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STORY OF THE DOOR Mr. Utterson is a wealthy, well-respected London lawyer, a reserved and perhaps even boring man who nevertheless inspires a strange fondness in those who know him. Despite his eminent respectabili-ty, he never abandons a friend whose reputation has been sullied or ruined. Utterson nurtures a close friendship with Mr. Enfield, his distant relative and likewise a respectable London gentleman. The two seem to have little in common, and when they take their weekly walk together they often go for quite a distance without saying anything to one another; nevertheless, they look forward to these strolls as one of the high points of the week. As the story begins, Utterson and Enfield are taking their regular Sunday stroll and walking down a particularly prosperous-looking street. They come upon a neglected building, which seems out of place in the neighborhood, and Enfield relates a story in connection with it. Enfield was walking in the same neighborhood late one night, when he witnessed a shrunken, misshapen man crash into and trample a young girl. He collared the man before he could get away, and then brought him back to the girl, around whom an angry crowd had gathered. The captured man appeared so overwhelmingly ugly that the crowd immediately despised him. United, the crowd threatened to ruin the ugly man’s good name unless he did something to make amends; the man, seeing himself trapped, bought them off with one hundred pounds, which he obtained upon entering the neglected building through its only door. Strangely enough, the check bore the name of a very reputable man; furthermore, and in spite of Enfield’s suspicions, it proved to be legitimate and not a forgery. Enfield hypothesizes that the ugly culprit had somehow blackmailed the man whose name appeared on the check. Spurning gossip, however, Enfield refuses to reveal that name.
Outside a woman walked along the wet street-lamp lit sidewalk through the sleet and snow. Inside in the Fine Arts Institute on the sixth floor of the Y.W.C.A. Building, 1020 McGee Street, a merry crowd of soldiers from Camp Funston and Fort Leavenworth fox trotted and one-stepped with girls from the Fine Arts School while a sober faced you ng man pounded out the latest jazz music as he watched the moving figures. In a corner a private in the signal corps was discussing Whistler with a black haired girl who heartily agreed with him. The private had been a member of the art colony at Chicago before the war was declared. Three men from Funston were wandering arm in arm along the wall looking at the exhibition of paintings by Kansas City artists. The piano player stopped. The dancers clapped and cheered and he swung into "The Long, Long Trail Awinding". An infantry corporal, dancing with a swift moving girl in a red dress, bent his head close to hers and confided something about a girl in Chautauqua, Kas. In the corridor a group of girls surrounded a tow-headed young artilleryman and applauded his imitation of his p al Bill challenging the colonel, who had forgotten the password. The music stopped again and the solemn pianist rose from his stool and walked out into the hall for a drink. A crowd of men rushed up to the girl in the red dress to plead for the next dance. Outside the woman walked along the wet lamp lit sidewalk. It was the first dance for soldiers to be given under the auspices of the War Camp Community Service. Forty girls of the art school, chaperoned by Miss Winifred Sexton, secretary of the school and Mrs. J. F. Binnie were the hostesses. The idea was formulated by J. P. Robertson of the War Camp Community Service, and announcements were sent to the commandants at Camp Funston and Fort Leavenworth inviting all soldiers on leave. Posters made by the girl students were put up at Leavenworth on the interurb an trains. The first dance will be followed by others at various clubs and schools throughout the city according to Mr. Robertson. The pianist took his seat again and the soldiers made a dash for partners. In the intermission the soldiers drank to the girls in fruit punch. The girl in red, surrounded by a crowd of men in olive drab, seated herself at the piano, the men and the gi rls gathered around and sang until midnight. The elevator had stopped running and so the jolly crowd bunched down the six flights of stairs and rushed waiting motor cars. After the last car had gone, the woman walked along the wet sidewalk through the sleet and looked up at the dark windows of the sixth floor.
There was once a king of Scotland whose name was Robert Bruce. He had need to be both brave and wise, for the times in which he lived were wild and rude. The King of England was at war with him, and had led a great army into Scotland to drive him out of the land. Battle after battle had been fought. Six times had Bruce led his brave little army against his foes; and six times had his men been beaten, and driven into flight. At last his army was scattered, and he was forced to hide himself in the woods and in lonely places among the mountains. One rainy day, Bruce lay on the ground under a rude shed, listening to the patter of the drops on the roof above him. He was tired and sick at heart, and ready to give up all hope. It seemed to him that there was no use for him to try to do anything more. As he lay thinking, he saw a spider over his head, making ready to weave her web. He watched her as she toiled slowly and with great care. Six times she tried to throw her frail thread from one beam to another, and six times it fell short. "Poor thing!" said Bruce: "you, too, know what it is to fail." But the spider did not lose hope with the sixth failure. With still more care, she made ready to try for the seventh time. Bruce almost forgot his own troubles as he watched her swing herself out upon the slender line. Would she fail again? No! The thread was carried safely to the beam, and fastened there. "I, too, will try a seventh time!" cried Bruce.
When a man receives a promotion and a raise, he finds himself forced to face an uncomfortable situation that he has avoided all his life: visiting a bank and opening a bank account.
The monster tells Victor that it is his right to have a female monster companion. Victor refuses at first, but the monster appeals to Victor’s sense of responsibility as his creator. He tells Victor that all of his evil actions have been the result of a desperate loneliness. He promises to take his new mate to South America to hide in the jungle far from human contact. With the sympathy of a fellow monster, he argues, he will no longer be compelled to kill. Convinced by these arguments, Victor finally agrees to create a female monster. Overjoyed but still skeptical, the monster tells Victor that he will monitor Victor’s progress and that Victor need not worry about contacting him when his work is done.
On a dark road at night that is known for strange happenings, and strange creatures. de Montour meets a mysterious traveler along the way, who tells him a legend about werewolves. The traveler attacks de Montour and when he pulls a mask from his face, he realizes he is a werewolf. According to the legend if a werewolf is killed in wolf form it is dead, if it is killed while in the form of a man, then the half-soul of the wolf will haunt the killer for the rest of his life. de Montour defeats the werewolf but doesn't kill him right away because he is in man form, he watches the moon come close to is zenith, and the mans body begin to turn into a wolf. de Montour picks up a sword and hacks it to bits, and runs off into the words.
Set in Hasta la Vista, the capital of a hypothetical country named Perivia in South America. Citizens are football crazy, country is extremely corrupt, & the government is unstable. By the end of the story, we will see a murder & a bloodless military coup, but the story is mostly about an international football match with the neighboring country named Panagura. Except for obvious & expected corruption on the field, the scene could well have been of an India/Pakistan cricket ODI in Calcutta. Very large crowds, a bit too enthusiatic, & with a dash of patriotism linked to game. Referee is chosen by visitors, & is expected to be corrupt & partial! Don Hernando is a wheeler-dealer supposed to be close to President Ruiz, & has his own game in mind. He secures half the seats in the stadium for army men who will be handed free tickets to the game; by the time the game is over, President would have been toppled. The army men spectators are each given a 2 square feet mirror to shine on the referee - as a novel way of booing him. When a signal sounds, they would do it together. Only Don has an idea of what will happen to the man who receives the entire sunlight shining on half the stadium - he gets cremated alive! Referee receives this treatment after a particularly partial decision.
The story is about a class of students on Venus, which, in this story, is a world of constant rainstorms, where the Sun is visible for only one hour every seven years. One of the children, Margot, moved to Venus from Earth five years earlier, and she is the only one who remembers sunshine, since the Sun shone regularly on Earth. When the teacher asks them to write a poem about the sun, hers is: "I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour." She describes the Sun as "a penny", or "like a fire in the stove". The other children, being too young ever to have seen it themselves, do not believe her. Led by a boy named William, they bully and antagonize her, and just before the sun comes out, William rallies the other children and they lock her in a closet down a tunnel. As the Sun is about to appear, their teacher arrives to take the class outside to enjoy their one hour of sunshine and, in their astonishment and joy, they all forget about Margot. They run, play, skip, jump, and prance about, savoring every second of their newly found freedoms. "Oh, it's better than the sunlamps, isn't it?" one of them cries. Suddenly, a girl catches a raindrop in her hands. Thunder sounds, then the lightning comes, and the children run back inside as the sun disappears and it starts to pour again. At this point, one of them remembers Margot, who is still locked in the closet. Ashamed, they let her out of the closet, standing frozen, embarrassed over what they have done and unable to "meet each other's glances." The precious Sun has come and gone, and because of their despicable act, Margot, who loved the Sun the most, has missed it.
While foraging for food in the woods around the cottage one night, the monster finds an abandoned leather satchel containing some clothes and books. Eager to learn more about the world than he can discover through the chink in the cottage wall, he brings the books back to his hovel and begins to read. The books include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Sorrows of Werter, a volume of Plutarch’s Lives, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the last of which has the most profound effect on the monster. Unaware that Paradise Lost is a work of imagination, he reads it as a factual history and finds much similarity between the story and his own situation. Rifling through the pockets of his own clothes, stolen long ago from Victor’s apartment, he finds some papers from Victor’s journal. With his newfound ability to read, he soon understands the horrific manner of his own creation and the disgust with which his creator regarded him. Dismayed by these discoveries, the monster wishes to reveal himself to the cottagers in the hope that they will see past his hideous exterior and befriend him. He decides to approach the blind De Lacey first, hoping to win him over while Felix, Agatha, and Safie are away. He believes that De Lacey, unprejudiced against his hideous exterior, may be able to convince the others of his gentle nature. The perfect opportunity soon presents itself, as Felix, Agatha, and Safie depart one day for a long walk. The monster nervously enters the cottage and begins to speak to the old man. Just as he begins to explain his situation, however, the other three return unexpectedly. Felix drives the monster away, horrified by his appearance.
A humble dentist, Aurelio Escovar, lives in a town where with a very corrupt, even murderous mayor. When the mayor arrives in his office the dentist refuses to treat him; preferring to continue to polish a set of false teeth rather than relieve the suffering of the corrupt mayor that he despises. The mayor pulls a gun on the dentist and demands treatment. We learn that the mayor has been suffering from the severe toothache for five days. The dentist admits the mayor and treats him, removing the infected wisdom tooth. He does so without the aid of anesthesia saying, "Now you'll pay for twenty dead men" as he begins to pull the tooth. As the mayor is leaving the dentist asks where he shall send the bill "To you or the town?," the mayor replies, "It’s the same damn thing."
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