Fiction Books

Ruth Morton finished her cup of coffee, brushed a microscopic crumb from her embroidered silk kimono, pushed back her loosely arranged brown hair, and resumed the task of opening her mail. It was in truth a task, and one that consumed an inordinate amount of her valuable time. And her time was extremely valuable. Computed upon the basis of her weekly salary of one thousand dollars, it figured out just... more...

CHAPTER I. THE MAN OF "CARD HONOR" "I'll wager you ten dollars that my fly gets off the mirror before yours does." "I'll take that bet, friend." The dozen or so of waiting customers lounging in Abe Morris's barber shop looked up with signs of renewed life. "I'll make it twenty," continued the first speaker. "I follow you," assented the second... more...

Ezekiel Todd, her dry, tight-fisted, lean father, had named her, bawling it out so loud that the more suitable, certainly the more euphonious, "Evangeline," proffered in a timid whisper by her faded and somewhat romantic mother, was completely smothered. "I baptize thee, Evang—" began the minister, when Ezekiel's voice rose clear: "Abijah, I tell ye,... more...

MYSTERY NO. I SHIN SHIRA APPEARS It was very remarkable how I first came to make his acquaintance at all. Shin Shira I mean. I had been sitting at my desk, writing, for quite a long time, when suddenly I heard, as I thought, a noise in another part of the room. I turned my head hastily and looked towards the door, but it was fast closed and there was apparently nobody in the room but myself.... more...

I. TOBY'S INTRODUCTION TO THE CIRCUS "Wouldn't you give more 'n six peanuts for a cent?" was a question asked by a very small boy, with big, staring eyes, of a candy vender at a circus booth. And as he spoke he looked wistfully at the quantity of nuts piled high up on the basket, and then at the six, each of which now looked so small as he held them in his hand.... more...

Aboard a gunboat. “Well, Mr Burnett, what is it?” “Beg pardon, sir.” “Now, my good boy, have I not told you always to speak out in a sharp, business-like way? How in the world do you expect to get on in your profession and become a smart officer, one who can give orders promptly to his men, if you begin in that stammering, hesitating style? Here, I’m busy; what do you want?” “I beg... more...

Tom seated himself at the table and looked into his wife's face with a smile: "Nancy, it's a meal fit for a king!" The supper over, he smoked his pipe before the cabin fire of blazing logs, while she cleared the wooden dishes. He watched her get the paper, goose-quill pen and ink as a prisoner sees the scaffold building for his execution. "Now we're all ready," she said... more...

CHAPTER I THE GIRL ON THE "VEILED LADYE" The big coastwise tug Hydrographer slid stern-ward into a slip cluttered with driftwood and bituminous dust, stopping within heaving distance of three coal-laden barges which in their day had reared "royal s'ls" to the wayward winds of the seven seas. Near-by lay Horace Howland's ocean-going steam yacht, Veiled Ladye, which had put into... more...

CHAPTER I "EVENTS, EVENTS" Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. —Troilus and Cressida. "The knowledge that you're alive gives me no pleasure," growled the grim old Austrian premier. "Thank you!" laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. "You have lost none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are... more...

CHAPTER I.AN UNWELCOME LEGACY."Children! They are a nuisance to everyone—my abomination, as you know, Jack. Why on earth they can not be kept out of sight altogether till they reach a sensible age is what puzzles me! And I suppose if anything could make the matter worse, it is that this is a girl." The tone of disgust with which the last word was uttered brought a laugh from Sir Edward... more...