“Ship ahoy!” There was an answer from our bark–for such it seemed to me by this time–but I could not make out the words. “Where do you hail from?” was the next question. I strained my ears to catch the response, being naturally anxious to know whence I had come. “From the City of Destruction!” […]

As the twelfth stroke of the bell in the tower at the corner tolled forth slowly, the midnight wind blew chill down the deserted avenue, and swept it clear of all belated wayfarers. The bare trees in the thin strip of park clashed their lifeless branches; the river far below slipped along silently. There was […]

I After arranging the Egyptian and Mexican pottery so as to contrast agreeably with the Dutch and the German beer-mugs on the top of the bookcase that ran along one wall of the sitting-room, Cosmo Waynflete went back into the bedroom and took from a half-empty trunk the little cardboard boxes in which he kept […]

The good ship sped on her way across the calm Atlantic. It was an outward passage, according to the little charts which the company had charily distributed, but most of the passengers were homeward bound, after a summer of rest and recreation, and they were counting the days before they might hope to see Fire […]

While the journalist deftly dealt with the lobster a la Newburg, as it bubbled in the chafing-dish before him, the deep-toned bell of the church at the corner began to strike twelve. “Give me your plates, quick,” he said, “and we’ll drink Jack’s health before it’s to-morrow.” The artist and the soldier and the professor […]

I The telegraph messenger looked again at the address on the envelope in his hand, and then scanned the house before which he was standing. It was an old-fashioned building of brick, two stories high, with an attic above; and it stood in an old-fashioned part of lower New York, not far from the East […]

It was pithily said by one of old that a bore is a man who insists upon talking about himself when you want to talk about yourself. There is some truth in the saying, no doubt; but surely it should not apply to the relation of an author to his readers. So long, at least, […]