CHAPTER I. THE MEETING IN BOSTON. "Mr. John Diamond, Lexington, Pa.: If you wish cruise in down East waters, join me Monday next at American Hotel, Boston. Have purchased yacht. Hodge and Browning will be in party. Great sport anticipated. "Merriwell." Jack Diamond was reclining in a hammock suspended in the shade of an artificial arbor when this message from Frank Merriwell was handed to... more...

PART I. CHAPTER I.  INTRODUCTION. The interval since my publication of ‘The True Story of Lady Byron’s Life’ has been one of stormy discussion and of much invective. I have not thought it necessary to disturb my spirit and confuse my sense of right by even an attempt at reading the many abusive articles that both here and in England have followed that disclosure.  Friends have undertaken the... more...

CHAPTER I DAUGHTERS AND POVERTY Goddess Fortune seems to delight in smiling on a man who risks his all, including life, perhaps, on a desperate chance of, say one to one hundred. If her Ladyship frowns and he loses, his friends call him a fool; if he wins, they say he is a lucky devil and are pleased to share his prosperity if he happens to be of a giving disposition. Lucky? No! He has simply minted... more...

CHAPTER I. A PIOUS HYPERBOLE. Before my coronation there was no event in childhood that impressed itself on my memory with marked or singular distinction. My father's death, the result of a chill contracted during a hunting excursion, meant no more to me than a week of rooms gloomy and games forbidden; the decease of King Augustin, my uncle, appeared at the first instant of even less importance. I... more...

CHAPTER I. A NEW DISCOVERY DEEPENS A MYSTERY. When Mrs. Montague entered her room, an hour after Mona went up stairs, there was a deep frown upon her brow. She found Mona arrayed in a pretty white wrapper, and sitting before the glowing grate reading a new book, while she waited for her. "What are you sitting up for, and arrayed in that style?" she ungraciously demanded. "I thought you... more...

CHAPTER I.  "After this alliance,Let tigers match with hinds, and wolves with sheep,And every creature couple with its foe."Dryden. The political air of England was highly charged with electricity. Queen Elizabeth, after quarrelling with her lover, the Earl of Essex, had boxed his ears severely and told him to "go to the devil;" whereupon he had left the room in a rage, loudly... more...

I The beginning of this strange adventure was my going to see a motion picture which had been made in Germany. It was three years after the end of the war, and you'd have thought that the people of Western City would have got over their war-phobias. But apparently they hadn't; anyway, there was a mob to keep anyone from getting into the theatre, and all the other mobs started from that.... more...

“Why, Phebe, are you come so soon,Where are your berries, child?You cannot, sure, have sold them all,You had a basket pil’d.”“No, mother, as I climb’d the fence,The nearest way to town,My apron caught upon a stake,And so I tumbled down.“I scratched my arm, and tore my hair,But still did not complain;And had my blackberries been safe,Should not have cared a grain.Phebe and her Mother.“But... more...

WE HAVE WITH US TODAY At current bootliquor quotations, Haig & Haig costs twelve dollars a quart, while any dependable booklegger can unearth a copy of "Jurgen" for about fifteen dollars. Which indicates, at least, an economic application of Nonsenseorship. Its literary, social, and ethical reactions are rather more involved. To define them somewhat we invited a group of not-too-serious... more...

NESTING TIME. “There swims no goose so gray, but soon or late,She takes some honest gander for a mate;”There live no birds, however bright or plain,But rear a brood to take their place again.—C. C. M.QUITE the jolliest season of the year, with the birds, is when they begin to require a home, either as a shelter from the weather, a defence against their enemies, or a place to rear and protect... more...