Austin and His Friends

The old-fashioned ghost-story was always terrifying and ghastly; something that made people afraid to go to bed, or to look over their shoulders, or to enter a room in the dark....

No wonder a boy like this was voted unsociable. No wonder Sandy and Jock despised him as a muff, and the young ladies deplored his unaccountably elusive ways. The truth was that...

"What a wicked, abandoned old woman!" cried Austin. "Only one leg to stand on, indeed!--she hasn't a single leg to stand on when she says such things. She ought to have gone dow...

He flung open the door. Austin found himself in the vast apartment, groined and vaulted, measuring about a hundred and twenty feet by fifty, and lighted by exquisite pointed win...

"Oh come, now, come; spare my blushes, young gentleman, draw it a _little_ milder!" cried the delighted manager, almost bursting with mock modesty. "Greatest actor in Europe--oh...

"It's no use arguing with you," replied Aunt Charlotte, loftily. "It's a clear case of sleep-walking--as clear as any case I ever heard of. And then all that nonsense about raps...

Mr Sheepshanks, his mouth pursed up in a deprecating and uneasy smile, sat gazing vaguely in front of him. "I think it might be wise to defer the Song of Solomon," he suggested....

"And there the artificiality is all the greater!" chipped in Austin, tersely. "The more perfect the illusion, the hollower the artificiality. Of course, no one could take Sardan...

"I don't want to come with you in the very least, really--especially as you don't want to have me," replied Austin. "But I do wish you'd give up your idea of going to London by...

St Aubyn smiled. "Well, of course, it all sounds very fanciful," he said. "One must read him as one reads all those curious old mediæval authors, who are full of pseudo-science...

"You're quite a philosopher, I see," said the old lady, nodding; "as great a philosopher as the fox who couldn't reach the grapes, and he was one of the wisest who ever lived. A...

"Travelled in bonnets?" cried Austin. "What _do_ you mean, Lubin? How can a man go travelling about the country in a bonnet? Had he a bonnet on when you saw him drinking in the...

Then he stumped off as hard as he could go to the Post-Office near by, to despatch the telegram which should set Aunt Charlotte's mind at ease; and by dint of carefully observin...

"The tribute is two-edged," observed the actor with a shrug. And certainly he had acted well, and dressed the character to perfection. But the takings of the performance, alas,...

Austin was on his legs in a moment. "Just the thing for an afternoon like this!" he cried impulsively. "I'll go up now, and have a look round. Don't worry, auntie; I won't fatig...

He looked at himself, and saw that he was glorious, encircled by a radiant fire-mist. And he was throbbing and pulsating with life, able to move hither and thither without effor...