Read "The Kidnapped President" by Guy Boothby online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was a new experience to me to find myself at sea as a passenger, to have no watches to keep, and no round of irksome duties to perform. It was a pleasant change to be able to turn into one's bunk at ten o'clock and to enjoy a good night's rest, after being used to leaving it at midnight in order to go up and pace a cold and cheerless bridge for four long hours at a time. I had a vague premonition that I should be recognized as soon as I arrived on board. Strangely enough this proved to be the case, for I had no sooner set foot on the promenade deck, before a well-known voice hailed me.
"Hulloa, Dick Helmsworth," it said. "What on earth brings you aboard this hooker?"