CHAPTER I HORACE VENTIMORE RECEIVES A COMMISSION "This day six weeks—just six weeks ago!" Horace Ventimore said, half aloud, to himself, and pulled out his watch. "Half-past twelve—what was I doing at half-past twelve?" As he sat at the window of his office in Great Cloister Street, Westminster, he made his thoughts travel back to a certain glorious morning in August which now... more...

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION. The region which extends from the frontiers of Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger, was in ancient times inhabited by a people to whom we give the general name of Berbers, but whom the ancients, particularly those of the Eastern portion, knew under the name of Moors. "They were called Maurisi by the Greeks," said Strabo, "in the first... more...

"LADY DAISY."A DOLL STORY. Little Flora's father gave her a small china doll on her fourth birthday. It was only a little one, but Flora's father said that his little girl was very small too, and he thought she could not carry a big doll yet. When Flora was five years old her father gave her a larger one, and when she was six her father presented her with a beautiful baby doll in long... more...

INTRODUCTION When Mary Elizabeth Hall first brought her discovery to my attention, I thought that it was indeed one that would revolutionize candy-making, both that of the amateur at home and of the manufacturer. And, in the months that have followed, to this belief has been added the conviction that this revolution is one very much worth while. Why so simple and obvious a discovery was not made long... more...

THE NIGHTINGALE, OR THE TRANSFORMED DAMSEL I know where stands a Castellaye,   Its turrets are so fairly gilt;With silver are its gates inlaid,   Its walls of marble stone are built. Within it stands a linden tree,   With lovely leaves its boughs are hung,Therein doth dwell a nightingale,   And sweetly moves that bird its tongue. A gallant knight came riding by,   He heard its dulcet ditty... more...

INTRODUCTION. In presenting this little volume to our readers we ask them to accept it, not as fiction, but as divine truth as to the laws herein revealed. Not a statement is made that is not possible to the divine will of man. Although it can not be proven to your outward knowledge, do not reject and declare it is not true. History will teach you there actually existed a "Temple of Isis," and... more...

If there be one circumstance more than another that has conferred celebrity on the Forest of Dean, it is the remote origin, perpetuation, and invariably high repute of its iron works.  Uniting these characteristics in one, it probably surpasses every other spot in Great Britain. In the author’s former “historical account” of this neighbourhood, he gave all the information he had then collected... more...

AN INDICATION. Some laymen are very fond of deprecating the work of specialists, holding that specialisation tends to narrowness, to inability to see more than one side of a question. It is, of course, true that the specialist tends to “go off at a tangent” on his particular subject, and even to treat with contempt or opposition the views of other specialists who differ from him. But all work that... more...

CHAPTER I The attempts to instil the elements of music into Charles Dickens when he was a small boy do not appear to have been attended with success. Mr. Kitton tells us that he learnt the piano during his school days, but his master gave him up in despair. Mr. Bowden, an old schoolfellow of the novelist's when he was at Wellington House Academy, in Hampstead Road, says that music used to be... more...

In narrating these few episodes in the undulatory, not to say switchback, career of my friend Aristide Pujol, I can pretend to no chronological sequence. Some occurred before he (almost literally) crossed my path for the first time, some afterwards. They have been related to me haphazard at odd times, together with a hundred other incidents, just as a chance tag of association recalled them to his... more...