Jack Barrington, nominal owner of Tinandra Downs cattle station on the Gilbert River in the far north of North Queensland, was riding slowly over his run, when, as the fierce rays of a blazing sun, set in a sky of brass, smote upon his head and shoulders and his labouring stock-horse plodded wearily homewards over the spongy, sandy soil, the lines of Barcroft Boake came to his mind, and, after he had... more...

WHAT BOOKS DID OTLOH WRITE? Sir,—In Dr. Maitland's able vindication of the Dark Ages (p. 419. 1st ed.), he concludes his interesting extract from the scribe Otloh's account of himself by saying:—"One would like to know what books they were which Otlohnus thus multiplied; but this, perhaps, is now impossible." I have it accidentally in my power to identify two at least of the... more...

OUR AGREEABLE FELLOW PASSENGER n the same spirit in which a solicitous mamma or benevolent middle-aged friend will sometimes draw forth from the misty past some youthful misdeed, and set the faded picture up before a girl's eyes, framed in fiery retribution—for an object lesson and a terrible example—so will I, benevolent, if not middle-aged, put before the eyes of my sisters a certain... more...

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. [Sidenote: Geology and Archaeology.] The sciences of geology and archaeology, working side by side, have made a wonderful progress in the past half a century. The one, seeking for the history and transformations of the physical earth, and the other, aiming to discover the antiquity, differences of race, and social and ethnical development of man, have obtained results which we... more...

CHAPTER I. Two men sat by the sea waves. "Well, I know I'm not handsome," said one gloomily. He was poking holes in the sand with a discontented cane. The companion was watching the waves play. He seemed overcome with perspiring discomfort as a man who is resolved to set another man right. Suddenly his mouth turned into a straight line. "To be sure you are not," he cried... more...

THE PARTY ON SPECIAL NO. 218 Any one who hopes to find in what is here written a work of literature had better lay it aside unread. At Yale I should have got the sack in rhetoric and English composition, let alone other studies, had it not been for the fact that I played half-back on the team, and so the professors marked me away up above where I ought to have ranked. That was twelve years ago, but my... more...

THE WIFE-CATCHERS. A LEGEND OF MY UNCLE’S BOOTS. In Four Chapters. The conversation now subsided into “private and confidential” whispers, from which I could learn that Miss O’Brannigan had consented to quit her father’s halls with Terence that very night, and, before the priest, to become his true and lawful wife. It had been previously understood that those of the guests who lived at a... more...

SAHARA LIMITED Sir Robert Aylward, Bart., M.P., sat in his office in the City of London. It was a very magnificent office, quite one of the finest that could be found within half a mile of the Mansion House. Its exterior was built of Aberdeen granite, a material calculated to impress the prospective investor with a comfortable sense of security. Other stucco, or even brick-built, offices might crumble... more...

CHAPTER I. A DUCAL MONOMANIAC. The traveller who wishes to go from Poitiers to London by the shortest route will find that the simplest way is to take a seat in the stage-coach which runs to Saumur; and when you book your place, the polite clerk tells you that you must take your seat punctually at six o'clock. The next morning, therefore, the traveller has to rise from his bed at a very early... more...

My Darling Children: I wrote these stories, as I have already told you, some years ago, and took a great deal of pains with them. I called them "Life Among the Children;" when, lo and behold! somebody else had written a book with the very same name, but very different stories, and I never knew one word about it. You may believe how sorry I was to take this pretty title when it belonged to... more...