AustLit

A famous French surgeon helps a poor priest recover from a tumour, and years later dies in the priest's arms. (PB)

The holiday outing of a flash young man and a fashionable calculating West End shop girl to Eastbourne by railway culminates neither in his amorous success or her financial reward but in an arrest for her and her 'father' for their con game by her companion alias Inspector Gripe. Holiday atmosphere at Victoria station or on the sands at Eastbourne well described. (PB)

First person narrative of a miner trapped by a cave-in in a salt mine when he sounds a horn in a recess while selecting a site for an orchestra to play for a celebration. The progress of his sufferings well told. Basic tale. Action of salt in blood/on body is interesting. (PB)

Two domestic sketches depicting, first: a second wedding anniversary which a husband marks by buying a painting for his wife - which turns out to be one which she had painted though he had disparaged her skills that day. Second: a morning farewell between a married couple where the husband bemoans his wife's absence from breakfast and she his failure to come upstairs and enquire after her health and kiss her farewell. (PB)

A husband bribes a fortune teller ("spaewife") to advise his wife to take no holiday, to economise and to do the housework. (PB)

Clerical tale. A potential curate displeased with his salary raises it after discovering that the rector uses pre-prepared sermons. He preaches the identical sermon at evening service which the rector preached in the morning - and his silence and the rector's reputation is purchased through a salary increase.

A bank night watchman accustomed to sleeping for the 20 minute intervals between sending the required signals to the police station is surprised one night by three buglars. A sham dentist from the room upstairs and two companions drill the vault door for hours and send the signals regularly but are undone - 2 killed - by their own explosives. The watchman refuses the bribe offered by the last burglar - but is eventually fired anyway. (PB)

English itinerant worker's experience as part of a live shopfront advertisement for a ventilating hat - the appropriate facial grimaces and bodily responses achieved through physical torture of sorts. (PB)

A rich Chicago builder invites a friend of earlier days to stay one stormy night - only to discover later that he went home for his pipe. (PB)

A family man's labours to cut the grass with a new mower he allowed himself to be shamed into buying are lightened when he hires a man to do it. His wife's new rose cuttings die before she and the children return - and she receives the bill for the lawn cutting. (PB)

A shy employer dictates a letter proposing marriage to see how it affects his secretary - whom he desires to send it to. Her teacher reassures him - he sends it, she replies 'Yes' and happiness follows. (PB)

Brief courtroom interchange as a simple loud man bests a judge and lawyer. (PB)

A country doctors falls in love with one of his patients but discontinues seeing her because he is already married - to a ballet dancer who deserted him. During a trip to his home town he witnesses her fall to her death during a tight-rope act at a variety theatre, and discovers that she had been married before she married him, so that with her death he is doubly free. A final twist reveals her as the cousin of the girl he loves, daughter to the aunt of many tragedies whom she lived with. (PB)

A clergyman's ruse succeeds in discovering a deliquent member of the congregation - due to a button in the collection bag. (PB)

A society gentleman has run the gauntlet of proving his athletic powers - by chicanery - to the satisfaction of his desired mannish lady. But the last test is fishing. Despite extensive reading and the purchase of a good rod he is lost until luck and the assistance of his loyal friend Dr John enable him to hook a prize trout - and his future wife. (PB)

A cyclist asking directions finds himself locked in a cottage with the murderous occupant whose wife had been killed by a cyclist. He escapes and a hard chase follows - until the madman drops dead. (PB)

Five years after money goes missing for which a father banishes his son, he discovers with the help of a faithful butler and a dream of his wife's ghost that he had hidden the money himself. Reunion with his son - and his daughter-in-law and her infant son - concludes the tale, the butler always having stayed in touch with the honest youth. (PB)

A Scotch tradesman eventually discovers an extra £2000 profit due to his clerk adding in the year to the pounds. (PB)

The engagement between John Channery, a bush station owner, and the poor neighbouring painted governess is not as happy. John's friend and tutor, his shepherd, tells of his own unhappy marriage, when as an English lord he married a girl who cared only for position. When his older brother reclaimed the title, she left him and took his son. The true nature of the governess is revealed by her treatment of the neighbour's crippled son and her own hidden son, who escapes when she orders his murder. She is unmasked as the shepherd's wife - and her murder frees both men to return to England - one with his son, the other to marry. (PB)

Sailor's account of a mysterious elopement on a private yacht, of a storm which delayed them, and a chase by a steamer which tried to ram them. The helmsman at the time was the 70 year-old father of the eloping bride of the yacht. Narrow escapes. (PB)