द बास्केटबॉल

द बास्केटबॉल a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder. “They will have to!” was the confident reply. “I’ll draw up a report the moment we strike camp! But now we’ll have to run for our train. I’ve been so interested, I forgot the time.”,Mr Greyquill entered the room by two paces, and placing his hand upon the spot where he supposed his heart to lie, made three separate bows to the company, each of the "Your most humble and obedient servant" school; it was an expression of ceremony which for mingled respect and senility should have pleased, as it no doubt did please, Miss Acton.,This act opened with a hidden chorus that lasted two or three moments, the fairies on the one hand inviting the elves and gnomes to join them; the others responding. While this was in progress Billy rushed to the boys’ dressing room and talked furiously but straight to the purpose.,“I forgot to ask what this here thing you give me might be for.”,"What a curious child you are!" he says, at length. "You are never the same for two minutes together."，"I mean that she shall remain just as she is. The world may be 'given to lying,' as Shakspeare tells us, but I will not have Mona tutored into telling fashionable falsehoods," says this intrepid young man facing his mother without a qualm of a passing dread. "A lie of any sort is base, and a prevarication is only a mean lie. She is truthful, let her stay so. Why should she learn it is the correct thing to say she is not at home when she is, or that she is suffering from a foolish megrim when she isn't? I don't suppose there is much harm in saying either of these things, as nobody ever believes them; but—let her remain as she is."，"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," replied the man, in a weak voice. "I'm sorry, sir, but I couldn't help myself. I was drugged, sir."，But soon as the east changed from darkness into a pale luminous grey, with the stars fading above the soaring haze of light as though they fled in scatterings, a sailor trotted up the forerigging of the Aurora, and shinned as high as the topgallant yard over which he flung a leg with his back against the mast, and taking the telescope that was slung upon his back in his hands, he slowly and[Pg 389] steadily directed the lenses round the girdle of brine which was now faintly stealing into a visible horizon in the west, and his silence betokened to Captain Weaver, who stood on the quarterdeck with eyes fixed upon the fellow up aloft, that nothing was in sight.In some strokes of this character he might have indeed believed that she was merely acting, but other features had impressed him to such a degree that, though he was determined—not yet, perhaps—to accept the suspicion, or the persuasion of his own opinion, he, behind the darkest curtains of his heart, felt a fear that his stratagem would force her reason from her brain, that she would go mad when she clearly understood that the ship was bound to Rio to be feloniously sold there, when she realised that she had been ruthlessly torn from her father, from her home, and all that she loved, and that her name must ever bear the stain, happen what might, of Mr Lawrence's ignoble feat of abduction.

"Molly," he said in a voice that might have come down from heaven on dove wings, "you can't for a moment feel or think that I don't realise and appreciate what you have been to the motherless little chap, and for life I am yours at command, as he is. I really thought it would be a relief to you to have him taken away from you for a little while just now, and I still think it is best; but not unless you consent. You shall have him back whenever you are ready for him, and at all times both he and I are at your service to the whole of our kingdoms. Just think the matter over, won't you, and decide what you want me to do?","Oh!" said the major, in a satirical tone. "You found it? Where?",“They have. I just received the letter in the last mail. I won’t be able to get away from here until about the time your next vacation comes, so it will work out just right. I can expect you, can’t I?”,"Is it my brothers?",Patricia felt a thrill of alarm.,"Molly," she said with a deliciously young giggle, "Tom says you are to send him two guineas to spend getting the brass band to polish up before the six o'clock train, by which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent a guinea already to induce them to clean up their uniforms, and it cost him five pounds to bail the cornettist out of gaol for roost robbing. He says I am to tell you that, as this is your festivity, you ought at least to pay the piper. Hurry up, he's waiting for me, and here's the kiss he told me to put on your left ear!",The next day the sisters went again to the ball, and Cinderella also, but still more splendidly dressed than before. The King's son never left her side, or ceased saying tender things to her. Cinderella found the evening pass very pleasantly, and forgot her godmother's warning, so that she heard the clock begin to strike twelve while still thinking that it was not yet eleven. She rose and fled as lightly as a fawn. The Prince followed her, but could not overtake her. She dropped one of her glass slippers, which the Prince carefully picked up. Cinderella reached home almost breathless, without coach or footmen, and in her shabby clothes, with nothing remaining of her finery but one of her little slippers, the fellow of that which she had dropped. The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a Princess pass out; they answered that they had seen no one pass but a poorly-dressed girl, who had more the appearance of a peasant than of a lady. When the two sisters returned from the ball, Cinderella asked them if they had been as much entertained as before, and if the beautiful lady had been present. They said yes, but that she had fled as soon as it had struck twelve, and in such haste, that she had dropped one of her little glass slippers, the prettiest in the world; that the King's son had picked it up, and had done nothing but gaze upon it during the remainder of the evening; and that, undoubtedly, he was very much in love with the beautiful person to whom the little slipper belonged. They spoke the truth; for a few days afterwards the King's son caused it to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet that he would marry her whose foot would exactly fit the slipper. They began by trying it on the princesses, then on the duchesses, and so on throughout the Court; but in vain. It was taken to the two sisters, who did their utmost to force one of their feet into the slipper, but they could not manage to do so. Cinderella, who was looking on, and who recognised the slipper, said laughingly, "Let me see if it will not fit me." Her sisters began to laugh and ridicule her. The gentleman of the Court who had been entrusted to try the slipper, having looked attentively at Cinderella, and seeing that she was very beautiful, said that it was only fair that her request should be granted, as he had received orders to try the slipper on all maidens, without exception. He made Cinderella sit down, and putting the slipper to her little foot, he saw it slip on easily and fit like wax. Great was the astonishment of the two sisters, but it was still greater when Cinderella took the other little slipper out of her pocket and put it on her other foot. At that moment the godmother appeared, who giving a tap with her wand to Cinderella's clothes, they became still more magnificent than those she had worn before.,Bob was looking into the glowing coals, thinking over the events of the day, which, since they had turned out safely, were now to be treasured as great adventures. Jerry for his part was lying looking up at the narrow strip of star-lit sky showing between the edges of the canyon’s top. Suddenly he rolled over and put his hand on his companion’s shoulder.,In the course of a few weeks the Admiral arrived at his little cottage. He was without his son, of whom no news could be obtained. Gossip had ceased to flow when the Minorca[Pg 452] returned, and the tongues of her crew once again opened the flood-gate of talk. But what could they declare that should convict Mr Lawrence of piracy? They said that the Minorca had sailed under secret instructions from Captain Acton which, Mr Lawrence had gathered, imported the sale of the barque at a place named. These instructions were never read to the crew, because she was overhauled by the frigate and the Aurora before the defined parallels of latitude and longitude had been reached. Captain Acton never denied that he had given secret instructions to Mr Lawrence. There was therefore no case against the Admiral's son. And from the statements made by the crew, confirmed by Mr Eagle and Mr Pledge, it was generally held by the honest gossips of Old Harbour Town that between you and them and the bedpost, Miss Lucy Acton had eloped with Mr Lawrence, had so acted as to persuade the crew that she had been abducted, and had been recaptured by her father, whose sole motive in pursuing the barque was to regain his child.,Lady Rodney and Violet are sitting over the fire, and now Mona joins them, gowned in the blue satin dress in which she had come to meet Geoffrey, not so many months ago, in the old wood behind the farm.,"She looked awfully cut up, poor little thing," says Jack, kindly. "You were the only one she opened her mind to, Nick What did she say? Did she betray the ravings of a lunatic or the inanities of a fool?",There is no grate, and the fire, which has plainly made up its mind not to light, is composed of Yule-logs. The floor is shining with sand, rushes having palled on Lady Lilias..