CHAPTER I WHEN Mrs. Greensleeve first laid eyes on her baby she knew it was different from the other children. "What is the matter with it?" she asked. The preoccupied physician replied that there was nothing the matter. In point of fact he had been admiring the newly born little girl when her mother asked the question. "She's about as perfect as they make 'em," he concluded,... more...

CHAPTER I. In Tyniec,[1] in the inn under "Dreadful Urus," which belonged to the abbey, a few people were sitting, listening to the talk of a military man who had come from afar, and was telling them of the adventures which he had experienced during the war and his journey. He had a large beard but he was not yet old, and he was almost gigantic but thin, with broad shoulders; he wore his hair... more...

NUMISMATIC ARCHÆOLOGY. A magnificent work upon this subject has just been completed in Paris, where it was commenced fifteen years ago. It was begun under the auspices of M. Paul Delaroche and M.C. Lenormand, member of the Institute, and well known already as one of the first authorities in the numismatic branch of archæology. Some faint idea of the greatness of the task may be given by stating that... more...

"Sometimes," said Helix Spardleton, Esquire, "a patent case gets away from you. As the attorney in the case, you never quite see it the same as everybody else. You stand isolated and alone, unable to persuade the Patent Examiners, the Board, the courts, possibly even the inventor, to accept your view of the case. Nothing you do or say matches anyone else's thinking, and you begin to... more...

Dazzled by the glories of Trafalgar, I, Thomas Cringle, one fine morning in the merry month of May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and so and so, magnanimously determined in my own mind, that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland should no longer languish under the want of a successor to the immortal Nelson, and being then of the great perpendicular altitude of four feet four inches,... more...

CHAPTER I. The engine bellowed its way up the slanting, winding valley. Grey crags, and trees with roots fastened cleverly to the steeps looked down at the struggles of the black monster. When the train finally released its passengers they burst forth with the enthusiasm of escaping convicts. A great bustle ensued on the platform of the little mountain station. The idlers and philosophers from the... more...

PART THE FIRST — THE LOTUS In those days there were many hermits living in the desert. On both banks of the Nile numerous huts, built by these solitary dwellers, of branches held together by clay, were scattered at a little distance from each other, so that the inhabitants could live alone, and yet help one another in case of need. Churches, each surmounted by a cross, stood here and there amongst... more...

Mansion of Mystery n a secluded section of a certain eastern state which must remain nameless, one may leave the main highway and travel up a winding road around tortuous bends and under huge scowling trees, into wooded country. Upon a certain night—the date of which must remain vague—there came a man who faced and was not turned back by a series of psychological barriers along this road which made... more...

CHAPTER I THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND I For almost a full century Russia has been the theater of a great revolutionary movement. In the light of Russian history we read with cynical amusement that in 1848, when all Europe was in a revolutionary ferment, a German economist confidently predicted that revolutionary agitation could not live in the peculiar soil of Russian civilization. August Franz von... more...

MONETARY SENSATIONS.   The poorest and most unlucky dog in the world either has or had some small portion of money. No matter how small, how hardly, or how precariously earned, he has seen, from time to time, a glimpse of the colour of his own cash, and rejoiced accordingly as that colour was brown, white, or yellow. It follows, therefore, that even the poorest and most unlucky dog in the world has... more...