The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Exiles and Other Stories, by Richard Harding Davis

Title: The Exiles and Other Stories

The Exiles; The Boy Orator of Zepata City; The Other Woman; On the Fever Ship; The Lion and the Unicorn; The Last Ride Together; Miss Delamar's Understudy; The Reporter Who Made Himself King

Author: Richard Harding Davis

Release Date: June 18, 2005 [eBook #16090]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EXILES AND OTHER STORIES***

E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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Instead she buried her face in its folds.

THE NOVELS AND STORIES OF RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

THE EXILES
AND OTHER STORIES

By

RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES DANA GIBSON

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1919

"The Exiles" and "The Boy Orator of Zepata City" from "The Exiles," copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers.

"The Other Woman" from "Gallagher," copyright, 1891, by Charles Scribner's Sons; "On the Fever Ship," "The Lion and the Unicorn," and "The Last Ride Together" from "The Lion and the Unicorn," copyright, 1899, by Charles Scribner's Sons; "Miss Delamar's Understudy" from "Cinderella," copyright, 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons; "The Reporter Who Made Himself King" from "Stories for Boys," copyright, 1891, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

TO MY FRIEND

J. DAVIS BRODHEAD

THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF DAVIS

Dick was twenty-four years old when he came into the smoking-room of the Victoria Hotel, in London, after midnight one July night—he was dressed as a Thames boatman.

He had been rowing up and down the river since sundown, looking for color. He had evidently peopled every dark corner with a pirate, and every floating object had meant something to him. He had adventure written all over him. It was the first time I had ever seen him, and I had never heard of him. I can't now recall another figure in that smoke-filled room. I don't remember who introduced us—over twenty-seven years have passed since that night. But I can see Dick now dressed in a rough brown suit, a soft hat, with a handkerchief about his neck, a splendid, healthy, clean-minded, gifted boy at play. And so he always remained.

His going out of this world seemed like a boy interrupted in a game he loved. And how well and fairly he played it! Surely no one deserved success more than Dick. And it is a consolation to know he had more than fifty years of just what he wanted. He had health, a great talent, and personal charm. There never was a more loyal or unselfish friend. There wasn't an atom of envy in him. He had unbounded mental and physical courage, and with it all he was sensitive and sometimes shy. He often tried to conceal these last two qualities, but never succeeded in doing so from those of us who were privileged really to know and love him.

His life was filled with just the sort of adventure he liked the best. No one ever saw more wars in so many different places or got more out of them. And it took the largest war in all history to wear out that stout heart.

We shall miss him.

CHARLES DANA GIBSON.

CONTENTS

• The First Glimpse of DavisCharles Dana Gibson
•  PAGE
• The Exiles 1
• The Boy Orator Of Zepata City 72
• The Other Woman 94
• On The Fever Ship 118
• The Lion And The Unicorn 144
• The Last Ride Together 204
• Miss Delamar's Understudy 214
• The Reporter Who Made Himself King 249

ILLUSTRATIONS

• Instead She Buried Her Face In Its Folds Frontispiece
•  Facing Page
• Stopping For Half-Hours At A Time Before A Bazaar 14
• The Boar Hunt 38
• Consumed Tea And Thin Slices Of Bread 152
• "I Never Saw A King," Gordon Remarked 262

THE EXILES

I

The greatest number of people in the world prefer the most highly civilized places of the world, because they know what sort of things are going to happen there, and because they also know by experience that those are the sort of things they like. A very few people prefer barbarous and utterly uncivilized portions of the globe for the reason that they receive while there new impressions, and because they like the unexpected better than a routine of existence, no matter how pleasant