Fiction Books

It was a big, coffin-shaped plywood box that looked like it weighed a ton. This brawny type just dumped it through the door of the police station and started away. I looked up from the blotter and shouted at the trucker's vanishing back. "What the hell is that?" "How should I know?" he said as he swung up into the cab. "I just deliver, I don't X-ray 'em. It came on... more...

Act I Time: About the time of the decadence in Babylon. Scene: The jungle city of Thek in the reign of King Karnos. Tharmia: You know that my lineage is almost divine. Arolind: My father's sword was so terrible that he had to hide it with a cloak. Tharmia: He probably did that because there were no jewels in the scabbard. Arolind: There were emeralds in it that outstared the sea. * * * * * * * *... more...

It was now almost too dark to distinguish objects; duskier and vaguer became the flat world of marshes, set here and there with cypress and bounded only by far horizons; and at last land and water disappeared behind the gathered curtains of the night. There was no sound from the waste except the wind among the withered reeds and the furrowing splash of wheel and hoof over the submerged causeway. The... more...

JOEL AND THE SNAKE "Come on, Dave!" It was Joel's voice, and Polly pricked up her ears. "'Tisn't going to hurt you. Hoh! you're a 'fraid-cat—old 'fraid-cat!" "No, I'm not 'fraid-cat," declared little Davie, trying to speak stoutly; "I'm coming, Joel," and his little rusty shoes pattered unevenly down the rickety board walk.... more...

REFORM AND POLITICS UTOPIAN SCHEMES AND POLITICAL THEORISTS. THERE is a large class of men, not in Europe alone, but in this country also, whose constitutional conservatism inclines them to regard any organic change in the government of a state or the social condition of its people with suspicion and distrust. They admit, perhaps, the evils of the old state of things; but they hold them to be... more...

THE GOLDSMITH'S DAUGHTER. A LEGEND OF MADRID. Many, many years ago, in those "good old times" so much bepraised by antiquaries and the laudatores temporis acti,—the good old times, that is to say, of the holy office, of those magnificent autos when the smell of roasted heretics was as sweet a savor in the nostrils of the faithful, as that of Quakers done remarkably brown was to our godly... more...

CHAPTER I London lay as if washed with water-colour that Sunday morning, light blue sky and pale dancing sunlight wooing the begrimed stones of Westminster like a young girl with an old lover. The empty streets, clean-swept, were bathed in the light, and appeared to be transformed from the streets of week-day life. Yet the half of Londoners lay late abed, perhaps because six mornings a week of reality... more...

A DREAM OF EMPIRE. I. AN ECCENTRIC VISITOR. It was the first of May, and the sun had passed the noon line in a bright sky, causing the shadow of Peter Taylor to fall east of north and infusing his substance with the delightful languor called Spring Fever. Leaning upon an idle spade, Peter watched the lazy motions of a negro slave whom he had directed to trim a level lawn ornamented with flowerbeds. The... more...

The Bay of Biscay. It was in the latter part of the month of June, of the year seventeen hundred and ninety something, that the angry waves of the Bay of Biscay were gradually subsiding, after a gale of wind as violent as it was unusual during that period of the year. Still they rolled heavily; and, at times, the wind blew up in fitful, angry gusts, as if it would fain renew the elemental combat; but... more...

"Don't let the old goat rattle you, Pheola," I said as we rode the elevator to the penthouse. "He'll try. Just remember, he is the one who has to say O.K. if we are to give you some training." Her eyes rolled and she moaned softly, clinging to my arm. "Oh, Billy Joe!" she whispered. "I don't want to fail you!" Maragon has some pretty creepy types in his... more...