The Old Card

CHAPT PAGE ER I. THE BIG CHANCE 1 II. PISTOLS FOR TWO 20 III. A CURE THAT WORKED WONDERS 40 IV. THE ELIPHALET TOUCH 64 V. GETTING THE BEST 96 VI. QUICKSANDS OF TRADITION 113 VII...

A visit to any modern French Art Gallery will reveal a number of canvases daubed all over with little patches of primary colours, almost as though the picture had been painted w...

Eliphalet Cardomay stepped from his first-class compartment to the platform. Potter, his dresser, having descended from the train while it was still in motion, respectfully held...

Lack of concentration and cohesion are among the chief snares lying in wait for him who chronicles character rather than plot. One might, of course, hazard, by way of excuse, th...

Eliphalet Cardomay’s early life was saturated with plots which, passing through a morass of many tribulations, invariably ended with lovers embracing. It was as much the inevita...

Eliphalet Cardomay was not, in the true sense of the word, a Bohemian. In his own particular way he was rather conventional. He knew he had not been drunk by any intentional int...

Despite his remark at the conclusion of the foregoing chapter it was not Eliphalet Cardomay’s habit to look for thanks, and on the rare occasions when it was offered he usually...

People who imagine an actor’s life is all honey forget that he has to read plays, and the reading of plays is at once the most onerous and exacting of all tasks.

The effects of international politics are far-reaching. But for them Eliphalet Cardomay would certainly have produced “The Vespers.” The declaration of peace in South Africa was...

He was wearing a new broad-brimmed grey felt hat, and the seasonableness of his attire spread to a pair of dark felt spats, below which the bright spring sunshine reflected itse...

A certain old actor, whose spirit had passed above the flies, once remarked, referring to “Hamlet,” “This delightful profession of ours is ruined by perennial productions of tha...

If Eliphalet Cardomay never pretended Mornice June was his own daughter he certainly never checked her from calling him Father, or any other such title her fancy devised. A man...

“The Night Cry” was a failure—and a melancholy failure at that. Why this should have been is hard to understand, since, as a play, it compared favourably with many successful pr...

A keen eye would have failed to detect Eliphalet Cardomay’s real feelings during the last week of his last tour. Outwardly he presented the appearance of a man at ease with his...