"We don't know what it is," said Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI. He threw his hands in the air and looked baffled and confused. Kenneth J. Malone tried to appear sympathetic. "What what is?" Burris frowned and drummed his fingers on his big desk. "Malone," he said, "make sense. And don't stutter." "Stutter?" Malone said. "You said you... more...

Preface Hawthorne in his Wonder Book has described the beautiful Greek myths and traditions, but no one has yet made similar use of the wondrous tales that gathered for more than a thousand years about the islands of the Atlantic deep. Although they are a part of the mythical period of American history, these hazy legends were altogether disdained by the earlier historians; indeed, George Bancroft made... more...

Richard's Mother.The great quarrel between the houses of York and Lancaster.Terrible results of the quarrel.Origin of it.The mother of King Richard the Third was a beautiful, and, in many respects, a noble-minded woman, though she lived in very rude, turbulent, and trying times. She was born, so to speak, into one of the most widely-extended, the most bitter, and the most fatal of the family... more...

THE PERFECT READER On Christmas Eve, while the Perfect Reader sits in his armchair immersed in a book—so absorbed that he has let the fire go out—I propose to slip gently down the chimney and leave this tribute in his stocking. It is not a personal tribute. I speak, on behalf of the whole fraternity of writers, this word of gratitude—and envy. No one who has ever done any writing, or has any... more...

INTRODUCTION. For the fifth time I revise a subject which has occupied my inquiries from early life, with feelings still delightful, and an enthusiasm not wholly diminished. Had not the principle upon which this work is constructed occurred to me in my youth, the materials which illustrate the literary character could never have been brought together. It was in early life that I conceived the idea of... more...

To increase the highways transport resources as one of the means of strengthening the entire transportation system of the country, and for the purpose of avoiding the waste incurred by running transport vehicles empty, return-load bureaus are established. These bureaus are a means of bringing together the shipper having goods to move and the operator of an empty vehicle which is possibly running to the... more...

RED HAIRBranches Park,November 3. I wonder so much if it is amusing to be an adventuress, because that is evidently what I shall become now. I read in a book all about it; it is being nice looking and having nothing to live on, and getting a pleasant time out of life—and I intend to do that! I have certainly nothing to live on, for one cannot count £300 a year; and I am extremely pretty, and I know... more...

CHAPTER I It would soon be Christmas and Harry Kenton, at his desk in the Pendleton Academy, saw the snow falling heavily outside. The school stood on the skirt of the town, and the forest came down to the edge of the playing field. The great trees, oak and ash and elm, were clothed in white, and they stood out a vast and glittering tracery against the somber sky. The desk was of the old kind, intended... more...

Chester Pelton retracted his paunch as far as the breakfast seat would permit; the table, its advent preceded by a collection of mouth-watering aromas, slid noiselessly out of the pantry and clicked into place in front of him. "Everything all right, Miss Claire?" a voice floated out after it from beyond. "Anything else you want?" "Everything's just fine, Mrs. Harris,"... more...

INTRODUCTORY Naval Warfare at the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century The recent close of the nineteenth century has familiarized us with the thought that such an epoch tends naturally to provoke an estimate of the advance made in the various spheres of human activity during the period which it terminates. Such a reckoning, however, is not a mere matter of more and less, of comparison between the... more...