Blooming Aloes E-Book

Edgar Wallace

• Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 29

Beschreibung

Blooming Aloes by Edgar Wallace is a captivating drama set against the exotic backdrop of South Africa. When a young botanist, drawn by the allure of rare flora, ventures into the heart of the country, he stumbles upon more than just blooming aloes. Entangled in a web of local legends, forbidden love, and hidden treasures, he must navigate the complexities of a land rich in beauty and danger. With each discovery, the stakes grow higher, and he realizes that the true treasures are not just the plants he seeks, but the secrets they conceal. Will he uncover the mysteries of the blooming aloes, or will the perils of the land overwhelm him? Immerse yourself in this lush and thrilling tale of adventure and intrigue.

Leseprobe

Blooming Aloes

A Short Story

Author: Edgar Wallace

Edited by: Seif Moawad

Copyright © 2024 by Al-Mashreq eBookstore

First published in The Saturday Evening Post, Nov 24, 1923

Published in The Grand Magazine, Dec 1923, as "Should a Steward Tell?"

No part of this publication may be reproduced whole or in part in any form without the prior written permission of the author

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Blooming Aloes

1

2

Landmarks

The Council of Justice

Cover

1

IT’S a sen—what’s that word you said yesterday? (It was the Steward talking.) Sententious! That’s right. I must remember that one. It is surprising the number of classy words you can collect in one voyage if you keep your ears open. I got ‘urge’ last trip from a Pittsburg lady—it means ‘wanting to do it.’ You get an ‘urge’ to clean, paint and things like that. At least, some people do. Personally speaking, the only ‘urge’ I’ve ever got was to sleep after eating pork pie. Sententious—I’ll jot that down. As I was about to remark, it’s a sententious remark to pass, but if there wasn’t any thieves there would be no thieving.

There never was a confidence man, a card-sharp or a tale-teller that didn’t get his living by appealing to what I might describe as the criminal instincts of the respectable classes. Studying human beings is a hobby of mine, and a man who does fourteen trips a year across the Atlantic Ocean has all the opportunity he wants for improving his mind in that respect.

And what I discovered very early in my career was that, except one in a hundred, every man is a dreamer. Women are dreamers too, but they dream practical. It doesn’t matter what kind of a man he is, whether he’s a fat drummer from New York or one of those skinny cotton men from Manchester who complain because there’s only one church service on Sunday and the hymns are too frivolous, they’ve got dreams. You can see the dreamers lying in their chairs, staring across the sea. or leaning over the rail staring down at the gulf weed, or strolling along the promenade deck looking at nothing—all dreaming.

Sometimes they dream about picking up a wallet of a million dollars, belonging to a hard-hearted swindler, sometimes about taking ten millions from a secret Russian delegate who is going to use the money for corrupting the world—generally speaking, there is something noble about their robbery and the money runs into millions.

And, mind you, the money they steal in their dreams is always put to a good use. I know one chap (he’s the president of a hardware corporation) who commits his larcency the minute he comes on board and spends the voyage founding orphan asylums. Lew Baker, one of the cleverest get-a-bits that ever travelled the North Atlantic, told me that no con ever robbed an honest man. And that is true. It’s the prospect of getting something for nothing that appeals to people who work ten hours a day to pay the grocer, and the only way to get something for nothing is by thieving—and then you only get it temporary.

People who read about ocean-going crooks think that the beginning and end of ‘em is card-play. We put up notices in the smoke-room warning passengers that there are card-sharps aboard, but there wouldn’t be room on the smoke-room walls to give particulars of all the queer swindles that are worked between port and port.