Fiction Books

CHAPTER I ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS The restaurant of the Hotel St. Ives seems, as I look back on it, an odd spot to have served as stage wings for a melodrama, pure and simple. Yet a melodrama did begin there. No other word fits the case. The inns of the Middle Ages, which, I believe, reeked with trap-doors and cutthroats, pistols and poisoned daggers, offered nothing weirder than my experience, with its... more...

THE QUEEN OF LANTERN LAND Once upon a time the youngest son of a king became filled with the desire to go abroad and see the world. He got his father's permission to depart, kissed his parents good-bye, mounted his black horse, and galloped away down the high road. Soon the gray towers of the old castle in which he was born hid themselves behind him. The Prince journeyed on, spending the days in... more...

March 12, 1933. I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking—with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking but more particularly with the overwhelming majority who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks. I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, why it was done, and what the next steps are going to... more...

A SKIRMISH As the wind veered and grew cooler a ribbon of haze appeared above the Gulf-stream. Young Hamil, resting on his oars, gazed absently into the creeping mist. Under it the ocean sparkled with subdued brilliancy; through it, shoreward, green palms and palmettos turned silvery; and, as the fog spread, the sea-pier, the vast white hotel, bathing-house, cottage, pavilion, faded to phantoms tinted... more...

It is difficult to acknowledge fully the assistance given by persons and museums for the preparation of this book. However, I wish especially to thank Hugo T. Byttebier, engine historian, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Dipl. Ing. Hermann I. A. Dorner, diesel designer, Hanover, Germany; Harold E. Morehouse, and C. H. Wiegman, Lycoming Engines, Williamsport, Pennsylvania; Barry Tully, Goodyear Aircraft, Akron,... more...

At the time this tract was written the destinies, immediate and prospective, of the Protestant faith seemed to lay wholly in the laps of five women, viz:-- CATHERINE DE MEDICI, Queen of France. MARIE DE LORRAINE, Queen Regent of Scotland, whose sole heir was her daughter MARY, afterwards Queen of Scots. MARY TUDOR, Queen of England, having for her heir apparent the Princess ELIZABETH. Of these, the... more...

The First Day of spring, the man at the weather tower had said, and certainly it felt like spring, with the cool breeze blowing lightly about her and a faint new clover smell borne in from the east. Spring—that meant they would make the days longer now, and the nights shorter, and they would warm the whole world until it was summer again. Trina laughed aloud at the thought of summer, with its picnics... more...

More than one hundred years have passed away since, in 1789, the Marquis de Condorcet wrote his “Esquisse sur l’Admission des Femmes au Droit de Cité,” and yet the problem of women’s enfranchisement still awaits an equitable solution. Those of us who are old enough to remember the inauguration of the popular movement for the extension of the franchise to women (which may be dated from the day... more...

ne day Ned got a pie to eat. It was too hot, so he put it out in the air, on the lid of a big tin pot. And now he ran off to see his dog who had a pup, and his cat who had a kit. The pup lay in a box. Ned had got hay to put in the box for a bed; the pup lay on the hay, and the kit lay on a bit of rug. Ned did pat the pup on his ear, and say: "O you pet! let me hug you." By and by, he did pat... more...

Chapter One. The “Stella Maris” and Mrs Vansittart. “Well, young man, what do you think of her?” The question was addressed to me in a very pleasantly modulated female voice, carrying just the slightest suspicion of an American accent. For the fraction of a second I was a wee bit startled. I had not had the ghost of a suspicion that anyone was nearer me than the gang of labourers who were... more...