Fiction Books

ORPHEUS IN MAYFAIR Heraclius Themistocles Margaritis was a professional musician. He was a singer and a composer of songs; he wrote poetry in Romaic, and composed tunes to suit rhymes. But it was not thus that he earned his daily bread, and he was poor, very poor. To earn his livelihood he gave lessons, music lessons during the day, and in the evening lessons in Greek, ancient and modern, to such... more...

About Silvia and Myself Some people have children born unto them, some acquire children and others have children thrust upon them. Silvia and I are of the last named class. We have no offspring of our own, but yesterday, today, and forever we have those of our neighbor. We were born and bred in the same little home-grown city and as a small boy, even, I was Silvia’s worshiper, but perforce a... more...

PREFACE At the close of the civil war the need for a market for the surplus cattle of Texas was as urgent as it was general. There had been numerous experiments in seeking an outlet, and there is authority for the statement that in 1857 Texas cattle were driven to Illinois. Eleven years later forty thousand head were sent to the mouth of Red River in Louisiana, shipped by boat to Cairo, Illinois, and... more...

I There is not, perhaps, in all Paris, a quieter street than the Rue St. Gilles in the Marais, within a step of the Place Royale.  No carriages there; never a crowd.  Hardly is the silence broken by the regulation drums of the Minims Barracks near by, by the chimes of the Church of St. Louis, or by the joyous clamors of the pupils of the Massin School during the hours of recreation. At night, long... more...

CHAPTER IA Good Little Dream “I Elijah Peebles Martin, of the city and county of Harrison, in the state of Rhode Island, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do make and declare the following, as and for, my last will and testament.’ ... I wish you’d take your head out of that barrel, Nancy, and listen to the document that is going to make you rich beyond the dreams of avarice.” “I... more...

Richard Herrick was a young man with a gentle disposition, much money, and no sense of humor. His object in life was to marry Miss Catherweight. For three years she had tried to persuade him this could not be, and finally, in order to convince him, married some one else. When the woman he loves marries another man, the rejected one is popularly supposed to take to drink or to foreign travel. Statistics... more...

PROLOGUE Years ago, when I was very small, we lived in a great house in a long, straight, brown-coloured street, in the east end of London.  It was a noisy, crowded street in the daytime; but a silent, lonesome street at night, when the gas-lights, few and far between, partook of the character of lighthouses rather than of illuminants, and the tramp, tramp of the policeman on his long beat seemed to... more...

CHAPTER I. "Dick, how many are twenty-seven and eight?" The girl looked up, with narrow eyes and puckered brow, from the butcher's book, which she was laboriously "checking," at the boy who leaned back on the window seat picking out a tune on a banjo. "Thirty-nine," he replied lazily but promptly, without ceasing to peck, peck at the strings. She nodded her thanks, and... more...

A PROPOSAL. She was eighteen years old and would graduate in a few weeks, yet Elsie looked like a child, lying there in that little white bed, with her golden curls scattered on the pillow and the soft whiteness of her neck and hands shaded by the delicate Valenciennes with which her night robe was profusely decorated. A quantity of hot house flowers lay scattered on the counterpane, where the girl had... more...

CHAPTER I ANARCHY "What you gonna have?" To this inquiry the patron made no response; head bent, nose between the pages of the magazine, she pored sedulously over a legend attached to one of the illustrations. After a decent pause in waiting the waitress renewed her demand with a sharper accent: "Say, lis'en; what you want?" "White satin, veiled with point d'... more...