen you come to reflect that there are only a few planks between you and the bottom Of the Atlantic Ocean, it makes you feel sort of pensive. I beg your pardon? The stranger, smoking his cigarette in the lee Of the deck-cabins, turned his head sharply in the direction Of the voice. He encountered the wide, unembarrassed gaze Of a girl's grey eyes. She had evidently just come up on deck. I beg yours, she rejoined composedly. Thought at first you were some one else. He shrugged his shoulders, and turned away. Quite Obviously he was not disposed to be sociable upon so slender an introduction. The girl, however, made no move to retreat. She stood thoughtfully tapping on the boards with the point of her shoe. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.