[Editorial] near by -> nearby

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@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
 			<p>“And where is she at?”</p>
 			<p>“At dose rock quarries⁠—working. <i xml:lang="de">Ach, mein Gott</i>⁠—little Lena, she speak of drowning. I do not know if she vill do it, but if she shall I schwear I vill dot Peter Hildesmuller shoot mit a gun.”</p>
 			<p>“You Dutchers,” said Hondo Bill, his voice swelling with fine contempt, “make me plenty tired. Hirin’ out your kids to work when they ought to be playin’ dolls in the sand. You’re a hell of a sect of people. I reckon we’ll fix your clock for a while just to show what we think of your old cheesy nation. Here, boys!”</p>
-			<p>Hondo Bill parleyed aside briefly with his band, and then they seized Fritz and conveyed him off the road to one side. Here they bound him fast to a tree with a couple of lariats. His team they tied to another tree near by.</p>
+			<p>Hondo Bill parleyed aside briefly with his band, and then they seized Fritz and conveyed him off the road to one side. Here they bound him fast to a tree with a couple of lariats. His team they tied to another tree nearby.</p>
 			<p>“We ain’t going to hurt you bad,” said Hondo reassuringly. “ ’Twon’t hurt you to be tied up for a while. We will now pass you the time of day, as it is up to us to depart. Ausgespielt⁠—nixcumrous, Dutchy. Don’t get any more impatience.”</p>
 			<p>Fritz heard a great squeaking of saddles as the men mounted their horses. Then a loud yell and a great clatter of hoofs as they galloped pell-mell back along the Fredericksburg road.</p>
 			<p>For more than two hours Fritz sat against his tree, tightly but not painfully bound. Then from the reaction after his exciting adventure he sank into slumber. How long he slept he knew not, but he was at last awakened by a rough shake. Hands were untying his ropes. He was lifted to his feet, dazed, confused in mind, and weary of body. Rubbing his eyes, he looked and saw that he was again in the midst of the same band of terrible bandits. They shoved him up to the seat of his wagon and placed the lines in his hands.</p>

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@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@
 			<p>That night the 100 head of cattle were driven up from the pasture and penned in a corral near the ranch-house for delivery in the morning.</p>
 			<p>When night closed down and the house was still, did Santa Yeager throw herself down, clasping that formal note to her bosom, weeping, and calling out a name that pride (either in one or the other) had kept from her lips many a day? Or did she file the letter, in her business way, retaining her royal balance and strength?</p>
 			<p>Wonder, if you will; but royalty is sacred; and there is a veil. But this much you shall learn:</p>
-			<p>At midnight Santa slipped softly out of the ranch-house, clothed in something dark and plain. She paused for a moment under the live-oak trees. The prairies were somewhat dim, and the moonlight was pale orange, diluted with particles of an impalpable, flying mist. But the mock-bird whistled on every bough of vantage; leagues of flowers scented the air; and a kindergarten of little shadowy rabbits leaped and played in an open space near by. Santa turned her face to the southeast and threw three kisses thitherward; for there was none to see.</p>
+			<p>At midnight Santa slipped softly out of the ranch-house, clothed in something dark and plain. She paused for a moment under the live-oak trees. The prairies were somewhat dim, and the moonlight was pale orange, diluted with particles of an impalpable, flying mist. But the mock-bird whistled on every bough of vantage; leagues of flowers scented the air; and a kindergarten of little shadowy rabbits leaped and played in an open space nearby. Santa turned her face to the southeast and threw three kisses thitherward; for there was none to see.</p>
 			<p>Then she sped silently to the blacksmith-shop, fifty yards away; and what she did there can only be surmised. But the forge glowed red; and there was a faint hammering such as Cupid might make when he sharpens his arrow-points.</p>
 			<p>Later she came forth with a queer-shaped, handled thing in one hand, and a portable furnace, such as are seen in branding-camps, in the other. To the corral where the Sussex cattle were penned she sped with these things swiftly in the moonlight.</p>
 			<p>She opened the gate and slipped inside the corral. The Sussex cattle were mostly a dark red. But among this bunch was one that was milky white⁠—notable among the others.</p>

src/epub/text/hearts-and-hands.xhtml

@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
 			<p>“It’s too bad you are not going East,” she said, reclothing herself with manner and style. “But you must go on to Leavenworth, I suppose?”</p>
 			<p>“Yes,” said Easton, “I must go on to Leavenworth.”</p>
 			<p>The two men sidled down the aisle into the smoker.</p>
-			<p>The two passengers in a seat near by had heard most of the conversation. Said one of them: “That marshal’s a good sort of chap. Some of these Western fellows are all right.”</p>
+			<p>The two passengers in a seat nearby had heard most of the conversation. Said one of them: “That marshal’s a good sort of chap. Some of these Western fellows are all right.”</p>
 			<p>“Pretty young to hold an office like that, isn’t he?” asked the other.</p>
 			<p>“Young!” exclaimed the first speaker, “why⁠—Oh! didn’t you catch on? Say⁠—did you ever know an officer to handcuff a prisoner to his <em>right</em> hand?”</p>
 		</section>

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@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="october-and-june" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">October and June</h2>
-			<p>The Captain gazed gloomily at his sword that hung upon the wall. In the closet near by was stored his faded uniform, stained and worn by weather and service. What a long, long time it seemed since those old days of war’s alarms!</p>
+			<p>The Captain gazed gloomily at his sword that hung upon the wall. In the closet nearby was stored his faded uniform, stained and worn by weather and service. What a long, long time it seemed since those old days of war’s alarms!</p>
 			<p>And now, veteran that he was of his country’s strenuous times, he had been reduced to abject surrender by a woman’s soft eyes and smiling lips. As he sat in his quiet room he held in his hand the letter he had just received from her⁠—the letter that had caused him to wear that look of gloom. He reread the fatal paragraph that had destroyed his hope.</p>
 			<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
 				<p>In declining the honour you have done me in asking me to be your wife, I feel that I ought to speak frankly. The reason I have for so doing is the great difference between our ages. I like you very, very much, but I am sure that our marriage would not be a happy one. I am sorry to have to refer to this, but I believe that you will appreciate my honesty in giving you the true reason.</p>

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@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 			<p>Far more than the law, the Mexicans dreaded the cold and certain vengeance of the lone rider that the ranger sought. It had been one of the Kid’s pastimes to shoot Mexicans “to see them kick”: if he demanded from them moribund Terpsichorean feats, simply that he might be entertained, what terrible and extreme penalties would be certain to follow should they anger him! One and all they lounged with upturned palms and shrugging shoulders, filling the air with “<i xml:lang="es">quien sabes</i>” and denials of the Kid’s acquaintance.</p>
 			<p>But there was a man named Fink who kept a store at the Crossing⁠—a man of many nationalities, tongues, interests, and ways of thinking.</p>
 			<p>“No use to ask them Mexicans,” he said to Sandridge. “They’re afraid to tell. This hombre they call the Kid⁠—Goodall is his name, ain’t it?⁠—he’s been in my store once or twice. I have an idea you might run across him at⁠—but I guess I don’t keer to say, myself. I’m two seconds later in pulling a gun than I used to be, and the difference is worth thinking about. But this Kid’s got a half-Mexican girl at the Crossing that he comes to see. She lives in that jacal a hundred yards down the arroyo at the edge of the pear. Maybe she⁠—no, I don’t suppose she would, but that jacal would be a good place to watch, anyway.”</p>
-			<p>Sandridge rode down to the jacal of Perez. The sun was low, and the broad shade of the great pear thicket already covered the grass-shatched hut. The goats were enclosed for the night in a brush corral near by. A few kids walked the top of it, nibbling the chaparral leaves. The old Mexican lay upon a blanket on the grass, already in a stupor from his mescal, and dreaming, perhaps, of the nights when he and Pizarro touched glasses to their New World fortunes⁠—so old his wrinkled face seemed to proclaim him to be. And in the door of the jacal stood Tonia. And Lieutenant Sandridge sat in his saddle staring at her like a gannet agape at a sailorman.</p>
+			<p>Sandridge rode down to the jacal of Perez. The sun was low, and the broad shade of the great pear thicket already covered the grass-shatched hut. The goats were enclosed for the night in a brush corral nearby. A few kids walked the top of it, nibbling the chaparral leaves. The old Mexican lay upon a blanket on the grass, already in a stupor from his mescal, and dreaming, perhaps, of the nights when he and Pizarro touched glasses to their New World fortunes⁠—so old his wrinkled face seemed to proclaim him to be. And in the door of the jacal stood Tonia. And Lieutenant Sandridge sat in his saddle staring at her like a gannet agape at a sailorman.</p>
 			<p>The Cisco Kid was a vain person, as all eminent and successful assassins are, and his bosom would have been ruffled had he known that at a simple exchange of glances two persons, in whose minds he had been looming large, suddenly abandoned (at least for the time) all thought of him.</p>
 			<p>Never before had Tonia seen such a man as this. He seemed to be made of sunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather. He seemed to illuminate the shadow of the pear when he smiled, as though the sun were rising again. The men she had known had been small and dark. Even the Kid, in spite of his achievements, was a stripling no larger than herself, with black, straight hair and a cold, marble face that chilled the noonday.</p>
 			<p>As for Tonia, though she sends description to the poorhouse, let her make a millionaire of your fancy. Her blue-black hair, smoothly divided in the middle and bound close to her head, and her large eyes full of the Latin melancholy, gave her the Madonna touch. Her motions and air spoke of the concealed fire and the desire to charm that she had inherited from the gitanas of the Basque province. As for the hummingbird part of her, that dwelt in her heart; you could not perceive it unless her bright red skirt and dark blue blouse gave you a symbolic hint of the vagarious bird.</p>

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@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
 			</blockquote>
 			<p>Then Aglaia would run to him laughing, and call: “Dada, come take Dums home”; and the miller would swing her to his shoulder and march over to supper, singing the miller’s song. Every evening this would take place.</p>
 			<p>One day, only a week after her fourth birthday, Aglaia disappeared. When last seen she was plucking wild flowers by the side of the road in front of the cottage. A little while later her mother went out to see that she did not stray too far away, and she was already gone.</p>
-			<p>Of course every effort was made to find her. The neighbours gathered and searched the woods and the mountains for miles around. They dragged every foot of the mill race and the creek for a long distance below the dam. Never a trace of her did they find. A night or two before there had been a family of wanderers camped in a grove near by. It was conjectured that they might have stolen the child; but when their wagon was overtaken and searched she could not be found.</p>
+			<p>Of course every effort was made to find her. The neighbours gathered and searched the woods and the mountains for miles around. They dragged every foot of the mill race and the creek for a long distance below the dam. Never a trace of her did they find. A night or two before there had been a family of wanderers camped in a grove nearby. It was conjectured that they might have stolen the child; but when their wagon was overtaken and searched she could not be found.</p>
 			<p>The miller remained at the mill for nearly two years; and then his hope of finding her died out. He and his wife moved to the Northwest. In a few years he was the owner of a modern mill in one of the important milling cities in that region. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Strong never recovered from the shock caused by the loss of Aglaia, and two years after they moved away the miller was left to bear his sorrow alone.</p>
 			<p>When Abram Strong became prosperous he paid a visit to Lakelands and the old mill. The scene was a sad one for him, but he was a strong man, and always appeared cheery and kindly. It was then that he was inspired to convert the old mill into a church. Lakelands was too poor to build one; and the still poorer mountaineers could not assist. There was no place of worship nearer than twenty miles.</p>
 			<p>The miller altered the appearance of the mill as little as possible. The big overshot-wheel was left in its place. The young people who came to the church used to cut their initials in its soft and slowly decaying wood. The dam was partly destroyed, and the clear mountain stream rippled unchecked down its rocky bed. Inside the mill the changes were greater. The shafts and millstones and belts and pulleys were, of course, all removed. There were two rows of benches with aisles between, and a little raised platform and pulpit at one end. On three sides overhead was a gallery containing seats, and reached by a stairway inside. There was also an organ⁠—a real pipe organ⁠—in the gallery, that was the pride of the congregation of the Old Mill Church. Miss Phoebe Summers was the organist. The Lakelands boys proudly took turns at pumping it for her at each Sunday’s service. The <abbr>Rev.</abbr> <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Banbridge was the preacher, and rode down from Squirrel Gap on his old white horse without ever missing a service. And Abram Strong paid for everything. He paid the preacher five hundred dollars a year; and Miss Phoebe two hundred dollars.</p>

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@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
 			<p>“What I am afraid of now,” said the General, lowering his voice, “is that I may be robbed of the diamond. The jewel that formed an eye of their goddess is their most sacred symbol. Somehow the tribe suspected me of having it; and members of the band have followed me half around the earth. They are the most cunning and cruel fanatics in the world, and their religious vows would compel them to assassinate the unbeliever who has desecrated their sacred treasure.</p>
 			<p>“Once in Lucknow three of their agents, disguised as servants in a hotel, endeavoured to strangle me with a twisted cloth. Again, in London, two Thugs, made up as street musicians, climbed into my window at night and attacked me. They have even tracked me to this country. My life is never safe. A month ago, while I was at a hotel in the Berkshires, three of them sprang upon me from the roadside weeds. I saved myself then by my knowledge of their customs.”</p>
 			<p>“How was that, General?” asked the reporter.</p>
-			<p>“There was a cow grazing near by,” said General Ludlow, “a gentle Jersey cow. I ran to her side and stood. The three Thugs ceased their attack, knelt and struck the ground thrice with their foreheads. Then, after many respectful salaams, they departed.”</p>
+			<p>“There was a cow grazing nearby,” said General Ludlow, “a gentle Jersey cow. I ran to her side and stood. The three Thugs ceased their attack, knelt and struck the ground thrice with their foreheads. Then, after many respectful salaams, they departed.”</p>
 			<p>“Afraid the cow would hook?” asked the reporter.</p>
 			<p>“No; the cow is a sacred animal to the Phansigars. Next to their goddess they worship the cow. They have never been known to commit any deed of violence in the presence of the animal they reverence.”</p>
 			<p>“It’s a mighty interesting story,” said the reporter. “If you don’t mind I’ll take another drink, and then a few notes.”</p>
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
 			<p>“Buy cast clo’!”</p>
 			<p>Another, dark-whiskered and sinister, sped lithely to his side and began in a whining voice:</p>
 			<p>“Say, mister, have yer got a dime fer a poor feller what⁠—”</p>
-			<p>They hurried on, but only into the arms of a black-eyed, dusky-browed being, who held out his hat under their noses, while a confederate of Oriental hue turned the handle of a street organ near by.</p>
+			<p>They hurried on, but only into the arms of a black-eyed, dusky-browed being, who held out his hat under their noses, while a confederate of Oriental hue turned the handle of a street organ nearby.</p>
 			<p>Twenty steps farther on General Ludlow and the reporter found themselves in the midst of half a dozen villainous-looking men with high-turned coat collars and faces bristling with unshaven beards.</p>
 			<p>“Run for it!” hissed the General. “They have discovered the possessor of the diamond of the goddess Kali.”</p>
 			<p>The two men took to their heels. The avengers of the goddess pursued.</p>

src/epub/text/the-enchanted-kiss.xhtml

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
 			<p>This delicate piece of raillery sent a fiery tingle into Tansey’s blood, for the indictment was true⁠—barring the kiss. That was a thing to dream of; to wildly hope for; but too remote and sacred a thing to think of lightly.</p>
 			<p>Casting a cold and contemptuous look at the speaker⁠—a punishment commensurate with his own diffident spirit⁠—Tansey left the room, descending the stairs into the street.</p>
 			<p>For two years he had silently adored Miss Peek, worshipping her from a spiritual distance through which her attractions took on stellar brightness and mystery. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Peek kept a few choice boarders, among whom was Tansey. The other young men romped with Katie, chased her with crickets in their fingers, and “jollied” her with an irreverent freedom that turned Tansey’s heart into cold lead in his bosom. The signs of his adoration were few⁠—a tremulous “Good morning,” stealthy glances at her during meals, and occasionally (Oh, rapture!) a blushing, delirious game of cribbage with her in the parlour on some rare evening when a miraculous lack of engagement kept her at home. Kiss him in the hall! Aye, he feared it, but it was an ecstatic fear such as Elijah must have felt when the chariot lifted him into the unknown.</p>
-			<p>But tonight the gibes of his associates had stung him to a feeling of forward, lawless mutiny; a defiant, challenging, atavistic recklessness. Spirit of corsair, adventurer, lover, poet, bohemian, possessed him. The stars he saw above him seemed no more unattainable, no less high, than the favour of Miss Peek or the fearsome sweetness of her delectable lips. His fate seemed to him strangely dramatic and pathetic, and to call for a solace consonant with its extremity. A saloon was near by, and to this he flitted, calling for absinthe⁠—beyond doubt the drink most adequate to his mood⁠—the tipple of the roué, the abandoned, the vainly sighing lover.</p>
+			<p>But tonight the gibes of his associates had stung him to a feeling of forward, lawless mutiny; a defiant, challenging, atavistic recklessness. Spirit of corsair, adventurer, lover, poet, bohemian, possessed him. The stars he saw above him seemed no more unattainable, no less high, than the favour of Miss Peek or the fearsome sweetness of her delectable lips. His fate seemed to him strangely dramatic and pathetic, and to call for a solace consonant with its extremity. A saloon was nearby, and to this he flitted, calling for absinthe⁠—beyond doubt the drink most adequate to his mood⁠—the tipple of the roué, the abandoned, the vainly sighing lover.</p>
 			<p>Once he drank of it, and again, and then again until he felt a strange, exalted sense of nonparticipation in worldly affairs pervade him. Tansey was no drinker; his consumption of three absinthe anisettes within almost as few minutes proclaimed his unproficiency in the art; Tansey was merely flooding with unproven liquor his sorrows; which record and tradition alleged to be drownable.</p>
 			<p>Coming out upon the sidewalk, he snapped his fingers defiantly in the direction of the Peek homestead, turned the other way, and voyaged, Columbus-like into the wilds of an enchanted street. Nor is the figure exorbitant, for, beyond his store the foot of Tansey had scarcely been set for years⁠—store and boardinghouse; between these ports he was chartered to run, and contrary currents had rarely deflected his prow.</p>
 			<p>Tansey aimlessly protracted his walk, and, whether it was his unfamiliarity with the district, his recent accession of audacious errantry, or the sophistical whisper of a certain green-eyed fairy, he came at last to tread a shuttered, blank, and echoing thoroughfare, dark and unpeopled. And, suddenly, this way came to an end (as many streets do in the Spanish-built, archaic town of San Antone), butting its head against an imminent, high, brick wall. No⁠—the street still lived! To the right and to the left it breathed through slender tubes of exit⁠—narrow, somnolent ravines, cobble paved and unlighted. Accommodating a rise in the street to the right was reared a phantom flight of five luminous steps of limestone, flanked by a wall of the same height and of the same material.</p>
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@
 			<p>Often had Tansey strolled down to these stands at night to partake of the delectable chili-con-carne, a dish evolved by the genius of Mexico, composed of delicate meats minced with aromatic herbs and the poignant <i xml:lang="es">chili colorado</i>⁠—a compound full of singular flavour and a fiery zest delightful to the Southron’s palate.</p>
 			<p>The titillating odour of this concoction came now, on the breeze, to the nostrils of Tansey, awakening in him hunger for it. As he turned in that direction he saw a carriage dash up to the Mexicans’ tents out of the gloom of the Plaza. Some figures moved back and forward in the uncertain light of the lanterns, and then the carriage was driven swiftly away.</p>
 			<p>Tansey approached, and sat at one of the tables covered with gaudy oilcloth. Traffic was dull at the moment. A few half-grown boys noisily fared at another table; the Mexicans hung listless and phlegmatic about their wares. And it was still. The night hum of the city crowded to the wall of dark buildings surrounding the Plaza, and subsided to an indefinite buzz through which sharply perforated the crackle of the languid fires and the rattle of fork and spoon. A sedative wind blew from the southeast. The starless firmament pressed down upon the earth like a leaden cover.</p>
-			<p>In all that quiet Tansey turned his head suddenly, and saw, without disquietude, a troop of spectral horsemen deploy into the Plaza and charge a luminous line of infantry that advanced to sustain the shock. He saw the fierce flame of cannon and small arms, but heard no sound. The careless victuallers lounged vacantly, not deigning to view the conflict. Tansey mildly wondered to what nations these mute combatants might belong; turned his back to them and ordered his chili and coffee from the Mexican woman who advanced to serve him. This woman was old and careworn; her face was lined like the rind of a cantaloupe. She fetched the viands from a vessel set by the smouldering fire, and then retired to a tent, dark within, that stood near by.</p>
+			<p>In all that quiet Tansey turned his head suddenly, and saw, without disquietude, a troop of spectral horsemen deploy into the Plaza and charge a luminous line of infantry that advanced to sustain the shock. He saw the fierce flame of cannon and small arms, but heard no sound. The careless victuallers lounged vacantly, not deigning to view the conflict. Tansey mildly wondered to what nations these mute combatants might belong; turned his back to them and ordered his chili and coffee from the Mexican woman who advanced to serve him. This woman was old and careworn; her face was lined like the rind of a cantaloupe. She fetched the viands from a vessel set by the smouldering fire, and then retired to a tent, dark within, that stood nearby.</p>
 			<p>Presently Tansey heard a turmoil in the tent; a wailing, brokenhearted pleading in the harmonious Spanish tongue, and then two figures tumbled out into the light of the lanterns. One was the old woman; the other was a man clothed with a sumptuous and flashing splendour. The woman seemed to clutch and beseech from him something against his will. The man broke from her and struck her brutally back into the tent, where she lay, whimpering and invisible. Observing Tansey, he walked rapidly to the table where he sat. Tansey recognized him to be Ramon Torres, a Mexican, the proprietor of the stand he was patronizing.</p>
 			<p>Torres was a handsome, nearly full-blooded descendant of the Spanish, seemingly about thirty years of age, and of a haughty, but extremely courteous demeanour. Tonight he was dressed with signal magnificence. His costume was that of a triumphant matador, made of purple velvet almost hidden by jeweled embroidery. Diamonds of enormous size flashed upon his garb and his hands. He reached for a chair, and, seating himself at the opposite side of the table, began to roll a finical cigarette.</p>
 			<p>“Ah, Meester Tansee,” he said, with a sultry fire in his silky, black eyes, “I give myself pleasure to see you this evening. Meester Tansee, you have many times come to eat at my table. I theenk you a safe man⁠—a verree good friend. How much would it please you to leeve forever?”</p>

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@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@
 			<p>Thomas McQuade took in the splendors of this palatial apartment with one eye. With the other he looked for his imposing conductor⁠—to find that he had disappeared.</p>
 			<p>“B’gee!” muttered Thomas, “this listens like a spook shop. Shouldn’t wonder if it ain’t one of these Moravian Nights’ adventures that you read about. Wonder what became of the furry guy.”</p>
 			<p>Suddenly a stuffed owl that stood on an ebony perch near the illuminated globe slowly raised his wings and emitted from his eyes a brilliant electric glow.</p>
-			<p>With a fright-born imprecation, Thomas seized a bronze statuette of Hebe from a cabinet near by and hurled it with all his might at the terrifying and impossible fowl. The owl and his perch went over with a crash. With the sound there was a click, and the room was flooded with light from a dozen frosted globes along the walls and ceiling. The gold portières parted and closed, and the mysterious automobilist entered the room. He was tall and wore evening dress of perfect cut and accurate taste. A Vandyke beard of glossy, golden brown, rather long and wavy hair, smoothly parted, and large, magnetic, orientally occult eyes gave him a most impressive and striking appearance. If you can conceive a Russian Grand Duke in a Rajah’s throne-room advancing to greet a visiting Emperor, you will gather something of the majesty of his manner. But Thomas McQuade was too near his <abbr>d.t.’s</abbr> to be mindful of his <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">p’s</i> and <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">q’s</i>. When he viewed this silken, polished, and somewhat terrifying host he thought vaguely of dentists.</p>
+			<p>With a fright-born imprecation, Thomas seized a bronze statuette of Hebe from a cabinet nearby and hurled it with all his might at the terrifying and impossible fowl. The owl and his perch went over with a crash. With the sound there was a click, and the room was flooded with light from a dozen frosted globes along the walls and ceiling. The gold portières parted and closed, and the mysterious automobilist entered the room. He was tall and wore evening dress of perfect cut and accurate taste. A Vandyke beard of glossy, golden brown, rather long and wavy hair, smoothly parted, and large, magnetic, orientally occult eyes gave him a most impressive and striking appearance. If you can conceive a Russian Grand Duke in a Rajah’s throne-room advancing to greet a visiting Emperor, you will gather something of the majesty of his manner. But Thomas McQuade was too near his <abbr>d.t.’s</abbr> to be mindful of his <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">p’s</i> and <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">q’s</i>. When he viewed this silken, polished, and somewhat terrifying host he thought vaguely of dentists.</p>
 			<p>“Say, doc,” said he resentfully, “that’s a hot bird you keep on tap. I hope I didn’t break anything. But I’ve nearly got the williwalloos, and when he threw them 32-candlepower lamps of his on me, I took a snapshot at him with that little brass Flatiron Girl that stood on the sideboard.”</p>
 			<p>“That is merely a mechanical toy,” said the gentleman with a wave of his hand. “May I ask you to be seated while I explain why I brought you to my house. Perhaps you would not understand nor be in sympathy with the psychological prompting that caused me to do so. So I will come to the point at once by venturing to refer to your admission that you know the Van Smuythe family, of Washington Square North.”</p>
 			<p>“Any silver missing?” asked Thomas tartly. “Any joolry displaced? Of course I know ’em. Any of the old ladies’ sunshades disappeared? Well, I know ’em. And then what?”</p>

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@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
 			<p>“You look chawming, you know⁠—’pon my word you do⁠—my deah,” he said, beguilingly.</p>
 			<p>Miss McRamsey whirled around.</p>
 			<p>“Cut that joshing out,” she said, coolly and briskly. “Who do you think you are talking to? Your check, please. Oh, Lordy!⁠—”</p>
-			<p>Patrons of the bazaar became aware of a commotion and pressed around a certain booth. The Earl of Hitesbury stood near by pulling a pale blond and puzzled whisker.</p>
+			<p>Patrons of the bazaar became aware of a commotion and pressed around a certain booth. The Earl of Hitesbury stood nearby pulling a pale blond and puzzled whisker.</p>
 			<p>“Miss McRamsey has fainted,” someone explained.</p>
 		</section>
 	</body>

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@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
 			<p>Curly followed his nose down the first tortuous street into which his irresponsible feet conducted him. At the lower end of it, on the bank of the serpentine stream, he perceived an open gate in a cemented rock wall. Inside he saw camp fires and a row of low wooden sheds built against three sides of the enclosing wall. He entered the enclosure. Under the sheds many horses were champing at their oats and corn. Many wagons and buckboards stood about with their teams’ harness thrown carelessly upon the shafts and doubletrees. Curly recognised the place as a wagon-yard, such as is provided by merchants for their out-of-fown friends and customers. No one was in sight. No doubt the drivers of those wagons were scattered about the town “seeing the elephant and hearing the owl.” In their haste to become patrons of the town’s dispensaries of mirth and good cheer the last ones to depart must have left the great wooden gate swinging open.</p>
 			<p>Curly had satisfied the hunger of an anaconda and the thirst of a camel, so he was neither in the mood nor the condition of an explorer. He zigzagged his way to the first wagon that his eyesight distinguished in the semidarkness under the shed. It was a two-horse wagon with a top of white canvas. The wagon was half filled with loose piles of wool sacks, two or three great bundles of grey blankets, and a number of bales, bundles, and boxes. A reasoning eye would have estimated the load at once as ranch supplies, bound on the morrow for some outlying hacienda. But to the drowsy intelligence of Curly they represented only warmth and softness and protection against the cold humidity of the night. After several unlucky efforts, at last he conquered gravity so far as to climb over a wheel and pitch forward upon the best and warmest bed he had fallen upon in many a day. Then he became instinctively a burrowing animal, and dug his way like a prairie-dog down among the sacks and blankets, hiding himself from the cold air as snug and safe as a bear in his den. For three nights sleep had visited Curly only in broken and shivering doses. So now, when Morpheus condescended to pay him a call, Curly got such a strangle hold on the mythological old gentleman that it was a wonder that anyone else in the whole world got a wink of sleep that night.</p>
 			<hr/>
-			<p>Six cowpunchers of the Cibolo Ranch were waiting around the door of the ranch store. Their ponies cropped grass near by, tied in the Texas fashion⁠—which is not tied at all. Their bridle reins had been dropped to the earth, which is a more effectual way of securing them (such is the power of habit and imagination) than you could devise out of a half-inch rope and a live-oak tree.</p>
+			<p>Six cowpunchers of the Cibolo Ranch were waiting around the door of the ranch store. Their ponies cropped grass nearby, tied in the Texas fashion⁠—which is not tied at all. Their bridle reins had been dropped to the earth, which is a more effectual way of securing them (such is the power of habit and imagination) than you could devise out of a half-inch rope and a live-oak tree.</p>
 			<p>These guardians of the cow lounged about, each with a brown cigarette paper in his hand, and gently but unceasingly cursed Sam Revell, the storekeeper. Sam stood in the door, snapping the red elastic bands on his pink madras shirtsleeves and looking down affectionately at the only pair of tan shoes within a forty-mile radius. His offence had been serious, and he was divided between humble apology and admiration for the beauty of his raiment. He had allowed the ranch stock of “smoking” to become exhausted.</p>
 			<p>“I thought sure there was another case of it under the counter, boys,” he explained. “But it happened to be catterdges.”</p>
 			<p>“You’ve sure got a case of happenedicitis,” said Poky Rodgers, fency rider of the Largo Verde potrero. “Somebody ought to happen to give you a knock on the head with the butt end of a quirt. I’ve rode in nine miles for some tobacco; and it don’t appear natural and seemly that you ought to be allowed to live.”</p>

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@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
 			<p>“ ‘Well,’ says Bill Bassett, when we had exchanged memories of our dead lives, ‘I could eat. This town don’t look like it was kept under a Yale lock. Suppose we commit some mild atrocity that will bring in temporary expense money. I don’t suppose you’ve brought along any hair tonic or rolled gold watch-chains, or similar law-defying swindles that you could sell on the plaza to the pikers of the paretic populace, have you?’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘No,’ says I, ‘I left an elegant line of Patagonian diamond earrings and rainy-day sunbursts in my valise at Peavine. But they’re to stay there until some of those black-gum trees begin to glut the market with yellow clings and Japanese plums. I reckon we can’t count on them unless we take Luther Burbank in for a partner.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Very well,’ says Bassett, ‘we’ll do the best we can. Maybe after dark I’ll borrow a hairpin from some lady, and open the Farmers and Drovers Marine Bank with it.’</p>
-			<p>“While we were talking, up pulls a passenger train to the depot near by. A person in a high hat gets off on the wrong side of the train and comes tripping down the track towards us. He was a little, fat man with a big nose and rat’s eyes, but dressed expensive, and carrying a hand-satchel careful, as if it had eggs or railroads bonds in it. He passes by us and keeps on down the track, not appearing to notice the town.</p>
+			<p>“While we were talking, up pulls a passenger train to the depot nearby. A person in a high hat gets off on the wrong side of the train and comes tripping down the track towards us. He was a little, fat man with a big nose and rat’s eyes, but dressed expensive, and carrying a hand-satchel careful, as if it had eggs or railroads bonds in it. He passes by us and keeps on down the track, not appearing to notice the town.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Come on,’ says Bill Bassett to me, starting after him.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Where?’ I asks.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Lordy!’ says Bill, ‘had you forgot you was in the desert? Didn’t you see Colonel Manna drop down right before your eyes? Don’t you hear the rustling of General Raven’s wings? I’m surprised at you, Elijah.’</p>

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@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
 			<p>“All right,” said Miss Sally again, “I’ll ride in as soon as I am relieved tomorrow.”</p>
 			<p>It was a rather chilly night, and after supper the cowpunchers were lounging about a big fire of dried mesquite chunks.</p>
 			<p>Their usual exchange of jokes and repartee had dwindled almost to silence, but silence in a cow camp generally betokens the brewing of mischief.</p>
-			<p>Miss Sally and the Marquis were seated upon a log, discussing the relative merits of the lengthened or shortened stirrup in long-distance riding. The Marquis arose presently and went to a tree near by to examine some strips of rawhide he was seasoning for making a lariat. Just as he left a little puff of wind blew some scraps of tobacco from a cigarette that Dry-Creek Smithers was rolling, into Miss Sally’s eyes. While the cook was rubbing at them, with tears flowing, “Phonograph” Davis⁠—so called on account of his strident voice⁠—arose and began a speech.</p>
+			<p>Miss Sally and the Marquis were seated upon a log, discussing the relative merits of the lengthened or shortened stirrup in long-distance riding. The Marquis arose presently and went to a tree nearby to examine some strips of rawhide he was seasoning for making a lariat. Just as he left a little puff of wind blew some scraps of tobacco from a cigarette that Dry-Creek Smithers was rolling, into Miss Sally’s eyes. While the cook was rubbing at them, with tears flowing, “Phonograph” Davis⁠—so called on account of his strident voice⁠—arose and began a speech.</p>
 			<p>“Fellers and citizens! I desire to perpound a interrogatory. What is the most grievous spectacle what the human mind can contemplate?”</p>
 			<p>A volley of answers responded to his question.</p>
 			<p>“A busted flush!”</p>

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@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@
 			<p>This music and the musician called her, and at her side honor and the old love held her back.</p>
 			<p>“Forgive me,” he pleaded.</p>
 			<p>“Twenty years is a long time to remain away from the one you say you love,” she declared, with a purgatorial touch.</p>
-			<p>“How could I tell?” he begged. “I will conceal nothing from you. That night when he left I followed him. I was mad with jealousy. On a dark street I struck him down. He did not rise. I examined him. His head had struck a stone. I did not intend to kill him. I was mad with love and jealousy. I hid near by and saw an ambulance take him away. Although you married him, Helen⁠—”</p>
+			<p>“How could I tell?” he begged. “I will conceal nothing from you. That night when he left I followed him. I was mad with jealousy. On a dark street I struck him down. He did not rise. I examined him. His head had struck a stone. I did not intend to kill him. I was mad with love and jealousy. I hid nearby and saw an ambulance take him away. Although you married him, Helen⁠—”</p>
 			<p>“<em>Who are you?</em>” cried the woman, with wide-open eyes, snatching her hand away.</p>
 			<p>“Don’t you remember me, Helen⁠—the one who has always loved you best? I am John Delaney. If you can forgive⁠—”</p>
 			<p>But she was gone, leaping, stumbling, hurrying, flying up the stairs toward the music and him who had forgotten, but who had known her for his in each of his two existences, and as she climbed up she sobbed, cried and sang: “Frank! Frank! Frank!”</p>

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@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 		<section id="why-he-hesitated" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">Why He Hesitated</h2>
 			<p>A man with a worn, haggard countenance that showed traces of deep sorrow and suffering rushed excitedly up the stairs into the editorial rooms of the Post.</p>
-			<p>The literary editor was alone in his corner and the man threw himself into a chair near by and said:</p>
+			<p>The literary editor was alone in his corner and the man threw himself into a chair nearby and said:</p>
 			<p>“Excuse me, sir, for inflicting my troubles upon you, but I must unbosom myself to someone. I am the unhappiest of men. Two months ago, in a quiet little town in Eastern Texas, there was a family dwelling in the midst of peace and contentment. Hezekiah Skinner was the head of that family, and he almost idolized his wife, who appeared to completely return his affection. Alas, sir, she was deceiving him. Her protestations of love were but honeyed lies, intended to beguile and blind him. She had become infatuated with William Wagstaff, a neighbor, who had insidiously planned to capture her affections. She listened to Wagstaff’s pleadings and fled with him, leaving her husband with a wrecked home and a broken heart. Can you not feel for me, sir?”</p>
 			<p>“I do, indeed,” said the literary editor. “I can conceive the agony, the sorrow, the deep suffering that you must have felt.”</p>
 			<p>“For two months,” continued the man, “the home of Hezekiah Skinner has been desolate, and this woman and Wagstaff have been flying from his wrath.”</p>