Five Tales

By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men's souls. Old Jolyon could not bear a strong cigar or Wagner's music. He loved Beethoven a...

Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like bees after the flowers and the honey. “I wanted you to see them--wouldn't let them turn the cows in yet.” Then, remembering th...

“There's no law to prevent you doing what you like with your money. What I do's nothing to you. And mind you, I'm taking nothing from it--not a mag. You assist the widowed and t...

Bob Pillin rose and paced the room. In the midst of his emotion he could not help seeing himself sidelong in the mirror; and on pretext of holding his head in both his hands, tr...

“SIR,--I have received your note. I think it may be fair, before taking further steps in this matter, to ask you for a personal explanation of the circumstances to which I allud...

He only stood there perhaps twenty seconds, but visual records gleaned in a moment sometimes outlast the visions of hours and days. The electric light was not burning; but, in t...

From the corner he could only just see Megan, a long way ahead now. He ran a few steps, checked himself, and dropped into a walk. With each step nearer to her, further from the...

Old Heythorp filled his glass, drank, and filled again. He took a cigar from the box and lighted it. The girl came in, a grey-eyed, dark-haired damsel, and stood with her hands...

Keith woke at five o'clock, his usual hour, without remembrance. But the grisly shadow started up when he entered his study, where the lamp burned, and the fire shone, and the c...

Charles Ventnor was not one to let you see that more was going on within than met the eye. But there was a good deal going on that evening, and after his conversation with young...

There are some natures so constituted that, due to be hung at ten o'clock, they will play chess at eight. Such men invariably rise. They make especially good bishops, editors, j...

“I, Laurence Darrant, about to die by my own hand, declare that this is a solemn and true confession. I committed what is known as the Glove Lane Murder on the night of November...

But, after breakfast, the longing to see Megan began and increased with every minute, together with fear lest something should have been said to her which had spoiled everything...

Far-off a cuckoo called; a wood-pigeon was cooing from the first elm-tree in the field, and how the daisies and buttercups had sprung up after the last mowing! The wind had got...

[In this 1919 edition of “Five Tales” the fifth tale was “Indian Summer of a Forsyte;” in later collections, “Indian Summer...” became the first section of the second volume of...

But again Ashurst smiled and shook his head. Then suddenly he found himself being catechised about his physical achievements. He had rowed--it seemed--in his college boat, playe...

How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his well-spent past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating warmth, only pale winter sunshine. The shell can wit...

For Ashurst the wheel of slumber was wont to turn noiseless and slick and swift, but though he seemed sunk in sleep when his companion came up, he was really wide awake; and lon...

The unfortunate valet placed the bottle on the little table. 'I'll have to tell her,' he thought; 'but if I take away the port decanter and the glass, it won't look so bad.' And...

Despite the war he had enjoyed these last two years more than any of the ten since he built “Charmleigh” and settled down to semi-rural domesticity with his young wife. There ha...

The others had risen and were gathered in a knot at the end of the table; old Heythorp and Mr. Ventnor alone remained seated. The old man's lower lip projected till the white ha...

“My lord and misters the jury,” he said: “I was a hairdresser when the call came on me to join the army. I had a little home and a wife. I never thought what it would be like to...

Coming down! After all! Then she did exist--and he was not deserted. Coming down! A glow ran through his limbs; his cheeks and forehead felt hot. He drank his soup, and pushed t...