AustLit

An offended company of actors revenge themselves on the playwright and lead actor by punishing him during the play. He hires a prize-fighter to replace himself the next night and revenge is returned. (PB)

A youth blind from birth has his sight restored by an operation and is able to tell his fiancee by her breathing when all else fails. Romance; competently told, sentimental but unusual subject. (PB)

Negro commentary on the Christianity that sends thousands of dollars for overseas conversions and acts not at home. (PB)

Domestic sketch of a husband's difficulties in confronting a burglar - who turns out to be a cat! (PB)

A doctor in England is invited to accompany his friend on a railway trip to Exeter. Once the train has departed he discovers his friend - who has been seriously overworking - is insane and wishes to kill them both. Only quick thinking can save him ... Competent tale of insanity; tension good. (PB)

Anecdote of the appearance of a pearl from the English crown in the possession of a pawn-shopkeeper in Pesth and Vienna. (PB)

A cold selfish widow forsakes a worthy suitor for a richer one, and he commits suicide on the day she marries. The marriage is full of cruelty and she is disfigured and abandoned when her wealth is gone. Most interesting in that the sentimentality of repentance is not included here - she dies as she lived. (PB)

Of a near tragedy when a child takes a loaded hunting gun, points it at his two sisters and pulls the trigger. Suspenseful description. (PB)

A sailor seeks to reconcile conflicting statements by a preacher about the devil. Humorous anecdote. (PB)

Tale counselling wives to trust their husbands when they have secrets they will not share - e.g: on business matters that they would not understand! (PB)

A porter settles an argument between students at Harvard. Anecdote. (PB)

Indian tale of a poor widow robbed of her life savings buried beneath the floor of her house by her nephew. (PB)

Horace Tremaine, holidaying in Scotland's Western Hebrides, hears he has inherited an aunt's fortune by default - the will she had made being lost. He refuses to take the legacy from the niece to whom she would have left it; they fall in love; and he discovers the secret of the will's disappearance and a domestic ghost in his betrothed's somnabulism. Pleasant romance. (PB)

Practical little romance with realist touches. A soft-goods merchant is financially ruined and his son Charlie Fairfax must make his own way in the world - which he does by working his way up in another firm, despite the ill-wishes of the manager. Charlie then falls in love with Alsa Lee who lives in a pretty villa on his way to work - but they are separated when her father, Charlie's manager, discovers their meetings. Eventually Charlie is sent to Fiji where he makes good, but is recalled when Alsa's father commits suicide after being detected in a forgery. Charlie's father is at first opposed to Charlie and Alsa's marriage - revealing the secret of his own lost love stolen by Alsa's father years before ... (PB)

A practical joke played by a group of young men waiting for a city bus elicits a very different reaction the second time it is tried on the same victim. (PB)

Exemplary tale; a little girl's good deed in gathering flowers saves a man's soul and life by his repentance for his crimes, transportation etc. (PB)

An Englishman receives no help from a Scot til he asks. Brief anecdote. (PB)

Anecdote of three royal visitors to Windsor Castle and their encounter with a gardener. (PB)

A jaded Melbourne teacher swaps schools with a country Victorian teacher and after a pretty journey finds herself in an unromantic mining town. But the house where she is to stay is a 'home' with a welcoming family. Interesting sketch/narrative combination. (PB)

Anecdote of the US Vice-President Hamlin in 1864, mistaken in his gardening clothes for his own servant by a bumptious messenger. (PB)