Excerpt from The Talking Handkerchief: And Other Stories One of the tales that was told me in China I will here repeat; for convenience of narration I will give it in the first person Singular, and singular enough it is to the American who has never seen Asia. Familiarity with the manners and customs of Chinese sailors during a residence of several years in the southern provinces had naturally made me reluctant to travel on native vessels, however peaceful might be the appearance of thing's in gen eral. Judge, then, of my feelings when the chief of our house at Swatow called me into the private office one afternoon, and said he wished me to leave in an hour for Hong Kong. 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.