To Rosamund, chief among those for whom these tales are told, The Book of Dragons is dedicated in the confident hope that she, one of these days, will dedicate a book of her very own making to the one who now bids eight dreadful dragons crouch in all humbleness at those little brown feet. ? To Rosamund, chief among those for whom these tales are told, The Book of Dragons is dedicated in the confident hope that she, one of these days, will dedicate a book of her very own making to the one who now bids eight dreadful dragons crouch in all humbleness at those little brown feet. The Book of Beasts: He happened to be building a Palace when the news came, and he left all the bricks kicking about the floor for Nurse to clear up—but then the news was rather remarkable news. You see, there was a knock at the front door and voices talking downstairs, and Lionel thought it was the man come to see about the gas, which had not been allowed to be lighted since the day when Lionel made a swing by tying his skipping rope to the gas bracket. And then, quite suddenly, Nurse came in and said, "Master Lionel, dear, they've come to fetch you to go and be King." Then she made haste to change his smock and to wash his face and hands and brush his hair, and all the time she was doing it Lionel kept wriggling and fidgeting and saying, "Oh, don't, Nurse," and, "I'm sure my ears are quite clean," or, "Never mind my hair, it's all right," and, "That'll do." "You're going on as if you was going to be an eel instead of a King," said Nurse. The minute Nurse let go for a moment Lionel bolted off without waiting for his clean handkerchief, and in the drawing room there were two very grave-looking gentlemen in red robes with fur, and gold coronets with velvet sticking up out of the middle like the cream in the very expensive jam tarts. They bowed low to Lionel, and the gravest one said: "Sire, your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, the King of this country, is dead, and now you have got to come and be King." "Yes, please, sir," said Lionel, "when does it begin?" "You will be crowned this afternoon," said the grave gentleman who was not quite so grave-looking as the other. "Would you like me to bring Nurse, or what time would you like me to be fetched, and hadn't I better put on my velvet suit with the lace collar?" said Lionel, who had often been out to tea. "Your Nurse will be removed to the Palace later. No, never mind about changing your suit; the Royal robes will cover all that up." The grave gentlemen led the way to a coach with eight white horses, which was drawn up in front of the house where Lionel lived. It was No. 7, on the left-hand side of the street as you go up. Lionel ran upstairs at the last minute, and he kissed Nurse and said: "Thank you for washing me. I wish I'd let you do the other ear. No—there's no time now. Give me the hanky. Good-bye, Nurse."

There is a woman in the state of Nevada to whom I once lied continuously, consistently, and shamelessly, for the matter of a couple of hours. I don't want to apologize to her. Far be it from me. But I do want to explain. Unfortunately, I do not know her name, much less her present address. If her eyes should chance upon these lines, I hope she will write to me.It was in Reno, Nevada, in the summer of 1892. Also, it was fair-time, and the town was filled with petty crooks and tin-horns, to say nothing of a vast and hungry horde of hoboes. It was the hungry hoboes that made the town a "hungry" town. They "battered" the back doors of the homes of the citizens until the back doors became unresponsive.A hard town for "scoffings," was what the hoboes called it at that time. I know that I missed many a meal, in spite of the fact that I could "throw my feet" with the next one when it came to "slamming a gate for a "poke-out" or a "set-down," "or hitting for a light piece" on the street. Why, I was so hard put in that town, one day, that I gave the porter the slip and invaded the private car of some itinerant millionnaire. The train started as I made the platform, and I headed for the aforesaid millionnaire with the porter one jump behind and reaching for me. It was a dead heat, for I reached the millionnaire at the same instant that the porter reached me. I had no time for formalities. "Gimme a quarter to eat on," I blurted out. And as I live, that millionnaire dipped into his pocket and gave me ... just ... precisely ... a quarter. It is my conviction that he was so flabbergasted that he obeyed automatically, and it has been a matter of keen regret ever since, on my part, that I didn't ask him for a dollar. I know that I'd have got it. I swung off the platform of that private car with the porter manoeuvering to kick me in the face. He missed me. One is at a terrible disadvantage when trying to swing off the lowest step of a car and not break his neck on the right of way, with, at the same time, an irate Ethiopian on the platform above trying to land him in the face with a number eleven. But I got the quarter! I got it!But to return to the woman to whom I so shamelessly lied. It was in the evening of my last day in Reno. I had been out to the race-track watching the ponies run, and had missed my dinner (i.e. the midday meal). I was hungry, and, furthermore, a committee of public safety had just been organized to rid the town of just such hungry mortals as I. Already a lot of my brother hoboes had been gathered in by John Law, and I could hear the sunny valleys of California calling to me over the cold crests of the Sierras. Two acts remained for me to perform before I shook the dust of Reno from my feet. One was to catch the blind baggage on the westbound overland that night. The other was first to get something to eat. Even youth will hesitate at an all-night ride, on an empty stomach, outside a train that is tearing the atmosphere through the snow-sheds, tunnels, and eternal snows of heaven-aspiring mountains.But that something to eat was a hard proposition. I was "turned down" at a dozen houses. Sometimes I received insulting remarks and was informed of the barred domicile that should be mine if I had my just deserts. The worst of it was that such assertions were only too true. That was why I was pulling west that night. John Law was abroad in the town, seeking eagerly for the hungry and homeless, for by such was his barred domicile tenanted.At other houses the doors were slammed in my face, cutting short my politely and humbly couched request for something to eat. At one house they did not open the door. I stood on the porch and knocked, and they looked out at me through the window. They even held one sturdy little boy aloft so that he could see over the shoulders of his elders the tramp who wasn't going to get anything to eat at their house.

Towards the end of November, during a thaw, at nine o'clock one morning, a train on the Warsaw and Petersburg railway was approaching the latter city at full speed. The morning was so damp and misty that it was only with great difficulty that the day succeeded in breaking; and it was impossible to distinguish anything more than a few yards away from the carriage windows.Some of the passengers by this particular train were returning from abroad; but the third-class carriages were the best filled, chiefly with insignificant persons of various occupations and degrees, picked up at the different stations nearer town. All of them seemed weary, and most of them had sleepy eyes and a shivering expression, while their complexions generally appeared to have taken on the colour of the fog outside. When day dawned, two passengers in one of the third-class carriages found themselves opposite each other. Both were young fellows, both were rather poorly dressed, both had remarkable faces, and both were evidently anxious to start a conversation. If they had but known why, at this particular moment, they were both remarkable persons, they would undoubtedly have wondered at the strange chance which had set them down opposite to one another in a third-class carriage of the Warsaw Railway Company. One of them was a young fellow of about twenty-seven, not tall, with black curling hair, and small, grey, fiery eyes. His nose was broad and flat, and he had high cheek bones; his thin lips were constantly compressed into an impudent, ironical—it might almost be called a malicious—smile; but his forehead was high and well formed, and atoned for a good deal of the ugliness of the lower part of his face. A special feature of this physiognomy was its death-like pallor, which gave to the whole man an indescribably emaciated appearance in spite of his hard look, and at the same time a sort of passionate and suffering expression which did not harmonize with his impudent, sarcastic smile and keen, self-satisfied bearing. He wore a large fur—or rather astrachan—overcoat, which had kept him warm all night, while his neighbour had been obliged to bear the full severity of a Russian November night entirely unprepared. His wide sleeveless mantle with a large cape to it—the sort of cloak one sees upon travellers during the winter months in Switzerland or North Italy—was by no means adapted to the long cold journey through Russia, from Eydkuhnen to St. Petersburg. Copyright, Illustrated version of "the Idiot" by e-Kitap Projesi, 2014

'Küük Kara Balk' kitab, yediden yetmie herkesin okuyup bir eyler bulabilecei 'dünyaca ünlü' klasik bir masal kitabdr. Masal kitab deyip gemeyin. Zira bu kitapta adalet, sorgulama, eitlik ve direnme gibi insanla ait temel temalar baaryla ilenmitir. Bu temalar siyasi adan tehlikeli olarak grüldüü iin, Kitap Türkiye’de 12 Eylül darbesi ile yasaklanr, ran’da isehala okunmas yasakl kitaplar listesinde yer alr. Hatta bu masal kitaplar gencecik yanda Samed Behrengi’nin hayatna mal olur. Yazar, 28 yanda hayatn kaybeder. Aras Irma’nn kar kysnda lü olarak bulunur. Küük Kara Balk kitabnn zeti u ekildedir: Bir zamanlar küük bir kara balk vardr. Küük kara balk bir sabah erkenden uyanr ve annesini de uyandrr. Sabah sabah ne olduunu anlayamayan anne balk yavrusuna kendisini neden uyandrdn sorar. Küük kara balk ise annesine yuvasna uzak olan bir yere gitmek istediini syler. Annesi yavrusunun byle bir fikirden vazgemesini ister. Küük kara balk ok kararldr fikrinden vazgemez. Küük kara baln annesiyle konumalarn duyan komular da gelir. Küük kara baln fikrini duyan komular kzar. Farkl akarsular, denizleri, okyanuslar kefetmek de ne demektir. Bilinmeyen yerlere gitmemek gerekir. Komular küük kara bala buradan gitmemesini eer giderse de buraya tekrar dnemeyeceini dnerse de onu ldüreceklerini sylerler. Küük kara balk her eye ramen yola kar. Bakalarn korkutan bu plan onu heyecanlandrr, mutlu eder. Küük kara balk yüzerek alayann en ucuna gelir ve kendini aaya brakr. Bir bakar ki bir glün iindedir. Etrafna baknca bir sürü küük kara balkklarn suyun iinde olduunu grür. Kurbaalar kendilerini ok üstün ve güzel grür. Küük kara bal küümserler. Küük kara balk balkklara kendilerini bu kadar beenmemeleri gerektiini, daha bir sürü güzel baln olduunu syler. Kocaman bir kurbaa gelir ve küük kara bal uyarr. Balkklarla bu ekilde konumamasn syler ve onu kovalar. Küük kara balk kaar ve kendini bir dere yatanda bulur. Burada da bir yenge ve kertenkele ile tanr. Yengeten uzak durmaya alr; ünkü yenge her an kskala onu yakalamaya alr. Kertenkele ile sohbete balayan küük kara balk ona pelikanlar, testerebalklar ve balkllar hakknda bildiklerini sorar. Kertenkele bunlar hakknda bilgi sahibi olmadn sylemekle birlikte eer bir pelikana yakalanrsa onun kesesini yrtabilecei bir bak hediye eder. Küük kara balk teekkür ederek yola kar. nce bir rmaa urar sonra da denize ular. Yolculuu srasnda ok farkl canllarla karlar. Küük kara balk Kepeli Ku’a rastlar. Kepeli ku korkun bir kutur. Küük kara bal yutar. Küük kara balk yanndaki bakla kepeli kuu en zayf yerinden bakla deler ve onun iinden kar, yani kepeli kutan kurtulmu olur. O günden sonra da küük kara bal gren olmaz.

Biri var idi, biri yox idi. Bir yoxsul ?eher var idi. Bu ?eherin insanlari ?ox mehriban v? k?m?ksever idil?r. Amma pad?ah ??h?rd?ki insanlarin bütün var-d?vl?tl?rini ?l? kecirmi?di .Bu k?ndd? bir sirrli ma?ara var idi.?fsan?l?r? g?r? bu ma?ara 3 qarda? div t?r?find?n qorunurdu. Ora getmeye he? k?sin hün?ri ?atmirdi.Bir gün ??h?r ?halisinin yarisi s?zü bir yere qoydular ki,bu ma?araya gedey. Onlar yaraqlanin-yasaqlanib yola dü?dül?r. N?hay?t ma?araya g?lib ?atdilar. Ma?aranin sahibi 3 divin burada olmad???n? g?r?n ??h?rlil?r ma?araya girdil?r. Ancaq bunlardan biri ma?araya girm?yib da??n arxas?nda gizl?ndi. ??h?rlil?r ala bil?c?kl?ri q?d?r q?z?l g?türüb ma?aradan ?ixmaq ist?y?nd? divl?r g?ldi. Ma?aran?n ??x???n? b?yük da?la ba?ladilar v? ??h?rlil?r i??rid? qald?. Da??n arxas?nda gizl?n?n ??h?rli divl?r? g?rünm?d?n buradan getdi. O tez g?lib ??h?rin dig?r yar?s?na ?hvalat? na??l etdi. ??h?rlil?r silahlan?b ma?araya getdil?r ve 3 divl? mübariz? apard?lar. ?

Foto?raf makinesi, insan o?lunun en ?nemli icatlar?ndan biridir. Bir foto?raf, ‘’an’’ denilen k?sac?k bir zaman?n tan???d?r. Ancak onda bir tarihi yakalamak da mümkündür. Bu bak?mdan foto?raf? sadece g?rsel bir obje olarak g?rmemek gerekir. Bakmas?n? bilenler i?in foto?raf; tarih, sosyoloji, psikoloji, kültürel yap?, sosyal de?i?im… konular?n ?nemli ip u?lar? i?erir. Foto?raf; g?rüp g?sterme, ger?e?i g?rünür k?lma, ger?e?i kavratmad?r. Her foto?raf?n bir dili vard?r. O dili anlayabilenler, nice güzellikleri ke?federler. Foto?rafta sadece g?rüneni de?il, g?sterilmek isteneni de bilmek ve alg?lamak gerekir. Her foto?raf bir ‘’an’’? yakalasa da onun i?inde sakl? bir hik?ye bulunur. Foto?raf, g?rselli?iyle beraber; topluma, zamana, mekana ve bireylere ili?kin bilgi ve belgelerle doludur. Foto?raf bireylerin ve toplumun aynas?d?r. Bu albüm-kitapta siz kendinizi bulacaks?n?z. Mahalleniz, k?yünüz, hat?ralar?n?z, akraba ve dostlar?n?z burada, sizin kar??n?zda olacakt?r. Sizleri ‘’Ge?mi?ten Gelece?e Emirda? ‘’ gezintisine ??kar?yoruz. Bu albüm-kitap Emirda?’?n tarihi süre? i?inde ge?ti?i a?amalar? da yans?tarak, gelece?imize ???k tutacakt?r. Emirda?’?n sosyal de?i?imini kitapta g?rmek mümkündür Foto?raflar grupla?t?r?larak okuyucuya kolayl?k sa?lanm??t?r. Genel, askerlik, ?ar??-pazar, bayramlar, spor, e?itim, tar?m-hayvanc?l?k, otobüs?ülük, aile, k?yler, ?ehreler, g??, yayla, bina-yap?lar, milli mücadele ve yat?rlara ait foto?raflar bir araya toplanm??t?r. “Ge?mi?ten Gelece?e Emirda?”?n olu?mas?nda eme?i ge?en, katk? sa?layan tüm Emirda?’l?lara te?ekkür ederim.. ? Ak?n A?CA Emirda? Kaymakam?

At nine o'clock on the morning of the first of May, 1919, a young man spoke to the room clerk at the Bilt-more Hotel, asking if Mr. Philip Dean were registered there, and if so, could he be connected with Mr. Dean's rooms. The inquirer was dressed in a well-cut, shabby suit. He was small, slender, and darkly handsome; his eyes were framed above with unusually long eyelashes and below with the blue semicircle of ill health, this latter effect heightened by an unnatural glow which colored his face like a low, incessant fever. Mr. Dean was staying there. The young man was directed to a telephone at the side. After a second his connection was made; a sleepy voice hello'd from somewhere above.

Jim Powell was a Jelly-bean. Much as I desire to make him an appealing character, I feel that it would be unscrupulous to deceive you on that point. He was a bred-in-the-bone, dyed-in-the-wool, ninety-nine three-quarters per cent Jelly-bean and he grew lazily all during Jelly-bean season, which is every season, down in the land of the Jelly-beans well below the Mason-Dixon line.Now if you call a Memphis man a Jelly-bean he will quite possibly pull a long sinewy rope from his hip pocket and hang you to a convenient telegraph-pole. If you Call a New Orleans man a Jelly-bean he will probably grin and ask you who is taking your girl to the Mardi Gras ball. The particular Jelly-bean patch which produced the protagonist of this history lies somewhere between the two—a little city of forty thousand that has dozed sleepily for forty thousand years in southern Georgia occasionally stirring in its slumbers and muttering something about a war that took place sometime, somewhere, and that everyone else has forgotten long ago.

Trees filtering light onto dapple grass. Trees like tall, languid ladies with feather fans coquetting airily with the ugly roof of the monastery. Trees like butlers, bending courteously over placid walks and paths. Trees, trees over the hills on either side and scattering out in clumps and lines and woods all through eastern Maryland, delicate lace on the hems of many yellow fields, dark opaque backgrounds for flowered bushes or wild climbing garden. Some of the trees were very gay and young, but the monastery trees were older than the monastery which, by true monastic standards, wasn't very old at all. And, as a matter of fact, it wasn't technically called a monastery, but only a seminary; nevertheless it shall be a monastery here despite its Victorian architecture or its Edward VII additions, or even its Woodrow Wilsonian, patented, last-a-century roofing. Out behind was the farm where half a dozen lay brothers were sweating lustily as they moved with deadly efficiency around the vegetable-gardens. To the left, behind a row of elms, was an informal baseball diamond where three novices were being batted out by a fourth, amid great chasings and puffings and blowings. And in front as a great mellow bell boomed the half-hour a swarm of black, human leaves were blown over the checker-board of paths under the courteous trees.Some of these black leaves were very old with cheeks furrowed like the first ripples of a splashed pool. Then there was a scattering of middle-aged leaves whose forms when viewed in profile in their revealing gowns were beginning to be faintly unsymmetrical. These carried thick volumes of Thomas Aquinas and Henry James and Cardinal Mercier and Immanuel Kant and many bulging note-books filled with lecture data.

In 1915 Horace Tarbox was thirteen years old. In that year he took the examinations for entrance to Prince-ton University and received the Grade A—excellent—in C?sar, Cicero, Vergil, Xenophon, Homer, Algebra, Plane Geometry, Solid Geometry, and Chemistry.??Two years later while George M. Cohan was composing "Over There," Horace was leading the sophomore class by several lengths and digging out theses on "The Syllogism as an Obsolete Scholastic Form," and during the battle of Ch?teau-Thierry he was sitting at his desk deciding whether or not to wait until his seventeenth birthday before beginning his series of essays on "The Pragmatic Bias of the New Realists."??After a while some newsboy told him that the war was over, and he was glad, because it meant that Peat Brothers, publishers, would get out their new edition of "Spinoza's Improvement of the Understanding." Wars were all very well in their way, made young men self-reliant or something but Horace felt that he could never forgive the President for allowing a brass band to play under his window the night of the false armistice, causing him to leave three important sentences out of his thesis on "German Idealism."

The clever fox made friends with the crane. The clever fox once had a notion to treat the crane to dinner and went to invite him to her house."Come godfather! Come dear! How I'll entertain you!"The crain went to the dinner party.The clever fox had cooked farina cereal and spread it over a plate.She served it and urged. "Eat, my friend-godfather, I cooked it myself. "

Far out in the ocean the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass. But it is very deep too. It goes down deeper than any anchor rope will go, and many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea. It is down there that the sea folk live. Now don't suppose that there are only bare white sands at the bottom of the sea. No indeed! The most marvelous trees and flowers grow down there, with such pliant stalks and leaves that the least stir in the water makes them move about as though they were alive. All sorts of fish, large and small, dart among the branches, just as birds flit through the trees up here. From the deepest spot in the ocean rises the palace of the sea king. Its walls are made of coral and its high pointed windows of the clearest amber, but the roof is made of mussel shells that open and shut with the tide. This is a wonderful sight to see, for every shell holds glistening pearls, any one of which would be the pride of a queen's crown.

ONCE time ago, there lived an old man and old woman. The old man said, "Old woman, make me a little bun." "What can I make it from? I have no flour." "Eh, eh, old woman! Scrape the cupboard, sweep the flour bin, and you will find enough flour. "The old woman picked up a duster, scraped the cupboard, swept the flour bin and gathered about two handfuls of flour. She mixed the dough with sour cream, fried it in butter, and put the bun on the window sill to cool. The bun lay and lay there. Suddenly it rolled off the window sill to the bench, from the bench to the floor, from the floor to the door. Then it rolled over the threshold to the entrance hall, from the entrance hall to the porch, from the porch to the courtyard, from the courtyard trough the gate and on and on.

This don't pretend to be "Literature."??This is just a tale for red-blooded folks who want a story and not just a lot of "psychological" stuff or "analysis."??Boy, you'll love it! Read it here, see it in the movies, play it on the phonograph, run it through the sewing-machine.??* * *??It was night in the mountains of Kentucky. Wild hills rose on all sides. Swift mountain streams flowed rapidly up and down the mountains.?Jemima Tantrum was down at the stream, brewing whiskey at the family still.??She was a typical mountain girl.

This is a Pussy called Miss Moppet, she thinks she has heard a mouse!??This is the Mouse peeping out behind the cupboard, and making fun of Miss Moppet. He is not afraid of a kitten.??This is Miss Moppet jumping just too late; she misses the Mouse and hits her own head.??She thinks it is a very hard cupboard!??The Mouse watches Miss Moppet from the top of the cupboard.??Miss Moppet ties up her head in a duster, and sits before the fire.??The Mouse thinks she is looking very ill. ?He comes sliding down the bell-pull.??Miss Moppet looks worse and worse. The Mouse comes a little nearer.??Miss Moppet holds her poor head in her paws, and looks at him through a hole in the duster. The Mouse comes very close.??And then all of a sudden—Miss Moppet jumps upon the Mouse!!

ONCE upon a time there was a very beautiful doll's-house; it was red brick with white windows, and it had real muslin curtains and a front door and a chimney.??IT belonged to two Dolls called Lucinda and Jane; least it belonged to Lucinda, but she never ordered meals.?Jane was the Cook; but she never did any cooking, because the dinner had been bought ready-made, in a box full of shavings. ??THERE were two red lobsters and a ham, a fish, a pudding, and some pears and oranges.?They would not come off the plates, but they were extremely beautiful.?ONE morning Lucinda and Jane had gone out for a drive in the doll's perambulator. There was no one in the nursery, and it was very quiet. Presently there was a little scuffling, scratching noise in a corner near the fire-place, where there was a hole under the skirting-board.?Tom Thumb put out his head for a moment, and then popped it in again.?Tom Thumb was a mouse. ??A MINUTE afterwards, Hunca Munca, his wife, put her head out, too; and when she saw that there was no one in the nursery, she ventured out on the oilcloth under the coal-box.

"Gadsby" is a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright. The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized thanks to the efforts of protagonist John Gadsby and a youth group he organizes.The novel is written as a lipogram and does not include words that contain the letter "e". Though self-published and little-noticed in its time, the book is a favourite of fans of constrained writing and is a sought-after rarity among some book collectors. Later editions of the book have sometimes carried the alternative subtitle "50,000 Word Novel Without the Letter 'E'". In 1968, the novel entered the public domain in the United States due to failure to renew copyright in the 28th year after publication.

Este Leopardi un poet pesimist, aa cum l-a clasat tradiia Nu. Din perspectiva zilei de azi, el apare mai degrab ca un poet tragic, ca un exponent al categoriilor existeniale fundamentale. Nu moartea ca atare l sperie pe Leopardi, ci murirea, adic manifestarea ei procesual. Tot astfel viaa leopardian este vieuire. Desfurarea acestora e inversat: trirea vieii (vieuirea) e retrospectiv, iar trirea morii (murirea) e perspectiv. Inversiunea ontologic este temeiul mitopo(i)eticii leopardiene. Cartea ne propune un Leopardi modern i postmodern, un spirit intercultural i multicultural n siajul integrrii europene. Nu lipsete, bineneles, odiseea receptrii lui n spaiul cultural romnesc, ca pattern al lirismului arhetipal, alturi de Eminescu.” (Mihai Cimpoi)Un studiu incitant despre unul dintre cei mai mari poei ai lumii.

Suddenly we heard a yelp and a volley of furious blasphemy from the companion hatchway, and the deformed man with the black face came up hurriedly. He was immediately followed by a heavy red-haired man in a white cap. At the sight of the former the staghounds, who had all tired of barking at me by this time, became furiously excited, howling and leaping against their chains. The black hesitated before them, and this gave the red-haired man time to come up with him and deliver a tremendous blow between the shoulder-blades. The poor devil went down like a felled ox, and rolled in the dirt among the furiously excited dogs. It was lucky for him that they were muzzled. The red-haired man gave a yawp of exultation and stood staggering, and as it seemed to me in serious danger of either going backwards down the companion hatchway or forwards upon his victim. So soon as the second man had appeared, Montgomery had started forward. “Steady on there!” he cried, in a tone of remonstrance. A couple of sailors appeared on the forecastle. The black-faced man, howling in a singular voice rolled about under the feet of the dogs. No one attempted to help him. The brutes did their best to worry him, butting their muzzles at him. There was a quick dance of their lithe grey-figured bodies over the clumsy, prostrate figure. The sailors forward shouted, as though it was admirable sport. Montgomery gave an angry exclamation, and went striding down the deck, and I followed him. The black-faced man scrambled up and staggered forward, going and leaning over the bulwark by the main shrouds, where he remained, panting and glaring over his shoulder at the dogs. The red-haired man laughed a satisfied laugh. “Look here, Captain,” said Montgomery, with his lisp a little accentuated, gripping the elbows of the red-haired man, “this won't do!” I stood behind Montgomery. The captain came half round, and regarded him with the dull and solemn eyes of a drunken man. “Wha' won't do?” he said, and added, after looking sleepily into Montgomery's face for a minute, “Blasted Sawbones!” With a sudden movement he shook his arms free, and after two ineffectual attempts stuck his freckled fists into his side pockets.“That man's a passenger,” said Montgomery. “I'd advise you to keep your hands off him.” “Go to hell!” said the captain, loudly. He suddenly turned and staggered towards the side. “Do what I like on my own ship,” he said.

Though flattered by imitators galore Miss Potter's work stands supreme. Her many picture stories should be among the first books owned by children.Cecily Parsley lived in a pen,And brewed good ale for gentlemen; Gentlemen came every day,Till Cecily Parsley ran away.

One Thursday, Camille, on returning from his office, brought with him a great fellow with square shoulders, whom he pushed in a familiar manner into the shop. "Mother," he said to Madame Raquin, pointing to the newcomer, "do you recognise this gentleman?" The old mercer looked at the strapping blade, seeking among her recollections and finding nothing, while Therese placidly observed the scene. "What!" resumed Camille, "you don't recognise Laurent, little Laurent, the son of daddy Laurent who owns those beautiful fields of corn out Jeufosse way. Don't you remember? I went to school with him; he came to fetch me of a morning on leaving the house of his uncle, who was our neighbour, and you used to give him slices of bread and jam." All at once Madame Raquin recollected little Laurent, whom she found very much grown. It was quite ten years since she had seen him. She now did her best to make him forget her lapse of memory in greeting him, by recalling a thousand little incidents of the past, and by adopting a wheedling manner towards him that was quite maternal. Laurent had seated himself. With a peaceful smile on his lips, he replied to the questions addressed to him in a clear voice, casting calm and easy glances around him. "Just imagine," said Camille, "this joker has been employed at the Orleans-Railway-Station for eighteen months, and it was only to-night that we met and recognised one another—the administration is so vast, so important!" As the young man made this remark, he opened his eyes wider, and pinched his lips, proud to be a humble wheel in such a large machine. Shaking his head, he continued: "Oh! but he is in a good position. He has studied. He already earns 1,500 francs a year. His father sent him to college. He had read for the bar, and learnt painting. That is so, is it not, Laurent? You'll dine with us?" "I am quite willing," boldly replied the other. He got rid of his hat and made himself comfortable in the shop, while Madame Raquin ran off to her stewpots. Therese, who had not yet pronounced a word, looked at the new arrival. She had never seen such a man before. Laurent, who was tall and robust, with a florid complexion, astonished her. It was with a feeling akin to admiration, that she contemplated his low forehead planted with coarse black hair, his full cheeks, his red lips, his regular features of sanguineous beauty. For an instant her eyes rested on his neck, a neck that was thick and short, fat and powerful. Then she became lost in the contemplation of his great hands which he kept spread out on his knees: the fingers were square; the clenched fist must be enormous and would fell an ox.