CHAPTER I. A CHANCE MEETING AT GENEVA. "By Jove! I may as well make an end of the thing right here to-night!" was the dejected conclusion of a long council of war over which Major Alan Hawke had presided, with the one straggling comfort of being its only member. All this long September afternoon he had dawdled away in feeding certain rapacious swans navigating gracefully around Rousseau's... more...

         As soon as they step into my house and see my strange collection of travel keepsakes, all visitors’ eyes are drawn to the Arabian saddle, which actually deserves credit as the inspiration and author of this story. It has Oriental-red velvet, richly decorated with gold embroidery. This Pasha saddle was fit for a tribal Turkish chieftain, having comfortable stirrups and an accompanying... more...

THE STRANGE TRACKS There was great excitement in the neighborhood of Farmer Green's house. Rusty Wren had found some strange tracks. And nobody knew whose they were. Now, when they were puzzled like that the field- and forest-folk usually went straight to Mr. Crow for advice. But this time it happened that the old gentleman had gone on an excursion to the further side of Blue Mountain, where... more...

Chapter I IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PASSEPARTOUT ACCEPT EACH OTHER,THE ONE AS MASTER, THE OTHER AS MAN Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that... more...

Preface "Uncle, why don't you write the story of your life?" So says my nephew Tom to me when he comes in and finds me sitting in a brown study before a comfortable fire. I have finally granted his request, for I have spent many an hour in relating my thrilling adventures to him and am sure that he has enjoyed them and even profited by them. Thus have I been persuaded to write this little... more...

LOBO THE KING OF CURRUMPAW Currumpaw is a vast cattle range in northern New Mexico. It is a land of rich pastures and teeming flocks and herds, a land of rolling mesas and precious running waters that at length unite in the Currumpaw River, from which the whole region is named. And the king whose despotic power was felt over its entire extent was an old gray wolf. Old Lobo, or the king, as the Mexicans... more...

GAMES FOR A PARTY Blind Man's Buff "Blind Man's Buff" is one of the best, oldest, and simplest of games. One player is blindfolded, is turned round two or three times to confuse his ideas as to his position in the room, and is then told to catch whom he can. If he catches some one, yet cannot tell who it is, he must go on again as blind man; but if he can tell who it is, that person... more...

I. "Love, that old song, of which the world is never weary." It was one of those beautiful, lengthening days, when May was pressing back with both hands the shades of the morning and the evening; May in New York one hundred and twenty-one years ago, and yet the May of A.D. 1886,—the same clear air and wind, the same rarefied freshness, full of faint, passing aromas from the wet earth and the... more...

GEORGE WASHINGTON MCKINLEY JONES. Scratch! scratch! scratch! went Colonel Austin's pen over the smooth white sheets of paper, sheet after sheet. The dead heat of Tampa hung heavy within the tent; the buzz of the flies was most distressing; but the reports must be got off, and after them there were letters to be written to "the Boy and his Mother" up North, telling them—especially the... more...

"Oh, heard ye of a silly harper,Wha lang lived in Lochmaben town,How he did gang to fair England,To steal King Henry's wanton brown?" Once upon a time, there was an old man in Lochmaben, who made his livelihood by going round the country playing on his harp. He was very old, and very blind, and there was such a simple air about him, that people were inclined to think that he had not all his... more...