Smiling Jim was going back to the bar where they spent a lovely evening beating two dozen men unconscious. He forgot his knife in a sailor. Said sailor was alive and kicking and offered Jimmy a job aboard a luxury cruiser. There the young master criminal has to deal with murder mystery, mass hysteria, and sleeping on the job. Later - as it so often happens to heroes of epic novels - he meets the prince of an island nation who wishes to switch roles with him for a day. From there one story-line follows the adventures of the young prince in the Singapore underworld after he is sold into slavery for two and a half dollars (which seems like a bargain price for undercover royalty). The other consists of the journals of his quasi-illiterate grace, King Smiling de James, the first of his name. Their quests are haunted by the mysterious living legend of the seas, Captain Dirty Fred, whose fiendishly clever schemes will decide the fate of both the prince and the pauper .