Fergus Hume

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. At two o'clock in the morning during the month of August sounds of music could be heard proceeding from a brilliantly lighted house in Park Lane, where a ball was being given by the Countess of Kerstoke. True, the season was long since over, and though the greater part of London Society had migrated swallow-like to the South of Europe in search of warm weather, still there were enough people in town to justify the ball being given, and a number of celebrities were present. Outside it was dull and chill with a thick yellow fog pervading the atmosphere, but within the great ball-room it was like fairy-land with the brilliant light of the lamps, the profusion of bright flowers, and the gay dresses worn by the ladies. The orchestra hidden behind a gorgeous screen of tropical plants was playing the latest waltz, "A Friend of Mine," and the sigh and sob of the melody as it stole softly through the room seemed to inspire the dancers with a voluptuous languor as they glided over the polished floor. The soft frou-frou of women's dresses mingled with the light laughter of young girls and the whispered confidences of their partners, while over all dominated the haunting melody with its weird modulations and suggestions of sensuous passion.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. "We had better lie down and die," said Robin peevishly. "I can't go a step further," and to emphasise his words he deliberately sat. "Infernal little duffer," growled Herrick. "Huh Might have guessed you would Joyce." He threw himself down beside his companion and continued grumbling. "You have tobacco, a fine night, and a heather couch of the finest, yet you talk as though the world were coming to an end." "I'm sure this moor never will," sighed Joyce, reminded of his cigarettes, "we have been trudging it since eight in the morning, yet it still stretches to the back-of-beyond. Hai " The pedestrians were pronouncedly isolated. A moonless sky thickly jewelled with stars, arched over a treeless moor, far-stretching as the plain of Shinar. In the luminous summer twilight, the eye could see for a moderate distance, but to no clearly defined horizon; and the verge of sight was limited by vague shadows, hardly definite enough to be mists.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. It was the high road to the village of Garsworth, wide, deeply rutted, and somewhat grass-grown, with a tall hedge of yellow-blossomed gorse on the one side, and on the other a ragged, broken fence, over which leaned a man absorbed in meditation, his eyes fixed upon the setting sun. The fence, rotten and moss-tufted, ran along the edge of a little hill, the slope of which had been lately reaped, and was now covered with bristly yellow stubble, variegated by bare-looking patches of brownish earth. At the bottom of the hill flowed the narrow river Gar, with its sluggish waters rolling lazily along between the low mud banks, bordered by rows of pollard willows and lush rank grasses which hid the burrows of the water-rats. Beyond, towards the distant hills, stretched the damp, melancholy fen-lands, with their long lines of slimy ditches, still pools of black water, and scattered clumps of stunted trees. Still further away appeared a scanty fringe of forest, above which could be seen the square, grey tower of a church, and over all glared an angry red sky barred with thin lines of heavy clouds, looming intensely black against the accentuating crimson light behind.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. "A penny for your thoughts, dad," cried Lillian, suppressing a school-girl desire to throw one of the nuts on her plate at her father and rouse him from his brown study. Sir Charles Moon looked up with a start, and drew his bushy gray eye-brows together. "Some people would give more than that to know them, my dear." "What sort of people?" asked the young man who sat beside Lillian, industriously cracking nuts for her consumption. "Dangerous people," replied Sir Charles grimly, "very dangerous, Dan." Mrs. Bolstreath, fat, fair, and fifty, Lillian's paid companion and chaperon, leaned back complacently. She had enjoyed an excellent dinner: she was beautifully dressed: and shortly she would witness the newest musical comedy; three very good reasons for her amiable expression. "All people are dangerous to millionaires," she remarked, pointing the compliment at her employer, "since all people enjoy life with wealth, and wish to get the millionaire's money honestly or dishonestly." "The people you mention have failed to get mine, Mrs. Bolstreath," was the millionaire's dry response. "Of course I speak generally and not of any particular person, Sir Charles."

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. Lucian Denzil was a briefless barrister, who so far departed from the traditions of his brethren of the long robe as not to dwell within the purlieus of the Temple. For certain private reasons, not unconnected with economy, he occupied rooms in Geneva Square, Pimlico; and, for the purposes of his profession, repaired daily, from ten to four, to Serjeant's Inn, where he shared an office with a friend equally briefless and poor. This state of things sounds hardly enviable, but Lucian, being young and independent to the extent of 300 a year, was not dissatisfied with his position. As his age was only twenty-five, there was ample time, he thought, to succeed in his profession; and, pending that desirable consummation, he cultivated the muses on a little oatmeal, after the fashion of his kind. There have been lives less happily circumstanced. Geneva Square was a kind of backwater of the great river of town life which swept past its entrance with speed and clamour without disturbing the peace within. One long, narrow street led from a roaring thoroughfare into a silent quadrangle of tall grey houses, occupied by lodging-house keepers, city clerks and two or three artists, who represented the Bohemian element of the place. In the centre there was an oasis of green lawn, surrounded by rusty iron railings the height of a man, dotted with elms of considerable age, and streaked with narrow paths of yellow gravel.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. "What IS your name?" "Susan Grant, Miss Loach." "Call me ma'am. I am Miss Loach only to my equals. Your age?" "Twenty-five, ma'am." "Do you know your work as parlor-maid thoroughly?" "Yes, ma'am. I was two years in one place and six months in another, ma'am. Here are my characters from both places, ma'am." As the girl spoke she laid two papers before the sharp old lady who questioned her. But Miss Loach did not look at them immediately. She examined the applicant with such close attention that a faint color tinted the girl's cheeks and she dropped her eyes. But, in her turn, by stealthy glances, Susan Grant tactfully managed to acquaint herself with the looks of her possible mistress. The thoughts of each woman ran as follows, - Miss Loach to herself. "Humph Plain-looking, sallow skin, rather fine eyes and a slack mouth. Not badly dressed for a servant, and displays some taste. She might turn my old dresses at a pinch. Sad expression, as though she had something on her mind. Honest-looking, but I think a trifle inquisitive, seeing how she examined the room and is stealing glances at me. Talks sufficiently, but in a low voice. Fairly intelligent, but not too much so. Might be secretive. Humph "

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. Two old ladies sat in the corner of the drawing-room. The younger-a colonial cousin of the elder-was listening eagerly to gossip which dealt with English society in general, and Rickwell society in particular. They presumably assisted in the entertainment of the children already gathered tumultuously round the Christmas tree, provided by Mr. Morley; but Mrs. Parry's budget of scandal was too interesting to permit the relaxing of Mrs. McKail's attention. "Ah yes," said Mrs. Parry, a hatchet-faced dame with a venomous tongue and a retentive memory, "Morley's fond of children, although he has none of his own." "But those three pretty little girls?" said Mrs. McKail, who was fat, fair, and considerably over forty. "Triplets," replied the other, sinking her voice. "The only case of triplets I have met with, but not his children. No, Mrs. Morley was a widow with triplets and money. Morley married her for the last, and had to take the first as part of the bargain. I don't deny but what he does his duty by the three."

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. It was an oppressively hot night towards the end of June, and the heavy still atmosphere surcharged with electricity was full of premonitions of storm. Here in London the glare and glitter of myriad lamps seemed to be crushed down by a lowering sky, in which the stars were almost hidden by great masses of sombre clouds. Every now and then a thin thread of lightning flashed ghost-like through the murky air and the low hoarse roll of the thunder which followed, seemed to warn mankind that Nature was in one of her angry moods. So hot, terribly hot, one could hardly breathe in the crowded streets, where throngs of people, well-dressed and otherwise principally otherwise were sweeping along intent on business and pleasure, paying no attention to the sultry heavens pressing so cruelly down upon the panting earth. The signs and tokens of heaven were not for them, with their sordid souls longing for gold, or their empty stomachs yearning for bread, as they worked, danced, sang, and busied themselves with the material things of this life, the same to-day as their forefathers centuries ago on the eve of that Deluge they did not believe would ever come.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. The following report appeared in the Argus newspaper of Saturday, the 28th July, 18- "Truth is said to be stranger than fiction, and certainly the extraordinary murder which took place in Melbourne on Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, goes a long way towards verifying this saying. A crime has been committed by an unknown assassin, within a short distance of the principal streets of this great city, and is surrounded by an inpenetrable mystery. Indeed, from the nature of the crime itself, the place where it was committed, and the fact that the assassin has escaped without leaving a trace behind him, it would seem as though the case itself had been taken bodily from one of Gaboreau's novels, and that his famous detective Lecoq alone would be able to unravel it. The facts of the case are simply these: - "On the twenty-seventh day of July, at the hour of twenty minutes to two o'clock in the morning, a hansom cab drove up to the police station in Grey Street, St. Kilda, and the driver made the startling statement that his cab contained the body of a man who he had reason to believe had been murdered. Being taken into the presence of the inspector, the cabman, who gave his name as Malcolm Royston, related the following strange story: -

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. "Poverty, naked and unconcealed One can endure that, with some patience, as a beaten soldier in the battle of life. But genteel pauperism--the semi-poverty of the middle-class, that lives a necessary lie at the cost of incessant worry and constant defeat--there you have the true misery of life. Believe me, Cass, there is no torture like that of an ambition which cannot be attained for lack of money." "I did not know you were ambitious, Ellis." "Not of setting the Thames on fire. My desires are limited to a good practice, a moderate income, a home, and a wife to love me. These wishes are reasonable enough, Heaven knows, yet some cursed Fate prevents their realisation. And I have to sit down and wait; a doctor can do nothing else. I must listen with such philosophy as I have for the ring of the door bell to announce my first patient, and the ring never comes. The heart grows sick, the brain rusty, the money goes, the temper sours, and so I pass the best days of my life." "All things come to him who knows how to wait," said Cass, knocking the ashes out of a well-smoked briar.

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab By Fergus Hume

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. Laurence Jen was a retired major, a bachelor, and the proprietor of a small estate at Hurstleigh, in Surrey. On leaving the service, he decided--not unwisely--that it was better to be a Triton in the country than a minnow in town; and acting upon this theory he purchased "Ashantee" from a ruined squire. Formerly the place had been called Sarbylands, after its original owners; but Jen had changed the name, in honor of the one campaign in which he had participated. He had been present at the downfall of King Koffee; he had contracted during the expedition an ague which tormented him greatly during his later life, and he had received a wound and a medal. In gratitude, it is to be presumed, for these gifts of fortune, the major, with some irony, had converted the name Sarbylands into the barbaric appellation of a West African kingdom; and here, for many years, he lived with his two boys.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. "We're on the rocks this time, Leah, smashin' for all we're worth. How we can win clear beats me." With hands which had never earned a shilling thrust into pockets empty even of that coin, Jim Kaimes stretched out his long legs and surveyed his neat boots as he made this cryptic speech. His habit of expressing himself in a parabolic fashion was confusing to his friends. But five years of marital squabbling had schooled his wife into ready comprehension, and she usually responded without comment. On this occasion, however, the subject under discussion irritated even her healthy nerves, and she replied irrelevantly. "Really, Jim, I wish you would talk English." "Huh Never knew I was talking Choctaw." "You might be, for all the sense an ordinary person can make of it." "Ah-a-a " said Jim, with the clumsy affection of a bear; "but you're not an ordinary person, Leah. I'm the common or garden ass, that can't straighten things. Now you can." "For want of a husband I suppose I must."

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. In his earlier works, notably in "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" and "The Silent House in Pimlico," Mr. Hume won a reputation second to none for plot of the stirring, ingenious, misleading, and finally surprising kind, and for working out his plot in vigorous and picturesque English. In "The Bishop's Secret," while there is no falling off in plot and style, there is a welcome and marvelous broadening out as to the cast of characters, representing an unusually wide range of typical men and women. These are not laboriously described by the author, but are made to reveal themselves in action and speech in a way that has, for the reader, all the charm of personal intercourse with living people. Mr. Hume's treatment of the peculiar and exclusive ecclesiastical society of a small English cathedral city is quite worthy of Anthony Trollope, and his leading character, Bishop Pendle, is equal to Trollope's best bishop. The Reverend Mr. Cargrim, the Bishop's poor and most unworthy proteg , is a meaner Uriah Heep. Mrs. Pansey is the embodiment of all shrewishness, and yields unlimited amusement. The Gypsies are genuine-such as George Borrow, himself, would have pictured them-not the ignorant caricatures so frequently drawn by writers too lazy to study their subject. Besides these types, there are several which seem to have had no exact prototypes in preceding fiction. Such are Doctor Graham, "The Man with a Scar," the Mosk family-father, mother, and daughter-Gabriel Pendle, Miss Winchello, and, last but not least, Mr. Baltic-a detective so unique in character and methods as to make Conan Doyle turn green with envy. All in all, this story is so rich in the essential elements of worthy fiction-in characterization, exciting adventure, suggestions of the marvelous, wit, humor, pathos, and just enough of tragedy-that it is offered to the American public in all confidence that it will be generally and heartily welcomed.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. I think it is Lord Beaconsfield who, in one of his brilliant stories, makes the clever observation that "adventures are to the adventurous," and certainly he who seeks for adventures even in this prosaic nineteenth century will surely succeed in his quest. Fate leads him, chance guides him, luck assists him, and although the adventure supplied by this trinity of circumstances may be neither so dangerous nor so picturesque as in the time of Borgia or Lazun, still it will probably be interesting, which after all is something to be grateful for in this eminently commonplace age of facts and figures. Still, even he who seeks not to prove the truth of Disraeli's aphorism, may, after the principle of Mahomet's mountain, have the adventure come to him, without the trouble of looking for it, and this was my case at Verona in the summer of 18--. The Cranstons were always a poor family, that is, as regards money, although they certainly could not complain of a lack of ancestors; and when it came to my turn to represent the race, I found that my lately deceased father had left me comparatively nothing. Not having any fixed income, I therefore could not live without doing something to earn my bread; and not having any business capacity, I foresaw failure would be my lot in mercantile enterprise. I was not good-looking enough to inveigle a wealthy heiress into matrimony; and as, after a survey of my possessions, I found I had nothing but a few hundred pounds and an excellent baritone voice, I made up my mind to use the former in cultivating the latter with a view to an operatic career.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. At two o'clock in the morning during the month of August sounds of music could be heard proceeding from a brilliantly lighted house in Park Lane, where a ball was being given by the Countess of Kerstoke. True, the season was long since over, and though the greater part of London Society had migrated swallow-like to the South of Europe in search of warm weather, still there were enough people in town to justify the ball being given, and a number of celebrities were present. Outside it was dull and chill with a thick yellow fog pervading the atmosphere, but within the great ball-room it was like fairy-land with the brilliant light of the lamps, the profusion of bright flowers, and the gay dresses worn by the ladies. The orchestra hidden behind a gorgeous screen of tropical plants was playing the latest waltz, "A Friend of Mine," and the sigh and sob of the melody as it stole softly through the room seemed to inspire the dancers with a voluptuous languor as they glided over the polished floor. The soft frou-frou of women's dresses mingled with the light laughter of young girls and the whispered confidences of their partners, while over all dominated the haunting melody with its weird modulations and suggestions of sensuous passion.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. "Gypsies How very delightful I really must have my fortune told. The dear things know all about the future." As Mrs. Belgrove spoke she peered through her lorgnette to see if anyone at the breakfast-table was smiling. The scrutiny was necessary, since she was the oldest person present, and there did not appear to be any future for her, save that very certain one connected with a funeral. But a society lady of sixty, made up to look like one of forty (her maid could do no more), with an excellent digestion and a constant desire, like the Athenians of old, for "Something New " can scarcely be expected to dwell upon such a disagreeable subject as death. Nevertheless, Mrs. Belgrove could not disguise from herself that her demise could not be postponed for many more years, and examined the faces of the other guests to see if they thought so too. If anyone did, he and she politely suppressed a doubtful look and applauded the suggestion of a fortune-telling expedition. "Let us make up a party and go," said the hostess, only too thankful to find something to amuse the house-party for a few hours. "Where did you say the gypsies were, Garvington?" "In the Abbot's Wood," replied her husband, a fat, small round-faced man, who was methodically devouring a large breakfast.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. It was about mid-day, and the train having emerged from the darkness of the St. Gothard tunnel, was now steaming rapidly on its winding line through the precipitous ravines of the Alps, under the hot glare of an August sun. On either side towered the mountains, their rugged sides of grey chaotic stone showing bare and bleak at intervals amid the dense masses of dark green foliage. Sometimes a red-roofed ch let would appear clinging swallow-like to the steep hill-side--then the sudden flash of a waterfall tumbling in sheets of shattered foam from craggy heights: high above, fantastic peaks swathed in wreaths of pale mist, and now and then the glimpse of a white Alpine summit, milky against the clear blue of the sky. On sped the engine with its long train of carriages, as though anxious to leave the inhospitable mountain land for the fertile plains of Italy--now crawling fly-like round the giant flank of a hill--anon plunging into the cool gloom of a tunnel--once more panting into the feverish heat--sweeping across slender viaducts hanging perilously over foaming torrents--gliding like a snake under towering masses of rock--and running dangerously along the verge of dizzy precipices, while white-walled, red-roofed, green-shuttered villages, shapeless rocks, delicately green forests, snow-clad peaks, and thread-like waterfalls flashed past the tired eyes of the passengers in the train with the rapidity of a kaleidoscope.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. When Spenser Tait took his seat at the breakfast table, he cast a look around, according to custom, to see that all was as orderly as he could wish. The neatest and most methodical of men, he was positively old maidish in his love of regularity and tidiness. His valet, Dormer, -with him for over fifteen years, -had been trained by such long service into the particular ways of his master, and was almost as exacting as Tait himself in the matter of domestic details. No woman was permitted to penetrate into those chambers in Earls Street, St. James'; but had one been able to do so, she could have found no fault with them, either on the score of taste or of cleanliness. The shell of this hermit crab was eloquent of the idiosyncrasies of its tenant. The main characteristic of the breakfast room was one of severe simplicity. The carpet of green drappled brown, the curtains to match, and the furniture of oak, polished and dark. On the white cloth of the table an appetizing breakfast was set out in silver and china, and a vase of flowers showed that the little gentleman was not unmindful of the requirements of an artistic temperament. Even the Times, carefully cut and warmed, was neatly folded by the silver ringed napkin, and Dormer, standing stiff and lean by his master's chair, was calmly satisfied that no fault could be found with his work. For the past fifteen years, save on occasions of foreign travel, the same etiquette had been observed, the same actions performed, for, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, the habits of Tait were fixed and determined.

Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. "I come from Eden," cried the preacher; "even from the Island of Koiau, which floats as a green leaf upon the untroubled sea. There reigneth eternal summer, but there reigneth not the Eternal God in the hearts of the heathen. Koiau is one of the dark places of the earth. There 'every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.' Yet the Lord hath not forgotten His people. The light of the gospel glimmers amid the gloom, and ours, brethren, must be the task of pouring oil into the lamp, that the flame may illuminate those who walk in darkness. Buli, the High Chief of the island, inclines his ear to the words of Salvation. He hath given a hostage to the Lord. Yea, verily; for doth not his only child abide in the tabernacles of Zion?--dwelleth she not in the land of Goshen? Tera she was: Bithiah she is, which, being interpreted, meaneth 'daughter of the Lord.' She, a brand plucked from the burning, shall yet herald the dawn of pure religion in her heathen cradle. 'It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing.'" The speaker, whose zeal thus confused his metaphors, was a herculean, weather-beaten man of some fifty years. He was clothed in rough blue serge. Wind and spray had reddened his rugged face. His hair and short beard, iron-grey and grizzled, were in disorder, and the light of enthusiasm brightened his deep-set grey eyes, peering from under their shaggy brows. He had the appearance of a sea-captain; and his raucous voice rumbled through the building as though it were carrying orders through the storming of a gale. Through long study of the Bible, he had become possessed of a certain elevated phraseology; and, couching his everyday experiences in this, he managed to deliver a lurid and picturesque discourse which enthralled his hearers.