Masterpieces of
Adventure
In Four Volumes
ADVENTURES WITHIN WALLS
Edited by
Nella Braddy
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
TO
BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, PH.D.
EDITOR'S NOTE
In these volumes the word adventure has beenused in its broadest sense to cover not only strangehappenings in strange places but also love and lifeand death—all things that have to do with the greatadventure of living. Questions as to the fitness of astory were settled by examining the qualities of thenarrative as such rather than by reference to atechnical classification of short stories.
It is the inalienable right of the editor of a workof this kind to plead copyright difficulties inextenuation for whatever faults it may possess. We beg thereader to believe that this is why his favorite storywas omitted while one vastly inferior was included.
CONTENTS
I. THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT'S DOOR
Robert Louis Stevenson
II. A DOUBLE-DYED DECEIVER
O. Henry
III. THE BOLD DRAGOON
Washington Irving
IV. THE BET
Anton Chekhov
V. LA GRANDE BRETÈCHE
Honoré de Balzac
VI. THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
Edgar Allan Poe
VII. DR. MANETTE'S MANUSCRIPT
Charles Dickens
VIII. SILENCE
Leonidas Andreiyeff
MASTERPIECES OF ADVENTURE
Masterpieces of Adventure
ADVENTURES WITHIN WALLS
I
THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT'S DOOR*
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
*Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.
Denis de Beaulieu was not yettwo-and-twenty, but he counted himself a grownman, and a very accomplished cavalier intothe bargain. Lads were early formed in that rough,warfaring epoch; and when one has been in apitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one'sman in an honourable fashion, and knows a thing ortwo of strategy and mankind, a certain swagger inthe gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put up hishorse with due care, and supped with due deliberation;and then, in a very agreeable frame of mind,went out to pay a visit in the grey of the evening.It was not a very wise proceeding on the young man'spart. He would have done better to remain besidethe fire or go decently to bed. For the town wasfull of the troops of Burgundy and England under amixed command; and though Denis was there onsafe-conduct, his s