Fiction Books

CHAPTER I "Cocher? l'Hôtel Saint Ange, Rue Saint Ange!" The voice of John Dampier, Nancy's three-weeks bridegroom, rang out strongly, joyously, on this the last evening of their honeymoon. And before the lightly hung open carriage had time to move, Dampier added something quickly, at which both he and the driver laughed in unison. Nancy crept nearer to her husband. It was tiresome... more...

Doctors had given him just one month to live. A month to wonder, what comes afterward? There was one way to find out—ask a dead man! The amber brown of the liquor disguised the poison it held, and I watched with a smile on my lips as he drank it. There was no pity in my heart for him. He was a jackal in the jungle of life, and I ... I was one of the carnivores. It is the lot of the jackals of life to... more...

RECONSTRUCTION The two men stood upon the top of a bank bordering the rough road which led to the sea. They were listening to the lark, which had risen fluttering from their feet a moment or so ago, and was circling now above their heads. Mannering, with a quiet smile, pointed upwards. "There, my friend!" he exclaimed. "You can listen now to arguments more eloquent than any which I could... more...

In 1914 there were not twenty men in England who had ever heard of the island of Salissa. Even now—I am writing in the spring of 1917—the public is very badly informed about the events which gave the island a certain importance in the history of the war. A couple of months ago I asked a well-known press-cutting agency to supply me with a complete collection of all references to Salissa which had... more...

TAKING COMFORT. "REALLY, this is comfortable!" said I, glancing around the handsomely furnished parlour of my young friend Brainard, who had, a few weeks before, ventured upon matrimony, and was now making his first experiments in housekeeping. "Yes, it is comfortable," replied my friend. "The fact is, I go in for comforts." "I'm afraid George is a little... more...

THE JUTE INDUSTRY FROM SEED TO FINISHED CLOTH The five main fibres used for ordinary textile purposes are cotton, flax, jute, silk and wool; in this group jute has been considered in general as being of the least value, not only in regard to price, but also in regard to utility. It is only under phenomenal conditions which arise from a great upheaval such as that which took place during the... more...

CHAPTER I. In which the history opens with a description of the social manners,habits, and amusements of the English People, as exhibited in animmemorial National Festivity.—Characters to be commemorated in thehistory, introduced and graphically portrayed, with a nasologicalillustration.—Original suggestions as to the idiosyncrasiesengendered by trades and callings, with other matters worthy... more...

CHAPTER I HE INVADES COLDRIVER The entrance of Scattergood Baines into Coldriver Valley, and the manner of his first taking root in its soil, are legendary. This much is clear past even disputing in the post office at mail time, or evenings in the grocery—he walked in, perspiring profusely, for he was very fat. It is asserted that he walked the full twenty-four miles from the railroad, subsisting on... more...

ALONE WITH HER WEALTH On a beautiful September afternoon in a handsome room of one of the grand, up-town hotels in New York sat Mrs. Cliff, widow and millionaire. Widow of a village merchant, mistress of an unpretending house in the little town of Plainton, Maine, and, by strange vicissitudes of fortune, the possessor of great wealth, she was on her way from Paris to the scene of that quiet domestic... more...

CHAPTER I.   ABROAD uneasy, nor content at home.    . . . . . .  And Wisdom shows the ill without the cure. HAMMOND: Elegies. TWO or three days after the interview between Lord Vargrave and Maltravers, the solitude of Burleigh was relieved by the arrival of Mr. Cleveland. The good old gentleman, when free from attacks of the gout, which were now somewhat more frequent than formerly, was the... more...