INTRODUCTION. There is hardly a person who, as a school-boy, had not received the fire of imagination and the stimulus for adventure and a roaming life through the stirring narratives concerning Captain Kidd and other well-known sea rovers. A certain ineffable glamor metamorphosed these robbers into heroes, and lent an inalienable license to their “calling,” so that the songster and romancist found... more...

Grant Pemberton sat up suddenly in his berth, every sense straining and alert. What was it that had awakened him in the deathly stillness of the space-flier? His right hand slid under the pillow and clutched the handle of his gun. Its firm coolness was a comforting reality. There it was again. A tiny scratching on the door as though someone was fumbling for the slide-switch. Very quietly he sat,... more...

INTRODUCTION NAME The Tractate Abot (Massechet Abot) is the ninth treatise of The Order or Series on Damages (Seder Nezikin), which is the fourth section of the Mishnah (1). It is commonly known in Hebrew as Pirke Abot, The Chapters of the Fathers, and has also been termed Mishnat ha-Chasidim, Instruction for the Pious, because of the Rabbinic saying, "He who wishes to be pious, let him practise... more...

INTRODUCTION Introducing a reader to Christy Mathewson seems like a superfluous piece of writing and a waste of white paper. Schoolboys of the last ten years have been acquainted with the exact figures which have made up Matty’s pitching record before they had ever heard of George Washington, because George didn’t play in the same League. Perfectly good rational and normal citizens once deserted a... more...

The Ugly Duckling. Pixie O’Shaughnessy was at once the joy and terror of the school. It had been a quiet, well-conducted seminary before her time, or it seemed so, at least, looking back after the arrival of the wild Irish tornado, before whose pranks the mild mischief of the Englishers was as water unto wine. Pixie was entered in the school-lists as “Patricia Monica de Vere O’Shaughnessy,” but... more...

CHAPTER I THE GRECIANS AND THE TROJANS There were three boys in the same class in the polytechnic school in the mountainous Odenwald country, in Hesse Darmstadt, who were such great friends and inseparable companions that the other pupils named them "the three-leaved clover." They were near of an age—about eleven—and near of a size; and their names were Fritz, Paul and Franz. Fritz was an... more...

Chapter I PERFUMED PLANET Dane Thorson, Cargo-master-apprentice of the Solar Queen, Galactic Free Trader spacer, Terra registry, stood in the middle of the ship's cramped bather while Rip Shannon, assistant Astrogator and his senior in the Service of Trade by some four years, applied gobs of highly scented paste to the skin between Dane's rather prominent shoulder blades. The small cabin was... more...

Looked at From a Practical Standpoint It is the young man and young woman of to-day, with a practical education, who will adorn our best homes of the future. It is the manager and the financier who is the practical one. It is the young man with good habits who has a bank account, who shows evidence of becoming a financier. It is the young woman who trains herself with the duties of home-work, that will... more...

PREFACE. The publishers of this work offer no apology for presenting it to the reading public, since the wide prevalence of the evils which it exposes is sufficient warrant for its publication. The subjects with which it deals are of vital consequence to the human race; and it is of the utmost importance that every effort should be made to dispel the gross ignorance which almost universally prevails,... more...

  That model Miss, Jemima Jane  Was very good, and very plain;  Her parents noticed with delight  How neat she was, and how polite.  Sometimes her young companions came  And begged she'd join them in a game.  But it was never any use;  She'd make some civil, quiet excuse,  And, "Dear Mama," she'd whisp'ring say,  "I love plain sewing more than... more...