General Books

CHAPTER I. I GO TO PITTSBURG McKnight is gradually taking over the criminal end of the business. I never liked it, and since the strange case of the man in lower ten, I have been a bit squeamish. Given a case like that, where you can build up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three entirely different people, only one of whom can be guilty, and your faith in circumstantial evidence dies of... more...

CHAPTER I. RECOVERY.   Something I know. Oft, shall it come about    When every heart is full of hope for man,  The horizon straight is darkened, and a doubt    Clouds all. The work the youth so well began  Wastes down, and by some deed of shame is finished.    Ah, yet we will not be dismayed:  What seemed the triumph of the Fiend at length    Might be the effort of some dying... more...

CHAPTER I “ No,” said the Princess. “No. I’m—dashed if I do.” “My darling child!” exclaimed the Grand Duchess. “You’re impossible. If any one should hear you!” “It’s he who’s impossible,” the Princess amended. “I’m just trying to show you—” “Or to shock me. You are so like your grandmother.” “That’s the best compliment any one can give me, which is lucky,... more...

CHAPTER I For half a century the housewives of Pont-l'Eveque had envied Madame Aubain her servant Felicite. For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry, made the butter and remained faithful to her mistress—although the latter was by no means an agreeable person. Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without... more...

VII SOCIOLOGY IN SERGE AND STRAW The season of irresponsibility is at hand. Come, let us twine round our brows wreaths of poison ivy (that is for idiocy), and wander hand in hand with sociology in the summer fields. Likely as not the world is flat. The wise men have tried to prove that it is round, with indifferent success. They pointed out to us a ship going to sea, and bade us observe that, at length,... more...

I. DR. DILLON TO EDWARD DELANEY, ESQ., AT THE PINES. NEAR RYE, N.H. August 8, 1872. My Dear Sir: I am happy to assure you that your anxiety is without reason. Flemming will be confined to the sofa for three or four weeks, and will have to be careful at first how he uses his leg. A fracture of this kind is always a tedious affair. Fortunately the bone was very skilfully set by the surgeon who chanced to... more...

CHAPTER I. SCENE. Deck of an ocean steamer. Characters:Mrs. Jerrold, matron and chaperon in general.Edith Jerrold, her daughter.Albert Madden, a young man on study intent.Eric, his brother, on pleasure bent.Norman Mann, cousin of the Jerrolds, old classmate of theMaddens.Mae Madden, sister of the brothers and leading lady. "It's something like dying, I do declare," said Mae, and as she... more...

The Princess Miss Mehitable Upton had come to the city to buy a stock of goods for the summer trade. She had a little shop at the fashionable resort of Keefeport as well as one in the village of Keefe, and June was approaching. It would soon be time to move. Miss Upton's extreme portliness had caused her hours of laborious selection to fatigue her greatly. Her face was scarlet as she entered a... more...

CHAPTER I The most remarkable thing about the boy was his eyes––that is, if any man with his spread of shoulder and masculine grace of flat muscled hips could be spoken of any longer as a boy, merely because his years happened to number twenty-four. They, however––the eyes––were gray; not a too light, off-color, gleaming gray, but more the tone of slate, deep when one chanced to find... more...

I The time was the year 1872, and the place a bend in the river above a long pond terminating in a dam. Beyond this dam, and on a flat lower than it, stood a two-story mill structure. Save for a small, stump-dotted clearing, and the road that led from it, all else was forest. Here in the bottom-lands, following the course of the stream, the hardwoods grew dense, their uppermost branches just beginning... more...