UNCONSCIOUS COMEDIANS Leon de Lora, our celebrated landscape painter, belongs to one of the noblest families of the Roussillon (Spanish originally) which, although distinguished for the antiquity of its race, has been doomed for a century to the proverbial poverty of hidalgos. Coming, light-footed, to Paris from the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, with the sum of eleven francs in his pocket for all... more...

CHAPTER I The summer term ended in a blaze of glory for Frank Mannix. It was a generally accepted opinion in the school that his brilliant catch in the long field—a catch which disposed of the Uppingham captain—had been the decisive factor in winning the most important of matches. And the victory was particularly gratifying, for Haileybury had been defeated for five years previously. There was no... more...

INTRODUCTION. The contents of this volume will be found, I hope, to be in agreement with its title. Amongst the helps of Christian life, the highest place is due to the Christian church and its ordinances. I have been greatly misunderstood with respect to my estimate of the Christian church, as distinguished from the Christian religion. I agree so far with those, from whom I in other things most widely... more...

CHAPTER I "He don't look right and he don't sleep right," complained Aunt Almira Day, swinging to and fro ponderously in one of the porch rockers and fanning herself vigorously with a folded copy of the Fireside Favorite. "If it wasn't for his puttin' away jest as many victuals as usual I'd sartain sure think he was sickenin' for something." "Oh! I hope... more...

CHAPTER I. DUDIE DUNNE PLAYS A GREAT TRICK TO RUN DOWN A CRIMINAL—AS SIMPLE JOHN HE APPEARS INNOCENT, BUT WHEN HIS MASK GOES OFF THE "FUR FLIES." "Oh, fellers, look at this! he's strayed or stolen; let's go for him." A group of little toughs were gathered at a street corner in a low locality in the city of New York when a dude of the first water with the regular Anglo step... more...

HEPSA AND GENEVIEVE. Genevieve lived in a large, handsome house, which had beautiful gardens all about it. She had no brother or sister, but she had a large play-room, filled with the nicest toys, so that a good many children who came to play in it thought she must be perfectly happy; but Genevieve had often thought how willingly she would give the room and all its playthings for a little brother of... more...

CHAPTER I. LOVE AT A SCHOOL A procession of schoolboys having to meet a procession of schoolgirls on the Sunday's dead march, called a walk, round the park, could hardly go by without dropping to a hum in its chatter, and the shot of incurious half-eyes the petticoated creatures—all so much of a swarm unless you stare at them like lanterns. The boys cast glance because it relieved their... more...

1. FILMER In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men—this man a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only one vigorous intellectual effort was needed to finish the work. But the inexorable injustice of the popular mind has decided that of all these thousands, one man, and that a man who never flew, should be chosen as the discoverer, just as it has chosen to honour... more...

I 1 The cigar was a large one and Robert Stonehouse was small. At the precise moment, in fact, when he leant out of the upstairs bedroom window, instinctively seeking fresh air, he became eight years old. He did not know this, though he did know that it was his birthday and that a birthday was a great and presumably auspicious occasion. His conception of what a birthday ought to be was based primarily... more...

A Bolt from the Blue The atmosphere of the office that morning was a shade less genial than usual. We had all of us fought our way downtown through such a storm of wind, snow, slush, and sleet as is to be found nowhere save in mid-March New York, and our tempers had suffered accordingly. I had found a cab unobtainable, and there was, of course, the inevitable jam on the Elevated, with the trains many... more...