Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. THE TWO COMRADES. "War has been declared, mother!" shouted Hal, as closely followed by his friend, Chester Crawford, he dashed into the great hotel in Berlin, where the three were stopping, and made his way through the crowd that thronged the lobby to his mother's side. "Yes, mother, it's true," continued Hal, seeing the look of consternation on Mrs. Paine's... more...

CHAPTER1 OLD MAN OF THE HILLS A girl in crumpled linen slacks skidded to a fast stop on the polished floor of the Star business office. With a flourish, she pushed a slip of paper through the bars of the treasurer’s cage. She grinned beguilingly at the man who was totaling a long column of figures. “Top o’ the morning, Mr. Peters,” she chirped. “How about cashing a little check for me?” The... more...

Ludovick Eversole sat in the golden sunshine outside his house, writing a poem as he watched the street flow gently past him. There were very few people on it, for he lived in a slow part of town, and those who went in for travel generally preferred streets where the pace was quicker. Moreover, on a sultry spring afternoon like this one, there would be few people wandering abroad. Most would be lying... more...

Red and Slim found the two strange little animals the morning after they heard the thunder sounds. They knew that they could never show their new pets to their parents. There was a spatter of pebbles against the window and the youngster stirred in his sleep. Another, and he was awake. He sat up stiffly in bed. Seconds passed while he interpreted his strange surroundings. He wasn't in his own home,... more...

The dark clouds which hung yet over the future of Napoleon Bonaparte, the lieutenant of artillery, were gathering in heavier and heavier masses over all France, and already were overshadowing the throne of the lilies. Marie Antoinette had already abandoned the paradise of innocency in Trianon, and when she came there now it was to weep in silence, to cast away the mask from her face, and under the garb... more...

There was a dizzy, sickening whirl of mental blackness—not true blackness, but a mind-enveloping darkness that was filled with the multi-colored little sparks of thoughts and memories that scattered through the darkness like tiny glowing mice, fleeing from something unknown, fleeing outwards and away toward a somewhere that was equally unknown; scurrying, moving, changing—each half recognizable as... more...

CHAPTER I FATHERLESS Lad stood looking out of the dormer window in a scantily furnished attic in the high-pitched roof of a house in Holborn, in September 1664. Numbers of persons were traversing the street below, many of them going out through the bars, fifty yards away, into the fields beyond, where some sports were being held that morning, while country people were coming in with their baskets from... more...

THE LAST CARD Mr. Brinsmade and the Doctor were the first to leave the little room where Silas Whipple had lived and worked and died, Mr. Brinsmade bent upon one of those errands which claimed him at all times. He took Shadrach with him. Virginia sat on, a vague fear haunting her,—a fear for her father's safety. Where was Clarence? What had he seen? Was the place watched? These questions, at... more...

Herbert Hyrel settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife. She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly... more...

I. It was at Governor Alvarado's house in Monterey that Chonita first knew of Diego Estenega. I had told him much of her, but had never cared to mention the name of Estenega in the presence of an Iturbi y Moncada. Chonita came to Monterey to stand godmother to the child of Alvarado and of her friend Doña Martina, his wife. She arrived the morning before the christening, and no one thought to tell... more...