Fiction Books

DR. NIKOLA The manager of the new Imperial Restaurant on the Thames Embankment went into his luxurious private office and shut the door. Having done so, he first scratched his chin reflectively, and then took a letter from the drawer in which it had reposed for more than two months and perused it carefully. Though he was not aware of it, this was the thirtieth time he had read it since breakfast that... more...

AN ACCIDENTAL SPY The boy sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was stiff, footsore, and a little chilly. There was no man-servant arranging his bath and clothes, no pleasant smell of coffee—none of the small luxuries to which he was accustomed. On the contrary, he had slept all night upon a bed of bracken, with no other covering than the stiff pine needles from the tall black trees, whose rustling music... more...

On the evening of Thanksgiving day, John Inglefield, the blacksmith, sat in his elbow-chair, among those who had been keeping festival at his board. Being the central figure of the domestic circle, the fire threw its strongest light on his massive and sturdy frame, reddening his rough visage, so that it looked like the head of an iron statue, all aglow, from his own forge, and with its features rudely... more...

CHAPTER I Five hundred years before the Trojan war, and seventeen hundred and fifteen years before our own era, there was a grand festival at Sardes. King Candaules was going to marry. The people were affected with that sort of pleasurable interest and aimless emotion wherewith any royal event inspires the masses, even though it in no wise concerns them, and transpires in superior spheres of life which... more...

Preface The author has had in mind a two-fold purpose in the preparation of this book. First, it is hoped that it may serve as a text or reference book for collegiate students of plant science who are seeking a proper foundation upon which to build a scientific knowledge of how plants grow. The late Dr. Charles E. Bessey, to whom I owe the beginning of my interest in plant life, once said to me:... more...

CHAPTER I THE FIGHT You never would guess in visiting Cathedral Court, with its people's hall and its public baths, its clean, paved street and general air of smug propriety, that it harbors a notorious past. But those who knew it by its maiden name, before it was married to respectability, recall Calvary Alley as a region of swarming tenements, stale beer dives, and frequent police raids. The... more...

ADMINISTRATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, from its commencement to its close, tested the strength of the Government and the capability of those who administered it. Disappointment, in consequence of no decisive military success during the first few months of the war, had caused a generally depressed feeling which begot discontent and distrust that in various... more...

INTRODUCTION HEN one has lived in Oregon for forty-three years, and when one's enthusiasm for his home increases year after year, naturally all that is said of that home is of the most vital interest. Especially is it acceptable if it is the outgrowth of a similar enthusiasm, and if it is well said. For a considerable span of time I have been reading what others have written about the Pacific... more...

IN THE CLOUDS "My God," said Rutherford, "the cable has broken!" In an instant I was craning over the side of the basket. Five hundred feet, 700 feet, 1000 feet, 2000 feet below us, the cruiser that had been our only link with the world of man was diminishing so swiftly that, as far as I remember, she had shrunk to the smallness of a tug and then vanished into the haze before I even... more...

BARBARA'S WEDDING The little city of Devondale, Ohio, had shaken off for one night at least the air of aristocratic calm that normally distinguished it from the busy mill towns on its right and left. Elm Avenue, its leading residence street, usually presented at this hour only an effect of watchful trees, dark shrubbery, shaded lamps, and remote domestic peace. Now, however, it had blossomed into... more...