Fiction Books

CHAPTER I Not until Mister Haggin abruptly picked him up under one arm and stepped into the sternsheets of the waiting whaleboat, did Jerry dream that anything untoward was to happen to him.  Mister Haggin was Jerry’s beloved master, and had been his beloved master for the six months of Jerry’s life.  Jerry did not know Mister Haggin as “master,” for “master” had no place in Jerry’s... more...

IN WHICH HARRY SWIFTLY PASSES FROM ONE STAGE OF HIS CAREER TO ANOTHER “Harry and I were waiting for his motor-car,” said the Honorable Socrates Potter. “He couldn’t stand and wait––that would be losing time––so we kept busy. Went into the stores and bought things––violets, candy, golf-balls, tennis-shoes, new gloves, and neckties. Harry didn’t need ’em, but he couldn’t waste... more...

RÍDAN THE DEVIL Rídan lived alone in a little hut on the borders of the big German plantation at Mulifenua, away down at the lee end of Upolu Island, and every one of his brown-skinned fellow-workers either hated or feared him, and smiled when Burton, the American overseer, would knock him down for being a 'sulky brute.' But no one of them cared to let Rídan see him smile. For to... more...

Times are altered since Gray spoke of the young Etonians as a set of dirty boys playing at cricket. There are no such things as boys to be met with now, either at Eton or elsewhere; they are all men from ten years old upwards. Dirt also hath vanished bodily, to be replaced by finery. An aristocratic spirit, an aristocracy not of rank but of money, possesses the place, and an enlightened young gentleman... more...

THE WAIF WOMANA CUE—FROM A SAGA This is a tale of Iceland, the isle of stories, and of a thing that befell in the year of the coming there of Christianity. In the spring of that year a ship sailed from the South Isles to traffic, and fell becalmed inside Snowfellness.  The winds had speeded her; she was the first comer of the year; and the fishers drew alongside to hear the news of the south, and... more...

Chapter I In that delightful and exciting book, written by Captain Joshua Slocum, and entitled, "Sailing Alone Round the World," there is a part wherein the adventurous American seaman relates how he protected himself from night attacks by the savages by a simple, but efficient precaution. It was his custom, when he anchored for the night off the snow-clad and inhospitable shores of Tierra del... more...

CHAPTER I. SPILLED OUT. Sylvie Argenter was driving about in her mother's little basket-phæton. There was a story about this little basket-phæton, a story, and a bit of domestic diplomacy. The story would branch away, back and forward; which I cannot, right here in this first page, let it do. It would tell—taking the little carriage for a text and key—ever so much about aims and ways and... more...

Chapter One     Looking down from the cafe window at the man he'd just shot, Ed Cade saw the brilliant overhead flash reflected in the windows of the hotel across the street and realized that something -- likely the car -- had exploded above the city.    Some guy dressed as a knight was standing smack in the middle of the street, aiming a camera of some sort straight up at the sky. The light... more...

CHAPTER I. OF THE LOVES OF MR. PERKINS AND MISS GORGON, AND OF THE TWO GREAT FACTIONS IN THE TOWN OF OLDBOROUGH. "My dear John," cried Lucy, with a very wise look indeed, "it must and shall be so. As for Doughty Street, with our means, a house is out of the question. We must keep three servants, and Aunt Biggs says the taxes are one-and-twenty pounds a year." "I have seen a sweet... more...

CHAPTER ONE Mrs. Howard Featherstone spent much time thinking up things for her brother Archibald Bennett to do, and as Archie was the ideal bachelor brother, always remembering the children's birthdays and turning up dutifully for Christmas dinners, he accepted her commissions in the most amiable spirit and his services were unfailingly satisfactory. He knew perfectly well that most of the jobs... more...