The Masterfolk

Amidst the untidy litter of torn paper that strewed the bare plank floor there stood a large double writing-table, spread with proofs and manuscript and pamphlets; and, with his...

_Wherein it is discovered that, likely enough from an Ancestor who was Master of the Horse to King Harry the Eighth, Master Oliver had inherited some Gift of Horseplay, together...

The door swung open, and a handsome woman of about thirty walked into the dingy room. She was possessed of that calm and the fresh easy manner and movement that come of generati...

The boy Noll shut the door that gave on to the narrow landing from the two large attics which were now his home, pushed back the silk hat on his head, and thrusting his hands in...

The door was opened by the grim old lady who was mother to Netherby Gomme. Her, Noll saluted cheerily. The old lady shook hands with him and darted a jealous look at the girl.

In a large and richly furnished studio that was the splendid workshop of a fashionable portrait-painter there stood before an easel a handsome fair-bearded man--handsome, though...

He pointed with a trace of disgust to the broken meats, and, as he watched the silent servant gathering up the relics of the hurried feast, all that shabby Bohemian life, the ve...

“Yes, rather! He’s setting up a studio almost next door to you--but the old rip isn’t in this evening; so, as we have the beer and stuff in a dray outside, we’ve converted it in...

In a large attic the glow of a stove, that roared of warmth, gave a sense of comfort to the spacious, rambling, rather bare room; and from its opened iron door the ruddy light o...

“Netherby,” he whispered, “when it’s within a quarter of midnight, old Modeyne will be fumbling at the door-latch down below.... I shan’t be able to help Betty to bring him up t...

“I did, mum--but he says as I was to say as he is partic’lar anxious to see you. He called before--but he was that blimey gloomy I sent him off for a walk--said as you wouldn’t...

It was a month or more before the boy was allowed to go into the country; so that it was early summer by the time they sent him away with Netherby--the small Betty being added t...

A door opened, and the echoing tramp of feet on the carpetless boards of the corridor outside ushered the entrance of two men into a large room, wholly devoid of furnishment--th...

The rich tapestries that hung the walls, the glowing colour and the beauty of the furnishments were held in restraint by the chastening, somewhat religious, atmosphere that made...

The last day of September has early bridal with the night. Though the afternoon was not full spent, the dark shadows of the coming darkness held the town. In the midst of the gl...

Caroline Baddlesmere realized that for the boy the ordinary public school life was not only beyond her means, but that it would now be a sheer waste of time. She therefore, fore...

The stripling’s voice broke, lost its treble, and for awhile was awkward to the ear, as his lank limbs to the eye; and a-top of the change the down came upon his lip, adding the...

Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre had caught the ear of the town with the brazen strains of the New Literary Movement. Fresh from France, he had written a novel, Englished in...

Sitting next to him, and admiring himself in a mirror opposite, was his friend the poet Aubrey, who, it must be acknowledged, paid but little attention to anyone but himself. As...

Literature might be born and die, and pass wholly away; but the wordy warfare of the distracted parties to each quarrel roused no such serious questioning in the most perfervid...

Mr. Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre stood at the windows of the best rooms of the best hotel in London--he enjoyed the fine view, the great reach of the Thames--the towers...

The boy was gone; into his place had stepped a youth--Noll was on the verge of manhood. And the lad had the firm mouth and the strong jaw of the Baddlesmeres.

The suburban world was a-rustle in its best clothes, sallying forth in carriage and on foot to play at being in the whirl of fashion; Major Modeyne stood in drunken dignity on t...

In the dining-room of _The Cock and Bull_ was laughter, and the clink of glasses, and some hiccup--for the dinner was long since at an end, and the guests held much wine--not wh...

They brought him home in the early morning, dead and icy cold, and laid him upon his bed; and when they were gone Betty sat by the still figure and stroked the chill hand that h...

Anthony fretted at the death of the Major--fretted at the publicity--fretted at the time of the man’s dying, and the manner; for he had decided to appeal to Betty not to spoil N...

_Wherein a Dainty Little Lady, looking out of the Window of a Shabby Home at a Shabbier Destiny, joins the Streaming Crowd whose Faces pass in the Street, drifting towards the S...

Betty, listless and lonely, and in hiding, had not been long in her new-found attic when she won the wan smile of a little old faded lady who lived in the room below.

Mr. Pompey Malahide, man of considerable wealth as he had been for years, was now grown so rich that he scarcely knew whether each fresh venture in which he launched might not b...

Betty, to avoid meeting Noll, had taken her walks abroad in the dusk only; but the restriction began to fret her will; and she had besides been compelled to the conclusion that...

So she turned on dainty heel and called a hansom--to drive her to the elaborate mansion of Mr. Pompey Malahide, who had his gorgeous dwelling amidst the rich who pay extortionat...

And Betty grew to some affection for the kindly rough man who was the clumsy lord of this elaborate house. And out of her liking grew an anxious and increasing fearfulness for t...

The millionaire was in the most hearty of good moods--could not sit still in his office--came home and could not sit still in his home. He tramped his house; was jocularly famil...

Anthony, forestalling the youngster’s fretting for the girl’s companionship, decided to send him up to Oxford at once; but with all haste it was some months before he could go,...

Betty, flung back again upon her own resources, realized that, for a woman, there were two careers elaborately ordered by the deliberate plan of the world--marriage or vice. For...

As Noll and Horace stood on the platform of the railway-station at Oxford, waiting for the London express to take them to town, Horace Malahide began to feel some discomfort abo...

Sir Pompey Malahide came into his baronetcy on a fine summer’s day; and Noll spent the resulting week of high festivities with Horace and the family, and there strengthened his...

Horace at this time by letter again urges Noll to get him forthwith and for awhile to Paris and live amongst the clouds--puts it in terms of poetry and of romance and of pounds...

In the gathering darkness of his dingy little room over the southern gate of New Inn sat Noll Baddlesmere in his shirt-sleeves, cudgelling his wandering wits for epigrams and th...

In the wintry twilight that came hazing softly down upon the city, and cast its dusky shadow over St. James’s Park, sat Noll on a bench, and by his side was Betty Modeyne. He sa...

As he went, the young fellow forestalled in his mind all the questions that Gomme’s searching humour might ask. Why was he going to Paris? He scarcely knew. He had some vague id...

It was close upon midnight when Noll, baffled in his attempt to find Gomme, his feet jigging restlessly to a new music that was in his ears, stepped it out through London town,...

Sir Pompey Malahide’s old rival was in all the agony of writing a letter, and neither Isaac Tankerton Wollup’s fat little hands with the grasping pointed finger-tips, nor his bu...

The tapestried walls showed sombrely rich, their glowing colour only half revealed by the ghostly light of the huge white candles that flamed on high, held aloft by great gilt c...

In the waning of a bleak March day, Betty walked briskly home to her rooms. It was the eve of her marriage. Noll and she were to go to Paris straight from the ceremony. Betty ha...

In her narrow old grey streets, many-shuttered, which huddle about the broad Boule Miche that is the students’ highway on the left bank of the river--in the time-honoured Latin...

A paddle-steamer cleared the long wooden jetties, and made Boulogne Harbour, hooting the announcement of her coming to the echoing wharves that flung back the chuckling hoot in...

The distant rumble of a cart--and more footsteps and again voices, of a pitch and accent that struck strangely upon her ear. And she knew she was awaking in a strange land.

On the northern heights of Montmartre, into a paved courtyard, where Horace Malahide had his rooms, several laughing students were carrying forth the furnishments from one of th...

The winter was over. Her sweet body sang to her of the gladness of the world. Her light step spoke of the gaiety of young womanhood; and her laughing eyes knew no fear of destin...

There was in and around and about the lithe beauty of the dark slender young woman, Gabrielle Solignac, much of her own strange uncanny poetry, with its stealthy Eastern manner-...

Hearing her name called, Betty roused; and, crossing the room, went to the balcony. Looking down into the court she saw the Five Foolish Virgins standing there below with faces...

From the Place Saint Michel, where the black waters of the stealthy river washed her quays in darkling passage to the far sea, the broad thoroughfare of the Boule Miche, the stu...

In a large and shabby room on the ground floor of the court, a dark blur in the gloom of the gathering dusk, crouched rather than sat the widow Snacheur--_La bête noire_, the st...

All day, Paris had been a-rattle with tap of hammers. At every street corner, baggy-trousered carpenters had been putting the last nails into the pulpits of the lightly made ban...

August and September passed, and the fever went out of the hot breath of the sun; October came into the city in cooler fashion and more russet habit. The scent of autumn in the...

It was close on midnight. In the smoke-laden air that made a blue haze within the quaint tavern of _The Scarlet Jackass_, up and down the narrow gangway between the crowded tabl...

There was little need for setting the will to a stern resolution. As Betty reached the topmost step of the high climb she paused to take breath; and from within the door she hea...

Betty had early perceived, with wise foreseeing eyes, that life’s scheme is not work nor leisure nor sleep. The human day is compact of all that makes for happy sanity--work and...

Noll took it all very much for granted, this large-hearted service of Betty to her fellows. He felt that it reflected the very greatest credit on her womanhood. It added stature...

At the tavern of _The Scarlet Jackass_ the hero of the evening was a young poet who had that day found a publisher. The wines and ale went round. Amidst uproar they were crownin...

The bleak night without was cold as God’s contempt. The March wind shrieked shrilly about the court, swung up out of the resounding blackness, tugged at the shutters of windows,...

Noll was at a gathering of little men--at a students’ tavern on the heights of Montmartre. The praises of the mediocrities flushed him. His eyes were bright; he had glittered.

As the chill grey of an April dawn crept across her silent garret, sweeping the frayed shadow of the night aside to join other lurking shadows in gloomy corners, Betty, in white...

As she blotted the last lines, there came to her hearing, from the thoroughfares of the Latin Quarter below, rollicking snatches of song, and the stir of students in noisy holid...

The shout rang through the great hall of the Moulin Rouge; and the vast crowd of dancing revellers, dressed in fancy dress, stopped their dancing and crowded towards the wide-fl...

When he awoke, heavy and stiff and chill and bewildered, he put out his feet into the darkness, and sat for awhile on the side of the bed, whilst his drowsy brain cleared from t...

Horace struck a match on the seat of his breeches as Noll flung into the chair, and handed the flame to him; and Noll, setting the light to a cigarette, saw the faces of Barthol...

The light of many candles set in a row along the white napery of the table showed but dimly in the large room, for the walls were hung with the sombre black cloth hangings that...

He pushed open the door of his studio to find the room possessed by the sombre twilight of the dawn. The heavy curtains that had hung across the great windows had been flung ope...

Horace descended from Mount Parnassus in a whirlwind. Indeed, he had a keen sense for the becomingness of things. He was the poor student to the end. He departed from Bohemia in...

The train being gone, and Horace borne away, Noll drew aside from the noisy crowd of departing students that strolled chattering and jocular from the scene of their leave-taking...

_Wherein our Hero dabbles his Hands in the Turgid Waters of Philosophy, and brings up Some Grains of Truth from a Pebbly Bottom. A Chapter that the Frivolous would do well to sk...

A misty dark night. The drizzle that slowly drenched the town met with but damp welcome the students and revellers as they poured out of the Bal Bullier at midnight; it sent the...

Noll slept till late into the afternoon, awoke heavy, and loafed aimlessly about his room, hoping to do some work before the dusk fell; but ideas were shy of him, and, as the af...

Still obsessed with the misery and cruelty of the world, he sat beside his lamp and opened the fourth book of the wisdom of Schopenhauer, whose fearless brain had compelled upon...

It was in this mental ferment that, one day, idly seating himself at the table where Betty had wrought, and brooding there, Noll put out his hand to one of the small brass knobs...

He began to see the Reality of things. He was filled with a strange excitement. He went back in fancy, and picked up the thread of the unravelling of life where it had dropped f...

In a large shed in the workmen’s quarter, on a platform, under the flare of gas-jets high hung in the dim rafters of the great place, there sat three men at a table; and before...

“It is perfectly true that they, who are the fittest, survive in the mighty struggle for life. The supreme law of life is the Survival of the Best. The best are the fittest. But...

The chill murk that swept up the narrow cobbled street in the pitchy night, swishing long wreathes of fog across the rare lamp-light, told that the river lay close at hand.

When the grey of the dawn put out his lamp’s light, that wondrous misspending energy of his had finished the essay that brought him such an uproar of notoriety and made him for...

The day on which Mr. Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre got his freedom in the divorce-courts of France, he received a challenge from a hot young blood called Solignac, first...

The Lord Montagu Askew, dainty, foppish, in the mode, and the Honourable Rupert Greppel, hidalgic, head in air, stood before a shop window in the Rue de la Paix and gazed at the...

“Dear Noll,” writes Horace Malahide about this time, “I have a son. He speaks English as yet with a strong foreign accent--but lack of experience may have more than something to...

The sunlight that had painted the white face of Paris with a hundred hues all day had given place to a gentle drizzle as the twilight fell; and the steady downpour had driven No...

When Noll had left his baggage in a quiet hotel by the Strand, and had refreshed his body with much splashing of himself in water and a change of clothes, he sallied out into th...

Pangbutt’s handsome studio had been cleared for a reception; and the deliberate old butler, throwing open the great folding-doors, walked stiffly into the room and glanced an or...

The wretched man, sunk in a dazed huddle in the midst of his splendid home, sat crouched in the gilt chair, bewildered, as one struck down by a sudden blow. Slowly his wits came...

In Mr. Sim Crittenden, the music-hall star, the adored comedian of London’s masses, what remained of the old prize-fighting ostler of Burford was severely disguised under the po...

It was the First-Night of an historic Shakespeare revival; and the theatre of the Lyceum was emptying its fashionable crowd of richly dressed women and men into the garrulous mu...

Lord Wyntwarde, his face purple with anger and his mouth uttering vile oaths that roused ugly echoes in the ruddy old Elizabethan alleys, strode up and down the flagged walk of...

The sunny morning was well spent, but Noll was pacing restlessly up and down his little bedroom at the hotel. His breakfast, scarce tasted, lay on a tray at the foot of his bed....

Noll, restless, his brain teeming with the things that had befallen him this day, fretted with the baffling dilemma of finding Betty, and alone with his conflicting moods, paced...