The slingshot was, I believe, one of the few weapons of history that wasn't used in the last war. That doesn't mean it won't be used in the next! "Got a bogey at three o'clock high. Range about six hundred miles." Johnson spoke casually, but his voice in the intercom was thin with tension. Captain Paul Coulter, commanding Space Fighter 308, 58th Squadron, 33rd Fighter Wing,... more...

CHAPTER I. The Trial. Mr. Kent was a very able magistrate. He had sat on the bench for many years and was considered a man of great legal attainments and skill. He very seldom erred in his judgment, and being gifted with a natural shrewdness, he saw the difference at once between a guilty and an innocent man. He rarely erred; long practice had made him an adept in reading faces. But on this morning,... more...

PREFACE French prose and French poetry had interested me during so many years that when Mr. Gosse invited me to write this book I knew that I was qualified in one particular—the love of my subject. Qualified in knowledge I was not, and could not be. No one can pretend to know the whole of a vast literature. He may have opened many books and turned many pages; he cannot have penetrated to the soul of... more...

CHAPTER I A DANGEROUS ERRAND A city of hills with a fringe of houses crowning the lower heights; half-mountains rising bare in the background and becoming real mountains as they stretched away in the distance to right and left; a confused mass of buildings coming to the water's edge on the flat; a forest of masts, ships swinging in the stream, and the streaked, yellow, gray-green water of the bay... more...

CHAPTER I.   THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD (i.). Pastor, for the round of toil See the toiling soul is fed; Shut the chamber, light the oil, Break and eat the Spirit's bread; Life to others would'st thou bring? Live thyself upon thy King. Let me explain in this first sentence that when in these pages I address "my Younger Brethren," I mean brethren in the Christian Ministry in the Church... more...

LOST POND "Lost Pond" was a tradition, a myth. It had never been seen by any living person. Two dead men, it was alleged, had visited it on several occasions while they were yet living. Wonderful tales were told about that pond for which many persons had hunted, but which no one of the present generation had ever been able to find. Every guide in Long Lake township talked about Lost Pond and... more...

The bar didn't have a name. No name of any kind. Not even an indication that it had ever had one. All it said on the outside was: CafeEAT Cocktails which doesn't make a lot of sense. But it was a bar. It had a big TV set going ya-ta-ta ya-ta-ta in three glorious colors, and a jukebox that tried to drown out the TV with that lousy music they play. Anyway, it wasn't a kid hangout. I kind... more...

THE WISH “ Mail in?” “Yes, sir; just arrived. What name?” “Charles K. Spencer.” The letter clerk seized a batch of correspondence and sorted it with nimble fingers. The form of the question told him that Spencer was interested in letters stamped for the greater part with bland presentments of bygone Presidents of the United States. In any event, he would have known, by long experience of... more...

WHEN I was very, very little, I hated history more than all my other lessons put together, because I had to learn it out of a horrid little book, called somebody's "Outlines of English History"; and it seemed to be all the names of the kings and the dates of battles, and, believing it to be nothing else, I hated it accordingly.I hope you do not think anything so foolish, because, really,... more...

Notes and Queries" in Holland. The following extremely interesting, and, we need scarcely add, to us most gratifying, communication reached us at too late a period last week to admit of our then laying it before our friends, readers, and contributors. They will one and all participate in our gratification at the proof which it affords, not merely of that success which they have all combined to... more...