"Factotum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ended in this ignominious way, and in a shameful retreat. Altamont sneered after the baronet as he left the room, and entered into the office, to talk privately with his factotum. ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would be a very unwise thing to do, and that it would be altogether more prudent in every way to secure the services of some white man, well acquainted with the country, and the ways and language of the natives, to act as a sort of general overseer and factotum, and this view Grosvenor at ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... neighboring Little Beach River to fish, and let "the boss" tear up things to her heart's content. His request that I should accompany him was almost a warning, so I assented, for my room was not to be spared in the general overhauling. Inky and Jim—Mr. Grundy's factotum—went along to pitch our tent and attend to ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... was very much freckled; wore his hair, which was dark and wiry, up at one side, down at the other; had a short thick nose; full lips; and, when close to him, smelt of cigars. Such was Mr. Plimmins, Mr. Plaskwith's factotum, foreman in the shop, assistant editor to the Mercury. Mr. Plaskwith formally went the round of the introduction; Mrs. P. nodded her head; the Misses P. nudged each other, and grinned; Mr. Plimmins passed his hand through his hair, glanced at the ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bright light streamed into the street. Don Paolo motioned to the Prince to enter, and followed him in. A man in a white apron, with his arms full of plates, who was probably servant, butler, boots, and factotum to the establishment, came out of the dining-room, which was to the left of the entrance, and which, to judge by the noise, seemed to be full of people. He looked at the curate, and then ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the wife of Mahomet, who had been her steward and factotum, and whom he married when she was forty and himself only twenty-five, and with whom he lived till her death, "loving her truly and her alone," himself now a man of fifty; he had begun his mission as a prophet before she died, and one service she did him he never forgot as ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... whether the inner nature of Ward was more truly expressing itself when he was firing off some train of scholastic paradoxes on the Eucharist or when he was trilling the airs of Figaro and plunging through the hilarious roulades of the Largo al Factotum. Even Dr. Pusey could riot be quite sure, though he was Ward's spiritual director. On one occasion his young penitent came to him, and confessed that a vow which he had taken to abstain from music during Lent was beginning to affect ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... was about, his effusiveness was over-powering at such times as Mr. Brellier paid a visit to the Towers. He followed both Brellier and his niece wherever they went like a shadow. Jokingly one day, Merriton had made the remark: "Borkins might be your factotum rather than mine, Mr. Brellier; indeed I've no doubt he would be, if the traditions of the house had not so long lain in his hands." He was rewarded for this remark by a sudden tightening of Brellier's lips, and ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... who has moved in the best society of the South, who has been engaged in great if unsuccessful enterprises, who has led the picked chivalry of his oppressed land against the Northern hordes—the idea of a gentleman of this kidney meekly simmering down into a factotum to a Yankee dealer in canned goods! No, sir; I reckon I ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... her to that apartment in time for her to change her dress for dinner was the middle-aged woman, calling herself parlour-maid, but who had acted as lady's-maid, factotum, confidante to the dead wife. She had made confidantes of all who would listen, poor woman, pouring out the secrets of her heart, and, as far as she knew them, of her husband's heart, into ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... "My steam factotum, that, Sir, doing all I have to do, My ploughman and my reaper, and my jolly thrasher, too! Steam's yet but in its infancy, no mortal man alive Can tell to what ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... himself, followed by the under-porter, a good-tempered fellow, who was the factotum of the under-graduates at late hours, when the ordinary staff of servants had left college ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the collective will in regard to the blended interests of the community than it is of the individual convenience in personal matters. It is at once the august representative of all in general concerns, and everybody's agent, errand boy, and factotum for all private ends. Nothing is too high or too low, too great or too little, for it ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... door, who acted as house-keeper, cook, and general factotum to the establishment, brought me shaving water next morning, but I had to go without a bath. When I entered the kitchen I found no one there, but while I consumed the inevitable ham and egg, Amos arrived back for breakfast. He brought ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... you, for instance, to be drawn to yon Crawford," he went on. "It's eneuch to me 'at he's been lang the factotum ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Flower, Jane Denton with Agnes Sparkes, and Laura Everett with her special friend and factotum, Annie Millar. They were all good-natured, kind-hearted girls, ready to make the best of things; but as they walked now, pacing up and down, Rosamund suddenly stopped, faced round, and addressed the ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... face, the American saw his more or less technical explanation was going wide. Still remorseful at having hurt his factotum's feelings, Kirby laid the paper aside and undertook ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... performance can best be indicated by quoting from some of the contemporary accounts. The concert opened with Beethoven's Second Symphony, performed by the Philharmonic Society, and it was followed by Lablache, who sang Rossini's "Largo al factotum." "A breathless silence then ensued," writes Mr. Gardiner, an amateur of Leicester, who at the peril of his ribs had been struggling in the crowd for two hours to get admission, "and every eye watched the action of this extraordinary violinist as he glided from the side scenes to ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... cow had been in our possession just a week, we received one morning the unwelcome intelligence that the "new cow" was very bad. We went into the meadow, and saw the poor creature looking certainly as we had been told, "very bad." We asked our factotum what was the matter with her. To this he replied, that he did not know, but that he had sent for a man who was "very ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... watchman and factotum of the monastery. He had a general commission to keep a sharp eye upon the young ladies who were allowed to go out into the city. A pair of horn spectacles usually helped his vision,—sometimes marred it, however, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... often used now. But it was the custom of his housekeeper to air the rooms once a week; and, this being Wednesday, she had lighted a fire there, while Lydia, a young housemaid and general factotum, had allowed all other fires to go out. There was a palpable sense of chilliness about the room, and in one corner of it the green-and-gold wall-paper showed stains of damp. Long gilded mirrors between tall windows occupied one side of the ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... this resident secretary of his were quite adequate. Busy in London, he had left all arrangements in his local factotum's hands, and he was doubting whether those hands had grasped the situation competently. "Only as usual?" he said sharply. "This War Memorial has cost me ten ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... operator—who was also ticket-agent and general factotum—it was now empty and dull of light with its smeared window glasses between its interior and the dispirited grayness of the outer skies. The dust-covered papers and miscellany which cumbered the table long undisturbed, spoke of an idle office and ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... said Austin, "am nothing but the fairy godmother's humble and devoted factotum." He took the hand which she extended and, bending over ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... aware of her brilliant future, up to which she had, since Ripton's departure, dressed and grimaced, and studied cadences (the latter with such success, though not yet fifteen, that she languished to her maid, and melted the small factotum footman)—Miss Letty, whose insatiable thirst for intimations about the young heir Ripton could not satisfy, tormented him daily in revenge, and once, quite unconsciously, gave the lad a fearful turn; for after dinner, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hot rolls with mysterious markings on them for breakfast, and by midday he had the homestead to himself, the Maluka and I being camped at Bitter Springs and every one else being elsewhere. Our business was yard-inspection, with Goggle-Eye as general factotum. We, of course, had ridden out, but Goggle-Eye had preferred to walk. "Me all day knock up longa horse," he explained striding comfortably along ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... cabin and stated his intentions to his factotum and confidant, Corporal Van Spitter. Now, in this instance, the corporal did not adhere to that secrecy to which he was bound, and the only reason we can give is, that he had as great a dislike to Jemmy ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... theatre, there is hardly room for the belief that it could have been other than continuous, for his progress there was so rapid. Ere long he had been taken into the company as an actor, and was soon spoken of as a 'Johannes Factotum.' His rapid accumulation of wealth speaks volumes for the constancy and activity of his services. One fails to see when there could be a break in the current of his life at this period of it, giving room or ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... judges. They are well aware that a biased jury is often more useful to them than a biased judge, and efforts are made by them to contaminate juries, or at least prejudice them in their favor. A prominent Iowa attorney, the legal and political factotum of a large railroad corporation, for years made it a practice to supply jurors with passes. In one instance, when it was shown in court by the opposing counsel that all jurors in the case on trial had accepted passes from the ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... Miss Vane, and you and you and you—and, oh yes, I'll take in Madame Ybanca too; she makes an even dozen. I shan't include myself, because I rather think I had better act as referee and general factotum until ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... more of the blanquette, if I won't be considered a glutton?" asked Mr. Marsh now. "I've sent to the city for an invaluable factotum of mine to come and look out for us here, and when he comes, I hope you'll give ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Negro factotum about the hire of horses, and presently a man came in from the bar who, he said, could supply my needs. This man, the very type of a Western pioneer, bowed, threw himself into a rocking-chair, drew a spittoon beside him, cut a fresh quid of tobacco, began ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... to their newly acquired property was a sort of reconnoitre visit. They had come from Town for a month's holiday, bringing with them Thatcher—little Mollie's nurse—as general factotum. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... of the general scheme of duplicity and frivolity by which Fiesco should seek to quiet the suspicion of the Dorias. If this particular invention was upon the whole unfortunate—the matter will be discussed further on,—the same cannot be said of the Moor Hassan, who becomes Fiesco's factotum and ends his career on the gallows. The rascally Moor is the most picturesque figure and the most telling role in the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... seeks job; domestic and lity. factotum in bachelor menage, or musician, lyrist, dramatist, etc.; house work mornings, lit. asst. afternoons, evenings; ex-officer's servant; fair cook; turned 60, but virile and active; or working librarian, cleaning, etc.; theatrical experience; nominal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... "Scatecornered" must be explained too; it was an expression of Uncle Rufus' who was the Corner House girls' chief factotum and almost an heirloom in the family, for he had long served Uncle Peter Stower, who in dying had willed the beautiful old homestead in Milton ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... ceremonious than at the present day, and more exclusive. All the great officers of the new government were aristocratic and stately, even inaccessible, except Jefferson; and many of the fashions, titles, and ceremonies of European courts were kept up. The factotum of the President signed himself as "Steward of the Household," while Washington himself rode to church in a coach and six, attended by outriders. Great functionaries were called "Most Honorable," and their wives were addressed as ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... the average mandarin. He got the name of Liu Ma Pang, a disrespectful term, meaning that he was fond of using the stick. On a journey towards Chao-t'ong, some years ago, he went on ahead of his retinue of men and horses, and arriving at an inn at Tong-ch'uan-fu, asked the ta si fu—the general factotum—for the best room, and proceeded to walk into it. "No you don't," yelled the ta si fu, "that's reserved for Liu Ma Pang, and you're not to go in there." After some time Liu's men arrived, and calling one or two, he said, "Take this man" (pointing to the surprised ta si fu) "and give him a ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... place, and thou wilt see; How well I with the convent-dames agree. The reason is, my life is in its prime, While thou art sunk in years and worn by time, I'm proper for their work, and only ask, To be admitted to the drudging task. Well, said the former, if resolved to try, To their factotum instantly apply; Come; let's away. Lead on, the other cried; I've got a thought, which I'll to you confide:— I'll seem an idiot, and quite dumb appear.— In that, said Nuto, only persevere, And then perhaps the confessor thou'lt find, With their factotum carelessly ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... especially when engaged upon a case of marked importance, to receive this, his recognized factotum, in his own home. No prying ears, no watchful eyes, were to be feared there. He was the absolute master of everything, even of Sweetwater, he sometimes thought. For this young fellow loved him—had reason to; and when Sweetwater played the violin, as he sometimes ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... this time, and been well looked after by our friend Jasper here," nodding kindly towards the negro steward as he spoke, that worthy having charge of the pack-mules amongst his other manifold duties as general factotum. ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... of the histrionic simplicity. Miriam confessed that like all comedians they ate at queer hours; she sent Dashwood in for biscuits and sherry—she proposed sending him round to the grocer's in the Circus Road for superior wine. Peter judged him the factotum of the little household: he knew where the biscuits were kept and the state of the grocer's account. When he himself congratulated her on having so useful an inmate she said genially, but as if ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Valley he lived alone, save for Lee Sing, the Chinese cook and factotum, who knew much about the strangeness of his master, who was paid well for saying nothing, and who never did say anything. After the satisfaction of his nights, a morning's sleep, and a breakfast of Lee Sing's, James Ward crossed the bay to San Francisco on a midday ferryboat and went to the club ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... human nature generally. The idea of restricting their usefulness to any one family, would strike dismay through a whole community. Nobody would be so unprincipled as to think of such a thing as having their services more than a week or two at most. Your country factotum knows better than anybody else how ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... vengeance. On June 14, 1885, she succeeded in giving him slow poison, which led him to his death amidst long-drawn agonies eight days later. This ought to have been the death of Mahdism as well, but superstitions die hard in that land of fanatics. The Mahdi's factotum, an able intriguer named Abdullah Taashi, had previously gained from his master a written declaration that he was to be Khalifa after him; he now produced this document, and fortified its influence by describing in great detail a vision in which ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... in the good old-fashioned days The feminine factotum rarely Was honoured with a crown of bays When she had won it fairly; She did emerge at times like one For manual work a perfect glutton, Blue-stocking half, half Amazon, As chronicled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... accepted fifteen years ago begin to wear a superannuated aspect. Dalton's atoms are in process of disintegration; Kirchhoff's theorem visibly needs to be modified; Clerk Maxwell's medium no longer figures as an indispensable factotum; "absolute zero" is known to be situated on an asymptote to the curve of cold. Ideas, in short, have all at once become plastic, and none more completely so than those relating to astronomy. The physics of ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... onnat'ral, sir. Here's your father been a sailor, same as I've been a sailor, and I've drilled up Pan-a-mar o' purpose to be useful to you in the same ship. Why, it's like wasting a season in the garden. I meant him to be your Jack factotum, as the skipper used to call it, and you never heard him say he didn't ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... suppose that men always go riding about. But I want one. What had I better do?" Miss Macnulty suggested that Gowran should be consulted. Now, Gowran was the steward and bailiff and manager and factotum about the place, who bought a cow or sold one if occasion required, and saw that nobody stole anything, and who knew the boundaries of the farms, and all about the tenants, and looked after the pipes when frost came, and was an honest, domineering, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... a 'Johannes Factotum,' as Greene had designated Shakspere in 1592. Jonson makes him assert that he, too, is a scholar, a writer conversant with every kind of poetry, and a Stoic. He also declares that he is studying architecture, and that, if he builds a house, [29] it must be similar to one before which ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... the humble office of process-server to that of bailiff's follower, bailiff, head-bailiff, barony constable, until, finally, he felt himself a kind of factotum on the Castle Cumber property; and in proportion as he rose, so did his manners rise with him. For years before his introduction to our readers, he was the practical manager of the estate; and so judiciously did he regulate his own fortunes on it, that without any shameless or illegal breach ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... word or letter in whatever he chanced to be composing. His peremptory requests were generally preferred in writing, addressed "For the Lusty Knight, Sir Slosson Thompson, Office," and delivered by his grinning minion, the office factotum. Sometimes they were in verse, as in ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... policy, was employed at Hanover, at Berlin, at Vienna, in the public and secret service of ducal, royal, and imperial governments, and charged with all sorts of delicate and difficult commissions,—matters of finance, of pacification, of treaty and appeal. He was Europe's factotum. A complete biography of the man would be an epitome of the history of his time. The number and variety of his public engagements were such as would have crazed any ordinary brain. And to these were added ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... menage. Stephen had one of Aunt Mary's grandsons as porter in the store. Another, who had been brought up as a sort of house-servant to some elderly people that death had visited, came to the city, and Stephen sent him to Dr. Hoffman, who was inquiring about a factotum. He was a very well-looking and well-mannered young coloured lad, and knew how to drive and care for a horse. He was quite a cook also, and soon learned to do ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... acknowledge the fine style of Belletti's Largo al Factotum (though the gay barber's song always requires the stage) and the admirable orchestra performance of Weber's Overture ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... bureau a partner might have been selected for him, but he had never been able to discover her. It was his one failure as a detective. He was a self-sufficing person, who preferred a gas stove to a domestic; but in deference to Glover Street opinion he admitted a female factotum between ten a. m. and ten p. m., and, equally in deference to Glover Street opinion, excluded her between ten p. m. and ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... valet and factotum, an excellent, respectable servant, whose spelling is so unvitiated by non-phonetic superfluities that he writes night as nit. One day, looking over his accounts, I said to him jocosely, "You are in the latest fashion with your spelling, Pummel: most people spell "night" ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... explain that matter also: "Because Gabrielle de Caylus is already secretly married to Louis de Nevers. They were married one year ago in the chapel of Caylus, and the only witnesses were Louis de Gonzague and his factotum, Monsieur Peyrolles, who has ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... never seen such a beautiful elephant," she said, walking up to the great beast, followed by the guide, the ayah and the bungalow factotum. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... of pleasure illuminated Mr. Taynton's face again—that the boy whom he had dismissed two years before for some petty pilfering in his own house, should have turned out such a promising lad and should have found his way to so pleasant a berth as that of factotum to Morris. Kindly and charitable all through and ever eager to draw out the good in everybody and forgive the bad, Mr. Taynton had often occasion to deplore the hardness and uncharity of a world which remembers youthful ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... "The factotum at once gave the alarm. Everyone in the College came trooping to the room, and for the second time within three days a general hue and cry was raised. All, again, to no purpose—the murderer had left no traces as to his identity. However, one ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... as part of the army household wherever they went. And in course of the quarter century it seemed to be but a case of domestic history repeating itself that young "Mart" should become Mr. Sandy's factotum and valet, even though Sandy could have secured the services of a much better one for less money. Young Mart had all his father's old-time dash and impetuosity, but less of his devotion, and on this particular Thursday evening, just when his master most ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... Elna, } Spaniards. Bishop of Sancta Sista, } Bishop of Trani, an Italian. A Neapolitan abbot. Sigr Ramiro del Orca, Governor; he is the factotum. Don Hieronymo, a Portuguese. Messer Agabito da Amelio, Secretary. Mesr Alexandro Spannocchia, Treasurer, who says that the duke since his departure from Rome up to the present time has spent daily, on ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... mother, she might even have passed for thirty-five. The great objection to her appearance was the somewhat indefinite character of her shape, which seemed to blend too many of its charms into one. The fourth person, in the fare, was Biddy Noon, the Irish servant and factotum of Mrs. Budd, who was a pock-marked, red-faced, and red-armed single woman, about her mistress's own age and weight, though less stout ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... a ploughed field of despond: the "universal scratcher" in the meadows, inclined so as to let the brute creation of all heights enjoy that luxury: Bunch the butler, a female child of tender years but stout proportions: Annie Kay the factotum: the "Immortal," a chariot which was picked up at York in the last stage of decay, and carried the family for many years half over England—all these things and persons are told in divers delightful scraps of autobiography ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... melancholy steal over me, why I cannot tell, while, by the light of a lamp fed by cocoa-nut oil manufactured by my uncle and his factotum Tanda, I sat writing these lines of my journal:—"To-morrow morning Ali and I are going off in the hopes of obtaining a nautilus, and he feels confident that we shall get one, probably at a reef which he knows of at some distance, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Anderson's charge, the steady, reliable butler and factotum, and introduced to all the sights of London—Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, the Tower, and the British Museum, the Zoological Gardens, and Madame Tussaud's. Sometimes they went to Kew, or Richmond Park, or took the steamer to Hampton Court. The nearest ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... watch de sky lak he 'spected de bottom drap clean out uv it pretty soon," said Uncle Jupe, his factotum, to ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... you will about the general usefulness of boys, it is my impression that a farm without a boy would very soon come to grief. What the boy does is the life of the farm. He is the factotum, always in demand, always expected to do the thousand indispensable things that nobody else will do. Upon him fall all the odds and ends, the most ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... Willie's Prayer Burns Epitaph on Holy Willie Burns Address to the Deil Burns The Devil's Walk on Earth Southey Church and State Moore Lying Moore The Millennium Moore The Little Grand Lama Moore Eternal London Moore On Factotum Ned Moore Letters (Fudge Correspondence), First Letter Moore Letters (Fudge Correspondence), Second Letter Moore Letters (Fudge Correspondence), Third Letter Moore The Literary Lady Sheridan (R. B.) Netley Abbey Barham Family Poetry Barham ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... not very long before I managed to scrape acquaintance with this restless personage. I soon found out that my friend with the shirt-frill was the confidential servant, butler, valet, factotum, what you will, of a sick gentleman, a Mr. Oswald Strange, who had recently come to inhabit the house opposite, and concerning whose history my new acquaintance, whose name I ascertained was Masey, seemed disposed to be somewhat communicative. His master, it ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... favorite and new factotum, Mr. William Nokes. Mr. William Stokes is the gentleman who intends to burn us all out of house and home, and Mr. Medlicot is the gentleman whose pleasure it is to keep Mr. Nokes in ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... not hear that this John Mark ever tried to do any work in the way of preaching the gospel. His business was a very much humbler one. He had to attend to Paul's comfort. He had to be his factotum, man of all work; looking after material things, the commissariat, the thousand and one trifles that some one had to see to if the Apostle's great work was to get done. And he did it all his life long. It was enough for him to do thoroughly the entirely 'secular' work, as some people would ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Laura was taking a walk in the park when a letter was brought to her by old Wilson, the groom, cowman, and general factotum. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... welcomes a friend to another one's house. I have already introduced him to the reader as a brisk old bachelor-looking little man; the wit and superannuated beau of a large family connection, and the Squire's factotum. I found him, as usual, full of bustle; with a thousand petty things to do, and persons to attend to, and in chirping good-humour; for there are few happier beings than a busy idler; that is to say, a man who is eternally ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... one curious though half-confounded observer of all that passed in and around the Cove, on the morning in question. This personage was no other than the slave called Bonnie, who was the factotum of his master, over the demesnes of the Lust in Rust, during the time when the presence of the Alderman was required in the city; which was, in truth, at least four-fifths of the year. Responsibility and confidence had produced their effect on this negro, as on more cultivated ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Dr. Schermerhorn was. None of you know—I don't know myself, though I've been his factotum for ten years—along how many varied lines of activity that mind played. One of them was the secret of energy: concentrated, resistless energy. Man's contrivances were too puny for him. The most powerful engines he regarded as toys. For a time high explosives ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Jules in the double capacity of gentleman and factotum, I would dress him up a la mode and let him approach Hugh Johnstone," mused the beautiful tourist, but I must be content to use this cold-hearted adventurer Hawke, for he has at least a surface rank of ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... dispatched Gwenny in all directions to hunt for Bill Thomas in vain, we at last elicited from her that "may-be she was gone with Mr Dawson." Then it came out, to our infinite amusement, that Dawson was in the habit, occasionally, of impressing our factotum Bill to carry bat, stumps, and ball down to the marsh, and there commencing private practice on his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... fast here, and then drove for another mile or so where a path leaves the road, and the pilgrim has either to proceed on horseback or on foot. We had to go on foot, and a very long and tiring walk it proved to be. Besides Dr. S. and his factotum, Lazo, we took another man with us, a wretched puny individual, but seemingly possessed of more endurance than any of us. He led us by a short cut over rocks, and up slippery breakneck walls of cliffs, over which our guide skipped nimbly, and having ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... Sir James; "I feel a delicacy in appearing to dictate. But I have been talking to this young Ladislaw that Brooke is making a factotum of. Ladislaw seems clever enough for anything. I thought it as well to hear what he had to say; and he is against Brooke's standing this time. I think he'll turn him round: I think the nomination may ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... among the children, so that there was not a more popular being in the sphere in which he moved than Mr. Simon Bracebridge. Of late years he had resided almost entirely with the squire, to whom he had become a factotum, and whom he particularly delighted by jumping with his humor in respect to old times and by having a scrap of an old song to suit every occasion. We had presently a specimen of his last-mentioned talent, for no sooner was supper ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... had had the knack of breaking his own toys,—he not unfrequently broke other people's; but accidents will happen, and his twin-sister and factotum, ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... master—which I take to be the most important of all marriage settlements. And, unless I am very much mistaken, it will be the right one—the lady. My little heroine, Jerry Carroway, is engaged as their factotum, and every auspice is favorable. But without your consent, all is knocked on the head; for the cottage is yours, and the tenant won't go out, even under temptation of five guineas, without your written order. Mistress Anerley, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... fellow that is, Jervis," Thorndyke observed as his factotum retired. "He took in the idea instantly and seems to have produced the finished article by magic, as the conjurers bring forth rabbits and bowls of goldfish at a moment's notice. I suppose you see what your ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... half-owner of the brigantine 'Pizarro', trading between the port of London, and the coast of Mexico. The second was his clerk, factotum, and confidant; half-sailor, half-landsman; able to take the helm in dangerous weather, if need were; and able to afford his employer counsel in the most intricate questions of ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Crescencio remained with the Indians as their "secretary" (escribano), attending to whatever correspondence they had with the authorities, and gradually becoming their factotum and adviser. As he was an honourable and straightforward man, his influence was all for their good. To swell his meagre income, he carries on a small trade, going twice a year to Durango to replenish his stores; and so invaluable has he become to the Indians that they send, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... neighbors, exciting their interest and wonder by the new phases of life presented, and furnishing food for the superstitious tendencies always rife in new and ignorant settlements. In short, by these means, she won her way gradually in the community, until she came to be the general factotum. ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... the bank one morning. Finding no one there but John, he leaned over the counter on his elbows, and, twisting one leg about the other in a restful attitude, proceeded to open up a conversation upon various topics of interest to his mind. Dick was Mr. Harum's confidential henchman and factotum, although not regularly so employed. His chief object in life was apparently to get as much amusement as possible out of that experience, and he was quite unhampered by over-nice notions of delicacy or bashfulness. But, withal, Mr. Larrabee ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... is waste. You know quite well that you have a far better head than most of the men you are working with, and you let them make a regular drudge and Johannes factotum of you. Intellectually you are as far ahead of Grassini and Galli as if they were schoolboys; yet you sit correcting their proofs like a ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... Koda Bux, in his capacity of major-domo and general factotum to Sir Arthur, had opened the door, and at the same moment Sir Arthur himself came downstairs. ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... who was proposed declined to go with a lady, for he "would have to be braver than she"; others were daunted by the sound of Mongolia; but finally, through the kind help of Captain Reeves, the American military attache, I got hold of my invaluable Wang, interpreter, cook, and general factotum in one, and faithfullest of Chinese. Dr. Morrison, the famous Times correspondent, gave me much-needed encouragement at just the right moment. He had long hoped to do it himself, he said, and of course I could do it; and speaking of his own recent extended ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... in doors, bailiff out of doors, and general factotum every where to the Vincent interest—for he had managed to monopolize every place worth having, from the agent's book to the cellar-man's key—the said Simon deposed, that on the night in question, he heard the house-dog barking furiously, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... sound of the rattling casement, Rudd, who was at work on the lawn, looked up. Rudd was general factotum—coachman, gardener, footman,—and usually valeted his young master. Now, he hurried upstairs to Mr. Dick's bedroom, where he duly appeared ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... feathers," a sneer which points either to his celebrity as an actor or to his preparation for loftier flights by fitting pieces of his predecessors for the stage. He was soon partner in the theatre, actor, and playwright; and another nickname, that of "Johannes Factotum" or Jack-of-all-Trades, shows his readiness to take all honest ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... go with me as general factotum, for my method of living must be as simple as possible, since the neighbours would be more likely to confide their troubles to the ear of one who was, apparently, in the same position of life as themselves. Smart clothing would be unnecessary also, and a hundred and one luxuries of a ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... must see his collection of engravings. Would not dear Dr. Holmes have a sympathy with Mr. Dillon? Have you such fancies in America? They are not common even here; but Miss Skerrett (the Queen's factotum) tells me that the most remarkable book in Windsor Castle is a De Grammont most richly and expensively illustrated by George the Fourth, who, with all his sins as a monarch, was the only sovereign since the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... B. C. As letters they were quite charming. The earlier ones had dealt with the professor's pet subject, primitive psychology. The later ones had been more personal. Spence found himself remembering such phrases as "my humble but picturesque home," "my Chinese servant, a factotum extraordinary," "my young daughter who attends to all my simple wants" and "my secretary on whose efficient aid I more ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the sound of the night-bell at Jan's window as he lay in bed. For Jan had caused the night-bell to be hung there since he was factotum. "Where's the good of waking up the house?" remarked Jan; and ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Cragiemuir's factotum, and Ah Moy, who had spent many a weary hour opposite the house in K Street waiting to catch a glance of Janet Cragiemuir, knew him by sight. Coogan presented a ticket and demanded his 'wash.' Sam Yen reached feebly for the pink slip of paper, peered up and ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... acquaint the marine who, for the sum of ten shillings a month, acted as the budding Nelson's factotum to make the necessary preparations for his new chums. By the time he returned, a substantial lunch had been set ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... open, giving some view of the large room within, so far as two partially drawn curtains allowed. As Melrose unlocked the gate, the house door opened, and three huge dogs came bounding out, in front of a gray-haired man, whom the driver of the wagonette knew to be "owd Dixon," Melrose's butler and factotum. The driver was watching the whole scene with an absorbed curiosity, when Melrose turned, threw him a sudden look, paid him, and peremptorily bade him be off. He had therefore no time to observe the perturbation of Dixon who was coming with slow steps to meet his master; nor ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Green, and urged on that factotum so wildly as to leave him no time to change his corduroys and 'skitty-boots' in which he had been gardening; he therefore turned himself into a coachman as far down as his waist merely—clapping on his proper coat, hat, and waistcoat, and wrapping a rug over ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... and I have hired his snug hunting lodge, and, in the mind I am in, I shall remain the next six months, that is, if when the term for renting this said lodge expires, I can find a place to which I can bring my sister Emily, Here there is hardly room enough for myself and Philips, who is still my factotum, valet, groom, and I know not what besides; however, he is content, and so am I. Heartily sick of town, and its conventualities, and tired of being courted and feted, not for myself, but my fortune, I care not, if I never see it again. I am weary, too, of 'single blessedness,' ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... directions upon other subjects followed; and having subscribed the dispatch, and addressed it to the gentlemanlike scoundrel who filled the onerous office of factotum to this profligate and exacting man of the world, Sir Wynston Berkley rang his bell, and gave the two letters into the hand of his man, with special directions to carry them himself in person, to the post office ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... man of genius, who had started as a helper and odd job person, and had risen to the position of factotum. He had ousted the Scotch gardener and insinuated a relation of his own in his place. There was scarcely a servant about the estate that was not a relation of Rafferty's. Philip Berknowles had put up with a lot from Rafferty ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... The old vicarage factotum could not imagine what made his charge so anxious to be off. She actually took the whip out of his hand and gave a flick to the pony, who swerved and started off in a way which would have made his mistress clamorously nervous under any other circumstances. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... others; but these acts were done privately, while he who had created the necessity took to himself the exclusive credit of the relief, and employed thousands daily to propagate reports of his generosity. Mirabeau, then the factotum agent of the operations of the Palais Royal and its demagogues, greatly added to the support of this impression. Indeed, till undeceived afterwards, he believed it to be really the Duc d'Orleans who ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a well-built, corpulent negro man, dressed with considerable care, and with the air of a person on excellent terms with himself. This was no other than Digo, the house-servant and factotum of Dr. Stiles, who considered himself as the guardian of his master's estate, his title, his honor, his literary character, his professional position, and his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... tarred boots on his feet. He was accompanied by a man of about forty in a peasant coat, who had an extraordinarily lively gipsy-like face, coal-black piercing eyes, with which he scanned Nejdanov as soon as he entered the room. Markelov was already known to him. This was Pavel, Solomin's factotum. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... and the two went off on Aunt Tabby instead of accomplishing more courtship, and got on a little better. Diverging from Aunt Tabby to her place, and from her place to Ashpound, they went on with mention of Gervase's factotum, Miles, and discussed capabilities and future ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... the old man was led directly into the boys' cell. He was weary from his exertion, and sank into a chair and his head fell on his breast. In a moment he was fast asleep. The interpreter, who seemed to be general factotum to Serano, shook him roughly by ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... dust, drifting dead leaves, and a steel-grey sky; and the Dolphin Hotel at Southampton was glorified by the presence of Lady Maulevrier and suite. Her ladyship's suite was on this occasion limited to three servants—her French maid, a footman, and a kind of factotum, a man of no distinct and arbitrary signification in her ladyship's household, neither butler nor steward, but that privileged being, an old and trusted servant, and a person who was supposed to enjoy ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... to hand round the sweets, and all of a sudden she didn' know what was happenin' at table, nor whether she was on her head or her heels. . . . All I can tell you, sir, is that me and Battershall"— Battershall is the vicarage gardener, stableman, and factotum—"was waitin' in the stables, wonderin' when in the deuce the Bishop would turn up, when we heard the whistle blown from the kitchen: which was the signal. Out we ran; an' there to be sure was the Bishop comin' down the drive in a hired trap. But ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that day was Edward Dowling. As a tinker he wandered about distributing tracts, speaking the word in truth, and returning during the winter to be factotum in the tower. In that kindly old soul few guessed the old fighter in India. Did he really know the place where priceless treasures were hid beside ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... of a century back. Drifting helplessly and aimlessly about Europe in search of employment, he had taken root where he came ashore, and vegetated, as floating weeds will do. He picked up rather a precarious livelihood by acting as a species of factotum to his countrymen in the season, ministering, not injudiciously, to their myriad whims and necessities. Among his multifarious functions, perhaps the most respectable and permanent was that of clerk to the English chapel. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... the pride of Dan, who acted as general factotum at the presbytery, and laboured and whistled the day through, with a smiling recognition for ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... and his wife had followed the fortunes of their young mistress. Durieu was the factotum of the chateau, and his wife was the housekeeper. He was helped in the cooking by the sister of Catherine, Laurence's maid, to whom he was teaching his art and who gave promise of becoming an excellent cook. An old gardener, his wife, ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... with a Million of Repentance:" this is full of contrition, and of advice to his fellow-actors and fellow-sinners. It is mainly remarkable for its abuse of Shakspeare, "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers;" "Tygre's heart wrapt in a player's hide;" "an absolute Johannes factotum, in his own conceyt the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... writing and suggesting recipes, and a taste for making collections in natural history. He was very partial to the use of the lancet, and quite a terrible adept at tooth-drawing. In short, Peter was the factotum of the beacon house, where, in addition to his other offices, he filled those of barber and steward to the admiration ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... was after your time. She's the mater's factotum, companion, Jack of all trades! A great sport—old Evie! Not precisely young and beautiful, but as game as ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... fast falling ere the minister closed his discourse; and we had but just light enough left, on reaching the Betsey, to show us that there lay a dead sheep on the deck. It had been sent aboard to be killed by the minister's factotum, John Stewart; but John was at the evening preaching at the time, and the poor sheep, in its attempts to set itself free, had got itself entangled among the cords, and strangled itself. "Alas, alas!" exclaimed the minister, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... near Peterhouse, and found sober Peter himself, and his brother-in-law, the facetious factotum Tom Purdie, superintending, pipe in mouth, three or four sturdy laborers busy in laying down the turf for a bowling-green. "I have planted hollies all round it, you see," said Scott, "and laid out an arbor on the right-hand side for the laird; and here I mean to have a game ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the door open; and Kasper, who was only drumming with his fingers upon the window-panes, seemed very glad to see us. That little man had flaxen hair and a snub nose. Sperver had made him his factotum; it was he who took to pieces and cleaned his guns, mended the riding-horses' harness, fed the dogs in his absence, and superintended in the kitchen the preparation of his favourite dishes. On grand occasions he was ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... the new Chamber, and when he did not receive as prompt an answer as he had expected, he repeated his questions with a certain show of impatience. At this period of isolation, M. Dablin was also his factotum and his mentor. Balzac commissioned him to buy a Bible, carefully specifying that the text must be in French as well as Latin; he wished to read the Sicilian Vespers; he felt it his duty, as a simple soldier in the ranks of literature, to attend a performance ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... Edmund William Gosse, or Goss; but I had hitherto supposed that, becoming disgusted with himself, he crawled off and died. As I remember him, he was a kind of half-baked poetaster or he-bulbul, a Johannes Factotum in the province of dilettanteism, a universal Smart Alec who knew less about more things than any other animal in England. He was one of those persistently pestiferous insects tersely called by Carlyle "critic flies"—a descendant of that placed ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... bogged. This also was the day of Mr. Jason Buford, who, having been free before the war, knew a thing or two, and now had set himself up as a promoter. Truly he had profited by the example of the white men for whom he had so long acted as messenger and factotum. ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... promise you that you shall surely come in for your share of it. Now listen to my plan of operations. You Kaempe—[Enter SCHMOCK.] Stop! Who is that? Thunder! The factotum of the Coriolanus! Our incognito has not ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... Ingenious Ranke, forgetting again to date, knows from the Archives, that Friedrich went shortly afterwards to call on Graf von Hoym, one day. Speaking to Graf von Hoym, who is Saxon First-Minister, and Factotum of the arrangements here, he took occasion cursorily to ask, Could not a glimpse of Leipzig, among all these fine things, be had? Order for horses to or at Leipzig, for "a couple of officers" (Lieutenant Keith and self),—quietly, without fuss of ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... burying-ground, and seated on one of the graves we found the two persons we had taken for men, the eldest of whom was suckling the infant. They proved to be the wife of the Governor of Donna Maria, who was a native of France, and her sister. The old woman was the nurse, and the black man their factotum. They spoke French, which some of our party understood, and we spent a very agreeable half-hour in their company. After having given us an invitation to their house, they bade us adieu and proceeded on their journey. I afterwards found it was a common custom for the better class ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... habits whatsoever—he had never had time to form any—proved the most adaptable of husbands, and as Marcia entirely lacked opinions on the subjects that engrossed him there were very few jottings and bumping. Their minds moved in different spheres. Marcia acted as practical factotum, and Horace lived either in his old world of abstract ideas or in a sort of triumphantly earthy worship and adoration of his wife. She was a continual source of astonishment to him—the freshness and originality of her mind, her ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... distinguished so many artists in their dealings with foreign princes, but he was irritable, turbulent, restless, intractable. He was a chivalrous defender of poorer brethren in art, and he was never a respecter of persons. His feuds with Betzki, the Empress's faithful factotum, were as acrid as the feuds between Voltaire and Maupertuis. Betzki had his own ideas about the statue that was to do honour to the founder of the Empire, and he insisted that the famous equestrian figure of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... factotum, Bombay, prevailed on Baraka, Frij, and Rahan—all of them old sailors, who, like himself, knew Hindustani—to go with me. With this nucleus to start with, I gave orders that they should look out for as many ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Regent; and scrap-work screens on which faded portraits and landscapes were half eclipsed by quotations from Elegant Extracts. From the drawing-room windows, in my mother's earlier days, might often have been seen the figure of an old head gardener and factotum, George Diggins by name, bending over beds of geraniums, who was born in the reign of George II, who had passed his youth as a charcoal burner in woods not far from Ugbrooke, the seat of the Catholic Cliffords, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... flung himself into the steering seat and drove away at such a pace that Andrews, his outdoor man and general factotum, looked ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... a special session of Congress, and a new tariff bill was framed under the direction of Sereno E. Payne, a Stand-Pat Republican member of Congress, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and Nelson W. Aldrich, Senator from Rhode Island, and guardian angel and factotum for the Big Interests. For several months these gentlemen conducted the preparation of the new bill. Payne had already had experience in putting through the McKinley Tariff in 1890, and the Dingley Tariff in 1897. Again the committee-room was ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... life and soul of the business" of, Messrs. Mason and Jackson, builders; but he had a private connection of his own, which he worked independently. He was greatly liked, and the late Sir George Barlow, a landed proprietor of the neighbourhood, made him a kind of factotum on his estate. He seems to have been a very original character; to have had superior abilities as an artificer; and to have had most of the qualities which go to form what is called a "successful" man. He ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... lighted upon a better confidant. "Gracious powers!" says Sampson, "the man's roguery beats all belief! When I was secretary and factotum at Castlewood, I can take my oath I saw more than once a copy of the deed of assignment by the late lord to your grandfather: 'In consideration of the love I bear to my kinsman Henry Esmond, Esq., husband of my dear mother Rachel, Lady Viscountess Dowager of Castlewood, I, etc.'—so ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... At all events, if he did not succeed in that, his money would be safe. Meanwhile, he would become an agent and commissioner, buy and sell, and do many clever things besides. Also, he must remain Ehrenthal's factotum as long as it suited him. Rosalie was handsome and rich, for Bernhard would not live to inherit his father's wealth. Perhaps he might desire to become Ehrenthal's son-in-law, perhaps not; at all events, there was no hurry about that. There was one other whom he must get on a ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... his pride was already developing that mania for "lending you my Capataz de Cargadores" which was to bring Nostromo into personal contact, sooner or later, with every European in Sulaco, as a sort of universal factotum—a prodigy of efficiency in ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... little car to its best speed until he gained his villa. Entering the ground, he was confronted by his factotum, ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... Crofton the very last words uttered by Piper, the clever, capable man who, after having been Colonel Crofton's batman in the War, had become their general factotum in Essex:—"Don't you go and be startled, ma'am, if you see the very spit of Dandy in this 'ere village! As me and your new lad was cleaning out the stable-yard this morning, a young gentleman came in with a dog as was 'is exact image. After a bit o'course, I remembered as what we'd ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... Lardot's factotum, an old maid of forty-six, hideous to behold, lived on the opposite side of the passage to the chevalier. Above them were the attics where the linen was dried in winter. Each apartment had two rooms,—one lighted from the street, the other from the courtyard. Beneath the chevalier's ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... to the baniya {factotum}; he'll show you to your room. I'm vexed that my wife is not here; of course she didn't know when to expect me; and Mrs. Watts is an old friend of hers. 'Tis a relief in one way; for Mr. Watts is a shrewd fellow—he's ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... of Billy and the woman, already mentioned, and an ancient Pistol of the name of Charley. The latter wore many firearms, and had a good deal to say, but had never, as Billy expressed it, "made good." This in the West could not be for lack of opportunity. His functions were those of general factotum. ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... when a new carpet or mattress was going to be needed, or when at the close of the year it began to be evident that my family accounts, like poor Dora's, 'wouldn't add up,' then I used to say to my faithful friend and factotum Anna, who shared all my joys and sorrows, 'Now, if you will keep the babies and attend to things in the house for a day, I'll write a piece and then we'll be out of the scrape.' So I became an author,—very ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... friends and acquaintances into a long line for a word of greeting or a rapid-fire chat, just as though you were some idol of the people, and were steaming in past the Statue of Liberty on your way home from lionizing and being lionized abroad, and the Auto-Comrade were the factotum at your elbow who asks, "What ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... just then storming away at his factotum Wool for some misdemeanor, the nature of which Capitola did not hear, for upon her appearance he suffered his wrath to subside in a few reverberating, low thunders, gave his ward a grumphy "Good morning" and sat ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... along the deck slowly and disappeared down the front companion-stair which led to the cozy dining-room. I could see them all sitting there, about my own table, using the very silver and linen which I had had made for the Belle Helene, attended by John, my Chinese cook and factotum, whom I had especially imported, selected from among a thousand other Chinese by myself at Hankow. I knew that Davidson would have champagne and a dozen other wines in abundance, everything the market offered. A pleasant party, ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... the gardener and general factotum at Colonel Van Dyne's. The Poketown school-teacher hurried away, and left Janice and Marty sitting together in ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... of 1855-56, while engaged as assistant factotum in a general lumbering and mercantile business in the pine woods of Northern Michigan, one of my functions was that of assistant postmaster, which led to getting up a "club" for the New York Weekly Tribune, ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... type-foundry in America. Franklin succeeded in contriving a mould, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied the deficiencies of the office. The autobiography says: "I also engraved several things on occasion; I made the ink; I was warehouse man and everything, and in short quite a factotum." Nevertheless, he was dismissed before long by his incompetent employer, who, however, was glad to re-engage him a few days later on obtaining a job to print some paper money for New Jersey. Thereupon Franklin contrived a copperplate press for this job—the ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... awe-stricken. They streamed through the rooms where the furniture was arranged in lots. I wandered about by myself, and presently came upon something which absorbed me so that I forgot everything else—a store of Easter eggs, with wonderful drawings and devices, made by "James," the Rydal Mount factotum, in the poet's day. I recollect sitting down with them in a nearly empty room, dreaming over them in a kind of ecstasy, because of their ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... helped if they won't take less. Ah, dear me! I was forgetting. We must have another entree. Ah, goodness gracious!" he clutched at his head. "Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmitri! Eh, Dmitri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate," he said to the factotum who appeared at his call. "Hurry off and tell Maksim, the gardener, to set the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must be brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots here ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... to the squat grey lodge, there was Mrs. Earley standing in her doorway to welcome them. Mrs. Earley was Earley's mother, and Earley was gardener and general factotum at Wren's End. Mrs. Earley looked after the chickens, and when she had exchanged the news with Jan, and rather tearfully admired "poor Mrs. Tancred's little 'uns," she escorted them all to the orchard to see the cocks and hens ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... him, we had to send for his factotum or scout, an old black fellow.—Yale Lit. Mag., ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... so welcome?' There was a pull of emotion at her smile. 'What with your little factotum and you, we are flattered to perdition when we come here. He has been proposing, by suggestion, like a Court-physician, the putting on of his boxing-gloves, for the consolation of the widowed:—meant most kindly! and it's a thousand pities women ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fellow-servants the old grey-headed factotum was almost detested. They could receive orders from the rector, and yield to him cheerful and hearty obedience; but to be under the control of a stingy, canting old hypocrite like Ralph Wilson was hard to be borne. The Bible, that was so often in his mouth, might have taught him 'that no man can ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... quite equal to the inquisition. Every man who bore his Majesty's commission was ordered solemnly to pledge himself to obey the orders of government, every where, and against every person, without limitation or restriction.—Count Mansfeld, now "factotum at Brussels," had taken the oath with great fervor. So had Aerachot, Berlaymont, Meghem, and, after a little wavering, Egmont. Orange spurned the proposition. He had taken oaths enough which he had never broken, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to town afterwards, Josephine Ramot, in company with Loupart, called 'The Square,' and his factotum, the ruffian 'Beard.'" ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... friend [for] long walks on the moor. When they went very far, Tabby, their old factotum, insisted on escorting them, unless Branwell took that duty on himself, for they were still "childer" in her eyes. Emily and Anne walked together. They and Branwell would ford the streams and place stepping-stones for the elder girls. At every point of view, at every flower, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... of the series was given in the presence of a large and fashionable audience. The music was first-class in every respect and nearly every piece was encored. Gilder's Galop de Concert and Orlandini's Largo al Factotum most emphatically so. Mrs. Blake distinguished herself as an accomplished vocalist in Millard's song, When the Tide Comes In, and in the favorite old Scotch ballad, John Anderson, My Joe. It was supposed from the low price that these concerts would be beneath the notice of the high toned dilettanti ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... and upon the appearance of Dugald M'Culloch, fisherman and factotum to the millionaire, accompanied by three burly satellites, vain, he perceived, would be the most desperate resistance. He plead the privileges of a foreign diplomatist, threatened a descent of the German army upon Lincoln Lodge, ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston |
