Fiction Books

PREFACE By Irvin S. CobbTherôle of discoverer is pleasing, nearly always, and more especially in its reactions is it pleasing. The actual performance of discovery may be fraught with hardships and with inconveniences and even with perils; as witness Christopher Columbus making his first voyage over this way in a walloping window-blind of a tub of a ship and his last one back with chains at his wrists... more...

CHAPTER I Skinner had inhabited the ironbound enclosure labeled "CASHIER" at McLaughlin & Perkins, Inc., so long, that the messenger boys had dubbed him the "cage man." To them he had become something of a bluff. Skinner's pet abomination was cigarettes, and whenever one of these miniatures in uniform chanced to offend that way, he would turn and frown down upon the culprit.... more...

Six Hundred Years ago—What things were like. The afternoon service was over in Lincoln Cathedral, and the congregation were slowly filing out of the great west door. But that afternoon service was six hundred years ago, and both the Cathedral and the congregation would look very strange to us if we saw them now. Those days were well called the Dark Ages, and how dark they were we can scarcely realise... more...

"Number 481 is no better, doctor," said the head-warder, in a slightly reproachful accent, looking in round the corner of my door. "Confound 481" I responded from behind the pages of the Australian Sketcher. "And 61 says his tubes are paining him. Couldn't you do anything for him?" "He is a walking drug-shop," said I. "He has the whole British pharmacopaæ... more...

James Quincy Holden was five years old. His fifth birthday was not celebrated by the usual horde of noisy, hungry kids running wild in the afternoon. It started at seven, with cocktails. They were served by his host, Paul Brennan, to the celebrants, the boy's father and mother. The guest of honor sipped ginger ale and nibbled at canapés while he was presented with his gifts: A volume of... more...

Does it need one? If so it must also come from those members of the Blakeney family in whose veins runs the blood of that Sir Percy Blakeney who is known to history as the Scarlet Pimpernel—for they in a manner are responsible for the telling of this veracious chronicle. For the past eight years now—ever since the true story of The Scarlet Pimpernel was put on record by the present author—these... more...

The scout stood where three roads cut three green tunnels in the pine woods, and met at his feet. Above his head an aged sign-post pointed impartially to East Carver, South Carver, and Carver Centre, and left the choice to him. The scout scowled and bit nervously at his gauntlet. The choice was difficult, and there was no one with whom he could take counsel. The three sun-shot roads lay empty, and the... more...

CHAPTER FIRST A WAVE OF IMPROVEMENT Pleasant Street was regarded by the Terrace as merely an avenue of approach to its own exclusive precincts. That Pleasant Street came to an end at the Terrace seemed to imply that nothing was to be gained by going farther; and if you desired a quiet, substantial neighborhood,—none of your showy modern houses on meagre lots, but spacious dwellings, standing well... more...

Introduction The yearly diet of the crow was studied from December, 1952, to February, 1954, in Harvey County and the northeastern townships of Reno County, in south-central Kansas. In the United States much attention has been devoted previously to the food taken by the crow because it is of economic importance. The work of Barrows and Schwarz (1895) was the first of a series of studies made by the... more...

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING The eyes of the man who had looked in upon a scene inordinately, fantastically brilliant, underwent, after those first few moments of comparative indifference, a curious transformation. He was contemplating one of the sights of the world. Crowded around the two roulette tables, promenading or lounging on the heavily cushioned divans against the wall, he took note of a... more...