Categories
- Antiques & Collectibles 13
- Architecture 36
- Art 48
- Bibles 22
- Biography & Autobiography 813
- Body, Mind & Spirit 138
- Business & Economics 28
- Children's Books 2
- Children's Fiction 1
- Computers 4
- Cooking 94
- Crafts & Hobbies 4
- Drama 346
- Education 46
- Family & Relationships 57
- Fiction 11819
- Games 19
- Gardening 17
- Health & Fitness 34
- History 1377
- House & Home 1
- Humor 147
- Juvenile Fiction 1873
- Juvenile Nonfiction 202
- Language Arts & Disciplines 88
- Law 16
- Literary Collections 686
- Literary Criticism 179
- Mathematics 13
- Medical 41
- Music 40
- Nature 179
- Non-Classifiable 1768
- Performing Arts 7
- Periodicals 1453
- Philosophy 64
- Photography 2
- Poetry 896
- Political Science 203
- Psychology 42
- Reference 154
- Religion 502
- Science 126
- Self-Help 81
- Social Science 81
- Sports & Recreation 34
- Study Aids 3
- Technology & Engineering 59
- Transportation 23
- Travel 463
- True Crime 29
Sort by:
DIRTY WORK It was nearly high-water, and the night-watchman, who had stepped aboard a lighter lying alongside the wharf to smoke a pipe, sat with half-closed eyes enjoying the summer evening. The bustle of the day was over, the wharves were deserted, and hardly a craft moved on the river. Perfumed clouds of shag, hovering for a time over the lighter, floated lazily towards the Surrey shore....
more...
CHAPTER XXI Gossip from one or two quarters, which reached Captain Nugent's ears through the medium of his sister, concerning the preparations for his son's marriage, prevented him from altering his mind with regard to the visits of Jem Hardy and showing that painstaking young man the door. Indeed, the nearness of the approaching nuptials bade fair to eclipse, for the time being, all other...
more...
SKILLED ASSISTANCE The night-watchman, who had left his seat on the jetty to answer the gate-bell, came back with disgust written on a countenance only too well designed to express it. "If she's been up 'ere once in the last week to, know whether the Silvia is up she's been four or five times," he growled. "He's forty- seven if he's a day; 'is left leg is...
more...
THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY Mr. Letts had left his ship by mutual arrangement, and the whole of the crew had mustered to see him off and to express their sense of relief at his departure. After some years spent in long voyages, he had fancied a trip on a coaster as a change, and, the schooner Curlew having no use for a ship's carpenter, had shipped as cook. He had done his best, and the unpleasant...
more...
A SPIRIT OF AVARICE Mr. John Blows stood listening to the foreman with an air of lofty disdain. He was a free-born Englishman, and yet he had been summarily paid off at eleven o'clock in the morning and told that his valuable services would no longer be required. More than that, the foreman had passed certain strictures upon his features which, however true they might be, were quite irrelevant to...
more...
STRIKING HARD "You've what?" demanded Mrs. Porter, placing the hot iron carefully on its stand and turning a heated face on the head of the family. "Struck," repeated Mr. Porter; "and the only wonder to me is we've stood it so long as we have. If I was to tell you all we've 'ad to put up with I don't suppose you'd believe me." "Very likely,"...
more...
THE BEQUEST R. Robert Clarkson sat by his fire, smoking thoughtfully. His lifelong neighbour and successful rival in love had passed away a few days before, and Mr. Clarkson, fresh from the obsequies, sat musing on the fragility of man and the inconvenience that sometimes attended his departure. His meditations were disturbed by a low knocking on the front door, which opened on to the street. In...
more...
LAWYER QUINCE Lawyer Quince, so called by his neighbours in Little Haven from his readiness at all times to place at their disposal the legal lore he had acquired from a few old books while following his useful occupation of making boots, sat in a kind of wooden hutch at the side of his cottage plying his trade. The London coach had gone by in a cloud of dust some three hours before, and since then the...
more...
THE CHANGELING Mr. George Henshaw let himself in at the front door, and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat. The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter- of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a tune, hung his hat on the peg and entered the kitchen. Mrs....
more...
KEEPING WATCH "Human natur'!" said the night-watchman, gazing fixedly at a pretty girl in a passing waterman's skiff. "Human natur'!" He sighed, and, striking a match, applied it to his pipe and sat smoking thoughtfully. "The young fellow is pretending that his arm is at the back of her by accident," he continued; "and she's pretending not to know that...
more...