Fiction Books

Reader,—I don't know what kind of a preface I must write to find thee courteous, an epithet too often bestowed without a cause. The author of this work has been as sparing of what we call good nature, as most readers are nowadays. So I am afraid his translator and commentator is not to expect much more than has been showed them. What's worse, there are but two sorts of taking prefaces, as... more...

CHAPTER I As the tubby little China Coast steamer marched up Manila Bay, Trask stood under the bridge on the skimpy "promenade deck" and waited impatiently for the doctor's boat to come alongside. He was the only white passenger among a motley lot of Chinese merchants and half-castes of varied hues, and he was glad the passage was at an end. He had made the trip with a Finnish skipper,... more...

CHAPTER I. The Bad Boy and His Pa Go West—Pa Plans to Be a Dead Ringer forBuffalo Bill—They Visit an Indian Reservation and Pa Has anEncounter with a Grizzly Bear. Well, I never saw such a change in a man as there has been in pa, since the circus managers gave him a commission to go out west and hire an entire outfit for a wild west show, regardless of cost, to be a part of our show next year. He... more...

I THOSE RUSSIAN VIOLETS There had been a brilliant reception at the house of Mrs. Adrian Colburn in honor of her guest—a most attractive young woman—from the East. The hours were brief, from five to seven. I had gone late and left early, but while there had made an engagement with Miss Caddington for the large ball to be given that night by the Boltons. Miss Caddington was a debutante. She had been... more...

CHAPTER I FICTION AND THE NOVEL All the world loves a story as it does a lover. It is small wonder then that stories have been told since man walked erect and long before transmitted records. Fiction, a conveniently broad term to cover all manner of story-telling, is a hoary thing and within historical limits we can but get a glimpse of its activity. Because it is so diverse a thing, it may be regarded... more...

The Shyster   Shyster, n. [Origin obscure.] One who does business trickily; a person without professional honor: used chiefly of lawyers; as, pettifoggers and shysters.—CENTURY DICTIONARY. When Terry McGurk hove the brick through the window of Froelich's butcher shop he did it casually, on general principles, and without any idea of starting anything. He had strolled unexpectedly round the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE SENESCHAL OF DAUPHINY My Lord of Tressan, His Majesty's Seneschal of Dauphiny, sat at his ease, his purple doublet all undone, to yield greater freedom to his vast bulk, a yellow silken undergarment visible through the gap, as is visible the flesh of some fruit that, swollen with over-ripeness, has burst its skin. His wig—imposed upon him by necessity, not fashion lay on the table... more...

HIS BIRTH On an evening in 1866 (exactly eight hundred years after the Battle of Hastings) Mr. Henry Knight, a draper's manager, aged forty, dark, clean-shaven, short, but not stout, sat in his sitting-room on the second-floor over the shop which he managed in Oxford Street, London. He was proud of that sitting-room, which represented the achievement of an ideal, and he had a right to be proud of... more...

CHAPTER I MINETTA LANE "A boy at fourteen needs a mother or the memory of a mother as he does at no other period of his life."—Enoch's Diary. Except for its few blocks that border Washington Square, MacDougalStreet is about as squalid as any on New York's west side. Once it was aristocratic enough for any one, but that was nearly a century ago. Alexander Hamilton's mansion and... more...

CHAPTER I. How a Dove-cot was fluttered in Rossmoyne. The old-fashioned clock is ticking loudly, ponderously, as though determined to betray the flight of fickle time and impress upon the happy, careless ones that the end of all things is at hand. The roses knock their fragrant buds against the window-panes, calling attention to their dainty sweetness. The pigeons coo amorously upon the sills outside,... more...