The Heating of the Iron It was not until the evening when old John Runnels, who had been the town marshal in my school days, and was now chief of police under the new city charter, came into the dingy little private banking room to arrest me that I began to realize, though only in a sort of dumb and dazed fashion, how much my promise to Agatha Geddis might be going to cost me. But even if the full... more...

CHAPTER I A VALENTINE PARTY "It IS a boofy frock, isn't it, Nansome?" Patty craned her head over her shoulder, as she waited for her stepmother's response, which was only, "Yes." "Oh, my gracious, Nan! Enthuse! Don't you know half the fun in life is enthusiasm?" "What shall I say?" asked Nan, laughing. "Oh, say it's a peach! a hummer! a... more...

RATAPLAN, ROGUE In one of the thick, shady and tangled forests of Ceylon a fine, fully-grown elephant was one day standing moodily by himself. His huge form showed high above the tangled brushwood, but his wide, flat feet and large, pillar-like legs were hidden in the thick undergrowth. He was not standing still, however—for no elephant has ever been known to do that yet—his massive, elongated... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BEACHING OF THE BOAT.   "Thou old gray sea,   Thou broad briny water,   With thy ripple and thy plash,   And thy waves as they lash   The old gray rocks on the shore.   With thy tempests as they roar,   And thy crested billows hoar,   And thy tide evermore                    Fresh and free." —Dr. Blackie. On the shore of a little... more...

I [Sidenote: Life and Personality] "The gray hairs on my head are becoming more and more numerous, and I sometimes grow impatient of getting old amidst a press of occupations and labor for which, after all, I was not born. But we are not here to have facilities found us for doing the work we like, but to make them." This sentence, written in a letter to his mother in his fortieth year,... more...

Benjamin Marlowe and his young assistant, Larry Powell, opened the door of the Marlowe laboratory, then stopped aghast at the sight which greeted their startled eyes. There on the central floor-plate directly in the focus of the big atomic projector stood the slender figure of Joan Marlowe, old Benjamin Marlowe’s niece and Larry Powell’s fiancee. The girl had apparently only been awaiting their... more...

The Heroic Mythology of the North Sigemund the Waelsing and Fitela, Aetla, Eormanric the Goth and Gifica of Burgundy, Ongendtheow and Theodric, Heorrenda and the Heodenings, and Weland the Smith: all these heroes of Germanic legend were known to the writers of our earliest English literature. But in most cases the only evidence of this knowledge is a word, a name, here and there, with no hint of the... more...

Manchester is distinguished among the large towns of the kingdom for its majority of enlightened individuals. "The whole population," it has been pertinently observed by a native, "seems to be imbued with a general thirst for knowledge and improvement." Even amidst the hum of its hundreds of thousand spindles, and its busy haunts of industry, the people have learned to cultivate the... more...

Actus Primus. Scena Prima. Enter Dinant, a[n]d Cleremont. Din. Disswade me not. Clere. It will breed a brawl. Din. I care not, I wear a Sword. Cler. And wear discretion with it,Or cast it off, let that direct your arm,'Tis madness else, not valour, and more baseThan to receive a wrong. Din. Why would you have meSit down with a disgrace, and thank the doer?We are not Stoicks, and that passive... more...

CHAPTER I.     "And gave her words, where oily Flatt'ry lays    The pleasing colours of the art of praise."—PARNELL. NOTE FROM MRS. BEAUMONT TO MISS WALSINGHAM. "I am more grieved than I can express, my dearest Miss Walsingham, by a cruel contre-temps, which must prevent my indulging myself in the long-promised and long-expected pleasure of being at your fête de famille on... more...