CHAPTER I. THE SMUGGLED SUPPER.

Outside the bedroom the night was black and still.

The small rain fell too softly to be heard in the garden; not a leaf stirred in the airless calm; the watch-dog was asleep, the cats were indoors; far or near, under the murky heaven, not a sound was stirring.

Inside the bedroom the night was black and still.

Miss Ladd knew her business as a schoolmistress too well to allow night-lights; and Miss Ladd’s young ladies were supposed to be fast asleep, in accordance with the rules of the house. Only at intervals the silence was faintly

part company.”

Mayhew stared in alarm for a moment, then he said:

“There’s no use talking about parting. I only want to kind of hold you in check. You get your sympathies stirred up and make plunges sometimes when you ought to act with a clear head. You say the crop looks well; then, it’s all right. Go ahead, Mrs. Stark. Anything Nelson does is agreeable to me.”

“Well, it’s mighty good of you both,” the old woman said, wiping tears of joy from her eyes. “No, I won’t buy anything today. I’ll ride out to the farm as quick as I can and tell Peter the good news. He’s mighty

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note:

This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.

Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are referenced.

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

RUDYARD KIPLING

VOLUME IV

IN BLACK

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION

Since the first edition of _Ralph 124C 41+_ in 1925, an eventful quarter century has passed. Since I first wrote the story, 39 amazing years have been swallowed into the Einstein space-time-continuum--years pregnant with scientific progress.

Since 1925, the 5,000-edition volume has had a rather remarkable career. It has been quoted by hundreds of authorities both great and small, in hundreds of publications--not only in the United States but also in many other countries. Whenever a history of science-fiction was written, _Ralph_ nearly alwa

CHAPTER I.

+SOMEWHAT FABULOUS+.

“Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole.”——COLERIDGE.

During the Decian persecution, seven inhabitants of Ephesus retired to a cave, six were persons of some consequence, the seventh was their servant; from hence they despatched the attendant occasionally to purchase food for them. Decius, who like most tyrants possessed long ears, hearing of this, ordered the mouth of the cave to be stopped up while the fugitives were sleeping. After a lapse of some hundred years, a part of the masonry at the mouth of the cave falling,

CHAPTER I.

Autumn in the New Forest--Red colour in mammals--November mildness--A house by the Boldre--An ideal spot for small birds--Abundance of nests--Small mammals and the weasel's part--Voles and mice--Hornet and bank-vole--Young shrews--A squirrel's visit--Green woodpecker's drumming-tree--Drumming of other species--Beauty of great spotted woodpecker--The cuckoo controversy--A cuckoo in a robin's nest--Behaviour of the cuckoo--Extreme irritability--Manner of ejecting eggs and birds from the nest--Loss of irritability--Insensibility of the parent robins--Dis

Part II. Yet for persons not well acquainted with zoology, it will perhaps

be advisable to read the more important articles of Part IV. (and especially the observations at the end of each order) after Part II., thus making Part III. the conclusion of the work.

Part IV. is, in fact, a book of reference, in which the distribution of all

the families and most of the genera of the higher animals, is given in systematic order. Part III. is treated somewhat more popularly; and, although it is necessarily crowded with scientific names (without which the inferences and con

WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS

Being the Personal Narrative of Ross Sidney, Diver

By Holman Day

New York And London: Harper Brothers

1917

WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS

I--BEING THE STRUGGLE OP AN AMATEUR AUTHOR TO GET A FAIR START

SPEAKING of money--and it’s a mighty popular topic--the investment of the first twenty-five cents I ever earned, all at a crack, ought to have directed my feet, my thoughts, and my future along the straight and narrow way. Ten minutes after I had galloped gleefully home with that quarter-dollar from Judge Kingsley’s hay-field, my good mo