Fiction Books

"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...

CHAPTER ONE Mr. Baker, chief mate of the ship Narcissus, stepped in one stride out of his lighted cabin into the darkness of the quarter-deck. Above his head, on the break of the poop, the night-watchman rang a double stroke. It was nine o'clock. Mr. Baker, speaking up to the man above him, asked:—"Are all the hands aboard, Knowles?" The man limped down the ladder, then said... more...

CHAPTER I. "Where does Bernardet live?" "At the passage to the right—Yes, that house which you see with the grating and the garden behind it." The man to whom a passer-by had given this information hurried away in the direction pointed out; although gasping for breath, he tried to run, in order to more quickly reach the little house at the end of the passage of the Elysée des Beaux... more...

ESSAY ON WAR [War for room required by encreased Population.—With Arts of Use and Comfort spring those of War.—Blessings of the Infant State of Society.—Peace cannot last beyond the Infancy of Society.—War defined to preserve the equilibrium of Population.—War between hords of emigrating Stranger Nations.—Invasions on account of violated Women.—Love the strongest and most natural cause of... more...

INTRODUCTORY. In making my bow to the public as an author, I feel it incumbent upon me to make a brief explanation of the motives that induced me to attempt this autobiographical sketch of nine years of my life. At intervals during the past decade, the country has been electrified by the recital of some horror perpetrated by Indians on white travelers, and those, who, having journeyed to the Far West,... more...

CHAPTER I. CONFUSION IN THE SHIP. "All hands pipe to muster, ahoy!" screamed the new boatswain of the Young America, as he walked towards the forecastle of the ship, occasionally sounding a shrill blast upon his whistle. At the same time the corresponding officer in the Josephine performed a similar service; and in a moment every officer and seaman in both vessels had taken his station. The... more...

CHAPTER I The IPV Arcturus Sets Out for Mars A narrow football of steel, the Interplanetary Vessel Arcturus stood upright in her berth in the dock like an egg in its cup. A hundred feet across and a hundred and seventy feet deep was that gigantic bowl, its walls supported by the structural steel and concrete of the dock and lined with hard-packed bumper-layers of hemp and fibre. High into the air... more...

CHAPTER I THE YORKE FAMILY The family of Yorke first came into prominence with the great Chancellor Philip Yorke, first Earl of Hardwicke. This remarkable man, who was the son of an attorney at Dover, descended, it is claimed, from the Yorkes of Hannington in North Wiltshire, a family of some consequence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was born in that town in the year 1690, and rose from a... more...

AN ECHO."O de worl am roun an de worl am wide—O Lord, remember your chillun in de mornin!It's a mighty long way up de mountain side,An day aint no place whar de sinners kin hide,When de Lord comes in de mornin." With a plaintive quirk of the voice the singer paused, gayly flicked the strings of the banjo, then put her hand flat upon them to stop the vibration and smiled round on her... more...

Philip had whispered to Reinhold that he would look him up presently; Reinhold trembled for the result of a meeting between father and son, which could not have occurred at a more unfortunate moment; but it could not be helped, and he determined to employ the interval in saying a few words of comfort, after the scene that had just taken place, to the old clerk whom he had spoken to several times during... more...