Roads of Destiny

Коллекция текстов · humor

Roads of Destiny (1)
I Roads of Destiny (1) I go to seek on many roads What is to be. True heart and strong, with love to light— Will they not bear me in the fi…
Roads of Destiny (2)
The poet's fingers trembled as he tied the contrary ribbons. Then he would have fled from the danger of her presence, but the eyes grew lon…
Roads of Destiny (3)
"Friend Mignot, I affixed the seal upon the marriage certificate of your father. It would distress me to be obliged to attest a paper signi…
The Guardian of the Accolade
II The Guardian of the Accolade Not the least important of the force of the Weymouth Bank was Uncle Bushrod. Sixty years had Uncle Bushrod…
The Discounters of Money
II The Discounters of Money The spectacle of the money-caliphs of the present day going about Bagdad-on-the-Subway trying to relieve the wa…
The Enchanted Profile
IV The Enchanted Profile There are few Caliphesses. Women are Scheherazades by birth, predilection, instinct, and arrangement of the vocal…
"Next to Reading Matter" (1)
V "Next to Reading Matter" (1) He compelled my interest as he stepped from the ferry at Desbrosses Street. He had the air of being familiar…
"Next to Reading Matter" (2)
"There were about six dozen willow rocking-chairs, with pink tidies tied on to them, arranged against the walls. In one of them sat Señorit…
Art and the Bronco (1)
VI Art and the Bronco (1) Out of the wilderness had come a painter. Genius, whose coronations alone are democratic, had woven a chaplet of…
Art and the Bronco (2)
Lonny sought this man out after dinner and told his story. The artist was an unhealthy man, kept alive by genius and indifference to life.…
Phœbe (1)
VII Phœbe (1) "You are a man of many novel adventures and varied enterprises," I said to Captain Patricio Maloné. "Do you believe that the…
Phœbe (2)
"The time, Don Rafael said in his letter, was ripe. Success, he prophesied, was certain. The people were beginning to clamour publicly agai…
A Double-Dyed Deceiver (1)
VIII A Double-Dyed Deceiver (1) The trouble began in Laredo. It was the Llano Kid's fault, for he should have confined his habit of manslau…
A Double-Dyed Deceiver (2)
"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Thacker, angrily. "Don't you forget that I can upset your apple-cart any day I want to. If old Uriq…
The Passing of Black Eagle (1)
IX The Passing of Black Eagle (1) For some months of a certain year a grim bandit infested the Texas border along the Rio Grande. Peculiarl…
The Passing of Black Eagle (2)
The suggestion of Piggy's about holding up a train had fired their imagination and increased their admiration for the dash and boldness of…
A Retrieved Reformation
X A Retrieved Reformation A guard came to the prison shoe-shop, where Jimmy Valentine was assiduously stitching uppers, and escorted him to…
Cherchez La Femme
XI Cherchez La Femme Robbins, reporter for the Picayune, and Dumars, of L'Abeille—the old French newspaper that has buzzed for nearly a cen…
Friends in San Rosario (1)
XII Friends in San Rosario (1) The west-bound train stopped at San Rosario on time at 8.20 a.m. A man with a thick black-leather wallet und…
Friends in San Rosario (2)
"Two days went by and we never got a clew. It couldn't have been burglars, for the safe had been opened by the combination in the proper wa…
The Fourth in Salvador (1)
XIII The Fourth in Salvador (1) On a summer's day, while the city was rocking with the din and red uproar of patriotism, Billy Casparis tol…
The Fourth in Salvador (2)
"'Fellow citizens!' says old man Billfinger, 'In the darkest hour of Freedom's birth, when our brave forefathers promulgated the principles…
The Emancipation of Billy
XIV The Emancipation of Billy In the old, old, square-porticoed mansion, with the wry window-shutters and the paint peeling off in discolou…
The Enchanted Kiss (1)
XV The Enchanted Kiss (1) But a clerk in the Cut-rate Drug Store was Samuel Tansey, yet his slender frame was a pad that enfolded the passi…
The Enchanted Kiss (2)
"I should think not," said Tansey, promptly. Torres laughed loudly. "Valgame Dios! but I do. But it not the kind you eating now. I make a d…
A Departmental Case (1)
XVI A Departmental Case (1) In Texas you may travel a thousand miles in a straight line. If your course is a crooked one, it is likely that…
A Departmental Case (2)
"Just at present," announced the commissioner, in a formal tone, "the powers of my department appear to be considerably string-halted. Stat…
The Renaissance at Charleroi (1)
XVII The Renaissance at Charleroi (1) Grandemont Charles was a little Creole gentleman, aged thirty-four, with a bald spot on the top of hi…
The Renaissance at Charleroi (2)
The moon was now above the grove, and the yard was pied with deep shadows save where they lightened in the tender glow of outpouring candle…
On Behalf of the Management (1)
XVIII On Behalf of the Management (1) This is the story of the man manager, and how he held his own until the very last paragraph. I had it…
On Behalf of the Management (2)
"I had learned some Spanish in Mexico, so I goes out, as Denver says, and in fifteen minutes I come back to headquarters. "'If there ever w…
Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking (1)
XIX Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking (1) It was with much caution that Whistling Dick slid back the door of the box-car, for Article 571…
Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking (2)
"All right," said Boston, lowering his piece, as the other returned and took his seat again on a projecting plank in a pile of timber. "Don…
The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss
XX The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss I go sometimes into the Bierhalle and restaurant called Old Munich. Not long ago it was a reso…
Two Renegades
XXI Two Renegades In the Gate City of the South the Confederate Veterans were reuniting; and I stood to see them march, beneath the tangled…
The Lonesome Road
XXII The Lonesome Road Brown as a coffee-berry, rugged, pistoled, spurred, wary, indefeasible, I saw my old friend, Deputy-Marshal Buck Cap…