"Prut!" said Annot, her sabots clattering loudly on the brick floor as she moved more rapidly in her wrath. "Prut! Madame Giraud, indeed! There was a time, and it was but two years ago, that she was but plain Mere Giraud, and no better than the rest of us; and it seems to me, neighbors, that it is not well to show pride because one has the luck to be favored by fortune. Where, forsooth,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BRADYS AS CUSTOM HOUSE DETECTIVES. The Collector of the Port of New York sat in his office in the Custom House with a look of annoyance upon his face. Several of his chief inspectors were standing about the room with the most uneasy expressions, for they were being censured unmercifully. "I tell you, gentlemen," the Collector was saying, angrily, "I am very much disgusted... more...

PREFACE The following Life of Sir Charles W. Dilke consists mainly of his ownMemoirs and of correspondence left by him or furnished by his friends. The Memoirs were compiled by Sir Charles Dilke from his private diaries and letters between the years 1888 and his return to Parliament in 1892. The private diaries consisted of entries made daily at the dates dealt with. Of the Memoirs he says: "These... more...

WHO WAS SHE? Come, now, there may as well be an end of this! Every time I meet your eyes squarely I detect the question just slipping out of them. If you had spoken it, or even boldly looked it; if you had shown in your motions the least sign of a fussy or fidgety concern on my account; if this were not the evening of my birthday, and you the only friend who remembered it; if confession were not good... more...

PARIS WAR DAYS Saturday, August 1, 1914 This war comes like the traditional "Bolt from the Blue!" I had made arrangements to retire from active journalism and relinquish the duties of Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune, which I had fulfilled for sixteen consecutive years. In reply to a request from Mr. Ogden Reid, I had expressed willingness to remain at my post in Paris until the... more...

CHAPTER I THE STORM “Margot! Margot!” Mother Angelique’s anxious call rang out over the water, once, twice, many times. But, though she shaded her brows with her hands and strained her keen ears to listen, there was no one visible and no response came back to her. So she climbed the hill again and, reëntering the cabin, began to stir with almost vicious energy the contents of a pot swinging in... more...

INTRODUCTION Cada puta hile (Let every jade go spin).—SANCHO PANZA. Almost alone in Europe stands Spain, the country of things as they are. The Spaniard weaves no glamour about facts, apologises for nothing, extenuates nothing. Lo que ha de ser no puede faltar! If you must have an explanation, here it is. Chew it, Englishman, and be content; you will get no other. One result of this is that... more...

CHAPTER I SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME The Geneva express jerked itself out of the Gare de Lyons. For a few minutes the lights of outer Paris twinkled past its windows and then with a spring it reached the open night. The jolts and lurches merged into one regular purposeful throb, the shrieks of the wheels, the clatter of the coaches, into one continuous hum. And already in the upper berth of her... more...

Sleepily the lookout stared at the scope-screen before him, wishing for something that would break the monotony of the scene it pictured: the schools of ghostly fish fleeting by, the occasional shafts of pale sunlight filtering down through breaks in the ice-floes above, the long snaky ropes of underwater growth. None of this was conducive to wakefulness; nor did the half-speed drone of the electric... more...

Padre, when you died, you left a message for me. You asked me to go on writing, if I were in trouble, just as I used to write when you were on earth. I used to "confess," and you used to advise. Also you used to scold. How you used to scold! I am going to do now what you asked, in that message. I shall never forget how you packed me off to school at Brighton, and Brian to Westward Ho! the year... more...