Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. The green screen slowly rose, covering the lower portion of the broad studio window where Heron, the gem-cutter, was at work. It was Melissa, the artist's daughter, who had pulled it up, with bended knees and outstretched arms, panting for breath. "That is enough!" cried her father's impatient voice. He glanced up at the flood of light which the blinding sun of Alexandria... more...

I SAW a gray-haired man, a figure of hale age, sitting at a desk and writing. He seemed to be in a room in a tower, very high, so that through the tall window on his left one perceived only distances, a remote horizon of sea, a headland and that vague haze and glitter in the sunset that many miles away marks a city. All the appointments of this room were orderly and beautiful, and in some subtle... more...

CHAPTER I. 'For be it knownThat their saint's honour is their own.'—SCOTT. The town of Micklethwayte was rising and thriving. There were salubrious springs which an enterprising doctor had lately brought into notice. The firm of Greenleaf and Dutton manufactured umbrellas in large quantities, from the stout weather-proof family roof down to the daintiest fringed toy of a parasol. There... more...

CHAPTER I. ARAIM. Occasionally they are long-lived, these descendants of the good Joel, who, five hundred and fifty years ago and more lived in this identical region, near the sacred stones of the forest of Karnak. Yes, the descendants of the good Joel are, occasionally, long-lived, seeing that I, Araim, who to-day trace these lines in the seventy-seventh year of my life, saw my grandfather Gildas die... more...

CHAPTER I. The Flight of Big Pete Ellis. “Look out thar!” A young, red-bearded man of herculean frame fiercely jerked the words between his teeth as he leaped between two boys who were about to enter the country store, from the door of which he sprang. Diving aside, but quickly turning, the lads saw the cause of their sudden movement bound into a wagon standing near, and with a furious cry to the... more...

The receivers, two of them lawyers, had long faces when they sat down across from my desk in the office of the Imperial Printing Company. "Frankly, Mr. Shane," said the older one, "it is a very grave question in our minds whether we should try to continue to operate the business or whether we should close the plant and liquidate the machinery and equipment the best we can." I was... more...

CHAPTER I. "THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH" Near eleven o'clock, one evening in the month of May, a man about fifty years of age, well formed, and of noble carriage, stepped from a coupe in the courtyard of a small hotel in the Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. He ascended, with the walk of a master, the steps leading to the entrance, to the hall where several servants awaited him. One of them followed him... more...

One day a paragraph appears in the papers that a new piece will shortly be produced at such and such a theatre. Paterfamilias lays down the paper and placidly observes that it may be worth while getting seats. Then he goes down to the theatre, books seats, and troubles himself no more about the matter until the first night of the play in question. The world behind the curtain is one with which he is... more...

BUD LEE WANTS TO KNOW Bud Lee, horse foreman of the Blue Lake Ranch, sat upon the gate of the home corral, builded a cigarette with slow brown fingers, and stared across the broken fields of the upper valley to the rosy glow above the pine-timbered ridge where the sun was coming up. His customary gravity was unusually pronounced. "If a man's got the hunch an egg is bad," he mused, "is... more...

THE WIDOW OF DUNSKAITH."Oh, mony a shriek, that waefu' night,Rose frae the stormy main;An' mony a bootless vow was made,An' mony a prayer vain;An' mithers wept, an' widows mournedFor mony a weary day;An' maidens, ance o' blithest mood,Grew sad, and pined away." The northern Sutor of Cromarty is of a bolder character than even the southern one—abrupt, and... more...