Happy-go-lucky

A small, spectacled, and entirely inarticulate gentleman in a very long gown, after a last glance to assure himself that my coat was sufficiently funereal and my trousers not tu...

"Come along, little thing," he said, in a voice which made Connie Carmyle's heart warm to him. "Don't be frightened. I present to you my lady mother. You will know one another i...

Upon the sofa in front of the hall-fire, self-consciously perusing a Sunday newspaper, sat a large man of slightly sheepish appearance. At the sight of Connie he rose guiltily t...

Mr. Mainwaring, Lady Adela, and party--the latter comprised Sylvia, Connie Carmyle, and Dicky--came to a standstill in the middle of the vast and empty drawing-room and looked e...

The most unpopular man in the group which we now rejoined was undoubtedly Mr. Crick, a blind faith in whose prescience had induced Miss Beverley and Sylvia Mainwaring to adventu...

It was a bleak Saturday afternoon in late February. Darkness was closing in, and the great fire in the hall at The Towers flickered lovingly upon our leading weekly review, whic...

My name is Carmyle. Possibly you may have noticed it in the previous chapter, among the list of those present at the breakfast at the Imperial. It was not a particularly hilario...

Amelia Welwyn, grievously overweighted by a tray containing her father's breakfast, tacked unsteadily across the floor of the drawing-room at Russell Square; and, having reached...

"I don't suppose he's very anxious to see any of us much," said Mrs. Welwyn candidly. "We must just get the idea out of our heads, that's all. Forget it! Then, there's that brok...

Mr. Samuel Stillbottle, notebook in hand, with a look of professional severity upon his pinched features, slowly circumnavigated the drawing-room, making an inventory of the fur...

He unfolded the early edition of the organ in question and devoted himself to a laboured perusal of the list of probable starters for the Lincolnshire Handicap, now looming in t...

"I have never been greatly interested in racing," said Lady Adela majestically. "My father was devoted to it, and so is my brother Rumborough. But I never know one horse from an...

_The victim_, continued Connie presently, _is now upon the sofa, wedged in between the Chief Ogress and the Assistant Tormentor. She is scared out of her wits, poor thing, but h...

"That's how it goes, 'Melia," panted Tilly, whirling her partner into an armchair. "It's quite easy, really; Dicky taught me in the billiard-room on Saturday night in ten minute...

He led the way into the dingy but romantic pleasance which had sheltered himself and his beloved, and the trio sat down upon a damp seat. Mrs. Carmyle, looking rather like one o...

"Yes, I know," replied her mother with an apologetic smile. "And it always does. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, ducky, and that's a fact. I have always been common in my...

They--that is, the London-and-the-south-thereof contingent of the Hivite House at Grandwich--always celebrated the first morning of the holidays by breakfasting together at the...

In the absence of the snakes this office was performed by Percy and Dicky. Directly afterwards there was a rush of feet down the staircase, and a fusilade of blows began to rain...

We found the house-party at tea in the hall of The Towers. The Mainwaring parents proved to be a little old gentleman, with grey side-whiskers and a subdued manner, and an impos...

I saw very little of The Freak the following winter. For one thing, I went abroad again. The Government of the Auricula Protectorate had decided to connect their capital with th...

The ladies, pleading fatigue after their long day, retired early, bringing a somewhat oppressive evening to a timely conclusion. Dinner had been a constrained function, for Miss...

Most of us--men, not women: a woman, I fancy, provided she knows that her hat is on straight, is prepared to look the whole world in the face at any moment--are familiar with th...

"That's done, anyhow," she said to herself, with the instinctive cheerfulness of those who are born plucky. "Now I'll go out and post it before the Family come home, and then pe...

"Mr. Mainwaring is not coming," she announced. "Dick, Hilda, Constance, Sylvia, and Mr. Crick will go in the motor. Mr. Carmyle, will you give me your company in the victoria?"

He was an elderly, undersized, seedy-looking individual, with a blue chin, a red nose, and a faded theatrical manner. In his hand he held a blue-grey slip of paper. He smiled am...

Next day I lunched with The Freak in Hall in the Inner Temple, where I was introduced by my host to the surrounding company as a "distinguished engineer, who had dammed the Nile...

The main idea of Book Three was suggested by a very minor episode in the closing chapters of 'A Man's Man.' The usual acknowledgments are therefore made to the author of that work.