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92 Works of P G Wodehouse

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At Geisenheimer’s

Story type: Literature

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As I walked to Geisenheimer’s that night I was feeling blue and restless, tired of New York, tired of dancing, tired of everything. Broadway was full of people hurrying to the theatres. Cars rattled by. All the electric lights in the world were blazing down on the Great White Way. And it all seemed stale […]

Crowned Heads

Story type: Literature

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Katie had never been more surprised in her life than when the serious young man with the brown eyes and the Charles Dana Gibson profile spirited her away from his friend and Genevieve. Till that moment she had looked on herself as playing a sort of ‘villager and retainer’ part to the brown-eyed young man’s […]

The Mixer

Story type: Literature

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I. He Meets a Shy Gentleman Looking back, I always consider that my career as a dog proper really started when I was bought for the sum of half a crown by the Shy Man. That event marked the end of my puppyhood. The knowledge that I was worth actual cash to somebody filled me […]

Wilton’s Holiday

Story type: Literature

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When Jack Wilton first came to Marois Bay, none of us dreamed that he was a man with a hidden sorrow in his life. There was something about the man which made the idea absurd, or would have made it absurd if he himself had not been the authority for the story. He looked so […]

She sprang it on me before breakfast. There in seven words you have a complete character sketch of my Aunt Agatha. I could go on indefinitely about brutality and lack of consideration. I merely say that she routed me out of bed to listen to her painful story somewhere in the small hours. It can’t […]

Bill The bloodhound

Story type: Literature

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There’s a divinity that shapes out ends. Consider the case of Henry Pifield Rice, detective. I must explain Henry early, to avoid disappointment. If I simply said he was a detective, and let it go at that, I should be obtaining the reader’s interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, […]

How Payne Bucked Up

Story type: Literature

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It was Walkinshaw’s affair from the first. Grey, the captain of the St Austin’s Fifteen, was in the infirmary nursing a bad knee. To him came Charles Augustus Walkinshaw with a scheme. Walkinshaw was football secretary, and in Grey’s absence acted as captain. Besides these two there were only a couple of last year’s team […]

Author!

Story type: Literature

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J. S. M. Babington, of Dacre’s House, was on the horns of a dilemma. Circumstances over which he had had no control had brought him, like another Hercules, to the cross-roads, and had put before him the choice between pleasure and duty, or, rather, between pleasure and what those in authority called duty. Being human, […]

‘The Tabby Terror’

Story type: Literature

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The struggle between Prater’s cat and Prater’s cat’s conscience was short, and ended in the hollowest of victories for the former. The conscience really had no sort of chance from the beginning. It was weak by nature and flabby from long want of exercise, while the cat was in excellent training, and was, moreover, backed […]

The Prize Poem

Story type: Literature

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Some quarter of a century before the period with which this story deals, a certain rich and misanthropic man was seized with a bright idea for perpetuating his memory after death, and at the same time harassing a certain section of mankind. So in his will he set aside a portion of his income to […]

Work

Story type: Literature

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With a pleasure that’s emphatic We retire to our attic With the satisfying feeling that our duty has been done. Oh! philosophers may sing Of the troubles of a king But of pleasures there are many and of troubles there are none, And the culminating pleasure Which we treasure beyond measure Is the satisfying feeling […]

Doesn’t some poet or philosopher fellow say that it’s when our intentions are best that we always make the worst breaks? I can’t put my hand on the passage, but you’ll find it in Shakespeare or somewhere, I’m pretty certain. At any rate, it’s always that way with me. And the affair of Douglas Craye […]

Jeeves Takes Charge

Story type: Literature

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Now, touching this business of old Jeeves–my man, you know–how do we stand? Lots of people think I’m much too dependent on him. My Aunt Agatha, in fact, has even gone so far as to call him my keeper. Well, what I say is: Why not? The man’s a genius. From the collar upward he […]

First of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, May 1916] When a seed-merchant of cautious disposition and an eye to the main chance receives from an eminent firm of jam-manufacturers an extremely large order for clover-seed, his emotions are mixed. Joy may be said to predominate, but with the joy comes […]

Second of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, June 1916] Seated with his wife at breakfast on the veranda which overlooked the rolling lawns and leafy woods of his charming Sussex home, Geoffrey Windlebird, the great financier, was enjoying the morning sun to the full. His chubby features were relaxed in […]

Fourth of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, August 1916] It was with a start that Roland Bleke realized that the girl at the other end of the bench was crying. For the last few minutes, as far as his preoccupation allowed him to notice them at all, he had been […]

Third of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, July 1916] It was one of those hard, nubbly rolls. The best restaurants charge you sixpence for having the good sense not to eat them. It hit Roland Bleke with considerable vehemence on the bridge of the nose. For the moment Roland fancied […]

Fifth of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, September 1916] The caoutchouc was drawing all London. Slightly more indecent than the Salome dance, a shade less reticent than ragtime, it had driven the tango out of existence. Nor, indeed, did anybody actually caoutchouc, for the national dance of Paranoya contained three […]

Final Story of the Series [First published in Pictorial Review, October 1916] “What do you mean–you can’t marry him after all? After all what? Why can’t you marry him? You are perfectly childish.” Lord Evenwood’s gentle voice, which had in its time lulled the House of Peers to slumber more often than any voice ever […]

The house cricket cup at Wrykyn has found itself on some strange mantelpieces in its time. New talent has a way of cropping up in the house matches. Tail-end men hit up fifties, and bowlers who have never taken a wicket before except at the nets go on fifth change, and dismiss first eleven experts […]

The painful case of G. Montgomery Chapple, bachelor, of Seymour’s house, Wrykyn. Let us examine and ponder over it. It has been well said that this is the age of the specialist. Everybody, if they wish to leave the world a better and happier place for their stay in it, should endeavour to adopt some […]

An International Affair

Story type: Literature

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PART 1 The whole thing may be said to have begun when Mr. Oliver Ring of New York, changing cars, as he called it, at Wrykyn on his way to London, had to wait an hour for his train. He put in that hour by strolling about the town and seeing the sights, which were […]

The Guardian

Story type: Literature

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In his Sunday suit (with ten shillings in specie in the right-hand trouser pocket) and a brand-new bowler hat, the youngest of the Shearnes, Thomas Beauchamp Algernon, was being launched by the combined strength of the family on his public-school career. It was a solemn moment. The landscape was dotted with relatives–here a small sister, […]

A Corner In Lines

Story type: Literature

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Of all the useless and irritating things in this world, lines are probably the most useless and the most irritating. In fact, I only know of two people who ever got any good out of them. Dunstable, of Day’s, was one, Linton, of Seymour’s, the other. For a portion of one winter term they flourished […]

The Autograph Hunters

Story type: Literature

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Dunstable had his reasons for wishing to obtain Mr. Montagu Watson’s autograph, but admiration for that gentleman’s novels was not one of them. It was nothing to him that critics considered Mr. Watson one of the most remarkable figures in English literature since Scott. If you had told him of this, he would merely have […]

Pillingshot, Detective

Story type: Literature

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Life at St. Austin’s was rendered somewhat hollow and burdensome for Pillingshot by the fact that he fagged for Scott. Not that Scott was the Beetle-Browed Bully in any way. Far from it. He showed a kindly interest in Pillingshot’s welfare, and sometimes even did his Latin verses for him. But the noblest natures have […]

Notes

Story type: Literature

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Of all forms of lettered effusiveness, that which exploits the original work of others and professes to supply us with right opinions thereanent is the least wanted. Kenneth Grahame It has always seemed to me one of the worst flaws in our mistaken social system, that absolutely no distinction is made between the master who […]

In the days of yore, when these white hairs were brown–or was it black? At any rate, they were not white–and I was at school, it was always my custom, when Fate obliged me to walk to school with a casual acquaintance, to whom I could not unburden my soul of those profound thoughts which […]

The Tom Brown Question

Story type: Literature

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The man in the corner had been trying to worry me into a conversation for some time. He had asked me if I objected to having the window open. He had said something rather bitter about the War Office, and had hoped I did not object to smoking. Then, finding that I stuck to my […]

The young man came into the smoking-room of the clubhouse, and flung his bag with a clatter on the floor. He sank moodily into an arm-chair and pressed the bell. “Waiter!” “Sir?” The young man pointed at the bag with every evidence of distaste. “You may have these clubs,” he said. “Take them away. If […]

A Woman is only a Woman

Story type: Literature

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On a fine day in the spring, summer, or early autumn, there are few spots more delightful than the terrace in front of our Golf Club. It is a vantage-point peculiarly fitted to the man of philosophic mind: for from it may be seen that varied, never-ending pageant, which men call Golf, in a number […]

A Mixed Threesome

Story type: Literature

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It was the holiday season, and during the holidays the Greens Committees have decided that the payment of twenty guineas shall entitle fathers of families not only to infest the course themselves, but also to decant their nearest and dearest upon it in whatever quantity they please. All over the links, in consequence, happy, laughing […]

Sundered Hearts

Story type: Literature

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In the smoking-room of the club-house a cheerful fire was burning, and the Oldest Member glanced from time to time out of the window into the gathering dusk. Snow was falling lightly on the links. From where he sat, the Oldest Member had a good view of the ninth green; and presently, out of the […]

The young man came into the club-house. There was a frown on his usually cheerful face, and he ordered a ginger-ale in the sort of voice which an ancient Greek would have used when asking the executioner to bring on the hemlock. Sunk in the recesses of his favourite settee the Oldest Member had watched […]

Ordeal By Golf

Story type: Literature

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A pleasant breeze played among the trees on the terrace outside the Marvis Bay Golf and Country Club. It ruffled the leaves and cooled the forehead of the Oldest Member, who, as was his custom of a Saturday afternoon, sat in the shade on a rocking-chair, observing the younger generation as it hooked and sliced […]

The Long Hole

Story type: Literature

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The young man, as he sat filling his pipe in the club-house smoking-room, was inclined to be bitter. “If there’s one thing that gives me a pain squarely in the centre of the gizzard,” he burst out, breaking a silence that had lasted for some minutes, “it’s a golf-lawyer. They oughtn’t to be allowed on […]

The Heel of Achilles

Story type: Literature

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On the young man’s face, as he sat sipping his ginger-ale in the club-house smoking-room, there was a look of disillusionment. “Never again!” he said. The Oldest Member glanced up from his paper. “You are proposing to give up golf once more?” he queried. “Not golf. Betting on golf.” The Young Man frowned. “I’ve just […]

The Rough Stuff

Story type: Literature

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Into the basking warmth of the day there had crept, with the approach of evening, that heartening crispness which heralds the advent of autumn. Already, in the valley by the ninth tee, some of the trees had begun to try on strange colours, in tentative experiment against the coming of nature’s annual fancy dress ball, […]

The Coming of Gowf

Story type: Literature

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PROLOGUE After we had sent in our card and waited for a few hours in the marbled ante-room, a bell rang and the major-domo, parting the priceless curtains, ushered us in to where the editor sat writing at his desk. We advanced on all fours, knocking our head reverently on the Aubusson carpet. “Well?” he […]

A silence had fallen upon the smoking room. The warrior just back from the front had enquired after George Vanderpoop, and we, who knew that George’s gentle spirit had, to use a metaphor after his own heart, long since been withdrawn from circulation, were feeling uncomfortable and wondering how to break the news. Smithson is […]

To the Game-Captain (of the football variety) the world is peopled by three classes, firstly the keen and regular player, next the partial slacker, thirdly, and lastly, the entire, abject and absolute slacker. Of the first class, the keen and regular player, little need be said. A keen player is a gem of purest rays […]

I found Reggie in the club one Saturday afternoon. He was reclining in a long chair, motionless, his eyes fixed glassily on the ceiling. He frowned a little when I spoke. “You don’t seem to be doing anything,” I said. “It’s not what I’m doing, it’s what I am not doing that matters.” It sounded […]

“In Denmark,” said the man of ideas, coming into the smoking room, “I see that they have original ideas on the subject of advertising. According to the usually well-informed Daily Lyre, all ‘bombastic’ advertising is punished with a fine. The advertiser is expected to describe his wares in restrained, modest language. In case this idea […]

This is peculiarly an age where novelists pride themselves on the breadth of their outlook and the courage with which they refuse to ignore the realities of life; and never before have authors had such scope in the matter of the selection of heroes. In the days of the old-fashioned novel, when the hero was […]

I could tell my story in two words–the two words “I drank.” But I was not always a drinker. This is the story of my downfall–and of my rise–for through the influence of a good woman, I have, thank Heaven, risen from the depths. The thing stole upon me gradually, as it does upon so […]

I look in my glass, dear reader, and what do I see? Nothing so frightfully hot, believe me. The face is slablike, the ears are large and fastened on at right-angles. Above the eyebrows comes a stagnant sea of bald forehead, stretching away into the distance with nothing to relieve it but a few wisps […]

To the thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the realization that we are becoming a nation of minor poets. In the good old days poets were for the most part confined to garrets, which they left only for the purpose of being ejected from the offices of magazines and papers to which […]

Indoor golf is that which is played in the home. Whether you live in a palace or a hovel, an indoor golf-course, be it only of nine holes, is well within your reach. A house offers greater facilities than an apartment, and I have found my game greatly improved since I went to live in […]

Which Shows Why Librettists Pick at the Coverlet The trouble about musical comedy, and the reason why a great many otherwise kindly and broadminded persons lie in wait round the corner with sudden scowls, their whole being intent on beating it with a brick the moment it shows its head, is that, from outside, it […]

I had always wanted to be a dramatic critic. A taste for sitting back and watching other people work, so essential to the make-up of this sub-species of humanity, has always been one of the leading traits in my character. I have seldom missed a first night. No sooner has one periodical got rid of […]

And the Six Best Performances by Unstarred Actors What lessons do we draw from the past theatrical season? In the first place, the success of The Wanderer proves that the day of the small and intimate production is over and that what the public wants is the large spectacle. In the second place, the success […]

The musical comedy lyric is an interesting survival of the days, long since departed, when poets worked. As everyone knows, the only real obstacle in the way of turning out poetry by the mile was the fact that you had to make the darned stuff rhyme. Many lyricists rhyme as they pronounce, and their pronunciation […]

“Sylvia!” “Yes, papa.” “That infernal dog of yours—-“ “Oh, papa!” “Yes, that infernal dog of yours has been at my carnations again!” Colonel Reynolds, V.C., glared sternly across the table at Miss Sylvia Reynolds, and Miss Sylvia Reynolds looked in a deprecatory manner back at Colonel Reynolds, V.C.; while the dog in question–a foppish pug–happening […]

The Haunted Tram

Story type: Poetry

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Ghosts of The Towers, The Grange, The Court, Ghosts of the Castle Keep. Ghosts of the finicking, “high-life” sort Are growing a trifle cheap. But here is a spook of another stamp, No thin, theatrical sham, But a spectre who fears not dirt nor damp: He rides on a London tram. By the curious glance […]

Tom, Dick, And Harry

Story type: Literature

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This story will interest and amuse all cricketers, and while from the male point of view it may serve as a good illustration of the fickleness of woman and the impossibility of forecasting what course she will take, the fair sex will find in it an equally shining proof of the colossal vanity of man. […]

I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare–or, if not, it’s some equally brainy lad–who says that it’s always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping. There’s no […]

Leave It To Jeeves

Story type: Literature

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Jeeves–my man, you know–is really a most extraordinary chap. So capable. Honestly, I shouldn’t know what to do without him. On broader lines he’s like those chappies who sit peering sadly over the marble battlements at the Pennsylvania Station in the place marked “Inquiries.” You know the Johnnies I mean. You go up to them […]

Have you ever thought about–and, when I say thought about, I mean really carefully considered the question of–the coolness, the cheek, or, if you prefer it, the gall with which Woman, as a sex, fairly bursts? I have, by Jove! But then I’ve had it thrust on my notice, by George, in a way I […]

I think one of the rummiest affairs I was ever mixed up with, in the course of a lifetime devoted to butting into other people’s business, was that affair of George Lattaker at Monte Carlo. I wouldn’t bore you, don’t you know, for the world, but I think you ought to hear about it. We […]

Helping Freddie

Story type: Literature

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I don’t want to bore you, don’t you know, and all that sort of rot, but I must tell you about dear old Freddie Meadowes. I’m not a flier at literary style, and all that, but I’ll get some writer chappie to give the thing a wash and brush up when I’ve finished, so that’ll […]

Absent Treatment

Story type: Literature

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I want to tell you all about dear old Bobbie Cardew. It’s a most interesting story. I can’t put in any literary style and all that; but I don’t have to, don’t you know, because it goes on its Moral Lesson. If you’re a man you mustn’t miss it, because it’ll be a warning to […]

Now that it’s all over, I may as well admit that there was a time during the rather funny affair of Rockmetteller Todd when I thought that Jeeves was going to let me down. The man had the appearance of being baffled. Jeeves is my man, you know. Officially he pulls in his weekly wages […]

Sometimes of a morning, as I’ve sat in bed sucking down the early cup of tea and watched my man Jeeves flitting about the room and putting out the raiment for the day, I’ve wondered what the deuce I should do if the fellow ever took it into his head to leave me. It’s not […]

How Pillingshot Scored

Story type: Literature

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Pillingshot was annoyed. He was disgusted, mortified; no other word for it. He had no objection, of course, to Mr Mellish saying that his work during the term, and especially his Livy, had been disgraceful. A master has the right to say that sort of thing if he likes. It is one of the perquisites […]

The Odd Trick

Story type: Literature

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The attitude of Philip St H. Harrison, of Merevale’s House, towards his fellow-man was outwardly one of genial and even sympathetic toleration. Did his form-master intimate that his conduct was not his idea of what Young England’s conduct should be, P. St H. Harrison agreed cheerfully with every word he said, warmly approved his intention […]

I From Richard Venables, of St Austin’s School, to his brother Archibald Venables, of King’s College, Cambridge: Dear Archie–I take up my pen to write to you, not as one hoping for an answer, but rather in order that (you notice the Thucydidean construction) I may tell you of an event the most important of […]

The one o’clock down express was just on the point of starting. The engine-driver, with his hand on the lever, whiled away the moments, like the watchman in The Agamemnon, by whistling. The guard endeavoured to talk to three people at once. Porters flitted to and fro, cleaving a path for themselves with trucks of […]

The qualities which in later years rendered Frederick Wackerbath Bradshaw so conspicuous a figure in connection with the now celebrated affair of the European, African, and Asiatic Pork Pie and Ham Sandwich Supply Company frauds, were sufficiently in evidence during his school career to make his masters prophesy gloomily concerning his future. The boy was […]

A Shocking Affair

Story type: Literature

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The Bradshaw who appears in the following tale is the same youth who figures as the hero–or villain, label him as you like–of the preceding equally veracious narrative. I mention this because I should not care for you to go away with the idea that a waistcoat marked with the name of Bradshaw must of […]

The Babe and the Dragon

Story type: Literature

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The annual inter-house football cup at St Austin’s lay between Dacre’s, who were the holders, and Merevale’s, who had been runner-up in the previous year, and had won it altogether three times out of the last five. The cup was something of a tradition in Merevale’s, but of late Dacre’s had become serious rivals, and, […]

Chapter 1 ‘Might I observe, sir–‘ ‘You may observe whatever you like,’ said the referee kindly. ‘Twenty-five.’ ‘The rules say–‘ ‘I have given my decision. Twenty-five!’ A spot of red appeared on the official cheek. The referee, who had been heckled since the kick-off, was beginning to be annoyed. ‘The ball went behind without bouncing, […]

The Making Of Mac’s

Story type: Literature

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Mac’s Restaurant–nobody calls it MacFarland’s–is a mystery. It is off the beaten track. It is not smart. It does not advertise. It provides nothing nearer to an orchestra than a solitary piano, yet, with all these things against it, it is a success. In theatrical circles especially it holds a position which might turn the […]

Black For Luck

Story type: Literature

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He was black, but comely. Obviously in reduced circumstances, he had nevertheless contrived to retain a certain smartness, a certain air–what the French call the tournure. Nor had poverty killed in him the aristocrat’s instinct of personal cleanliness; for even as Elizabeth caught sight of him he began to wash himself. At the sound of […]

Crossing the Thames by Chelsea Bridge, the wanderer through London finds himself in pleasant Battersea. Rounding the Park, where the female of the species wanders with its young by the ornamental water where the wild-fowl are, he comes upon a vast road. One side of this is given up to Nature, the other to Intellect. […]

A Sea of Troubles

Story type: Literature

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Mr Meggs’s mind was made up. He was going to commit suicide. There had been moments, in the interval which had elapsed between the first inception of the idea and his present state of fixed determination, when he had wavered. In these moments he had debated, with Hamlet, the question whether it was nobler in […]

Students of the folk-lore of the United States of America are no doubt familiar with the quaint old story of Clarence MacFadden. Clarence MacFadden, it seems, was ‘wishful to dance, but his feet wasn’t gaited that way. So he sought a professor and asked him his price, and said he was willing to pay. The […]

The Man Upstairs

Story type: Literature

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There were three distinct stages in the evolution of Annette Brougham’s attitude towards the knocking in the room above. In the beginning it had been merely a vague discomfort. Absorbed in the composition of her waltz, she had heard it almost subconsciously. The second stage set in when it became a physical pain like red-hot […]

A girl stood on the shingle that fringes Millbourne Bay, gazing at the red roofs of the little village across the water. She was a pretty girl, small and trim. Just now some secret sorrow seemed to be troubling her, for on her forehead were wrinkles and in her eyes a look of wistfulness. She […]

Deep Waters

Story type: Literature

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Historians of the social life of the later Roman Empire speak of a certain young man of Ariminum, who would jump into rivers and swim in ’em. When his friends said, ‘You fish!’ he would answer, ‘Oh, pish! Fish can’t swim like me, they’ve no vim in ’em.’ Just such another was George Barnert Callender. […]

When Doctors Disagree

Story type: Literature

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It is possible that, at about the time at which this story opens, you may have gone into the Hotel Belvoir for a hair-cut. Many people did; for the young man behind the scissors, though of a singularly gloomy countenance, was undoubtedly an artist in his line. He clipped judiciously. He left no ridges. He […]

By Advice Of Counsel

Story type: Literature

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The traveller champed meditatively at his steak. He paid no attention to the altercation which was in progress between the waiter and the man at the other end of the dingy room. The sounds of strife ceased. The waiter came over to the traveller’s table and stood behind his chair. He was ruffled. ‘If he […]

Paul Boielle was a waiter. The word ‘waiter’ suggests a soft-voiced, deft-handed being, moving swiftly and without noise in an atmosphere of luxury and shaded lamps. At Bredin’s Parisian Cafe and Restaurant in Soho, where Paul worked, there were none of these things; and Paul himself, though he certainly moved swiftly, was by no means […]

It was Harold who first made us acquainted, when I was dining one night at the Cafe Britannique, in Soho. It is a peculiarity of the Cafe Britannique that you will always find flies there, even in winter. Snow was falling that night as I turned in at the door, but, glancing about me, I […]

Ruth In Exile

Story type: Literature

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The clock struck five–briskly, as if time were money. Ruth Warden got up from her desk and, having put on her hat, emerged into the outer office where M. Gandinot received visitors. M. Gandinot, the ugliest man in Roville-sur-Mer, presided over the local mont-de-piete, and Ruth served him, from ten to five, as a sort […]

Archibald’s Benefit

Story type: Literature

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Archibald Mealing was one of those golfers in whom desire outruns performance. Nobody could have been more willing than Archibald. He tried, and tried hard. Every morning before he took his bath he would stand in front of his mirror and practise swings. Every night before he went to bed he would read the golden […]

Although this story is concerned principally with the Man and the Maid, the Miasma pervades it to such an extent that I feel justified in putting his name on the bills. Webster’s Dictionary gives the meaning of the word ‘miasma’ as ‘an infection floating in the air; a deadly exhalation’; and, in the opinion of […]

Pots O’Money

Story type: Literature

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Owen Bentley was feeling embarrassed. He looked at Mr Sheppherd, and with difficulty restrained himself from standing on one leg and twiddling his fingers. At one period of his career, before the influence of his uncle Henry had placed him in the London and Suburban Bank, Owen had been an actor. On the strength of […]

Out Of School

Story type: Literature

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Mark you, I am not defending James Datchett. I hold no brief for James. On the contrary, I am very decidedly of the opinion that he should not have done it. I merely say that there were extenuating circumstances. Just that. Ext. circ. Nothing more. Let us review the matter calmly and judicially, not condemning […]

Three From Dunsterville

Story type: Literature

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Once upon a time there was erected in Longacre Square, New York, a large white statue, labelled ‘Our City’, the figure of a woman in Grecian robes holding aloft a shield. Critical citizens objected to it for various reasons, but its real fault was that its symbolism was faulty. The sculptor should have represented New […]

In the crowd that strolled on the Promenade des Etrangers, enjoying the morning sunshine, there were some who had come to Roville for their health, others who wished to avoid the rigours of the English spring, and many more who liked the place because it was cheap and close to Monte Carlo. None of these […]

Ahead Of Schedule

Story type: Literature

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It was to Wilson, his valet, with whom he frequently chatted in airy fashion before rising of a morning, that Rollo Finch first disclosed his great idea. Wilson was a man of silent habit, and men of silent habit rarely escaped Rollo’s confidences. ‘Wilson,’ he said one morning from the recesses of his bed, as […]

Sir Agravaine

Story type: Literature

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Some time ago, when spending a delightful week-end at the ancestral castle of my dear old friend, the Duke of Weatherstonhope (pronounced Wop), I came across an old black-letter MS. It is on this that the story which follows is based. I have found it necessary to touch the thing up a little here and […]