MONSIEUR PARENT George's father was sitting in an iron chair, watching his little son with concentrated affection and attention, as little George piled up the sand into heaps during one of their walks. He would take up the sand with both hands, make a mound of it, and put a chestnut leaf on top. His father saw no one but him in that public park full of people. The sun was just disappearing behind... more...

ADVENTURES OF A SIXPENCE IN GUERNSEY. The breakfast was ready laid on the table, and a gentleman was standing by the fire waiting for the rest of the family, when the door burst open, and two little girls ran in. "A happy new year, papa!—a happy new year!" shouted each as she was caught up to be kissed, and found herself on the floor once more after a sudden whirl to the ceiling. "Now... more...

I War, war, war. For me the beginning of the war was a torchlight tattoo on Salisbury Plain. It was held on one of those breathless evenings in July when the peace of Europe was trembling in the balance, and when most of us had a heartache in case—in case England, at this time of internal crisis, did not rise to the supreme sacrifice. It was just the night for a tattoo—dark and warm and still. Away... more...

Chapter the First     I Am Born and Begin to Take Notice—John Quincy Adams and Andrew    Jackson—James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce—Jack Dade and "Beau    Hickman"—Old Times in Washington I I am asked to jot down a few autobiographic odds and ends from such data of record and memory as I may retain. I have been something of a student of life; an observer of men and women and... more...

A GREAT STREAK OF LUCK “Anybody home?” “Sure, walk right in, Toby. My latch-string is always out to my chums. I see you managed to pick up Steve on the way across; but I wager you had really to pry him loose from that dandy new volume on travel he was telling me about, because he’s such a bookworm.” The two boys who hastened to accept this warm invitation, and enter Jack Winters’ snug... more...

MODERN TYPES. (By Mr. Punch's Own Type Writer.) No. XIX.—THE SERVANT OF SOCIETY. The Servant of Society is one who, having in early life abdicated every claim to independent thought or action, is content to attach himself to the skirts and coat-tails of the great, and to exist for a long time as a mere appendage in mansions selected by the unerring instinct of a professional tuft-hunter. It is... more...

LONDON CHILDREN To begin with, the streets of London are not paved with gold; but I need not have said that, for nowadays the very youngest child knows it. It was Dick Whittington who first imagined anything so foolish; but then he was only a country lad, and in his days there were not the same opportunities for finding out the truth about things as there are now. There were very few books for one... more...

CHAPTER I THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME The Bobbsey twins were very busy that morning. They were all seated around the dining-room table, making houses and furnishing them. The houses were being made out of pasteboard shoe boxes, and had square holes cut in them for doors, and other long holes for windows, and had pasteboard chairs and tables, and bits of dress goods for carpets and rugs, and bits of... more...

COUNTRY LIFE OPPORTUNITY The glare of the city dazzles the eyes of many a man in college. For a generation college debates, in class, club and fraternity, have popularized all phases of the city problem, the very difficulties of which have challenged many a country-bred boy to throw in his life where the maelstrom was the swiftest. In recent years however the country problem has been claiming its share... more...

Mr Bommaney was a British merchant of the highest rectitude and the most spotless reputation. He traded still under the name of Bommaney, Waite, and Co., though Waite had been long since dead, and the Company had gone out of existence in his father's time. The old offices, cramped and inconvenient, in which the firm had begun life eighty years before, were still good enough for Mr. Bommaney, and... more...