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A Midsummer Knight's Dream

Short Stories

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

A Bird of Bagdad

A Blackjack Bargainer

A Call Loan

A Chaparral Christmas Gift

A Chaparral Prince

A Comedy in Rubber

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

A Departmental Case

A Dinner at--------*

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

A Fog in Santone

A Harlem Tragedy

A Lickpenny Lover

A Little Local Colour

A Little Talk about Mobs

A Madison Square Arabian Night

A Matter of Mean Elevation

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

A Midsummer Masquerade

A Municipal Report

A Newspaper Story

A Night in New Arabia

A Philistine in Bohemia

A Poor Rule

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Retrieved Reformation

A Ruler of Men

A Sacrifice Hit

A Service of Love

A Snapshot at the President

A Strange Story

A Technical Error

A Tempered Wind

According to Their Lights

After Twenty Years

An Adjustment of Nature

An Afternoon Miracle

An Apology

An Unfinished Christmas Story

An Unfinished Story

Aristocracy Versus Hash

Art and the Bronco

At Arms With Morpheus

Babes in the Jungle

Best-Seller

Between Rounds

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Blind Man's Holiday

Brickdust Row

Buried Treasure

By Courier

Calloway's Code

Caught

Cherchez La Femme

Christmas by Injunction

Compliments of the Season

Confessions of a Humorist

Conscience in Art

Cupid a La Carte

Cupid's Exile Number Two

Dickey

Dougherty's Eye-Opener

Elsie in New York

Extradited from Bohemia

Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled

Friends in San Rosario

From Each According to His Ability

From the Cabby's Seat

Georgia's Ruling

Girl

He Also Serves

Hearts and Crosses

Hearts and Hands

Helping the Other Fellow

Holding Up a Train

Hostages to Momus

Hygeia at the Solito

Innocents of Broadway

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

Law and Order

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Little Speck in Garnered Fruit

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Lost on Dress Parade

Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches

Makes the Whole World Kin

Mammon and the Archer

Man About Town

Masters of Arts

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

Modern Rural Sports

Money Maze

Nemesis and the Candy Man

New York by Camp Fire Light

Next to Reading Matter

No Story

October and June

On Behalf of the Management

One Dollar's Worth

One Thousand Dollars

Out of Nazareth

Past One at Rooney's

Phoebe

Proof of the Pudding

Psyche and the Pskyscraper

Queries and Answers

Roads of Destiny

Roses, Ruses and Romance

Rouge et Noir

Round the Circle

Rus in Urbe

Schools and Schools

Seats of the Haughty

Shearing the Wolf

Ships

Shoes

Sisters of the Golden Circle

Smith

Sociology in Serge and Straw

Sound and Fury

Springtime a La Carte

Squaring the Circle

Strictly Business

Strictly Business

Suite Homes and Their Romance

Telemachus, Friend

The Admiral

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes

The Assessor of Success

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Badge of Policeman O'Roon

The Brief Debut of Tildy

The Buyer From Cactus City

The Caballero's Way

The Cactus

The Caliph and the Cad

The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

The Call of the Tame

The Chair of Philanthromathematics

The Champion of the Weather

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel

The City of Dreadful Night

The Clarion Call

The Coming-Out of Maggie

The Complete Life of John Hopkins

The Cop and the Anthem

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Country of Elusion

The Day Resurgent

The Day We Celebrate

The Defeat of the City

The Detective Detector

The Diamond of Kali

The Discounters of Money

The Dog and the Playlet

The Door of Unrest

The Dream

The Duel

The Duplicity of Hargraves

The Easter of the Soul

The Emancipation of Billy

The Enchanted Kiss

The Enchanted Profile

The Ethics of Pig

The Exact Science of Matrimony

The Ferry of Unfulfilment

The Fifth Wheel

The Flag Paramount

The Fool-Killer

The Foreign Policy of Company 99

The Fourth in Salvador

The Friendly Call

The Furnished Room

The Gift of the Magi

The Girl and the Graft

The Girl and the Habit

The Gold That Glittered

The Greater Coney

The Green Door

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Guilty Party - An East Side Tragedy

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

The Hand that Riles the World

The Handbook of Hymen

The Harbinger

The Head-Hunter

The Hiding of Black Bill

The Higher Abdication

The Higher Pragmatism

The Hypotheses of Failure

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson

The Lady Higher Up

The Last Leaf

The Last of the Troubadours

The Lonesome Road

The Lost Blend

The Lotus And The Bottle

The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

The Making of a New Yorker

The Man Higher Up

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

The Marry Month of May

The Memento

The Missing Chord

The Moment of Victory

The Octopus Marooned

The Passing of Black Eagle

The Pendulum

The Phonograph and the Graft

The Pimienta Pancakes

The Plutonian Fire

The Poet and the Peasant

The Pride of the Cities

The Princess and the Puma

The Prisoner of Zembla

The Proem

The Purple Dress

The Ransom of Mack

The Ransom of Red Chief

The Rathskeller and the Rose

The Red Roses of Tonia

The Reformation of Calliope

The Remnants of the Code

The Renaissance at Charleroi

The Roads We Take

The Robe of Peace

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Rose of Dixie

The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

The Rubber Plant's Story

The Shamrock and the Palm

The Shocks of Doom

The Skylight Room

The Sleuths

The Snow Man

The Social Triangle

The Song and the Sergeant

The Sparrows in Madison Square

The Sphinx Apple

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

The Theory and the Hound

The Thing's the Play

The Third Ingredient

The Trimmed Lamp

The Unknown Quantity

The Unprofitable Servant

The Venturers

The Vitagraphoscope

The Voice of the City

The Whirligig of Life

The World and the Door

Thimble, Thimble

Tictocq

To Him Who Waits

Tobin's Palm

Tommy's Burglar

Tracked to Doom

Transformation of Martin Burney

Transients in Arcadia

Two Recalls

Two Renegades

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Ulysses and the Dogman

Vanity and Some Sables

What You Want

While the Auto Waits

Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

Witches' Loaves







"The knights are dead;
Their swords are rust.
Except a few who have to hust-
Le all the time
To raise the dust."


Dear Reader: It was summertime. The sun glared down upon the city
with pitiless ferocity. It is difficult for the sun to be ferocious
and exhibit compunction simultaneously. The heat was--oh, bother
thermometers!--who cares for standard measures, anyhow? It was so
hot that--

The roof gardens put on so many extra waiters that you could hope to
get your gin fizz now--as soon as all the other people got theirs.
The hospitals were putting in extra cots for bystanders. For when
little, woolly dogs loll their tongues out and say "woof, woof!"
at the fleas that bite 'em, and nervous old black bombazine ladies
screech "Mad dog!" and policemen begin to shoot, somebody is
going to get hurt. The man from Pompton, N.J., who always wears
an overcoat in July, had turned up in a Broadway hotel drinking
hot Scotches and enjoying his annual ray from the calcium.
Philanthropists were petitioning the Legislature to pass a bill
requiring builders to make tenement fire-escapes more commodious,
so that families might die all together of the heat instead of one
or two at a time. So many men were telling you about the number of
baths they took each day that you wondered how they got along after
the real lessee of the apartment came back to town and thanked 'em
for taking such good care of it. The young man who called loudly for
cold beef and beer in the restaurant, protesting that roast pullet
and Burgundy was really too heavy for such weather, blushed when he
met your eye, for you had heard him all winter calling, in modest
tones, for the same ascetic viands. Soup, pocketbooks, shirt waists,
actors and baseball excuses grew thinner. Yes, it was summertime.

A man stood at Thirty-fourth street waiting for a downtown car.
A man of forty, gray-haired, pink-faced, keen, nervous, plainly
dressed, with a harassed look around the eyes. He wiped his forehead
and laughed loudly when a fat man with an outing look stopped and
spoke with him.

"No, siree," he shouted with defiance and scorn. "None of your old
mosquito-haunted swamps and skyscraper mountains without elevators
for me. When I want to get away from hot weather I know how to do
it. New York, sir, is the finest summer resort in the country. Keep
in the shade and watch your diet, and don't get too far away from
an electric fan. Talk about your Adirondacks and your Catskills!
There's more solid comfort in the borough of Manhattan than in
all the rest of the country together. No, siree! No tramping up
perpendicular cliffs and being waked up at 4 in the morning by a
million flies, and eating canned goods straight from the city for
me. Little old New York will take a few select summer boarders;
comforts and conveniences of homes--that's the ad. that I answer
every time."

"You need a vacation," said the fat man, looking closely at the
other. "You haven't been away from town in years. Better come with
me for two weeks, anyhow. The trout in the Beaverkill are jumping at
anything now that looks like a fly. Harding writes me that he landed
a three-pound brown last week."

"Nonsense!" cried the other man. "Go ahead, if you like, and boggle
around in rubber boots wearing yourself out trying to catch fish.
When I want one I go to a cool restaurant and order it. I laugh at
you fellows whenever I think of you hustling around in the heat
in the country thinking you are having a good time. For me Father
Knickerbocker's little improved farm with the big shady lane running
through the middle of it."

The fat man sighed over his friend and went his way. The man who
thought New York was the greatest summer resort in the country
boarded a car and went buzzing down to his office. On the way he
threw away his newspaper and looked up at a ragged patch of sky
above the housetops.

"Three pounds!" he muttered, absently. "And Harding isn't a liar.
I believe, if I could--but it's impossible--they've got to have
another month--another month at least."

In his office the upholder of urban midsummer joys dived,
headforemost, into the swimming pool of business. Adkins, his clerk,
came and added a spray of letters, memoranda and telegrams.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon the busy man leaned back in his office
chair, put his feet on the desk and mused aloud:

"I wonder what kind of bait Harding used."

* * * * * * *

She was all in white that day; and thereby Compton lost a bet to
Gaines. Compton had wagered she would wear light blue, for she knew
that was his favorite color, and Compton was a millionaire's son,
and that almost laid him open to the charge of betting on a sure
thing. But white was her choice, and Gaines held up his head with
twenty-five's lordly air.

The little summer hotel in the mountains had a lively crowd that
year. There were two or three young college men and a couple of
artists and a young naval officer on one side. On the other there
were enough beauties among the young ladies for the correspondent of
a society paper to refer to them as a "bevy." But the moon among the
stars was Mary Sewell. Each one of the young men greatly desired to
arrange matters so that he could pay her millinery bills, and fix
the furnace, and have her do away with the "Sewell" part of her name
forever. Those who could stay only a week or two went away hinting
at pistols and blighted hearts. But Compton stayed like the
mountains themselves, for he could afford it. And Gaines stayed
because he was a fighter and wasn't afraid of millionaire's sons,
and--well, he adored the country.

"What do you think, Miss Mary?" he said once. "I knew a duffer in
New York who claimed to like it in the summer time. Said you could
keep cooler there than you could in the woods. Wasn't he an awful
silly? I don't think I could breathe on Broadway after the 1st of
June."

"Mamma was thinking of going back week after next," said Miss Mary
with a lovely frown.

"But when you think of it," said Gaines, "there are lots of jolly
places in town in the summer. The roof gardens, you know, and
the--er--the roof gardens."

Deepest blue was the lake that day--the day when they had the mock
tournament, and the men rode clumsy farm horses around in a glade in
the woods and caught curtain rings on the end of a lance. Such fun!

Cool and dry as the finest wine came the breath of the shadowed
forest. The valley below was a vision seen through an opal haze. A
white mist from hidden falls blurred the green of a hand's breadth
of tree tops half-way down the gorge. Youth made merry hand-in-hand
with young summer. Nothing on Broadway like that.

The villagers gathered to see the city folks pursue their mad
drollery. The woods rang with the laughter of pixies and naiads and
sprites. Gaines caught most of the rings. His was the privilege to
crown the queen of the tournament. He was the conquering knight--as
far as the rings went. On his arm he wore a white scarf. Compton
wore light blue. She had declared her preference for blue, but she
wore white that day.

Gaines looked about for the queen to crown her. He heard her merry
laugh, as if from the clouds. She had slipped away and climbed
Chimney Rock, a little granite bluff, and stood there, a white fairy
among the laurels, fifty feet above their heads.

Instantly he and Compton accepted the implied challenge. The bluff
was easily mounted at the rear, but the front offered small hold
to hand or foot. Each man quickly selected his route and began
to climb, A crevice, a bush, a slight projection, a vine or tree
branch--all of these were aids that counted in the race. It was
all foolery--there was no stake; but there was youth in it, cross
reader, and light hearts, and something else that Miss Clay writes
so charmingly about.

Gaines gave a great tug at the root of a laurel and pulled himself
to Miss Mary's feet. On his arm he carried the wreath of roses; and
while the villagers and summer boarders screamed and applauded below
he placed it on the queen's brow.

"You are a gallant knight," said Miss Mary.

"If I could be your true knight always," began Gaines, but Miss Mary
laughed him dumb, for Compton scrambled over the edge of the rock
one minute behind time.

What a twilight that was when they drove back to the hotel! The opal
of the valley turned slowly to purple, the dark woods framed the
lake as a mirror, the tonic air stirred the very soul in one. The
first pale stars came out over the mountain tops where yet a faint
glow of--

* * * * * * *

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Gaines," said Adkins.

The man who believed New York to be the finest summer resort in the
world opened his eyes and kicked over the mucilage bottle on his
desk.

"I--I believe I was asleep," he said.

"It's the heat," said Adkins. "It's something awful in the city
these"--

"Nonsense!" said the other. "The city beats the country ten to one
in summer. Fools go out tramping in muddy brooks and wear themselves
out trying to catch little fish as long as your finger. Stay in town
and keep comfortable--that's my idea."

"Some letters just came," said Adkins. "I thought you might like to
glance at them before you go."

Let us look over his shoulder and read just a few lines of one of
them:


MY DEAR, DEAR HUSBAND: Just received your letter ordering us to
stay another month . . . Rita's cough is almost gone . . . Johnny
has simply gone wild like a little Indian . . . Will be the
making of both children . . . work so hard, and I know that your
business can hardly afford to keep us here so long . . . best man
that ever . . . you always pretend that you like the city in
summer . . . trout fishing that you used to be so fond of . . .
and all to keep us well and happy . . . come to you if it were
not doing the babies so much good . . . I stood last evening on
Chimney Rock in exactly the same spot where I was when you put
the wreath of roses on my head . . . through all the world . . .
when you said you would be my true knight . . . fifteen years
ago, dear, just think! . . . have always been that to me . . .
ever and ever,

MARY.


The man who said he thought New York the finest summer resort in the
country dropped into a cafe on his way home and had a glass of beer
under an electric fan.

"Wonder what kind of a fly old Harding used," he said to himself.




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