JOHN ROMALEES was starving. A man of education, by no means a fool, not thirty years of age, tall and well looking, he was walking London’s streets for the third day since his last meal. He had tried to enlist, but his eyesight was defective; he had tried the labor exchanges, but no one wanted a man who could merely speak four languages and write B.A. after his name.By Thomas Le Breton27 min
LIGHT flashed out from the cabin: Aunt Zarepta had set all in order there, and lit the fire. Hearne Lusk lifted his seventeen-year-old, stolen bride down over the wagon-wheel and drove on to the small log shed, to put up his team. Florida hesitated shyly at the gate where she had been left, childishly timid lest the old woman linger still in the house.By Alice MacGowan23 min
BETWEEN the world of politics and the atmosphere of diplomacy a wide gulf seems fixed. The one is a reality and obvious to the common man, because in the political world the common man has a voice. It is a game he understands and it is to a great extent played in the open: the politician seeks the platform where all the world may hear him and acclaim his genius.By M. O. Hammond19 min
COLONEL COPP was a little man with a benevolent head of white hair, a red cherubic countenance, and one of the astutest minds in the city. The dinners which he was in the habit of giving at the Hotel Cecil, where he had a suberb suite, were absolute epochs in lavish hospitality and gastronomic excellence.By Frank E. Verney17 min
THIS being a beautiful day, and the sunshine more brilliant than is usual on a September morning in this part of the world, we unanimously agreed to dedicate its hours to one of the most interesting of the neighboring chateaux. The most important question upon which we were not unanimous was whether Chenonceaux or Chinon should be the goal of our pilgrimage.By Anne Hollingsworth Wharton17 min
THIS is the story of a man—half boy and half man—who set out to build himself a great castle, and when he had pulled great stones together ready for the raising of the walls and the towers of the building, and when he had even raised some of the walls to a height which showed how great a castle it was to be—he suddenly left off at his castle-building and went away with men who told him that there was a greater work to be done; who told him of a land of dragons, and who said that it would be much better work to go in for killing the dragons than for finishing the walls of the castle.By James Grant17 min
TO be able to ride free on a railroad train is one of those blissful sensations which is probably more enjoyed in imagination by people who do not have passes than it is in reality by those who do. It is such a commonplace to the man with a pocketful of annuals to travel around for nothing, that he soon ceases to enjoy the experience.By W. Arnot Craick16 min
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