Classics Books

The captain walked down the ramp carrying a lightweight bag. To a discerning eye, that bag meant only one thing: Max Hunter had quit the service. A spaceman on leave never took personal belongings from his ship, because without a bag he could by-pass the tedious wait for a customs clearance. From the foot of the ramp a gray-haired port hand called up to Hunter, "So you're really through,... more...

The Raid Ahmed, son of Rahmut Khan, chief of the village of Shagpur, was making his lonely way through the hills some three miles above his home. He could see the walled village perched on a little tract of grassy land just where the base of the hills met the sandy plain. It was two thousand feet or more below him, and he could almost count the flat-topped houses clustered beyond his father's... more...

THE UNTRAINED MAN UNDER THIRTY-FIVE  "Since we deserved the name of friends,    And thine effect so lives in me,    A part of mine may live in thee,  And move thee on to noble ends." Every woman has had, at some time in her life, an experience with man in the raw. In reality, one cannot set down with any degree of accuracy the age when his rawness attacks him, or the time when he has... more...

CONCORD THIRTY YEARS AGO. To one looking westward from Boston State House there appears a line of rugged, precipitous hills extending across the country from southwest to northeast. Having ascended these heights, we perceive beyond them an irregular line of pale blue mountains, of which Wachusett is the most southerly peak, and which is in fact a portion of the White Mountain range extending through... more...

CHAPTER ONE Harriet Blair was seventeen when she went with her father and mother and her brother Austen to New Orleans, to the marriage of an older brother, Alexander, the father’s business representative at that place. It was characteristic of the Blairs that they declined the hospitality of the bride’s family, and from the hotel attended, punctiliously and formally, the occasions for which they... more...

CHAPTER I. "Boys, the mustangs will be up from the range this morning. Which of you want to go down to the corral with me?" "I do! I do!" exclaimed both in the same breath. "I spoke first," cried Hal. "No, you didn't; I spoke first myself," retorted Ned. "I say you didn't," rejoined Hal. Seeing that the dispute was likely to become a serious one, I... more...

T was Friday, the day he always came, if (so she safeguarded it) he was to come at all. They had left it that way in the beginning, that it should be open to him to come or not to come. They had not even settled that it should be Fridays, but it always was, the week-end being the only time when he could get away; the only time, he had explained to Agatha Verrall, when getting away excited no remark. He... more...

THE STATEN CLUB. In the world of clubs the "Staten" held its head proudly. It was a social union comprising the most exclusive men of family and fashion. Though its outward walls differed little from those of other clubs which lined the avenue, its muster-roll was sacredly guarded by the governors, and posted at the hall desk was a long list of waiting aspirants, each to undergo in his turn the... more...

INTRODUCTION I know many people who have felt the same inclination that sometimes comes over me, to choose bad weather to go out in. They are generally men who have passed from a childhood lived in the open air of the country, to an occupation which entails much sitting still, and for whom the room sometimes seems to become too narrow and confined—or else they are poets. Their recollection and... more...

I Eeldrop and Appleplex rented two small rooms in a disreputable part of town. Here they sometimes came at nightfall, here they sometimes slept, and after they had slept, they cooked oatmeal and departed in the morning for destinations unknown to each other. They sometimes slept, more often they talked, or looked out of the window. They had chosen the rooms and the neighborhood with great care. There... more...