Mike Fletcher: A Novel

When Mike had paid his hotel bill, very few pounds were left for the card-room, and judging it was not an hour in which he might tempt fortune, he "rooked" a young man remorsele...

During the first session Mike was hampered and inconvenienced by the forms of the House; in the second, he began to weary of its routine. His wit and paradox attracted some atte...

"I'm equally glad to see you. You have made alterations in the place ... I came down from London with a lot of Johnnies and tarts--Kitty Carew, Laura Stanley and her sister. I g...

"I don't say we have never had a suicide here before, sir," said the porter in reply to Harding as they descended the steps of the hotel; "but I don't see how we are to help it....

Seven hours had elapsed since he had parted from Lily Young, and these seven hours he had spent in restaurants and music-halls, seeking in dissipation surcease of sorrow and dis...

An odour of spirits evaporated in the warm winds of May which came through the open window. The rich velvet sofa of early English design was littered with proofs and copies of t...

For some minutes longer the men lay resting in the heather, their eyes drinking the colour and varied lights and lines of the vast horizon. The downs rose like cliffs, and the d...

thousand a year in various securities, and a property in Berkshire. So you see I can afford to be generous. I shall feel much hurt if you don't accept. Indeed, it is the least I...

Mike leaned forward to tie his white cravat. He was slight, and white and black, and he thought of Lily, of the exquisite pleasure of seeing her and leading her away. And he was...

In the dreary drawing-room, amid the tattered copies of the _Graphic_ and _Illustrated London News_, he encountered the inevitable idle woman. They engaged in conversation; and...

"All very well for you to talk. You left me at eleven to get the paper out as best I could. I did not get away from the printer's before half-past two."

Oaths, vociferations, and the slamming of cab-doors. The darkness was decorated by the pink of a silk skirt, the crimson of an opera-cloak vivid in the light of a carriage-lamp,...