Fiction Books

As Paul Lambrequin was clambering up the stairs of his rooming house, he met a man whose face was all wrong. "Good evening," Paul said politely and was about to continue on his way when the man stopped him. "You are the first person I have encountered in this place who has not shuttered at the sight of me," he said in a toneless voice with an accent that was outside the standard... more...

THE STORY OF THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. There was once a great mountain which rose from the shore of the sea, and on its flanks it bore a mighty forest. Beyond the crest of the mountain were ridges and valleys, peaks and chasms, springs and torrents. Farther on lay a sandy desert, which stretched its monotonous breadth to the shore of a wide, swift river. What lay beyond the river no one knew, because... more...

THE RIGHT OF WAY. MR. EDWARD BOLTON had purchased himself a farm, and taken possession thereof. Once, while examining the premises, before deciding to buy, he had observed a light wagon moving along on the extreme south edge of the tract of land included in the farm, but it had occasioned no remark. It was late in the afternoon when he arrived with his family at their new home. On the morning that... more...

CHAPTER I. Remarks from the Period of my Embarkation at St. Helens, to my arrival at Sierra Leone—Sketches of the Land discovered in the Passage—its Bearings and Distance—with Observations upon the Bay and Entrance of Sierra Leone River, &c. Previous to my arrival and landing in the river Sierra Leone, on the 6th of April, 1805, I shall notice my passage, and display the sketches I have taken... more...

In July, 1957, members of a field party from the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, under the direction of Mr. Sydney Anderson, spent 12 days collecting vertebrates in the vicinity of Creel in southwestern Chihuahua. Among the specimens are two snakes representing an undescribed species of the genus Geophis. A description and illustrations of these two specimens were prepared and submitted... more...

I. My Revelations as a Spy In many people the very name "Spy" excites a shudder of apprehension; we Spies, in fact, get quite used to being shuddered at. None of us Spies mind it at all. Whenever I enter a hotel and register myself as a Spy I am quite accustomed to see a thrill of fear run round the clerks, or clerk, behind the desk. Us Spies or We Spies—for we call ourselves both—are thus... more...

JUDICIAL MENTAL OPERATIONSVitalizing Influence of Certain IdeasOne of the greatest discoveries of modern times is the impellent energy of thought. That every idea in consciousness is energizing and carries with it an impulse to some kind of muscular activity is a comparatively new but well-settled principle of psychology. That this principle could be made to serve practical ends seems never to have... more...

PREFACE. In his earlier works, notably in "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" and "The Silent House in Pimlico," Mr. Hume won a reputation second to none for plot of the stirring, ingenious, misleading, and finally surprising kind, and for working out his plot in vigorous and picturesque English. In "The Bishop's Secret," while there is no falling off in plot and style, there is... more...

CHAPTER I WESTWARD WITH THE GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC "'What went ye out into the wilderness to see?' They answered thus, 'So that we might not see the city.'"—SIR WILLIAM BUTLER. The new steel trail the railway men are laying from Edmonton leads away and away, I cannot say whither. For these many days I have had an anxious desire to follow it and the glories thereof. I am tired... more...

CHAPTER I One bitter day in January in the year 1880, when New York was a tranquil city, a young man stood at the South Ferry waiting for the up-town horse car. With a few other passengers he had just left the packet which had arrived in New York harbour that afternoon from New Orleans. Antony Fairfax was an utter stranger to the North. In his hand he carried a small hand-bag, and by his side on the... more...