Free e-text of "A Splendid Hazard" by Harold MacGrath.
SPLENDID HAZARD
By
HAROLD MACGRATH
AUTHOR OF
THE GOOSE GIRL, THE LURE OF THE MASK, THE MAN ON THE BOX, ETC.
With Illustrations by
HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY
[Transcriber's note: All illustrations were missing from book.]
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1910
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I A MEMORABLE DATE
II THE BUTTERFLY MAN
III A PLASTER STATUETTE
IV PIRATES AND SECRETARIES
V NO FALSE PRETENSES
VI SOME EXPLANATIONS
VII A BIT OF ROMANTIC HISTORY
VIII SOME BIRDS IN A CHIMNEY
IX THEY DRESS FOR DINNER
X THE GHOST OF AN OLD REGIME
XI PREPARATIONS AND COGITATIONS
XII M. FERRAUD INTRODUCES HIMSELF
XIII THE WOMAN WHO KNEW
XIV THE DRAMA BEGINS
XV THEY GO A-SAILING
XVI CROSS-PURPOSES
XVII A QUESTION PROM KEATS
XVIII CATHEWE ADVISES AND THE ADMIRAL DISCLOSES
XIX BREITMANN MAKES HIS FIRST BLUNDER
XX AN OLD SCANDAL
XXI CAPTAIN FLANAGAN MEETS A DUKE
XXII THE ADMIRAL BEGINS TO DOUBT
XXIII CATHEWE ASKS QUESTIONS
XXIV THE PINES OF AITONE
XXV THE DUPE
XXVI THE END OF THE DREAM
A SPLENDID HAZARD
CHAPTER I
A MEMORABLE DATE
A blurring rain fell upon Paris that day; a rain so fine and cold that it penetrated the soles of men's shoes and their hearts alike, a dispiriting drizzle through which the pale, acrid smoke of innumerable wood fires faltered upward from the clustering chimney-pots, only to be rent into fragments and beaten down upon the glistening tiles of the mansard roofs. The wide asphalts reflected the horses and carriages and trains and pedestrians in forms grotesque, zigzagging, flitting, amusing, like a shadow-play upon a wrinkled, wind-blown curtain. The sixteenth of June. To Fitzgerald there was something electric in the date, a tingle of that ecstasy which frequently comes into the blood of a man to whom the romance of a great battle is more than its history or its effect upon the destinies of human beings. Many years before, this date had marked the end to a certain hundred days, the eclipse of a sun more dazzling than Rome, in the heyday of her august Caesars, had ever known: Waterloo. A little corporal of artillery; from a cocked hat to a crown, from Corsica to St. Helena: Napoleon.