In the tiny community of Mariposa, an excursion on the Mariposa Bell steamboat is the hottest ticket in town.

What could go wrong?

Stephen Leacock, today on the Classic Tales podcast.

Welcome to this vintage episode of the Classic Tales podcast.

Thank you for listening.

Let's talk about ads.

Now, most podcasts offer a subscription, where you can pay $10 or so a month, and you get to listen to their show with no ads and get a few bonus episodes.

Here's the thing. This largely goes to benefit the podcast platforms. The actual creators don't get much.

So I created a better plan. For $9.99 per month, you get unlimited downloadable and streamable access to the entire Classic Tales Library.

I've been building this for 18 years.

This gives you access to longer books that wouldn't work in the podcast format.

Books like Nicholas Nickleby, Moby Dick, or the hunchback of Notre Dame.

Only about a quarter of the books in the library were released through the podcast,

so you can instantly download and listen to whatever you want all the time.

This is the audiobook library card.

Go to audiobook library card.com or follow the link in the show notes and download and listen

all you want. And now, the marine excursion of the Knights of Pythias by Stephen Leacock.

Half-past six on a July morning.

The Mariposa bell is at the wharf, decked in flags with steam up ready to start.

Excursion day.

Half past six on a July morning, and Lake Wicinotti lying in the sun as calm as glass.

The opal colors of the morning light are shot from the surface of the water.

...