Fiction Books

ike Mallison and Nicko were in the office when the new clients entered. A girl and an elderly man. The girl smiled at Mike. Then she looked at Nicko and a sharp involuntary scream got past her lips. "It's all right, lady," Mike said. "He won't hurt you. He never injures a client. Won't you sit down?" Nicko wasn't offended. He was used to women reacting that way at... more...

The Secret of the Island was another of the series of Voyages Extraordinaires which ran through a famous Paris magazine for younger readers, the Magasin Illustré. It formed the third and completing part of the Mysterious Island set of tales of adventure. We may count it, taken separately, as next to Robinson Crusoe and possibly Treasure Island, the best read and the best appreciated book in all that... more...

A COURT BALL "I recollect the time," said the Squire, "when two women going to a ball were a big enough load for any carriage. You may say what you like about crinolines, but I've seen some very pretty women in them in my time." There were three people in the carriage passing slowly up the Mall in the string, with little jerks and progressions. They were the Squire himself, Mrs.... more...

CHAPTER I. LUCCA. We are at Lucca. It is the 13th of September, 1870—the anniversary of the festival of the Volto Santo—a notable day, both in city, suburb, and province. Lucca dearly loves its festivals—no city more; and of all the festivals of the year that of the Volto Santo best. Now the Volto Santo (Anglicè, Holy Countenance) is a miraculous crucifix, which hangs, as may be seen, all by... more...

CHAPTER I Enter Eleanor A child in a faded tam-o’-shanter that had once been baby blue, and a shoddy coat of a glaring, unpropitious newness, was sitting uncomfortably on the edge of a hansom seat, and gazing soberly out at the traffic of Fifth Avenue. The young man beside her, a blond, sleek, narrow-headed youth in eye-glasses, was literally making conversation with her. That is, he was engaged in a... more...

CHAPTER I. "Say, is it fate that has flung us together,We who from life's varied pathways thus meet?" IT was a broiling day at the end of July, and the railway station at Tiverton Junction was crowded with passengers. Porters wheeling great truckfuls of luggage strove to force a way along the thronged platform, anxious mothers held restless children firmly by the hand, harassed fathers... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TRAVELLER During the first days of the month of September, 1832, a young man about thirty years of age was walking through one of the valleys in Lorraine originating in the Vosges mountains. A little river which, after a few leagues of its course, flows into the Moselle, watered this wild basin shut in between two parallel lines of mountains. The hills in the south became gradually lower... more...

CHAPTER ONE: THE ABDUCTION The boy was doing his homework. His parents had taken his little brother to see Return to Oz at the movie theater. He had seen it when it first came out and, although he enjoyed it at the time, he felt he was getting too old for that sort of stuff. Besides, he had too much work to do. It seemed to him that each teacher allocated enough work to practically take up a... more...

AN IMAGINATIVE WOMAN When William Marchmill had finished his inquiries for lodgings at a well-known watering-place in Upper Wessex, he returned to the hotel to find his wife.  She, with the children, had rambled along the shore, and Marchmill followed in the direction indicated by the military-looking hall-porter ‘By Jove, how far you’ve gone!  I am quite out of breath,’ Marchmill said, rather... more...

CHAPTER I The poor young man hesitated and procrastinated: it cost him such an effort to broach the subject of terms, to speak of money to a person who spoke only of feelings and, as it were, of the aristocracy.  Yet he was unwilling to take leave, treating his engagement as settled, without some more conventional glance in that direction than he could find an opening for in the manner of the large... more...