CHAPTER I. It was at Homburg, several years ago, before the gaming had been suppressed.  The evening was very warm, and all the world was gathered on the terrace of the Kursaal and the esplanade below it to listen to the excellent orchestra; or half the world, rather, for the crowd was equally dense in the gaming-rooms around the tables.  Everywhere the crowd was great.  The night was perfect, the... more...

WHEN I was very, very little, I hated history more than all my other lessons put together, because I had to learn it out of a horrid little book, called somebody's "Outlines of English History"; and it seemed to be all the names of the kings and the dates of battles, and, believing it to be nothing else, I hated it accordingly.I hope you do not think anything so foolish, because, really,... more...

The bar didn't have a name. No name of any kind. Not even an indication that it had ever had one. All it said on the outside was: CafeEAT Cocktails which doesn't make a lot of sense. But it was a bar. It had a big TV set going ya-ta-ta ya-ta-ta in three glorious colors, and a jukebox that tried to drown out the TV with that lousy music they play. Anyway, it wasn't a kid hangout. I kind... more...

CHAPTER I. THE PICKWICKIANS The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying... more...

CHAPTER I OUR HERO t was a murky October day that the hero of our tale, Mr. Sponge, or Soapey Sponge, as his good-natured friends call him, was seen mizzling along Oxford Street, wending his way to the West. Not that there was anything unusual in Sponge being seen in Oxford Street, for when in town his daily perambulations consist of a circuit, commencing from the Bantam Hotel in Bond Street into... more...

CHAPTER 1.–A Clever Capture. "I think that fellow is following us, Bob." "What fellow, Dick?" "The one on the other side of the way, the man with a beard and a steeple-crowned hat." "Yes, I see him, but why should he follow us, Dick?" "To obtain information, I suppose. He is certainly watching and following us and if we were to stop anywhere you would see that he... more...

CHAPTER I. “Flora, have you forgotten the talk we had about emigration, the morning before our marriage?” was a question rather suddenly put to his young wife, by Lieutenant Lyndsay, as he paused in his walk to and fro the room. The fact is, that he had been pondering over that conversation for the last hour. It had long been forgotten by his wife; who, seated upon the sofa with a young infant of... more...

INTRODUCTION. F these many years past, a considerable number of Esquimaux have been in the annual practice of visiting the three missionary establishments of the United Brethren on the coast of Labrador, OKKAK, NAIN, and HOPEDALE, chiefly with a view to barter, or to see those of their friends and acquaintance, who had become obedient to the gospel, and lived together in Christian fellowship, enjoying... more...

CHAPTER I. IN ST. JACOB STRAAT. "The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life." "It is the Professor von Holzen," said a stout woman who still keeps the egg and butter shop at the corner of St. Jacob Straat in The Hague; she is a Jewess, as, indeed, are most of the denizens of St. Jacob Straat and its neighbour, Bezem Straat, where the fruit-sellers live—"it is the Professor von... more...

CHAPTER I Why Live in the Country? The urge to live in the country besets most of us sooner or later. Spring with grass vividly green, buds bursting and every pond a bedlam of the shrill, rhythmic whistle of frogs, is the most dangerous season. Some take a walk in the park. Others write for Strout's farm catalogues, read them hungrily and are well. But there are the incurables. Their fever is fed... more...