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CHAPTER I THE SHINING SHIP She was kneeling on the hearthrug, grasping the poker firmly in one hand. Now and again she gave the fire a truculent prod with it as though to emphasise her remarks. "'Ask and ye shall receive'! . . . 'Tout vient à point à celui qui sait attendre'! Where on earth is there any foundation for such optimism, I'd like to know?" A sleek brown... more...

CHAPTER I OUT FOR PRACTICE "Oh, what a splendid kick!" The yellow pigskin football went whizzing through the air, turning over and over in its erratic flight. "Wow! Look at old Sorreltop run, will you?" "He's bound to get under it, too. That's going some, fellows! Oh, shucks!" "Ha! ha! a fumble and a muff, after all! That's too bad, after such a great gallop.... more...

CHAPTER I Peter Knight flung himself into the decrepit arm-chair beside the center-table and growled: "Isn't that just my luck? And me a Democrat for twenty years.There's nothing in politics, Jimmy." His son James smiled crookedly, with a languid tolerance bespeaking amusement and contempt. James prided himself upon his forbearance, and it was rarely indeed that he betrayed more than... more...

Schalken the Painter "For he is not a man as I am that we should come together; neither is there any that might lay his hand upon us both. Let him, therefore, take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me." There exists, at this moment, in good preservation a remarkable work of Schalken's. The curious management of its lights constitutes, as usual in his pieces, the chief... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TWO POETS OF SAFFRON PARK THE suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its sky-line was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne,... more...

HEADSTRONG AND HEADLONG Far from any house or hut, in the depth of dreary moor-land, a road, unfenced and almost unformed, descends to a rapid river. The crossing is called the "Seven Corpse Ford," because a large party of farmers, riding homeward from Middleton, banded together and perhaps well primed through fear of a famous highwayman, came down to this place on a foggy evening, after heavy... more...

THE CLASH OF RACE In the King's House at Spanish Town the governor was troubled. All his plans and prophecies had come to naught. He had been sure there would be no rebellion of the Maroons, and he was equally sure that his career would be made hugely successful by marriage with Sheila Llyn—but the Maroons had revolted, and the marriage was not settled! Messages had been coming from the... more...

AT THE TELEGRAPH On the third day of August, 1870, I left Paris in search of John Buckhurst. On the 4th of August I lost all traces of Mr. Buckhurst near the frontier, in the village of Morsbronn. The remainder of the day I spent in acquiring that “general information” so dear to the officials in Paris whose flimsy systems of intelligence had already begun to break down. On August 5th, about eight... more...

RELIGIOUS POEMS THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM Where Time the measure of his hoursBy changeful bud and blossom keeps,And, like a young bride crowned with flowers,Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps; Where, to her poet's turban stone,The Spring her gift of flowers imparts,Less sweet than those his thoughts have sownIn the warm soil of Persian hearts: There sat the stranger, where the shadeOf scattered... more...