Fiction Books

Chapter I. "Friday, the 13th; I thought as much. If Bob has started, there will be hell, but I will see what I can do." The sound of my voice, as I dropped the receiver, seemed to part the mists of five years and usher me into the world of Then as though it had never passed on. I had been sitting in my office, letting the tape slide through my fingers while its every yard spelled... more...

Chapter I At the far end of Thorhaven towards the north was a little square house surrounded by a privet hedge. It had a green door under a sort of wooden canopy with two flat windows on either side, and seemed to stand there defying the rows and rows of terraces, avenues and meanish semi-detached villas which were creeping up to it. Behind lay the flat fields under a wide sky just as they had lain for... more...

PART I THE POLITICAL OBJECTIVE The proper understanding of a battle and of its historical significance is only possible in connection with the campaign of which it forms a part; and the campaign can only be understood when we know the political object which it was designed to serve. A battle is no more than an incident in a campaign. However decisive in its immediate result upon the field, its value to... more...

CHAPTER I.   "With fearless pride I say  That she is healthful, fleet, and strong  And down the rocks will leap along,  Like rivulets in May." WORDSWORTH. Along a beautiful Devonshire lane, with banks of rock overhung by tall bowery hedges, rode a lively and merry pair, now laughing and talking, now summoning by call or whistle the spaniel that ran by their side, or careered through the... more...

JOHN SMITH.   To-day I strayed in Charing Cross as wretched as could be  With thinking of my home and friends across the tumbling sea;  There was no water in my eyes, but my spirits were depressed  And my heart lay like a sodden, soggy doughnut in my breast.  This way and that streamed multitudes, that gayly passed me by—  Not one in all the crowd knew me and not a one knew I!  "Oh,... more...

CHAPTER I ISRAEL BEN OLIEL Israel was the son of a Jewish banker at Tangier. His mother was the daughter of a banker in London. The father's name was Oliel; the mother's was Sara. Oliel had held business connections with the house of Sara's father, and he came over to England that he might have a personal meeting with his correspondent. The English banker lived over his office, near... more...

The workshop-laboratory was a mess. Sam Bending looked it over silently; his jaw muscles were hard and tense, and his eyes were the same. To repeat what Sam Bending thought when he saw the junk that had been made of thousands of dollars worth of equipment would not be inadmissible in a family magazine, because Bending was not particularly addicted to four-letter vulgarities. But he was a religious... more...

For a lucky glimpse of the great Talbot Potter, the girls who caught it may thank that conjunction of Olympian events which brings within the boundaries of one November week the Horse Show and the roaring climax of the football months and the more dulcet, yet vast, beginning of the opera season. Some throbbing of attendant multitudes coming to the ears of Talbot Potter, he obeyed an inward call to walk... more...

CHAPTER I Mr. Edward Tredgold sat in the private office of Tredgold and Son, land and estate agents, gazing through the prim wire blinds at the peaceful High Street of Binchester. Tredgold senior, who believed in work for the young, had left early. Tredgold junior, glad at an opportunity of sharing his father's views, had passed most of the work on to a clerk who had arrived in the world exactly... more...

THE DOCK AND THE SCAFFOLD. The 23rd day of November, 1867, witnessed a strange and memorable scene in the great English city of Manchester. Long ere the grey winter's morning struggled in through the crisp frosty air—long ere the first gleam of the coming day dulled the glare of the flaming gas jets, the streets of the Lancashire capital were all astir with bustling crowds, and the silence of... more...