Excerpt from A Person of Some Importance Matt was in the first mate's boat, which proved much the faster of the two; and despite the captain's orders, and even entreaties, gave him the slip during the night. The mate was a decent enough man, and well-meaning, but he had a wife in Biddeford, and an old mother to support - and self-preservation is the first law. 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.