Fiction Books

Just before the close of the performances at Niblo's Garden, where the Jarrett combination was then playing, one evening in the latter part of June, 1862, two young men came out from the doorway of the theatre and took their course up Broadway toward the Houston Street corner. Any observer who might have caught a clear view of the faces of the two as they passed under one of the large lamps at the... more...

CHAPTER I. HOW MOTHER MICHEL MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OFHER CAT. here lived in Paris, under the reign of King Louis XV., a very rich old countess named Yolande de la Grenouillère. She was a worthy and charitable lady, who distributed alms not only to the poor of her own parish, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, but to the unfortunate of other quarters. Her husband, Roch-Eustache-Jérémie, Count of... more...

The First Conference An Account of Mr. Maxwell Laird of Coul his Appearance after Death to Mr. Ogilvie a Minister of the present Establishment at Innerwick, 3 Miles East from Dunbar. Upon the 3d Day of February, 1722, at seven a clock at Night after I had parted with Thurston [his Name Cant], and was coming up the Burial Road, one came riding up after me: upon hearing the Noise of his Horse’s feet, I... more...

The bullet slapped rotted leaves and dirt into Gram Treb's eyes. He wormed backward to the bole of a small tree. "Missed!" he shouted. He used English, the second tongue of them both. "Throw away your carbine and use rocks." "You tasted it anyhow," Harl Neilson's shrill young voice cried. "How was the sample?" "That leaves you two cartridges," taunted... more...

CHAPTER I KALITAN TENAS It was bitterly cold. Kalitan Tenas felt it more than he had in the long winter, for then it was still and calm as night, and now the wind was blowing straight in from the sea, and the river was frozen tight. A month before, the ice had begun to break and he had thought the cold was over, and that the all too short Alaskan summer was at hand. Now it was the first of May, and... more...

One—Freezing Sharp. Twenty years ago, Hezekiah Thornypath was in Luck’s way—so much so, that Luck kicked him out of it. Hez went up to London to make his fortune, and he took his wife and children with him to help to make it: Hez meant “to make his crown a pound,” as the old song says, but he did not. Either times, trade, or Hez’s management was bad; things went contrary;... more...

THE PINE AND THE ROSE It was not long after sunrise, and Stephen Waterman, fresh from his dip in the river, had scrambled up the hillside from the hut in the alder-bushes where he had made his morning toilet. An early ablution of this sort was not the custom of the farmers along the banks of the Saco, but the Waterman house was hardly a stone’s throw from the water, and there was a clear,... more...

PREFACE Albius Tibullus was a Roman gentleman, whose father fought on Pompey's side. The precise dates of his birth and death are in doubt, and what we know of his life is all in his own poems; except that Horace condoles with him about Glycera, and Apuleius says Delia's real name was Plautia. Horace paid him this immortal compliment: (Epist. 4 bk. I). "Albi nostrorum sermonum candide... more...

SOUNDS FROM A DISTANT "C." -… — .-… -. Just a noise, that is all. But a very significant noise to Miss Nathalie Rogers, or Nattie, as she was usually abbreviated; a noise that caused her to lay aside her book, and jump up hastily, exclaiming, with a gesture of impatience:— "Somebody always 'calls' me in the middle of every entertaining chapter!" For that noise, that... more...

MALICIOUSLY ACCUSED “Let them think what they like. If I had died I would have been a hero; because I lived I suppose there is nothing in the history of crime that I have not committed.” Young Captain Code Schofield sprang out of the deep, luxurious chair and began to pace up and down before the fire. He did not cast as much as a glance at the woman near him. His mind was elsewhere. He had heard... more...