Fiction Books

Padre, when you died, you left a message for me. You asked me to go on writing, if I were in trouble, just as I used to write when you were on earth. I used to "confess," and you used to advise. Also you used to scold. How you used to scold! I am going to do now what you asked, in that message. I shall never forget how you packed me off to school at Brighton, and Brian to Westward Ho! the year... more...

Sleepily the lookout stared at the scope-screen before him, wishing for something that would break the monotony of the scene it pictured: the schools of ghostly fish fleeting by, the occasional shafts of pale sunlight filtering down through breaks in the ice-floes above, the long snaky ropes of underwater growth. None of this was conducive to wakefulness; nor did the half-speed drone of the electric... more...

CHAPTER I SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME The Geneva express jerked itself out of the Gare de Lyons. For a few minutes the lights of outer Paris twinkled past its windows and then with a spring it reached the open night. The jolts and lurches merged into one regular purposeful throb, the shrieks of the wheels, the clatter of the coaches, into one continuous hum. And already in the upper berth of her... more...

To disobey the orders of theCouncil of Four was unthinkableto a Space Admiral of the oldschool. But the trouble was,the school system had changed.A man, a fighter, an Admiralhad to think for himself now, ifhis people were to live. While facing the Council of Four his restraint had not slipped; but afterward, shaking with fury, the Admiral of the Fleets of Sennech slammed halfway down the long flight of... more...

INTRODUCTION Cada puta hile (Let every jade go spin).—SANCHO PANZA. Almost alone in Europe stands Spain, the country of things as they are. The Spaniard weaves no glamour about facts, apologises for nothing, extenuates nothing. Lo que ha de ser no puede faltar! If you must have an explanation, here it is. Chew it, Englishman, and be content; you will get no other. One result of this is that... more...

WHO WAS SHE? Come, now, there may as well be an end of this! Every time I meet your eyes squarely I detect the question just slipping out of them. If you had spoken it, or even boldly looked it; if you had shown in your motions the least sign of a fussy or fidgety concern on my account; if this were not the evening of my birthday, and you the only friend who remembered it; if confession were not good... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BRADYS AS CUSTOM HOUSE DETECTIVES. The Collector of the Port of New York sat in his office in the Custom House with a look of annoyance upon his face. Several of his chief inspectors were standing about the room with the most uneasy expressions, for they were being censured unmercifully. "I tell you, gentlemen," the Collector was saying, angrily, "I am very much disgusted... more...

CHAPTER 1 "Go on, Astro," shouted the young Space Cadet. "Boot that screwy ball with everything you've got!" The three cadets of the Polaris unit raced down the Academy field toward the mercuryball, a plastic sphere with a vial of mercury inside. At the opposite end of the field, three members of the Arcturus unit ran headlong in a desperate effort to reach the ball first. Astro,... more...

"Prut!" said Annot, her sabots clattering loudly on the brick floor as she moved more rapidly in her wrath. "Prut! Madame Giraud, indeed! There was a time, and it was but two years ago, that she was but plain Mere Giraud, and no better than the rest of us; and it seems to me, neighbors, that it is not well to show pride because one has the luck to be favored by fortune. Where, forsooth,... more...

Preface The stories in this Fairy Book come from all quarters of the world. For example, the adventures of 'Ball-Carrier and the Bad One' are told by Red Indian grandmothers to Red Indian children who never go to school, nor see pen and ink. 'The Bunyip' is known to even more uneducated little ones, running about with no clothes at all in the bush, in Australia. You may see... more...