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CHAPTER I. When John Marsh, the steel man, died, there was considerable stir in the inner circles of New York society. And no wonder. The wealthy ironmaster's unexpected demise certainly created a most awkward situation. It meant nothing less than the social rehabilitation of a certain individual who, up to this time, had been openly snubbed, not to say deliberately "cut" by everybody in... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ARRIVAL OF THE EUTERPE-THALIA It was about noon of a day in early summer that a westward-bound Atlantic liner was rapidly nearing the port of New York. Not long before, the old light-house on Montauk Point had been sighted, and the company on board the vessel were animated by the knowledge that in a few hours they would be at the end of their voyage. The vessel now speeding along the... more...

The Albatross. The “vulture of the sea,” borne upon broad wing, and wandering over the wide Atlantic, suddenly suspends his flight to look down upon an object that has attracted his attention. It is a raft, with a disc not much larger than a dining-table, constructed out of two small spars of a ship,—the dolphin-striker and spritsail yard,—with two broad planks and some narrower ones lashed... more...

PREFACE oes anybody remember the opera of The Inca, and that heartbreaking episode where the Court Undertaker, in a morbid desire to increase his professional skill, deliberately accomplishes the destruction of his middle-aged relatives in order to inter them for the sake of practise? If I recollect, his dismal confession runs something like this: “It was in a bleak November When I slew them, I... more...

A LIBERAL EDUCATION "There's ingratitude for you!" Miss Dolly Foster exclaimed suddenly. "Where!" I asked, rousing myself from meditation. She pointed to a young man who had just passed where we sat. He was dressed very smartly, and was walking with a lady attired in the height of the fashion. "I made that man," said Dolly, "and now he cuts me dead before the whole of... more...

CHAPTER I. A BOZRAH BORNIN'. A tallow candle shed its sickly and flickering light in the front room of an ancient farm house, as Jack Sheppard announced his arrival on earth at four o'clock on a Friday morning. He arrived in a snowstorm, and it was a very select gathering of some of old Bozrah's prominent citizens who greeted his entry into the world. There was old Doctor Pettingill,... more...

I. Green rushes, long and thick, standing up above the edge of the ditch, told the hour of the year as distinctly as the shadow on the dial the hour of the day.  Green and thick and sappy to the touch, they felt like summer, soft and elastic, as if full of life, mere rushes though they were.  On the fingers they left a green scent; rushes have a separate scent of green, so, too, have ferns, very... more...

CHAPTER ONE. Casanova was in his fifty-third year. Though no longer driven by the lust of adventure that had spurred him in his youth, he was still hunted athwart the world, hunted now by a restlessness due to the approach of old age. His yearning for Venice, the city of his birth, grew so intense that, like a wounded bird slowly circling downwards in its death flight, he began to move in... more...

FATTY COON AT HOME Fatty Coon was so fat and round that he looked like a ball of fur, with a plumelike tail for a handle. But if you looked at him closely you would have seen a pair of very bright eyes watching you. Fatty loved to eat. Yes—he loved eating better than anything else in the world. That was what made him so fat. And that, too, was what led him into many adventures. Close by a swamp,... more...