Category: Humour

A Gray Eye or So. In Three Volumes—Volume I, II and III: Complete

The other, whose name was Edmund--his worst enemies had never abbreviated it--smiled, lifted his eyes unto the hills as if in search of something, frowned as if he failed to find it, smiled a cat’s-paw of a smile--a momentary crinkle in the region of the eyes--twice his lips p...

Chapters

18. CHAPTER XVII.--ON PROVIDENCE AS A MATCH-MAKER.

OF course,” said Lady Innisfail to Edmund Airey the next day. “Of course, if Harold alone had rescued Helen from her danger last night, all would have been well. You know as wel...

25. CHAPTER XXIV.--ON THE CHANCE.

WHEN the fishing boats came within half a cable’s length of the cutter, Lord Innisfail gave up the tiller to Brian, who was well qualified to be the organizer of the expedition,...

15. CHAPTER XIV.--ON AN IRISH DANCE.

LADY INNISFAIL’S guests--especially those who had been wandering over the mountains with guns all day--found her rather too indefatigable in her search for new methods of entert...

33. CHAPTER XXXII.--ON SHAKESPEARE AND SUPPER.

CARRIAGES by the score were waiting at the fine Corinthian entrance to the Legitimate, when Harold and Archie reached the theatre in their hansom. The _façade_ of the Legitimate...

3. CHAPTER III.--ON HONESTY AND THE WORKING MAN.

DON’T you think,” remarked Edmund, the next day, as the boat drifted under the great cliffs, and Brian was discharging with great ability his normal duty of resting on his oars....

12. CHAPTER XI.--ON HEAVEN AND THE LORD CHANCELLOR.

MR. DURDAN was explaining something--he usually was explaining something. When he had been a member of the late Government his process of explaining something was generally rega...

27. CHAPTER XXVI.--ON FRANKNESS AND FRIENDSHIP.

BRIAN took care that no moment was lost. In the course of a very few minutes Lord Fotheringay was seated on the windward thwarts of the boat, his hands grasping the gunwale to r...

34. CHAPTER XXXIII.--ON BLESSING OR DOOM.

It was apparent to him that Mrs. Mowbray had somehow obtained a circumstantial account of the appearance of Beatrice Avon at the Irish Castle, and of the effect that had been pr...

48. CHAPTER XLVII.--ON THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY.

|SOME minutes had passed before Harold had sufficiently recovered to be able to get upon his feet. He could now account for everything that had happened. His father must have be...

35. CHAPTER XXXIV.--ON THE MESSAGE OF THE LILY.

WALKING Westward to his rooms, he enjoyed once again the same feeling of exultation, which had been his on the evening of the return from the seal-hunt. He felt that she was who...

42. CHAPTER XLI.--ON DRY CHAMPAGNE AND A CRISIS.

“Oh, you’re like one of the tarty chips in the courts that cross-examine other tarty chips until their faces are blue,” said Archie. “There’s no show for that sort of thing here...

16. CHAPTER XV.--ON THE SHRIEK.

IN a space of time that was very brief, owing to the resolution with which Lady Innisfail declined to accept the suggestion of short cuts by Brian, the whole party found themsel...

26. CHAPTER XXV.--ON THE SOCIAL VALUE OF THE REPROBATE.

Mrs. Burgoyne congratulated Lady Innisfail upon this remarkable occurrence, and Lady Innisfail began to hope that it might get talked about. If her autumn party at Castle Innisf...

21. CHAPTER XX.--ON AN OAK SETTEE.

HE was still pondering over the many aspects of the question which, to his mind, needed solution, when he returned to the Castle, to find Lord Fotheringay in a chair by the side...

56. CHAPTER LV.--ON SHAKESPEARE AND ARCHIE BROWN.

Before Beatrice, under the impulse of this thought, had glanced at herself in a mirror--for a girl does not like to appear before a woman of the highest reputation (for beauty)...

55. CHAPTER LIV.--ON THE DECAY OF THE PAT AS A POWER.

|IT was a few days after Edmund Airey had made his revelation--if it was a revelation--to Helen Craven, that Harold received a visitor in the person of Archie Brown. The second...

53. CHAPTER LII.--ON THE FLUSH, THE FOOL, AND FATE.

|MR. AIREY had called on Beatrice since his return from that melancholy entertainment at Abbeylands, but he had not been fortunate enough to find her at home. Now, however, he w...

49. CHAPTER XLVIII--ON MURDER AS A SOCIAL INCIDENT.

|THIS is not the story of a murder. However profitable as well as entertaining it would be to trace through various mysteries, false alarms, and intricacies the following up of...

9. CHAPTER IX.--ON THE HELPLESSNESS OF WOMAN.

THE girl had shown so much adroitness in the management of the little craft previously, he felt--with deep regret--that she would be quite equal to her present emergency. He was...

40. CHAPTER XXXIX.--ON CONSCIENCE AND THE RING.

|HAROLD WYNNE shut himself up in his rooms without even lunching. He drew a chair in front of the fire and seated himself with the sigh of relief that is given by a man who has...

20. CHAPTER XIX.--ON MODERN SOCIETY.

EDMUND AIREY had the most perfect command of his features under all circumstances. While the members of the Front Opposition Benches were endeavouring to sneer him into their lo...

54. CHAPTER LIII.--ON A SUPREME ASPIRATION.

There were a good many persons who were ready to agree with him before the month of December had passed; for the agitation on the subject of Siberia was spreading through the le...

41. CHAPTER XL.--ON SOCIETY AND THE SEAL.

|THE next afternoon when Harold called upon Beatrice, he found her with two letters in her hand. The first was a very brief one from her father, letting her know that he would h...

28. CHAPTER XXVII.--ON CIRCUMVENTING A STAG.

It was with a feeling of exultation that he had sat in the bows of the cutter _Acushla_ on her return to her moorings after that seal-hunt which everyone agreed had been an extr...

37. CHAPTER XXXVI.--ON THE INFLUENCE OF A MAN OF THE WORLD.

It was true then--what he had surmised was true! Edmund Airey had shown himself to be actuated by a stronger impulse than a desire to assist Helen Craven to realize her hopes--s...

32. CHAPTER XXXI.--ON A BLACK SHEEP.

“Oh, he’s a good old soul who was kicked out of the Church by the bishop for doing something or other. He’s useful to me--keeps my correspondence in order--spots the chaps that...

47. CHAPTER XLVI.--ON A BED OF LOGS.

He passed far beyond the limits of the Priory grounds, but he did not reach the high road. He crossed a meadow and came upon a trout stream. He walked beside it for an hour. At...

6. CHAPTER VI.--ON THE INFLUENCE OF AN OCEAN.

MISS CRAVEN was sitting on a distant sofa listening, or pretending to listen, which is precisely the same thing, with great earnestness to the discourse of Mr. Durdan, who, besi...

52. CHAPTER LI.--ON THE WAYS OF PROVIDENCE AND OTHERS.

|DURING the next few days Harold had numerous visitors. A man cannot have his father murdered without attracting a considerable amount of attention to himself. Cards “_With deep...

36. CHAPTER XXXV.--ON THE HOME.

HAROLD WYNNE remembered how he had made up his mind to judge whether or not Edmund Airey had been simply playing, in respect of Beatrice, the part which, according to Mrs. Mowbr...

22. CHAPTER XXI.--ON THE ELEMENTS OF PARTY POLITICS.

He had been considering all the afternoon the possibility of carrying out the idea which it seemed Helen Craven had on her mind as well; but it had never occurred to him that hi...

30. CHAPTER XXIX.--ON THE ADVANTAGES OF READY MONEY.

ARCHIE BROWN was the only son of Mr. John Brown, the eminent contractor. Mr. John Brown had been a man of simple habits and no tastes. When a working navvy he had acquired a lik...

43. CHAPTER XLII.--ON THE RING AND THE LOOK.

|HE tried, while in the hansom, to unravel the mysteries of the system by which passengers were supposed to reach Brackenshire. He found the four-twenty train from London indica...

11. CHAPTER X.--ON SCIENCE AND ART.

A BOAT being urged onwards--not very rapidly--by a single oar resting in a hollow in the centre of the stern, and worked from side to side by a man in evening dress, is not a si...

46. CHAPTER XLV.--ON MOONLIGHT AND MORALS.

“Altogether yours now,” she said looking at him with that trustful smile which should have sent him down on his knees before her, but which did not do more than cause his eyes t...

23. CHAPTER XXII.--ON THE WISDOM OP THE MATRONS.

LADY INNISFAIL made a confession to one of her guests--a certain Mrs. Burgoyne--who was always delighted to play the _rôle_ of receiver of confessions. The date at which Lady In...

14. CHAPTER XIII.--ON THE ART OF COLOURING.

THE people of the village of Ballycruiskeen showed themselves quite ready to enter into the plans of their pastor in the profitable enterprise of making entertainment for Lady I...

44. CHAPTER XLIII.--ON THE SON OF APHRODITE.

|WHAT can be the matter? How did you manage to come here? You must have travelled by the same train as we came by. Oh, Harold, my husband, I am so glad to see you. You have chan...

39. CHAPTER XXXVIII.--ON A KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD.

|SHORTLY after noon he was with her. He had left his rooms without touching a morsel of breakfast, and it was plain that such sleep as he had had could not have been of a soothi...

17. CHAPTER XVI.--ON THE VALUE OF A BAD CHARACTER.

IT was said by some people that the judge, during his vacation, had solved the problem set by the philosopher to his horse. He had learned to live on a straw a day, only there w...

19. CHAPTER XVIII.--ON THE PROFESSIONAL MORALIST.

THE people--Edmund Airey was one of them--who were accustomed to point to Harold Wynne as an example of the insecurity of formulating any definite theory of heredity, had no cha...

58. CHAPTER LVII.--ON THE REJECTED ADDRESSES.

|THE next day Beatrice went with Norah Innisfail and her mother to their home in Nethershire. Two days afterwards the Legitimate Theatre closed its doors, and Parliament opened...

45. CHAPTER XLIV.--ON THE SHORTCOMINGS OF A SYSTEM.

|HAROLD was out of the compartment in a moment. Did the guard mean that the train had actually left for Abbeylands? It had left six minutes before, the guard explained, and the...

24. CHAPTER XXIII.--ON THE ATLANTIC.

THE boats were scattered like milestones--as was stated by Brian--through the sinuous length of Lough Suangorm. The cutter yacht _Acushla_ was leading the fleet out to the Atlan...

51. CHAPTER L.--ON CONSOLATION AS A FINE ART.

That was why he had gone to her without hope. He knew that her nature was such as made it impossible for her to understand how he could have practised a fraud upon her; and he k...

5. CHAPTER V.--ON A PERILOUS CAUSEWAY.

MISS CRAVEN laughed and watched Mr. Airey searching for a reply beneath the frill of a Neapolitan ice. She did not mean that he should find one. Her aim was that he should talk...

29. CHAPTER XXVIII.--ON ENJOYING A RESPITE.

IT was the first week in October when Harold Wynne found himself in London. He had got a letter from Beatrice in which she told him that she and her father would return to Londo...

57. CHAPTER LVI.--ON THE BITTER CRY.

|EDMUND AIREY drank his cup of tea which Beatrice poured out for him, and while doing so, he told her of the progress that was being made by the agitation of the Opposition and...

13. CHAPTER XII.--ON THE MYSTERY OF MAN.

HE meant to ask her at night. He had felt convinced, on returning after his adventure in his dinner dress, that nothing could induce him to think of Miss Craven as a possible wi...

8. CHAPTER VIII.--ON THE ZIG-ZAG TRACK.

HAROLD WYNNE was in one of those moods which struggle for expression through the medium of bitter phrases. He felt that he did well to be cynical. Had he not outlived his belief...

7. CHAPTER VII.--ON THE ADVANTAGES OF A FULL MOON.

WHY the fact of his having made up his mind to ask Miss Craven who, without being an American, still possessed many qualities which are generally accepted as tending to married...

4. CHAPTER IV.--ON FABLES.

VERY amusing indeed was Edmund’s parody of the boatman’s wildly-romantic story. The travesty was composed for the benefit of Miss Craven, and the time of its communication was b...

50. CHAPTER XLIX.--ON THE ADVANTAGES OF CONFESSION.

Something of fear was upon her face as she stood looking at him. He was pale and haggard and ghostlike. She could not but perceive how strongly the likeness to his father, who h...

31. CHAPTER XXX.--ON THE LEGITIMATE IN ART.

WHEN the history of the drama in England during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century comes to be written, the episode of the management of the Legitimate Theatre by M...

2. CHAPTER II.--ON A GREAT HOPE.

I THINK you remarked that you had great hope of Woman,” said Harold, the next day. The boat had drifted once again into the centre of the same scene, and there seemed to be a li...

38. CHAPTER XXXVII.--ON THE DEFECTIVE LINK.

HAROLD had a note written to Mrs. Lampson, begging her to invite his friend, Mr. Archie Brown, to join her party at Abbeylands, almost before Mr. Playdell had left the street. H...

1. CHAPTER I.--ON CERTAIN ABSTRACTIONS.

The other, whose name was Edmund--his worst enemies had never abbreviated it--smiled, lifted his eyes unto the hills as if in search of something, frowned as if he failed to fin...

10. letter C--oh, yes, he is making rapid progress.

“It seems that the French landed here some time or other, and that was the beginning of a new era of rebellions. My father is dealing with the period, and means to have his topo...