Fiction Books

CHAPTER I INTRODUCING "MUMBLES" Major Gregory Doyle paced nervously up and down the floor of the cosy sitting room. "Something's surely happened to our Patsy!" he exclaimed. A little man with a calm face and a bald head, who was seated near the fire, continued to read his newspaper and paid no attention to the outburst. "Something has happened to Patsy!" repeated the Major,... more...

CHAPTER I THE PASSING OF JOHN MILLINBORN "I don't know whether there's a law that stops my doing this, Jim; but if there is, you've got to get round it. You're a lawyer and you know the game. You're my pal and the best pal I've had, Jim, and you'll do it for me." The dying man looked up into the old eyes that were watching him with such compassion and read... more...

AUTHOR'S PREFACE. We all know that Æsop has made his birds and beasts talk, and reason too; and that so well as still to make the volume bearing his name a favourite with thousands. Perhaps, too, we all know that same French author has objected to this method of teaching, alleging that children should not be imposed upon (or something to that effect), and led to believe in the reality of talking... more...

LETTER I MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE WED. NIGHT, JULY 12. I write, my dearest creature, I cannot but write, to express my concern on your dejection. Let me beseech you, my charming excellence, let me beseech you, not to give way to it. Comfort yourself, on the contrary, in the triumphs of a virtue unsullied; a will wholly faultless. Who could have withstood the trials you have... more...

JOURNAL. Philadelphia: December 1838. My Dear E——. I return you Mr. ——'s letter. I do not think it answers any of the questions debated in our last conversation at all satisfactorily: the right one man has to enslave another, he has not the hardihood to assert; but in the reasons he adduces to defend that act of injustice, the contradictory statements he makes appear to me to refute each... more...

THE FIVE LITTLE FRIENDS AT SCHOOL Bob and Betty, Paul and Peggy and little Dot are five little friends. They go to the same school. Many other children go to the school too, but these five little friends are the ones this story is about. Bob is the tall boy in the brown suit. Betty is the girl in the checked dress. Paul is the boy with the white blouse. Peggy is the girl with curls. Little Dot is the... more...

CHAPTER I THE CASE OF LASKY Lieutenant Bridgeman went out over the German line and "strafed" a depot. He stayed a while to locate a new gun position and was caught between three strong batteries of Archies. "Reports?" said the wing commander. "Well, Bridgeman isn't back and Tam said he saw him nose-dive behind the German trenches." So the report was made to Headquarters and... more...

PREFACE. In these days when books on every conceivable subject are written in their thousands annually; when monthly journals are produced by scores, and daily newspapers in hundreds, to supply the public with a record of the world's doings; and when readers are found for them all, it may not be thought unfitting that each large mail centre in the United Kingdom which contributes by its postal and... more...

CHAPTER I "IF YOUR NAME ISN'T POLLY IT OUGHT TO BE" "As pretty a wench as man ever clapped eyes on. Wake up, Lance, and look at her." The portly man of genial aspect sitting in the corner of the bow window of the Maiden Head Inn at the High Street end of Dyott Street in the very heart of St. Giles, clapped his sleeping friend on the shoulder and shook him. The sleeper, a young man... more...

CHAPTER I It was a warm, grey, moist evening, typical Irish weather, and Miss Berknowles was curled up in a window-seat of the library reading a book. Kilgobbin Park lay outside with the rooks cawing in the trees, miles of park land across which the dusk was coming, blotting out all things from Arranakilty to the Slieve Bloom Mountains. The turf fire burning on the great hearth threw out a rich steady... more...