Chapter 1 AN ENGLISH BOY'S HOME August the First, 19— Clarence Chugwater looked around him with a frown, and gritted his teeth. "England—my England!" he moaned. Clarence was a sturdy lad of some fourteen summers. He was neatly, but not gaudily, dressed in a flat-brimmed hat, a coloured handkerchief, a flannel shirt, a bunch of ribbons, a haversack, football shorts, brown boots, a... more...

CHAPTER I THE CABLE PROM MERVO A pretty girl in a blue dress came out of the house, and began to walk slowly across the terrace to where Elsa Keith sat with Marvin Rossiter in the shade of the big sycamore. Elsa and Marvin had become engaged some few days before, and were generally to be found at this time sitting together in some shaded spot in the grounds of the Keith's Long Island home.... more...

PATIENT PERSEVERANCE PRODUCES PUGILISTIC PRODIGIES 'Where have I seen that face before?' said a voice. Tony Graham looked up from his bag. 'Hullo, Allen,' he said, 'what the dickens are you up here for?' 'I was rather thinking of doing a little boxing. If you've no objection, of course.' 'But you ought to be on a bed of sickness, and that sort of thing.... more...

"With apologies to gent opposite," said Clowes, "I must say I don't think much of the team." "Don't apologise to me," said Allardyce disgustedly, as he filled the teapot, "I think they're rotten." "They ought to have got into form by now, too," said Trevor. "It's not as if this was the first game of the term." "First game!"... more...

THE EPISODE OF THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER First of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, May 1916] When a seed-merchant of cautious disposition and an eye to the main chance receives from an eminent firm of jam-manufacturers an extremely large order for clover-seed, his emotions are mixed. Joy may be said to predominate, but with the joy comes also uncertainty. Are these... more...

LEAVE IT TO JEEVES Jeeves—my man, you know—is really a most extraordinary chap. So capable. Honestly, I shouldn't know what to do without him. On broader lines he's like those chappies who sit peering sadly over the marble battlements at the Pennsylvania Station in the place marked "Inquiries." You know the Johnnies I mean. You go up to them and say: "When's the next... more...

"COSY MOMENTS" The man in the street would not have known it, but a great crisis was imminent in New York journalism. Everything seemed much as usual in the city. The cars ran blithely on Broadway. Newsboys shouted "Wux-try!" into the ears of nervous pedestrians with their usual Caruso-like vim. Society passed up and down Fifth Avenue in its automobiles, and was there a furrow of... more...

MAINLY ABOUT FENN "When we get licked tomorrow by half-a-dozen wickets," said Jimmy Silver, tilting his chair until the back touched the wall, "don't say I didn't warn you. If you fellows take down what I say from time to time in note-books, as you ought to do, you'll remember that I offered to give anyone odds that Kay's would out us in the final. I always said that a... more...

CHAPTER I JIMMY MAKES A BET The main smoking-room of the Strollers' Club had been filling for the last half-hour, and was now nearly full. In many ways, the Strollers', though not the most magnificent, is the pleasantest club in New York. Its ideals are comfort without pomp; and it is given over after eleven o'clock at night mainly to the Stage. Everybody is young, clean-shaven, and full... more...

BILL THE BLOODHOUND There's a divinity that shapes our ends. Consider the case of HenryPifield Rice, detective. I must explain Henry early, to avoid disappointment. If I simply said he was a detective, and let it go at that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International... more...