La ville de Bleiberg est en pleine agitation. La population est sur le point de se retourner contre son roi, Léopold, petit roitelet sans envergure, placé sur le trône par l\'Autriche, spoliant ainsi la couronne au Duc d\'Auersperg. Grâce à l\'amitié de Lord Fitzgerald, le Roi et sa fille, la jeune Alexia, demeurent sur le trône, mais pour combien de temps encore ? Dix années se sont écoulées. La Cour ne compte aujourd\'hui que traîtres et courtisans, prêt à rallier la bannière de la Duchesse d\'Auersperg, fille du Duc et héritière légitime du trône, qui intrigue pour reprendre ce qui lui est dû. Apparaît alors, à la Cour, Maurice Carewe, jeune et beau diplomate, secrètement amoureux d\'Alexia, devenue une belle jeune fille, et ami du fils de Lord Fitzgerald, devenu, depuis la mort de son père, le garant de la paix dans le royaume. Tandis que Carewe se battra pour l\'amour d\'Alexia, John succombera aux charmes de la Duchesse vengeresse. Pris au piège de multiples jeux d\'intrigues et de ruses, l\'amitié des deux hommes l\'emportera-t-il sur l\'amour que chacun ressent pour sa belle ?

This novel about China and the South Sea Islands is a thrilling character-story of literary excellence, which will further endear Mr. MacGrath to his widespread audience. This novel was made into a movie.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - If you will carefully observe any map of the world that is divided into inches at so many miles to the inch, you will be surprised as you calculate the distance between that enchanting Paris of France and the third-precinct police-station of Washington, D. C, which is not enchanting. It is several thousand miles. Again, if you will take the pains to run your glance, no doubt discerning, over the police-blotter at the court (and frankly, I refuse to tell you the exact date of this whimsical adventure), you will note with even greater surprise that all this hubbub was caused by no crime against the commonwealth of the Republic or against the person of any of its conglomerate people. The blotter reads, in heavy simple fist, "disorderly conduct," a phrase which is almost as embracing as the word diplomacy, or society, or respectability. So far as my knowledge goes, there is no such a person as James Osborne. If, by any unhappy chance, he does exist, I trust that he will pardon the civil law of Washington, my own measure of familiarity, and the questionable taste on the part of my hero - hero, because, from the rise to the fall of the curtain, he occupies the center of the stage in this little comedy-drama, and because authors have yet to find a happy synonym for the word. The name James Osborne was given for the simple reason that it was the first that occurred to the culprit's mind, so desperate an effort did he make to hide his identity. Supposing, for the sake of an argument in his favor, supposing he had said John Smith or William Jones or John Brown? To this very day he would have been hiring lawyers to extricate him from libel and false-representation suits. Besides, had he given any of these names, would not that hound-like scent of the ever suspicious police have been aroused?

Transcriber's Note: In addition to the title story ("The Best Man") the original book contained three other stories by the same author, and they are included in this e-book. They are "Two Candidates," first published in the Everybody's Magazine, May, 1905. "The Advent of Mr. 'Shifty' Sullivan," first published in the Ainslee Magazine, November, 1903. "The Girl and the Poet," first published in the Ladies Home Journal, December, 1905.