"Downstairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... invisible person. Other switch arrangements make it possible to turn on the upper hall lights from below, or the lower hall lights from above, and the lights in each room from the hall. When there are unseemly noises downstairs in the wee sma' hours it is much more agreeable to gaze over the balustrade into a bright hall than to go prowling about in the darkness for the bulb or gas jet, with the chance of grasping a burglar instead. Some burglars are very sensitive about familiarities ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... the mischief is the matter? Why, the folk downstairs have been kicking up the biggest fuss for the last three hours. How could you sleep? Gracious, how those girls are tearing ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... been lighted by Porou's phosphorescent eyes. And yet I had written with as much ease in the darkness as by the light of a good lamp. My story finished, I proceeded to dress. I put on my evening clothes and my white tie, and, taking leave of Porou, I hurried downstairs into the street. I had hardly gone twenty steps when I felt some one pull at ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... look much better," George said to his mother, a few minutes after their arrival, on the night they got home. He stood with a towel in her doorway, concluding some sketchy ablutions before going downstairs to a supper which Fanny was hastily preparing for them. Isabel had not telegraphed; Fanny was taken by surprise when they drove up in a station cab at eleven o'clock; and George instantly demanded "a little decent food." (Some criticisms of his had publicly disturbed the composure ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... only eight o'clock. No one at her home had thought the hour too early. But when she reached Burrell Court Elizabeth had not come downstairs and breakfast was not yet served. She was much annoyed and embarrassed by the attitude of the servants. She had no visiting-card, and the footman declined to disturb Mrs. Burrell at her toilet. "Miss could wait," he said ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... on a broomstick, laid across two chairs in front of the fireplace. We retired on Christmas Eve with the most pleasing anticipations of what would be in our stockings next morning. The thermometer in that latitude was often twenty degrees below zero, yet, bright and early, we would run downstairs in our bare feet over the cold floors to carry stockings, broom, etc., to the nursery. The gorgeous presents that St. Nicholas now distributes show that he, too, has been growing up with the country. The boys and girls ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... nothing about the business at Fairoaks; whither he contented himself with despatching the note we have before mentioned. And then he returned to his hotel, where he vented his wrath upon Mr. Morgan his valet, "dammin and cussin upstairs and downstairs," as that gentleman observed to Mr. Foker's man, in whose company he partook of dinner in the servants' room ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would do in case of fire, but supposed they never had any. We asked the interpreter about it. One evening there was an unusual noise. It was always noisy, but this was everything noise. Then the interpreter came and said, 'Come quick now and see how grandfather fights fire.' We went downstairs quick and every man was calling as loud as he could. All of a sudden we heard a great bell ringing and there were a number of those little men with horses hitched to something that looked like buffalo's paunch with entrails rolled around it. They had a great many ladders ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... night. She never rested quietly a-bed, but used to disturb the whole family with shrieking out in her dreams, and plague them next day with interpreting them, for she took them all for gospel; she would cry out "Murder!" and disturb the whole neighbourhood; and when John came running downstairs to inquire what the matter was, nothing forsooth, only her maid had stuck a pin wrong in her gown; she turned away one servant for putting too much oil in her salad, and another for putting too little salt in her water-gruel; but such as by flattery had procured her esteem, she ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... Arisa, "for it was he that brought the message to Contarini, bidding him go and see her in Saint Mark's. That was how he chanced upon them, downstairs, at their last meeting." ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... him downstairs, she suddenly and unhappily remembered the people she would have to face, the gibing questions she would ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... say that I know less now than I did before. And, by the way, those things over there—he pointed to the washstand—I noticed that at certain times you go through some ceremony with them upstairs, and as I wished to discover if there was any reason why you should not perform the same ceremony downstairs, I moved the things. Well, I noticed that the spirit who was here before you was apparently very annoyed. Can you give me any explanation ...
— The Psychical Researcher's Tale - The Sceptical Poltergeist - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • J. D. Beresford
... and looked about him. They were in a room with one door but no windows, and were evidently under guard at the back of the stone house. Dick listened attentively for some minutes, and at last heard the sound of some one coming downstairs. ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore
... wouldn't have called him that before the bath. But he is rather a dear now, isn't he? And I think he's younger than I did downstairs. Not over eighteen, at the most, but fully forty in the experiences and hardships that have brought him here. Well, we'll go away and let him rest. Wish I knew the Hungarian for 'good-night,' don't you? Anyway, if he knows any prayers he'll say 'em, ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... instant of a fine opening for a point, Mr Boffin quenched that observation in this—delivered in the grisliest growling of the regular brown bear. 'A pretty and a hopeful picter? Mew, Quack quack, Bow-wow!' And then trotted silently downstairs, with his shoulders in a state of the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... was no dining-room window from which the ruffians downstairs could see him. And they had made no move as far as she ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... comfortable, then left him in his grandmother's charge for a short time. Old Mrs. Platt had had her share of suffering during those sad days; her heart was wrapped up in the boy, and perhaps the greatest trial of all was to stand aloof, and perform her daily work downstairs, whilst her daughter-in-law had the ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... "Muriel, fly! There's no time to get downstairs, but Mary Ann Whooly said we could go into the room off this ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... "That's it. I seen that same thing up home. Bug Sullivan, it was. When he was a li'l' feller he tumbled downstairs and hit his head, and for 'most ten years he was foolish. Then a brick fell off a buildin' and landed on his bean. It knocked him for a gool, but when he come out of it he was bright as a new dime. Looey, when ye busted Rand with yer gun ye jarred somethin' loose ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... downstairs, coaxed Judith over beyond first base to play catch with a soft rubber ball; and Sylvia, carried away by the cheerful excitement, hopped about everywhere at once, screaming encouragement to the base runners, picking ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... not, after all, want him to marry Elizabeth Wheeler. He put the matter to the test that night, wandering in in dressing-gown and slippers, as was his custom before going to bed, for a brief chat. The nurse was downstairs, and Dick moved about the room restlessly. Then he stopped and stood by ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... moths, when their partners have been removed, are taken downstairs in newspapers in order to be put into the little tin receptacles where the eggs are to be laid. On a tray there are spread out a number of egg cards with, as before mentioned, twenty-eight printed circles on each of them. On these circles ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... took heart and began to mend immediately; and gobbled up all the jelly, and picked the last bone of the chicken—drumsticks, merry-thought, sides'-bones, back, pope's nose, and all—thanking his dear Angelica; and he felt so much better the next day, that he dressed and went downstairs, where, whom should he meet but Angelica going into the drawing-room? All the covers were off the chairs, the chandeliers taken out of the bags, the damask curtains uncovered, the work and things carried away, and the handsomest albums ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... love," said des Lupeaulx to himself as he went downstairs, "that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a long time. Well, if she IS tricking me I shall know it. I'll set the cleverest of all traps before the appointment is fairly signed, and I'll read her heart. Ah! my little cats, I know ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... Andy,' says I. 'We're in a rural community. Somebody has just tested a gold brick downstairs. We'll go out and get what's coming to us from a farmer; and ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... Baylis, Miss Moore, all came out. Downstairs I ran again and unfastened the front door, and went to the corner of the verandah. Philips was getting out the children, and the flames were coming on with frightful rapidity; it was blowing a perfect hurricane, ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... stair-case, the wood-work, were devoid of decoration and humid with frost, and where there was literally nothing beyond the merest necessaries. He felt the brusque transition from his poetic Paris to the dumb and arid province; and when, coming downstairs, he chanced to see Monsieur Hochon cutting slices of bread for each person, he understood, for the first time in ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... world; I wish to be quiet; it is a winter's night. I am an old man, and perhaps if I went out they might beat me.' The Hodja's wife was a wise woman. She kissed his hands and his feet. The Hodja was cross and scolded her, but he threw the quilt about him, went downstairs and out to where the disputants were, and said to them: 'For the sake of my white beard cease, my sons, your strife.' The men, in reply, pulled the quilt from the Hodja's shoulders and made off with it. 'Very well,' ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... harmless,— that she would like to deliver it herself to the publishers rather than send it by post, on this day of all days, when plans for the future were to be discussed with her lover and everything settled for their mutual happiness. Her heart grew light with joyous anticipation as she ran downstairs and nodded smilingly at the maid Rachel, who stood ready at the door to open it ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... surrounded by galleries. It is capable of containing fifteen hundred persons, and I believe that there were even more than that number present on the occasion of the ball given to the Duke of Edinburgh some years ago. The arrangement of the large cloakrooms, refreshment-rooms, and passages downstairs, and the balconies and supper-rooms upstairs, is very convenient. The ball this evening being comparatively a small affair, the lower rooms only were used, and proved amply sufficient. There were ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... is not an educated woman, and I am sure she would rather remain downstairs; our conversation ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... sound of this delicate discussion Betty was accordingly sent downstairs, and they soon saw her walking away into the shrubberies, looking very pretty in her sweeping green gown, and flapping broad-brimmed hat overhung with ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... birthday, Daimur had gone to his apartment and was sitting at his window thinking sadly of his troubled kingdom, when suddenly his door was opened and before he could say a word a gag was thrust into his mouth, his hands and feet were tied, and he was carried quickly downstairs, out of doors and down the garden path to the sea, where he was dumped into a boat that was anchored at the little wharf there. The night was very dark, and Daimur could not see because they had thrown ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... on to a couch, cover him warmly, and let him sleep. An epileptic's bed should be placed on the ground floor; if his bed be upstairs, it is difficult to get him there after an attack, while he may at any time fall downstairs and be killed. ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... answered three questions, and that is enough," Said his father; "don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!" ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... corridors and up and downstairs for ten minutes, looking in vain for Grim. Here and there a servant snored on a mat in a corner, and once a big dog came and sniffed at us without making any further comment. Jeremy kicked one man awake, who, mistaking him for ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... She flew downstairs, and flitted swiftly into the room, and fluttered up to Beaton, and gave ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... another friend who was with us called out with curiously impersonal interest, "Oh, see that woman getting into the water!" This would have excited curiosity and alarmed anxiety far less lively than ours, and Clemens and I rushed downstairs and out through my basement and back gate. At the same time a coachman came out of a stable next door, and grappled by the shoulders a woman who was somewhat deliberately getting down the steps to the water ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... away, she heard the dull sound, as if nocturnal women were beating great carpets. There was Morty lost, and Seabrook dead; her sons fighting for their country. But were the chickens safe? Was that some one moving downstairs? Rebecca with the toothache? No. The nocturnal women were beating great carpets. Her hens shifted slightly ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... can let him have money to go on with," I answered grandly. And then I went off to prove that I was a good fellow, and searched throughout the house. Two white boxes had by order been left downstairs, as they would not be needed; and these two were in a large cupboard of the hall, which was used expressly for stowing away luggage. And then there were three in Mrs. Greene's bed-room, which had been taken there as containing the wardrobe which she would require while remaining at Bellaggio. ...
— The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box • Anthony Trollope
... without immediately thinking of nuns. It would seem that the room communicated with the dorter or dormitory, and was designed for invalid monks, who from it might hear mass sung in the church without going downstairs. In the south-east corner of the transept a staircase gives access to this chamber, and communicates with the triforium of the transept, the clerestory of the choir, the vaulting of the ambulatory as well ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... means," cried Banborough, "but there's no time to talk now. We've not a moment to lose!" and he rushed downstairs. ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... she took one look at her, and just stopped to drop a kiss on the yellow hair, "you must just come downstairs this very minute. If you don't, you can't have ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... he didn't need hisself he hired out. The slaves had rooms in the back, the ones with children had two rooms and them that didn't have any children had one room, not to cook in but to sleep in. They all cooked and ate downstairs in the hall that they had for the colored people. I don't know about slavery but I know all the slavery I know about, the people was good to me. Mr. Fuller was a good man and his wife's people been grand people, all ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... went on, as Parks withdrew, "when I went downstairs this morning and saw that cabinet, I could hardly believe my eyes. I thought I knew furniture, but I hadn't any idea such a cabinet existed. The most beautiful I had ever seen is at the Louvre. It stands in the Salle Louis Fourteenth, to ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Miss Mapp, as she tripped downstairs. "Diva would have sent the cover of the window-seat too, if that was the case. Liar," she thought again as she kissed her hand to Diva, who was looking gloomily out ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... days were bright and busy ones at the farm. The peddler had vanished ere the travellers were downstairs next morning; but they had bought all they required overnight, and did not trouble about that. There was a great stirring throughout the house, and the needles of mistress and maid were flying swiftly whilst the short ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... my way downstairs, and came to him as he looked on at and lighted the harnessing of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said, roughly, and pointing with his thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab leaped up, and settled himself, his head and eye to the dead face. "Maister John, ye'll wait for me," said the carrier; and disappeared in the darkness, thundering downstairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a front window; there he was, already round the house, and out at the gate, fleeing like ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... wife frets and thinks she's drowned herself, but I tell her, folks don't care to put on their best clothes to drown themselves; and Mrs. Bradshaw (where she lodged, you know) says the last time she set eyes on her was last Tuesday, when she came downstairs, dressed in her Sunday gown, and with a new ribbon in her bonnet, and gloves on her hands, like the lady she was so fond of ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... simply cutting the duct and seeing what will happen to the guinea pig. (Sylvia rises, horrified.) I shall require a knife specially made to get at it. The man who is waiting for me downstairs has brought me a few handles to try before fitting it and sending it to the laboratory. I am afraid it would not do to ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... toy counter tells Mr. Hopkins that there is a woman downstairs who will help him select something for his wife. He goes back to the man in uniform to locate her and finds her in a secluded booth on the first floor. She asks several questions about whether he would like china or silver, furniture or linen, but Mr. Hopkins wants to give ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... fortune appeared before his troubled eyes and set his soul alight with high ambition. The candle in his hand burned unsteadily and dripped tallow, unheeded. "Come," said Dorothy, gently, "let's go downstairs again." ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... juncture she left the room, apparently to give the pupils a brief study-period, and simultaneously the concierge was called downstairs by a crying baby. A bright idea occurred to me and I went hurriedly into the corridor where my friend ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for any further permission. He ran downstairs at once and banged the front door soundly after him with a resounding clatter. Lady Hilda looked imploringly at Ernest, and whispered half audibly, 'Now you've done it.' Ernest stood a second irresolute, while the Earl tramped angrily up and down the drawing-room, and then he ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... accustomed to resort thither on that day specially to pay their court, gave him the most humiliating reception. They came pressing round him; managing, as if by mistake, to tread on his toes, to elbow him towards the door, and not let him enter again. He went downstairs to her Majesty's Apartments, where cover was laid; so soon as he shewed face, sounds rose on all sides, "Messieurs, take care of the dishes," as if he had carried poison in his pockets. The insults which his presence every where excited ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... crying like a great child, with convulsive sobs; his arms hanging down, and his legs weak, and he went downstairs without knowing what he was doing, and moving his feet mechanically. They put him into the chair which he always occupied at dinner, in front of his empty soup plate. And there he sat, without moving, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... preparation downstairs, her mother's low, fretful voice and her father's high and strained one joined in a heated argument, and they started still deep in it, for her father did not call a good-night to Judith. The street door shut, and she was alone in the house. Carriage wheels creaked out of the ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... words to explain her early return, Cicely went up to her own room, and took from a drawer a little pocketbook, and opening it, examined the money contained therein. Apparently satisfied with the result, she went downstairs, wallet ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... ties, and Sister had to admire these before she could leave the chiffonier. Finally she slipped the box of pretty buttons in her pocket and jumped down. She put the chair where she had found it, and ran downstairs and through the hedge that separated the Morrison house from ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... o'clock; I can't be certain as to a minute. I jumped up and laid hold of my revolver, which was handy. I always kept it beside me in case of a burglary. Then I stole downstairs in slippers and pajamas to the passage,—oh, here." Garvington rose quickly. "Come with me and see ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... in front of a whizzing golf ball and clattered downstairs. Presently he appeared on the walk beneath the window and wiggled his fingers derisively with the thumb against a prominent feature of his face. But at the first squeak of the window being pushed up he disappeared ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... room, and kneeled down and prayed that the King would give her help to keep His commandments. She was ashamed of herself now; but so obstinate was her feeling of displeasure against her brother, that even after she thought she had forgiven him, Daisy would not go downstairs again nor meet him nor her father, for fear she should speak words that she ought not, or fail of a perfectly gentle and ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... in the morning, there was no fire. She immediately walked to the foot of the stairs and yelled, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" at the top of her voice. In a few moments, both lads, tousled, half-dressed, and well-scared, rushed downstairs, exclaiming: "Where's the fire? Where's the fire?" "I want it in the stove," was the mother's answer—and "that was the end ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... on the Clyde, and went on about my work. But I went back to Dunoon as often as I could, as I got a day or a night to make the journey. At first there was small change of progress. John would come downstairs about the middle of the day, moving slowly and painfully. And he was listless; there was no life in him; ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... downstairs dormitory is a dining and sitting-room for the use of those who have taken bed tickets. In this room, when I visited it, several men were engaged in various occupations. One of them was painting flowers. ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... families of the well-to-do few influences have a greater effect upon the child, and so upon the man, than that exercised by the servants of the household in which he or she is brought up. And of those influences, upstairs or downstairs, none, of course, is so potent as that of the nurse. That is what Goethe would call one of the secrets that are known to all. Why it should ever be regarded as a secret Heaven knows; yet it must be so considered, for it is very seldom spoken of except ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... General Darrington's death she was sitting at her needlework in the hall of the second story of his house. As the day was very hot, she had opened the door leading out to an iron balcony, which projected just over the front hall door downstairs; and since the piazza was open from the roof to the floor, she had peeped over, and seen the prisoner when she arrived and had watched her while she sat on the steps, waiting to be admitted. After the accused had been inside the house some time, she (witness) ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... fine summer weather, the one fire in the house was the kitchen fire. He went downstairs for the boiling water, with his teapot in ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... now her chief resort in the morning, and there Johnnie went through his lessons with almost too precocious ease and delight, and Helen was daily conquered over Mrs. Barbauld. There they were sure to be welcome, though they were seldom seen downstairs. Johnnie used to appear in the space before dinner, very demure and well-behaved, and there seemed to be a fellow-feeling arising between him and his grandfather, who would take possession of him if he met ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... case. When she finally went downstairs, turning the key of her store-room over to the matron, the ambulance body was crowded with cases. The stretchers had been taken out before Charlie Bragg drove in. Ruth must occupy the seat ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... The preacher went downstairs and crossed the courtyard to the Stadholder's apartments, where ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... many hours in a dull country hotel, an hotel, too, which was quite strange to her, and where she could not, therefore, fall back upon the society and conversation of a friendly landlady. Madelon wandered upstairs and downstairs, looked out of all the windows she could get at, and at last stood leaning against the hall-door, which opened on to the front courtyard. It was very quiet and very dull, nothing moving anywhere; no one crossed the square, sunny space, paved with little stones, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... was ready to give up work altogether, die, or, do anything; he said that he had written more than he had ever expected to, and the only book that he had been pertickularly anxious to write was one locked up in the safe downstairs, not ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... sliding rock, or a river-driver crushed between logs, or a hunter the victim of his own marksmanship, to come limping or riding down the trail to this haven of first aid. Quickly she drew on her simple clothing and hurried downstairs, but Arthurs was already at the door. The little party came into the yard, and the policeman rode up to the door. The other horseman sat with his back to the house; his hands were chained together ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... was the first man downstairs. When he entered I saw at a glance that it was one of his gala nights, for he wore the ceremonial white waistcoat and cravat, and had thrown the accommodating coat wide open. His hair, too, was brushed back from his broad forehead with more than ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... carried on by this clergy in the Lake of the Woods country. I was anxious to get the story of the recovery of these historic remains and also to secure photographs. But the Father was obdurate, for he thought his Bishop might not approve. We turned to go downstairs from the third story of the seminary. Looking in at an open door, my eye was caught by the familiar wording of a blackboard problem. "If 16 men and 4 boys working 4 hours a day dig a trench 82 yards long——." And ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... to the bottom of the stairs and called me by name. I heard Lady Angela's little cry of surprise. I was downstairs in a moment, and she came straight into my arms. Her dear tear-stained little face buried itself ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was a commotion downstairs, and shoutings, and rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for some minutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began to go down; and fears are worse than pains—oh, much worse. Then came a sound that froze me. They were calling ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... after some temporary absence before the wedding, it was after this ridiculous fashion. There was a wooden staircase screened off one side of the long-room down which he would occasionally creep to listen at the door at bottom to the tattle of the boys about him. He was heard creaking downstairs, and some active young fellow by a round-about byway managed to steal down behind and suddenly pushed him by the burst open door, spread-eagle fashion, into the laughing long-room! The poor victim pretended it was an accident, "Ye see, Mr. Yates, I was coming down the stair, and me foot ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... know. She's a senior. There are no teachers rooming at Dare. Only the housekeeper downstairs. But you'll find a senior at the head of each table—and ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... morning the master, who slept downstairs, would strike the ceiling with his stick. Pelle, whose business it was to reply, would mechanically sit up and strike the side of the bedstead with his clenched fist. Then, still sleeping, he would fall back again. After a while the process was repeated. But then ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... downstairs quietly. Turn to your left. You'll see a door. It opens on the street. Walk out with your head up, and go home. You're as safe as though you'd never seen Ely Crouch. There's no ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Helena, who was twelve, hadn't been strongly prepossessed; and the doll—though Lee Randon no longer thought of it as merely that—left downstairs, had been finally placed on the white over-mantel of the ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... he said. 'I'm sure I beg your pardon. I think I must have been in a dream. You are the children who live downstairs, are you not? Yes. I have seen you as I have passed in and out. And you have found something that you think to be an antiquity, and you've brought it to show me? That was very kind. I should ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... about ships, but only in the queerest way that had something to do with his business. Late one night from my bed I heard his voice downstairs, cutting and snarling through other voices. I got out of bed and stole downstairs and along the half-lit hall to the library door, and there from behind the curtain I watched what was going on inside. The library was full of men, grave, courteous-looking ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... added to this healthy view, without precipitating her to appease it; she was more inclined to foster it, for the sake of the sinewy activity of mind and limb it gave her; and in the style of young ladies very light of heart, she went downstairs like a cascade, and like the meteor observed in its vanishing trace she alighted close to Colonel De Craye and entered one of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... A further investigation ensued downstairs, but in a little while the searchers went out of the house. Their tone had changed since their disappointment, and loud threats floated up the dark stairway to the prisoners still crouching in ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... that He who in Apahatchie County had trained them to hop off the Sidewalk and stand Uncovered until he had passed, now suffered the Hideous Degradation of being marched downstairs by One of Them and then slammed into the Hurry-Up Wagon. Under which Circumstances ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... There wasn't any sound from his room when I passed it goin' downstairs. Think of the nerve of this bird comin' here to roost after ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... no rent," said Contini. "It is an idea. But the walls are dry downstairs, and we only need a pavement, and plastering, and doors and windows, and papering and some furniture to make one of the rooms quite habitable. It is an idea, undoubtedly. Besides, it would give the house an air of being inhabited, ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... the Interior is in the blue salon. He has only one word to say to his excellency. Monsieur the Prefect of Police is still waiting downstairs, in the gallery." ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... made her first appearance downstairs since her accident; and the sight of her spread an universal cheerfulness through the household. She was extremely pale, however, and could not walk without pain and difficulty. She was assisted, therefore, to a sofa in the library, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... into the dormitory to hastily tidy herself, looking flushed and tired, she went to her cubicle in silence, none of them coming out to greet her or to make inquiry. When they had gone downstairs they found that she did not follow them into the dining-hall to breakfast, and they then learnt that she had been severely reprimanded, and ordered to a solitary room for a week, there to be confined, and take her meals, and do ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... She did not go downstairs that day. Every time Annalise tried to come in she sent her away. When she was talked to of food, she felt sick. Once she began to pace about the room, but the sight of those eager black knots of people down the street, of policemen and ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... starve, for it was not long before Mr. Farrington sent word that the girls were to come downstairs as soon as possible, ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... from his perch on the ambulance. His legs were stiff from the long ride, so he carefully shook them one after the other, and spoke pleasantly to a dog that was wandering about the Grand Place in a forlorn panic. Then he remembered why he had come to the place. There were wounded downstairs in the Town-hall. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... without a word for Gustavo. Gustavo looked after him reproachfully. As a head waiter, he naturally did not expect to read the letters of guests; but as a fellow conspirator, he felt that he was entitled to at least a general knowledge of all matters bearing on the conspiracy. He turned back downstairs with a disappointed droop ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... little wine-cellar downstairs," he said. "You are going down into it, and you will probably stay there for some time if you do not make up your mind to answer my questions. You think that nothing can happen to you in a house in a London street where policemen walk up and down. But you are mistaken. If you yelled now, even ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... friend the stag.' Then the shepherd went to examine the sleeping stag, and of course he saw the blood. 'Ah! I will teach you how to steal!' cried he, and he hit the stag such a blow on his skull that he died in a moment. The noise awakened the comrade above, and he came downstairs. The puma greeted him with joy, and begged he might have some of the famous milk as soon as possible, for he was very thirsty. A large bucket was set before the puma directly. He drank it to the last drop, and ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... was so loud that he never heard the doorbell ring, but when a lull came, he heard Nora's voice downstairs, and listened hopefully for Ken's. But when they came up, the boy was ...
— Death of a Spaceman • Walter M. Miller
... person will be intelligent and considerate enough to use and leave without the slightest disarrangement. This, so far as "upstairs" goes, really only leaves bedmaking to be done, and a bed does not take five minutes to make. Downstairs a vast amount of needless labour at present arises out of table wear. "Washing up" consists of a tedious cleansing and wiping of each table utensil in turn, whereas it should be possible to immerse all dirty table wear in a suitable solvent for a few minutes ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... he shouted, and a minute later a fat, amiable-looking woman, whose likeness to Baroni proclaimed them brother and sister, came hurrying downstairs in answer to his call. "Signora Evanci, my sister," he said, nodding to Diana. "This, Giulia, is a new pupil, and I would haf you hear her voice. It is magnificent—epatant! Open your mouth, little singing-bird, once more. This time ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... in that twelfth cellar,' he thought to himself, 'which I must not see?' And he went downstairs and unlocked the doors, one after the other. When he got to the twelfth he paused, but his curiosity was too much for him, and in another instant the key was turned and the cellar lay open before him. It was empty, save for a large cask, bound ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... wish to go and sit in his own room until the time came to go and meet Sheila. If Hannah were to make some sandwiches for him, in case he should feel hungry, he would go to the bottom fields and lie in the long grass by the brook until it was time to meet Sheila. He went downstairs to the kitchen and found Hannah ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... to leave you here alone for awhile," said Beale, "my friend and I are going downstairs together—I shall not ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... leave you only when you kick me downstairs." But I suggested my terms. "It must be on condition of your omitting from your conversation this intolerable flavour of mortality. I know nothing of 'ends.' I'm ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... could walk the edge of the curb-stone without tilting over; she could swing ever so high and not wink; she wasn't afraid to go up stairs in the dark; but when the elephant took the first long, rocking step, she felt something as she had when Luella Bounett had run downstairs with her in her arms. She grasped Daisy's hand on the one side and Charlie's ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... there arrived the letter from home which Pen read in his bedroom, and the result of which was that he fell down on his knees, with his head in the bedclothes, and there prayed out his heart, and humbled himself; and having gone downstairs and eaten an immense breakfast, he sallied forth and took his place at the Bull and Mouth, Piccadilly, on the Chatteris coach for ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... effort; she got the linen hopelessly twisted and tangled, and presently she tossed this upon the table. Throwing her shawl over her shoulders, for it was now late in the afternoon and growing chilly, she walked downstairs and out into the Yard. She strolled aimlessly to and fro awhile, and then went over to the fort and into Captain Bogg's house, which adjoined the blockhouse. Here she found ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... and brother dashed downstairs and out into the grounds. The butler hurried to the telephone (still carrying his bucket of water) and rang Central and asked for the chief of police. Central answered, after a long interval, that the chief of police was out of order, and ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the object of our visit when a young woman of perhaps twenty-two or three, a very pretty girl, with all the good looks of her mother and a freshness which only youth can possess, tiptoed quietly downstairs. Her face told plainly that she was deeply worried over the illness ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... mentioned before,' said the gentleman-in-waiting. 'I will seek it, and I will find it!' But where was it to be found? The gentleman-in-waiting ran upstairs and downstairs and in and out of all the rooms and corridors. No one of all those he met had ever heard anything about the nightingale; so the gentleman-in-waiting ran back to the emperor, and said that it must be a myth, invented by the writers of the books. 'Your imperial ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... remained undiscovered, possibly owing to the dark colour of his clothes and the dim light in the room. Then the Indians, after describing to the Frenchman how many they had killed and scalped, returned downstairs, and the door ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... through the town, Upstairs and downstairs, in his nightgown; Tapping at the window, crying at the lock: "Are the babes in their beds, for ...
— Mother Goose - The Original Volland Edition • Anonymous
... is very gay now. Mrs Knox has contributed more to its gaiety than anybody yet. Last night she had another excellent dance downstairs in two rooms. I was there till five, Esther (Acklom) with me, the little Lord still perseveres, but I am told ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... He ran downstairs and again crept out into the dark patio. He had noticed in the afternoon that there were several bundles of straw in ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... announced abruptly that he would take the room for two years, whereupon, handing a ten-pound note to the astonished Mr. Swiveller, he began to make ready to retire, as if it were night instead of day, and Mr. Swiveller walked downstairs into the office again, filled with wonderment concerning both the strange new lodger and the small servant who had appeared ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Bruff," said the doctor. "Not just yet; but you may tell him, by-and-by, when you get him downstairs, feeling penitent and miserable, that, if he does not leave off going to the Chequers, he'll have to leave off ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... me, too? Why shouldn't they? I'll make them do it! yes, I'll make them do it! The lambs of my flock shall love me." And with these brave words Parson Whitney bundled himself up in his warmest garments, and followed the deacon downstairs. ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... anywhere. I think that plan will not do. How would you like to find caterpillars walking in your bed, to hear sick pussies mewing in the night, to have beetles clinging to your clothes, or see mice, bugs, and birds tumbling downstairs whenever the door ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... door and on his way downstairs before the echoes of his last remark had ceased to shake the window of the sitting room. Garnet was left to ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... worse, for there Thomas Carr (a low attorney, of Elm Court) and Elizabeth Adams robbed and murdered a gentleman named Quarrington at the "Angel and Crown" Tavern, and the miscreants were hung at Tyburn. Hogarth painted a portrait of the woman. One night, many years ago, a man was robbed, thrown downstairs, and killed, in one of the dens in Shire Lane. There was snow on the ground, and about two o'clock, when the watchmen grew drowsy and were a long while between their rounds, the frightened murderers ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... from underneath the garments folded in it, several sheets on which were roughly penciled sketches of the exterior of a house—on the reverse, the upstairs and downstairs floor plans; and sitting down, she explained these to Linda. Then she left them lying on a table, waiting to be returned to her case before she replaced her clothes in the morning. Both girls were fast asleep when a mischievous wind slipped down the valley, ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... her most regal array, seemed to have left her dignity downstairs with her opera cloak, for with skirts gathered closely about her, tiara all askew, and face full of fear and anger, she stood upon a chair ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... this play are great. Shakespeare's instinctive power was as large and as happy as his intellectual power. In this play he indulged it to the full. The Falstaff scenes are all wonderful. That in which the drunken Pistol is driven downstairs is the finest tavern scene ever written. Those placed in Gloucestershire are the perfect poetry of English country life. The talk of old dead Double, who could clap "i' the clout at twelvescore," and is now dead, as we shall all be soon; the casting back of memory to Jane ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... time he opened his eyes he was wide awake in a minute to the remembrance of what had happened. When he awoke at last to find the sun rising, he could lie still no longer, he was haunted by such restless thoughts. He dressed and went downstairs into ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... became conscious of the touch of a warm, friendly hand on his wrist and he heard the voice of the old family doctor—the one who had set his leg when he was a little shaver and had fallen off the banisters, sliding downstairs. ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... Count Przobossky's noble country seat in Lithuania, and remained with the ladies at tea in the drawing-room, while the gentlemen were down in the yard to see a young horse of blood which had just arrived from the stud. We suddenly heard a noise of distress; I hastened downstairs, and found the horse so unruly that nobody durst approach or mount him. The most resolute horsemen stood dismayed and aghast; despondency was expressed in every countenance, when, in one leap, I was on his back, took him by surprise, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... studying with great curiosity the appliances of the first bedchamber he had ever beheld beyond the degree of his mother's 'first floor,' but downstairs, he was in the mood of the savage, too proud to show wonder or admiration or the sense of awe with which he was inspired by being waited on by the very marrow of Mr. Rollstone, always such grand company at home. This daunted him far more than ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pink sunshade, the exact match, and the girls had never seen it. It wasn't quite appropriate for school, but she needn't take it into the room; she would wrap it in a piece of paper, just show it, and carry it coming home. She glanced in the parlor looking-glass downstairs and was electrified at the vision. It seemed almost as if beauty of apparel could go no further than that heavenly pink gingham dress! The sparkle of her eyes, glow of her cheeks, sheen of her falling hair, passed unnoticed in the all-conquering charm of ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of Roark. Roark went to bed, and Flack, who was in the barroom below, observed to some persons there, that he believed they had set up Roark to whip him; Roark, upon hearing his name mentioned, got out of bed and came downstairs. Flack met and stabbed him in the lower part of his abdomen with a knife, letting out his bowels. Roark ran to the door, and received another stab in the back. He lived until Thursday night, when he expired in great agony. Flack was tried ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... window and there was his cab, And we ran downstairs like a streak, And he said, 'Hullo, you bad dog,' and you crouched to the floor, Paralysed to ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... she promised never, never again, so long as she lived, to scold about any thing. Mrs. Davis would have been very vexed had she known about these plays. It made her angry if Mell so much as glanced at the chest. "There you are again, peeping, peeping," she would cry, and drive Mell before her downstairs. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... early in December that Pete came one day with a package for Marie from Cyril. Marie was not at home, and Billy herself went downstairs to take the package from the ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... forty-nine years and some months before that upon which Gabe Bearse came to Jed Winslow's windmill shop in Orham with the news of Leander Babbitt's enlistment, Miss Floretta Thompson came to that village to teach the "downstairs" school. Miss Thompson was an orphan. Her father had kept a small drug store in a town in western Massachusetts. Her mother had been a clergyman's daughter. Both had died when she was in her 'teens. Now, at twenty, she came to Cape Cod, pale, slim, with a wealth of light brown hair and a pair ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... English, is fairly intelligible. But it does not touch the root of the matter. Miss Stein, the writer continues, uses "words that appeal to her as having the meaning they seem to have [that is, if "diuturnity" suggests a tumble downstairs, it means a tumble downstairs]. To present her impressions she chooses words for their inherent quality rather than their ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... room by the window which looked out into the high-walled garden. She had found it difficult to occupy herself with books and work that day. Her sprained ankle had been troublesome during the night, and she had risen late, and when her maid had helped her to dress, and she had limped downstairs on her crutches, and settled herself in her long chair, she found herself disinclined for any further exertion, and just sat, reclining upon pale pink satin cushions, her slender hands folded upon her lap, her large, dark luminous ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... even ordered, but Meinik was obstinate and, seeing that the faithful Burman was not to be moved, he reluctantly left the matter in his hands, and went downstairs. He moved a short distance along the ledge, and waited. The time seemed an age to him, so that he gave an exclamation of delight when Meinik suddenly came into sight, and took his ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... then rearrange them on fancy principles, mostly upside down. One volume of Grote will be put among French novels, another in the centre of a collection on sports, a third in the midst of modern histories, while others are "upstairs and downstairs, and in my lady's chamber." The diversity of sizes, from folio to duodecimo, makes books very difficult to arrange where room is scanty. Modern shelves in most private houses allow no room for folios, which have to lie, like fallen warriors, ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... conversation, sir, after all, and I go back to my place," Brooksmith stammered, without exaggerated irony or dramatic bitterness, but with a flat unstudied veracity and his hand on the knob of the street-door. He turned it to let me out and then he added: "I just go downstairs, sir, ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... while the vote was being taken downstairs that decided Archie's fate she locked her door, dropped into a chair by the fire, took the unopened letter from her pocket, and ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... she secretary, and keeps the box of her teeth, her hair, and her painting very private. Her industry is upstairs and downstairs, like a drawer; and by her dry hand you may know she is a sore starcher. If she lie at her master's bed's feet, she is quit of the green sickness for ever, for she hath terrible dreams when she's awake, as if she ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... from a big, round, black pencil until you might think he was calculating the expenditures of a Billion Dollar Congress. He is not a mathematician but, like Balzac, simply dotes on figures. Then comes the analytical stage and that he performs on foot, walking, head bent forward, upstairs, downstairs, outdoors, around the block, in again, through the clattering press room and up and down the hall. When the stride quickens and he strikes a straight line for his desk, his orderly mind has arranged and classified his subject down to the illuminating adjectives even and the ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... uplifts his hands, and, as though in the act of tearing his hair, rushes from the room, and staggers downstairs to those other apartments where Hardinge had elected to sit, and see out the farce, comedy, or tragedy, whichever it may prove, to its ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... The clock downstairs struck eleven, and he heard his father's footstep. The door opened, and his father came in holding in his hand the cane that ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... about a year, when Colonel John P. Glass, the manager of the downstairs office, who came in contact with the public, began selecting me occasionally to watch the office for a few minutes during his absence. As Mr. Glass was a highly popular man, and had political aspirations, these periods of absence became longer and more frequent, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... on the bark-covered rafters, lighting up the yellow-birch partition between living-room and bedroom downstairs, and plays upon the rustic stairway that leads to the two rooms overhead, as we sit before the hearth in quiet talk. Outside the moonlight floods the great open space around the cabin, revealing outlines of the rocky inclosure. ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... was Denise who brought the newspapers. She handed them to him in silence. Their eyes met for an instant, and both alike had that questioning look which had shone in Denise's eyes as she came downstairs. They seemed to know each other now better than they had done when they last parted at the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... Bazan tells me to go downstairs in the boat an' lie up quiet, an' byne-by I do feel better. By next day I kin sit up and take solid food again. An' then's when I takes special notice o' the everlastin' foolishness o' ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... about on the floor. She felt as if her love for him was only just beginning—the last four months seemed cold and formal compared with these moments of warm, personal service. She brought him water for his hands, and scrubbed his face with a sponge to his intense discomfort. She was bawling downstairs to the unlucky Raddish to put the kettle on for some herb tea—since an intimate cross-examination revealed that he had not had the recommended dose—when the doctor arrived and came ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... Mrs. Walsham soon came downstairs again, and said that James said he never felt better in his life, and that, by all means, she was to go up to the Hall. She then set about and prepared a cup of tea, which greatly restored Aggie, and, by the ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... crucifixion. It was she, not he, who had lain awake to wonder where to-morrow's dinner could be got without begging; it was she, also, who had feared to doze at dawn lest she should oversleep herself and not be downstairs in time to scrub the floors and the furniture before the neighbours were stirring. Uncle Isam, whose knees were crippled with rheumatism, and Docia, who had a "stitch" in her side whenever she stooped, were ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... friend forthwith, then hastened downstairs to the kitchen. Van and Beth presently took breakfast together, while Elsa, with a borrowed needle and thread, was busied with some minor repairing of garments roughly used the day before. Other boarders and lodgers of the house had already eaten and gone, to resume ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... was talking to this lad a horse was brought to the door of Bazin's house. It was saddled and bridled. Almost immediately Bazin came downstairs. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in despair, for work was impossible, went downstairs, and walked out under the arch into Fleet Street. Quite mechanically I turned to the left, and, still engaged with idle conjectures, ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... is done at night, and I often write until the early morning. So it was to-day. I was sitting in my den, which is at the back of the top of the house, about three o'clock, when I was convinced that I heard some sounds downstairs. I listened, but they were not repeated, and I concluded that they came from outside. Then suddenly, about five minutes later, there came a most horrible yell—the most dreadful sound, Mr. Holmes, that ever I heard. It will ring in my ears as long as I live. I ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of me. In the rainy winter afternoons, when nothing could occur out of doors which a respectable city boy was permitted to indulge in, I found that I was expected to work. Boys worked hard at their lessons in those days. There was a kitchen downstairs with a Dutch oven not used in the winter. There it was easy to build a small fire and to toast bread and to read "Nicholas Nickleby" after one had rushed through the required tasks, which generally included ten pages of the "Historia Sacra" in Latin. If you never read "Nicholas Nickleby" ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... from such entrancing thought. I had had but half a night's sleep last night; and this night I must remain awake. Without stating my intention, for I feared that I might add to the trouble and uneasiness of Miss Trelawny, I went downstairs and out of the house. I soon found a chemist's shop, and came away with a respirator. When I got back, it was ten o'clock; the Doctor was going for the night. The Nurse came with him to the door of the sick-room, taking her last instructions. ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... He hurried downstairs and went to the front door, then to the dining-room, drawing-room, and study, as well as the room set apart for the pupils; but the windows were closed, and he went slowly upstairs again to pause ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... to be allowed to usher in the glorious day by the blowing of horns exactly at sunrise. But they were to blow them for precisely five minutes only, and no sound of the horns should be heard afterward till the family were downstairs. ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... last. "He must be downstairs. More'n likely he went down to git somethin' to eat. Wait till I catch him! I'll ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... still there!" whispered the girl to Danton, with another look through keyhole. Presently steps were heard going downstairs. ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... listening to. At last she discovered that it was the then popular strains of "The Maiden's Prayer" floating up through the floor from the piano in the sitting-room below. She jumped up, threw a shawl over her nightgown, and hurried downstairs trembling. There was nobody in the sitting-room; the piano was silent. She ran to Mrs. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... his breath, and with a hammer and nails, and a big piece of sacking, he went down the leg again, playing his neck against a half-hour's delay as serenely as most men would walk downstairs to dinner. "Start her up, boys," he called, when the job was done, and, with the leg jolting under his hands as he climbed, he ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... making progress with her new clouty hearthrug. The notion was nothing short of this, why should I not write the tales myself? I did write them - in the garret - but they by no means helped her to get on with her work, for when I finished a chapter I bounded downstairs to read it to her, and so short were the chapters, so ready was the pen, that I was back with new manuscript before another clout had been added to the rug. Authorship seemed, like her bannock-baking, to consist ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie |
