Fiction Books

CHAPTER I TOMMY CONTRIVES TO KEEP ONE OUT The celebrated Tommy first comes into view on a dirty London stair, and he was in sexless garments, which were all he had, and he was five, and so though we are looking at him, we must do it sideways, lest he sit down hurriedly to hide them. That inscrutable face, which made the clubmen of his later days uneasy and even puzzled the ladies while he was making... more...

On its surface the choice was an easy one—Doak Parker's career in Washington against a highly suspect country girl he had just met. Doak Parker was thinking of June, when the light flashed. He was thinking of the two months' campaign and the very probable probability of his knocking her off this week-end. It was going to be a conquest to rank among his best. It was going to be.... The... more...

A GRAPEFRUIT PRELUDE. Splash! The grapefruit hit her in the eye! Splash! His psychic wave was dashed to smithereens! “Oh! Oh!” the two girls screamed in unison. “D–––!” the young man sitting near ejaculated. For ten minutes there in the Oak Room of the Ritz-Carlton he had been hurling across the narrow intervening space this mental command to the girl facing him: “Look here! Look at me!... more...

PREFACE. The following pages have been written with a view to render some aid in establishing a sound and firm basis for future research, on that absorbing topic, the Causes and Nature of Epidemic Diseases. The amount of information already published on Fevers, on the Exanthemata, and on the Plague, is truly astonishing, and the more so when it is considered, that at present no rational account or... more...

ST. GEORGE OF MERRIE ENGLAND In the darksome depths of a thick forest lived Kalyb the fell enchantress. Terrible were her deeds, and few there were who had the hardihood to sound the brazen trumpet which hung over the iron gate that barred the way to the Abode of Witchcraft. Terrible were the deeds of Kalyb; but above all things she delighted in carrying off innocent new-born babes, and putting them to... more...

This is a true story of a search for buried treasure. The only part that is not true is the name of the man with whom I searched for the treasure. Unless I keep his name out of it he will not let me write the story, and, as it was his expedition and as my share of the treasure is only what I can make by writing the story, I must write as he dictates. I think the story should be told, because our... more...

LECTURE. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:— We have met together to consider the best methods of Educating, that is, drawing out, or developing the Human Nature common to all of us. Truly a subject not easy to be exhausted. For we all of us feel that the Human Nature,—out of whose bosom has flowed all history, all science, all poetry, all art, all life in short,—contains within itself far more... more...

CHAPTER I Inside the bank that June morning the clerks and accountants on their high stools were bent over their ponderous ledgers, although it was several minutes before the opening hour. The gray-stone building was in Atlanta's most central part on a narrow street paved with asphalt which sloped down from one of the main thoroughfares to the section occupied by the old passenger depot, the... more...

CHAPTER I MR. AND MRS. SETH APPLEBY were almost old. They called each other “Father” and “Mother.” But frequently they were guilty of holding hands, or of cuddling together in corners, and Father was a person of stubborn youthfulness. For something over forty years Mother had been trying to make him stop smoking, yet every time her back was turned he would sneak out his amber cigarette-holder... more...

CHAPTER I "Jim, it's years since you asked me to help you out in a love affair," I said. "Has your old heart grown cold, shriveled up, or what's the matter?" "You're right, Ben; it must be a long time back. But why don't you put out a few letters for yourself?" "I wish I could get a dollar a ton for all I have written for you," said I; "then... more...