Old Mole Being the Surprising Adventures in England of Herbert Jocelyn Beenham, M.A., Sometime Sixth-Form Master at Thrigsby Grammar School in the County of Lancaster

Mr. Mole found that it is much easier to get married in life than in sentimental fiction. He never proposed to Matilda, never discussed the matter with her, only after the inter...

To him it was not at all like a vault, but like an engine disconnected from its power. The mind abhors a vacuum, and he was striving to fill the emptiness all about him, throngi...

His was a very pleasant mood to drift in and lounge and taste the soothing savor of irony, which dulls sharp edges and tempers the emphasis of optimism or pessimism. It seems to...

It did so: the tunes in it were whistled and sung in the streets, the comedians' gags became catchwords, the principal buffoon kicked off at a charity football match, and, upon...

So he would go on, whirling from one topic to another--marriage, morals, democracy, the will to power,--thinking in sharp contrasts, sometimes hardly thinking, but feeling alway...

The Head Master pondered this for some moments and then held out his hand. Old Mole looked through him and walked on. He had not gone twenty yards when he began to chuckle, to g...

It lacked theatrical effectiveness and therefore it was impossible to get its meaning or even a drift of it into Matilda's head. She learned her lines like a parrot, delivered t...

"Of course. You _look_ like a comic, but we'll see, we'll see. You couldn't write plays, I suppose? Not that there's much writing to be done when you give three plays a night, a...

In England we cling to the past, we never know to-day, we never dare open the storehouse of tomorrow, for we are all trained in the house of Mother Hubbard. I have loved England...

She showed no change save that there was a sort of effort in her self-control, as though she were deliberately maintaining her old attitude toward him. She never made any furthe...

He knew why she was sparring; he knew that to disappoint a woman in the vanity of her clothes is more immediately dangerous than to treat her with deliberate insult or cruelty,...

He determined to visit the kinematograph, and after he and Mr. Copas had completed their round and made it possible for a large number of the inhabitants of the Potteries to bec...

A SENSITIVE observer, who once spent a week in theatrical lodgings in Thrigsby, has described the moral atmosphere of the place as "harsh listlessness shot with humor." That is...

The news of the war had only just reached that part of the country, and he heard men talking of the glorious victory. At first he was alarmed, but when he heard more he laughed...

In the thick of it Old Mole, to satisfy himself, walked over to that town which is advertised as the Queen of Watering Places. There were thousands of the middle classes on the...

What if they did give it up? He began excitedly to persuade himself that they would redeem their fault, find nobility in self-sacrifice. But that would not do. He was too wary a...

Sick at heart Old Mole lay in his bed staring, staring into the darkness, and the blood in him boiled and bubbled, and his skin was taut and he shivered. He had heard of men bea...

He was brought to himself by a crash and a tinkle. He had waved his fork in the air and knocked over his last glass of claret. The head waiter concealed his annoyance in fatherl...

There was a steadying of their existence. She took her work seriously, and rested as much as possible during the day. In the evenings he missed her, and he detested having his d...

Old Mole's memory of it was hazy, but sufficiently alive to quarrel with some of the impressions he now had of it and to enable him to distinguish between the work of the actors...

They went behind and found her hot and flustered, painted, and half out of the gipsy dress in which she had made her last appearance. When she saw Mrs. Boothroyd she gave a cry...

(It is really delightful to be writing to you again. It brings you before me, as a boy, a little piping boy; as a posturing and conceited youth--do you remember the cruel snub i...