Miss Bracegirdle and others

“There is one thing more.... I have had a very long journey. I am very tired. Will you please see that I am not disturbed in the morning until I ring.”

Then she tip-toed toward the bed. The hair and moustache looked extraordinarily black in that gray wax-like setting. The mouth was slightly open, and the face, which in life mig...

The medical officer to the court pronounced that the man had been dead three days, but whether killed by a chance bullet from a sniper or whether killed deliberately by his fell...

A tramp came through a cutting by old Jerry Shindle’s nursery, and crossing the stile, stepped into the glare of the white road. He was a tall swarthy man with stubbly red whisk...

“The land, the people who work on it, horses, cattle, game, the best way to do things for everybody. Besides, ain’t I interested in the children? The two girls’ careers at Bedal...

At three-forty-five was a rehearsal with the Railham Empire orchestra. He must get that gag right where he bluffs the trombone player in his song: “Oh, my in-laws, my in-laws, w...

It was nearly one o’clock when he groped his way up the dim staircase of his own house. The bedroom looked bleak and uninteresting. It had never struck him before in quite that...

Have you ever seen a man destroyed in that way? The spectacle is not edifying. He went rapidly from bad to worse. The miracle is how he retained his powers as a draughtsman almo...

Then a strange revulsion came over him, perhaps a deep bitterness with life, or a gambler’s lure. Perhaps it was only professional vanity. He had come here to burgle this villa,...

No such uncomfortable considerations hampered the movements of Old Fags. He was frankly and ostentatiously a social derelict. He had no pride and no shame. He shuffled out in th...

They drank and talked for a full hour, and at length got to a subject that all men get to sooner or later if they drink and talk long enough--the subject of woman. Mr. Meads bec...

In reconstructing the sombre story which gathered round the professional association of those two clever men, James Wray and Francis Vallery, it is necessary to know a little of...

A few months after the divorce, news came that Wray’s wife had died suddenly under rather mysterious circumstances, in Buda-Pesth. He returned to London, and three years after t...

At the same time it his business to mother the bowlers on his own side. He must be continually encouraging them and sympathizing with them, but in a subdued voice, so that the b...

And then he began to develop in other ways. From a slim, nervous boy he rapidly became a robustious, self-assured, florid man. His body filled out, his cheeks reddened, his hair...

I hope Harrogate is having the desired effect upon you. I was about to say that you have missed few events of any value or interest during your absence, but I feel I must qualif...

The voyage to Buenos Ayres was uneventful. The work was hard and the discipline severe, but he was conscious all the time of sensing the first draught of freedom that he had exp...

But Agnes was not so easily won. Oh dear, no! There were tears and emotion. You see, she was only a young and innocent girl. Suppose he deserted her? What assurance had she? Thi...

Yes, but what would any one else have done in that position? He couldn’t let his wife and child starve. There was only one thing he was afraid of ... his wife’s eyes. She must n...

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. Those in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this=. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, up...