The Thirty-Nine Steps
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Buchan, John
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 221159
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Wiretap Electronic Text Archive
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: steps39.txt
subject: man
subject: scudder
subject: time
subject: fed
subject: told
subject: feeling
subject: laughed
subject: buchan
subject: john
subject: thirty
subject: nine
subject: steps
subject: english
subject: literature
type: text
local mirror: buchan-thirty-290.txt
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plain html: buchan-thirty-290.htm
sort title: Thirty-Nine Steps, The
full text: THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS by JOHN BUCHAN 28 Oct 1993 Scanned and proofread by Kirk Robinson <kirkr@panix.com> Version used David R.Godine-Publisher 1990 softcover edition Copyright 1915 by The Curtis Publishing Company Transcription notes: Italics thus _i_ italics _i_ Bold thus _b_ bold _b_ Underscore thus _u_ underscore _u_ accent aigu thus Rene' accent grave thus Se`vres accent circonflex thus cha^teau diaresis thus Ko"nigstrasse The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan 1 The Man Who Died I returned from the City about three o'clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If any one had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick, I couldn't get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. "Richard Hannay," I kept telling myself, "you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out." It made me bite my lips to think of the plans I had been building up those last years in Bulawayo. I had got my pile--not one of the big ones, but good enough for me; and I had figured out all kinds of ways of enjoying myself. My father had brought me out from Scotland at the age of six, and I had never been home since; so England was a sort of Arabian Nights to me, and I counted on stopping there for the rest of my days. But from the first I was disappointed with it. In about a week I was tired of seeing sights, and in less than a month I had had enough of restaurants and theatres and race-meetings. I had no real pal to go about with, which probably explains things. Plenty of people invited me to their houses, but they didn't seem much interested in me. They would fling me a question or two about South Africa, and then get on to their own affairs. A lot of Imperialist ladies as…