Cap'n Warren's Wards

Promises of that kind are easier to make than to keep. The captain promised promptly enough, but the Fates were against him. He made it his business to go to town the very next...

November weather on Cape Cod is what Captain Elisha described as “considerable chancey.” “The feller that can guess it two days ahead of time,” he declared, “is wastin’ his tale...

Caroline sat by the library window, her chin in her hand, drearily watching the sleet as it beat against the panes, and the tops of the Park trees lashing in the wind. Below, in...

An important event was about to take place. At least, it seemed important to Captain Elisha, although the person most intimately concerned appeared to have forgotten it entirely...

Captain Elisha put down his coffee cup and pulled his beard reflectively. Contrary to his usual desire since he came to the apartment to live, he was in no hurry to finish the m...

“And this is Stephen?” he said. “Well, Steve, you and me have never met afore, I b’lieve. But that’s our misfortune, not our fault, hey? How are you? Pretty smart?”

Two more hours passed before the lawyers and their client rose from their seats about the long table. Even then the consultation was not at an end. Sylvester and the Captain lun...

Her brother shook his head. “You mean Uncle ‘Lish?” he asked, cheerfully. “No, he hasn’t. At least, I haven’t seen him and I haven’t made any inquiries. I shall manage to surviv...

Announcement of Captain Elisha’s decision followed quickly. Sylvester, Kuhn, and Graves received the telephone message stating it, and the senior partner was unqualifiedly delig...

“This is your room, Mr. Graves,” said Miss Abigail Baker, placing the lighted lamp on the bureau. “And here’s a pair of socks and some slippers. They belong to Elisha--Cap’n War...

The boy, Captain Elisha’s acquaintance of the morning, was out, regaling himself with crullers and milk at a pushcart on Broad Street, when the captain returned to the officers...

It was April; and May was close at hand. The weather was all that late April weather should be, and so often is not. Trees, bushes, and vines were in bud; the green of the new g...

“It’s a box of a place, though, isn’t it,” declared Mr. Stephen Warren, contemptuously glancing about the library of the apartment. “A box, by George! I think it’s a blooming sh...

“Why don’t you come and see me?” wrote the young man. “I’ve been expecting you, and you promised to come. Have you forgotten my address? If so, here it is. I expect to be in all...

Captain Elisha was very far from considering himself a Solomon. As he would have said he had lived long enough with himself to know what a lot he didn’t know. Nevertheless, deep...

Nine o’clock is an early hour for a New York lawyer of prominence to be at his place of business. Yet, when Captain Elisha asked the office boy of Sylvester, Kuhn and Graves if...

During the next day Caroline Warren and her brother saw little of their uncle. Not that they complained of this or sought his society. The policy of avoidance and what Stephen c...

Stephen, the “man of the family,” was the only member of the household, servants excepted, who slept soundly that night. Conscious of having done his duty in the affair with Pea...

“Ostable!” screamed the brakeman, opening the car door and yelling his loudest, so as to be heard above the rattle of the train and the shriek of the wind; “Ostable!”

Thus Captain Elisha entered another of New York’s “circles,” that which centered at Mrs. Hepton’s boarding house. Within a week he was as much a part of it as if he had lived th...

Pearson called. He appeared at the apartment a week after the luncheon at the boarding house and was welcomed by the Captain Elisha, who, hearing his voice, strode into the hall...

But, in spite of his promise, Sylvester did not report during the following week or the next. Meanwhile, his client tried his best to keep the new mystery from troubling his tho...