This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 Excerpt: ...sort of schooner hove to in the offing one foggy afternoon, fired off a single gun, that didn't make any report, and then crumbled to nothing, spar, mast, and hull, like a piece of burned paper. The authorities, however, were of the opinion that human hands had something to do with the explosion, and they resorted to deep-laid stratagems to get hold of the said hands. One of their traps came very near catching us. They artfully caused an old brass field-piece to be left on a wharf near the scene of our late operations. Nothing in the world but the lack of money to buy powder saved us from falling into the clutches of the two watchmen who lay secreted for a week in a neighboring sail-loft. It was many a day before the midnight bombardment ceased to be the town-talk. The trick was so audacious, and on so grand a scale, that nobody thought for an instant of connecting us lads with it. Suspicion, at length, grew weary of lighting on the wrong person, and as conjecture--like the physicians in the epitaph--was in vain, the Rivermouthians gave up the idea of finding out who had astonished them. They never did find out, and never will, unless they read this veracious history. If the selectmen are still disposed to punish the malefactors, I can supply Lawyer Hackett with evidence enough to convict Pepper Whitcomb, Phil Adams, Charley Marden, and the other honorable members of the Centipede Club. But, really, I don't think it would pay now. TUSHMAKER'S TOOTHPULLER BY GEORGE H. DERBY (jOHN PHCENIX) Dr. Tushmaker was never regularly bred as a physician or surgeon, but he possessed naturally a strong mechanical genius and a fine appetite; and finding his teeth of great service in gratifying the latter propensity, he concluded that he could do more good in the world, and...