Classics Books

Shifaz glanced furtively around the room. Satisfied that it was empty except for Fred Kemmer and himself, he sidled up to the Earthman's desk and hissed conspiratorially in his ear, "Sir, this Johnson is a spy! Is it permitted to slay him?" "It is permitted," Kemmer said in a tone suitable to the gravity of the occasion. He watched humorlessly as the Antarian slithered out of the... more...

I. A Blood-red sun rested its huge disk upon a low mud wall that crested a rise to westward, and flattened at the bottom from its own weight apparently. A dozen dried-out false-acacia-trees shivered as the faintest puff in all the world of stifling wind moved through them; and a hundred thousand tiny squirrels kept up their aimless scampering in search of food that was not there. A coppersmith was... more...

BILL AND JOE COME, dear old comrade, you and IWill steal an hour from days gone by,The shining days when life was new,And all was bright with morning dew,The lusty days of long ago,When you were Bill and I was Joe. Your name may flaunt a titled trailProud as a cockerel's rainbow tail,And mine as brief appendix wearAs Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare;To-day, old friend, remember stillThat I... more...

Chapter I Ben and His Aunt Five o'clock sounded from the church clock, and straightway the streets of Milltown were filled with men, women, and children issuing from the great brick factories huddled together at one end of the town. Among these, two boys waked in company, James Watson and Ben Bradford. They were very nearly of an age, James having just passed his fifteenth birthday, and Ben having... more...

CHAPTER I CASTLES IN SPAIN The unclouded sun of a burning August day had driven bird and beast to shelter wherever a bit of shade could be found. The Kansas prairie afforded little refuge from sun or wind. The long stretches of low rolling hills were mostly covered with short grass, now dry from a protracted season of drought. Occasionally a group of stunted cottonwood trees surrounded an equally... more...

The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom — army, law-courts,... more...

CAIUS CAESAR CALIGULA. (251) I. Germanicus, the father of Caius Caesar, and son of Drusus and the younger Antonia, was, after his adoption by Tiberius, his uncle, preferred to the quaestorship [377] five years before he had attained the legal age, and immediately upon the expiration of that office, to the consulship [378]. Having been sent to the army in Germany, he restored order among the legions,... more...

CHAPTER I.   . . . SHE is young, wise, fair,  In these to Nature she's immediate heir.  . . . . . .  . . . Honours best thrive  When rather from our acts we them derive  Than our foregoers!—All's Well that Ends Well. LETTER FROM ERNEST MALTRAVERS TO THE HON. FREDERICK CLEVELAND. EVELYN is free; she is in Paris; I have seen her,—I see her daily! How true it is that we cannot... more...

CHAPTER IRICK WANTS A DOG Rick Dalton sat on the sandy beach tossing white stones and bits of shell into the little waves that broke almost at his feet. The tide was just on the turn; soon it would come in, and the big, booming rollers would drive Rick farther up toward the dunes, where the wind was making a queer, whistling sound as it bent the long spears of saw-edged grass, whipping off venturesome,... more...

CHAPTER I ENGLAND'S FIRST LOOK In the early spring of 1476 the Italian Giovanni Caboto, who, like Christopher Columbus, was a seafaring citizen of Genoa, transferred his allegiance to Venice. The Roman Empire had fallen a thousand years before. Rome now held temporal sway only over the States of the Church, which were weak in armed force, even when compared with the small republics, dukedoms, and... more...