Classics Books

THE CHILD, AND WHAT SHE LED ME INTO   was walking at a rapid pace up the avenue one raw, fall evening, when somewhere near the corner of Fifty——Street I was brought to a sudden stand-still by the sound of a child's voice accosting me from the stoop of one of the handsome houses I was then passing. "O sir!" it cried, "please come in. Please come to grandpa. He's sick and... more...

A WORD OF APOLOGY FOR MY TITLE. Before I begin my story, let me crave my reader's indulgence for a brief word of explanation, for which I know no better form than a parable. There is an Eastern tale—I forget exactly where or by whom told—of a certain poor man, who, being in extreme distress, and sorely puzzled as to how to eke out a livelihood, bethought him to give out that he was a great... more...

is sleep-drugged mind was slow to respond. He was lying face down, he knew that. And he ought to get up. If he didn't get up he would drown. Something hot and heavy, like a huge hand, was pressing him deeper into the brackish mire. He pondered. Perhaps it were better to drown. For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of the thought, then decided against it. Plenty of time later for drowning.... more...

We had the driver let us off in the central district and took a copter-taxi back to Homefield. There's no disgrace about it, of course; we just didn't feel like having all the neighbors see the big skycar with Lydna Project painted on its side, and then having them drop in casually to express what they would call interest and we would know to be curiosity. There are people who boast that... more...

THE NEW HOME "Is that the house!" Milly Ridge exclaimed disapprovingly. Her father, a little man, with one knee bent against the unyielding, newly varnished front door, glanced up apprehensively at the figures painted on the glass transom above. In that block of little houses, all exactly alike, he might easily have made a mistake. Reassured he murmured over his... more...

DUSK "There, sonny—behold the city of your dreams! Good old New York, as per schedule.… Gee! Ain't she great?" The slim, self-possessed youth of twenty hardly seemed to expect an answer; but the man addressed in this pert manner, though the senior of the pair by six years, felt that the emotion throbbing in his heart must be allowed to bubble forth lest he became hysterical. "Old... more...

INTRODUCTIONTHE WORKMANSHIP OF THE ONE-ACT PLAY The one-act play is a new form of the drama and more emphatically a new form of literature. Its possibilities began to attract the attention of European and American writers in the last decade of the nineteenth century, those years when so many dramatic traditions lapsed and so many precedents were established. It is significant that the oldest play in... more...

"Jeff Blake!" Holly O'Toole's knotted hand reached out and grasped the right hand of the passenger descending from the rocket transport. "This is a hell of a night to come home, when a man's been away as long as you have." Jeff Blake laughed, and swung down to his side to stand on the wind- and rain-swept dock. He towered above O'Toole, lanky and smooth skinned. His... more...

CHAPTER I. JOPPA. Joppa was the very centre of all things. That was the opening clause in the creed of every well-educated and right-thinking Joppite. Geographically, however, it was not the centre of any thing, being considerably off from the great lines of railway travel, but possessing two little independent branch roads of its own, that connected it with all the world, or rather that connected all... more...

CHAPTER I ANDY BURKE "John, saddle my horse, and bring him around to the door." The speaker was a boy of fifteen, handsomely dressed, and, to judge from his air and tone, a person of considerable consequence, in his own opinion, at least. The person addressed was employed in the stable of his father, Colonel Anthony Preston, and so inferior in social condition that Master Godfrey always... more...