Fiction Books

CHAPTER I From the first the voyage was going wrong.  Routed out of my hotel on a bitter March morning, I had crossed Baltimore and reached the pier-end precisely on time.  At nine o’clock the tug was to have taken me down the bay and put me on board the Elsinore, and with growing irritation I sat frozen inside my taxicab and waited.  On the seat, outside, the driver and Wada sat hunched in a... more...

I. "Lord, but English people are funny!" This was the perplexed mental ejaculation that young Lieutenant Skipworth Cary, of Virginia, found his thoughts constantly reiterating during his stay in Devonshire. Had he been, he wondered, a confiding fool, to accept so trustingly Chev Sherwood's suggestion that he spend a part of his leave, at least, at Bishopsthorpe, where Chev's people... more...

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CHAPTER I “ You may not care for the play,” Ellison said eagerly. “You are of the old world, and Isteinism to you will simply spell chaos and vulgarity. But the woman! well, you will see her! I don’t want to prejudice you by praises which you would certainly think extravagant! I will say nothing.” Matravers smiled gravely as he took his seat in the box and looked out with some wonder at the... more...

My dear son:— The doctors have left and I am told that in a few hours I shall die. In my lifetime the world has progressed from the chaotic turmoil of the early Atomic era to the peacefulness and tranquility of our present age, and I die content. For ten years I have instructed you in all that you will need for the future. One final lesson remains to be taught. On the wall of my bedchamber hangs a... more...

I In the year 1873— No, do not turn away from such an opening; I shall reach our own day within a paragraph or so. In the year 1873, then, Johnny McComas was perfectly willing to stand to one side while Raymond Prince, surrounded by several of the fellows, came down, in his own negligent and self-assured way, the main stairway of Grant's Private Academy. For Johnny was newer there; Johnny was... more...

The Protestant Lovers—A Rival—Diedrich finds his Footsteps dogged—Finds a friend in the Ferryman—Threatened with the Inquisition—Flies to sea. Not far from the broad and slow-flowing river Meuse stands the town of Brill. Flanders, in which it is found, formed at the period to which we refer a province of the dominions belonging to Philip of Spain. It was ruled with no very paternal hand by... more...

THE COOK'S WEDDING GRISHA, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something extraordinary, and in his opinion never seen before, was taking place. A big, thick-set, red-haired peasant, with a beard, and a drop of perspiration on his nose, wearing a cabman's full coat, was sitting at the kitchen table on... more...

THE LAWYER'S TALES. LORD KAMES'S PUZZLE. On looking over some Session papers which had belonged to Lord Kames, with the object, I confess, of getting hold of some facts—those entities called by Quintilian the bones of truth, the more by token, I fancy, that they so often stick in the throat—which might contribute to my legends, I came to some sheets whereon his lordship had written some... more...

1. The Sinking My marriage aborted, my private practice stillborn, I packed stale possessions in two flabby suitcases and bade my sterile apartment a tearless goodbye. On the spur of the moment, I had applied a fortnight before to a government post and, to my consternation, had won it handily. I was probably the only applicant. It was an odd sort of job. The state authorities had just finished... more...