The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Stairs, by Henry B. Fuller

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Title: On the Stairs

Author: Henry B. Fuller

Release Date: May 26, 2007 [EBook #21613]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ON THE STAIRS

by
Henry B. Fuller

Author of _Lines Long and Short_

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1918

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COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY HENRY B. FULLER

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_Published March 1918_

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

This volume may seem less a Novel than a Sketch of a Novel or a Study
for a Novel. It might easily be amplified; but, like other recent work
of mine, it was written in the conviction that story-telling, whatever
form it take, can be done within limits narrower than those now
generally employed.

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ON THE STAIRS

PART I

I

In the year 1873--

No, do not turn away from such an opening; I shall reach our own day
within a paragraph or so.

In the year 1873, then, Johnny McComas was perfectly willing to stand to
one side while Raymond Prince, surrounded by several of the fellows,
came down, in his own negligent and self-assured way, the main stairway
of Grant's Private Academy. For Johnny was newer there; Johnny was
younger in this world by a year or two, at an age when a year or two
makes a difference; and Johnny had but lately left behind what might be
described as a condition of servitude. So Johnny yielded the right of
way. He lowered his little snub nose by a few degrees, took some of the
gay smile out of his twinkling blue eyes, and waited with an upward
glance of friendly yet deferential sobriety until Raymond should have
passed.

"How are you, Johnny?" asked Raymond carelessly.

"I'm pretty well," replied Johnny, in all modesty.

In the year 1916--

Yes, I told you we should reach our ow