The triumph of the nut, and other parodies

Through the long casement window, which lazily unfolded its unaustere yet deliberate length in a benediction of sunlight, not more interminable than the crepitant genuflection o...

Claude Wheeler opened his eyes, just as he had done often before. The dreary monotony of his day thus monotonously began. He turned on one elbow and gazed at his shirt hanging o...

Claude and his men, B Company, were holding the Boar’s Head trench. He knew that the German attack might be expected about dawn. The smoke and darkness had begun to take on the...

This swiftly executed manœuvre laid the _Saucy Arabella_ board-and-board the great Spanish galleon. A dozen grapnels fell and tore and shivered the timbers of the huge _San Salv...

Rosalie’s first impression was that her father owned the world. Extraordinary father! Wonderful father! Wonderful, wonderful father! There he is bounding across a field before a...

So she grew up—twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. In just that order. No twelve, fourteen, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, sixteen irregularity. A...

She’s left school! She’s looking for a job! She’s got a job—Simcox boss! She’s still got the job! She hasn’t lost it yet! Simcox dies. Simcox is buried! She’s got another—Sturgi...

Simcox then—or Simcox now—the phrases are interchangeable—man of letters, very well posted, one may say. Busy all day writing letters to himself, skipping out to put them in the...

Simcox gone, Sturgiss arrives. “Come with us!” “No!” Coy Rosalie bluffs. “Head clerk—manager—partner—sole owner—Chairman of Bank of England—Chancellor of Exchequer—anything. Onl...

Miss Keggs again—mysteriously, unaccountably called Keggo. Why? We shall see. Rosalie met her. Keggo smiling fixedly. Had evidently been smiling for some time. In a drab street,...

Harry Occleve, now. She knew him slightly. She despised him. Tame cat! She hated him. Beast! But he smelt nice. Yes, he did. Of peat and soap and tobacco and whisky and tweed—al...

He never even swore. Hanging a picture, he caught his thumb a proper crack with a hammer, that is to say, he hit it. “Mice and mumps!” cried Harry. She loved him so.

So they were married. There were children. She, not cognizant of nature’s dower to her sex, was surprised. No one had ever told her. Simcox had never mentioned it. Sturgiss said...

So she gave up her job. Spent all her time with her children. Read them the dear old things, the kind that mother used to teach, “Line upon Line,” “Step by Step,” “Mother Goose,...

“Tea! Mice and—I mean tea? Why didn’t you teach that boy that the whale swallowed Jonah?” His voice like axes thudding. “That’s the cause of this! How could he know that highway...

And Benji. Look, there _he_ is. Benji! Look, there’s the Benji one! Not much to look at, Benji. Mostly spectacles, the darling. Her Benji! He’s at school, is Benji. He’s at his...