Now and then in my various prowlings I have met a man with a personality; one with mental equipment, heart endowment, self-forgetfulness, and charm–the kind of charm that makes you glad when he comes and sorry when he goes. One was a big-chested, straight-backed, clear-eyed, clean-souled sea-dog, with arms of hickory, fingers of steel, and […]

It began to snow half an hour after the train started–a fine-grained, slanting, determined snow that forced its way between the bellows of the vestibules, and deposited itself in mounds of powdered salt all over the platforms and steps. Even the porter had caught some puffs on his depot coat with the red cape, and […]

“WILYUM!….._Wilyum!…..WILYUM!” It was mine host of the Ferry Inn at Cook-ham who was calling, and at the top of his voice–and a big-chested voice it was–the sound leaping into crescendo as the object of his search remained hidden. Then he turned to me: “He’s somewheres ’round the boat house–you can’t miss him–there’s too much of […]

This is Marny’s story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the time and a tack between his teeth. “Going to hang Fiddles right under the old fellow’s head,” he burst out. “That’s where he belongs. I’d have given a ten-acre if he could have drawn a bead on that elk himself. […]

I Once in a while there come to me out of the long ago the fragments of a story I have not thought of for years–one that has been hidden in the dim lumber-room of my brain where I store my by-gone memories. These fragments thrust themselves out of the past as do the cuffs […]

1909 Ezekiel Todd, her dry, tight-fisted, lean father, had named her, bawling it out so loud that the more suitable, certainly the more euphonious, “Evangeline,” proffered in a timid whisper by her faded and somewhat romantic mother, was completely smothered. “I baptize thee, Evang–” began the minister, when Ezekiel’s voice rose clear: “Abijah, I tell […]

Dinner was over, and Mme. Constantin and her guests were seated under the lighted candles in her cosey salon. With the serving of the coffee and cigarettes, pillows had been adjusted to bare shoulders, stools moved under slippered feet, and easy lounges pushed nearer the fire. Greenough, his long body aslant, his head on the […]

I I had left Sandy MacWhirter crooning over his smouldering wood fire the day Boggs blew in with news of the sale of Mac’s two pictures at the Academy, and his reply to my inquiry regarding his future plans (vaguely connected with a certain girl in a steamer chair), “By the next steamer, my boy,” […]

I A short, square chunk of a man walked into a shipping office on the East Side, and inquired for the Manager of the Line. He had kindly blue eyes, a stub nose, and a mouth that shut to like a rat-trap, and stayed shut. Under his chin hung a pair of half-moon whiskers which […]

I “What am I gwine to do wid dese yere barkers, Colonel?” asked Chad, picking up his master’s case of duelling pistols from the mantel. “I ain’t tetched der moufs since I iled ’em up for dat Klutchem man.” “Take them upstairs, Chad, and put them away,” answered the Colonel with an indignant wave of […]

“Here comes Captain Bogart–we’ll ask him,” said the talkative man. His listeners were grouped about one of the small tables in the smoking-room of the Moldavia, five days out. The question was when the master of a vessel should leave his ship. In the incident discussed every man had gone ashore–even the life-saving crew had […]

Wide of beam, stout of mast, short-bowspritted, her boom clewed up to clear her deck load of rough stone; drawing ten feet aft and nine feet for’ard; a twelve-horse hoisting engine and boiler in her forecastle; at the tiller a wabbly-jointed, halibut-shaped, moon-faced (partially eclipsed, owing to a fringe of dark whiskers), sleepy-eyed skipper named […]

I A most estimable young man was Muggles: a clean-shaven, spick-and-span, well-mannered young man–particular as to the brushing of his hat, the tying of his scarf and the cut of his clothes; more than particular as to their puttings-on and puttings-off–sack-coat and derby for mornings; top hat and frock for afternoons; bobtail and black tie […]

A row of gas jets hooded by green paper shades lighting a long table at which sit half a dozen men in their shirt sleeves writing like mad; against the wall other men,–one drawing Easter lilies, another blocking in the background around a photograph, a third pasting clippings on sheets of brown paper. Every few […]

Peter was in his room when I knocked–up two flights of stairs off Washington Square–Eighth Street really–in one of those houses with a past–of mahogany, open wood fires, old Madeira in silver coasters pushed across hand-polished tables,–that kind of a past. None of all this could be seen in its present. The marble steps outside […]

I “You eat too much, Marny.” It was Joplin, of Boston, who was speaking–Samuel Epigastric Joplin, his brother painters called him. “You treat your stomach as if it were a scrap-basket and you dump into it everything you–“ “I do? You caricature of a codfish ball!” “Yes, you do. You open your mouth, pin back […]

The big Liner slowed down and dropped anchor inside the Breakwater. Sweeping toward her, pushing the white foam in long lines from her bow, her flag of black smoke trailing behind, came the company’s tender–out from Cherbourg with passengers. Under the big Liner’s upper deck, along its top rail, was strung a row of heads […]

I He was seated near the top end of Miss Buffum’s table when I first saw his good-natured face with its twinkling eyes, high cheekbones and broad, white forehead in strong contrast to the wizened, almost sour, visage of our landlady. Up to the time of his coming every one had avoided that end, or […]

I For centuries the painters of Venice have seized and made their own the objects they loved most in this wondrous City by the Sea. Canaletto, ignoring every other beautiful thing, laid hold of quays backed by lines of palaces bordering the Grand Canal, dotted with queer gondolas rowed by gondoliers, in queerer hoods of […]

Joe Hornstog told me this story–the first part of it; the last part of it came to me in a way which proves how small the world is. Joe belongs to that conglomerate mass of heterogeneous nationalities found around the Golden Horn, whose ancestry is as difficult to trace as a gypsy’s. He says he […]