"Kerb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two later, the house-surgeon, looking out of the window, saw the dog coming down the street. When it came near he noticed that it had a penny in its mouth. A cat's-meat barrow was standing by the kerb, and for a moment, as he ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... careful as to his direction. Even then he would have passed the house in Sloane Gardens without looking up, but for the civil "Good-night, sir," of a coachman sitting on the box of a small brougham drawn up against the kerb. He raised his head to return the salute, and realized at once where he was. Almost at the same moment the front door opened, and behind a glow of light in the hall he saw a familiar figure in the act of passing out to her carriage. The street was well lit, and he was almost opposite ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mind simultaneously while making a drive at golf; and to the man who has mastered the art of remembering them all the task of hiding girls in taxicabs is mere child's play. To pull down the blinds on the side of the vehicle nearest the kerb was with George the work of a moment. Then he leaned out of the centre window in such a manner as completely to screen the interior of ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... small car rolled out with a grimy young man in a sweater at the wheel. He brought the machine out into the road, and alighted and went back into the garage, where we heard him shouting unintelligibly to someone in the rear premises. The car remained puffing and panting against the kerb. ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... bore only a comic resemblance to anything at all—that man had to be taken seriously in his attic as an artisan. It is true that Alice thought the payment he received miraculously high for the quality of work done; but, with this agreeable Jew in the hall, and the coupe at the kerb, she suddenly perceived the probability of even greater miracles in the matter of price. She saw the average price of ten pounds rising to fifteen, or even twenty, pounds—provided her husband was given no opportunity to ruin the affair ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... was saying: "Why am I behaving like this? After all, he's done no harm yet." But she had set out, and she must continue, driven by the terrible fear of what he might do. She stared at the blind. Through a slit of window at one side of it she could see the lamp-post and the iron kerb ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... saw many horses lying dead on both sides of the road, and thought little of it. That was war. Then all my senses were strung up to attention: a small bay horse lay stretched out on the pathway, his head near the kerb. There was a shapeliness of the legs and a fineness of the mud-checkered coat that seemed familiar. I stepped over to look. Yes, it was my own horse "Tommy," that old Castle, our ex-adjutant, had given me—old Castle's "handy little horse." A gaping ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... movement the girl turned back the gauntlet of her long glove; the next instant the carriage was rattling down the street, while a chagrined young man stood alone on the kerb with a long, slender ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... four-wheeler went past, crawling dejectedly homeward. The driver checked his gaunt horse at the sight of Colwyn standing on the kerb-stone, and raised an interrogative whip. He added a vocal appeal for hire based on the incredible assumption that a man must live, which he proclaimed with a whip elevated to the sodden heavens, calling on a God, invisible in the fog, to bear ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... the scene. He doesn't rush into the throng and 'jump in,' for fear the 'bus should extricate itself and drive on without him; he doesn't make confusion worse confounded by intimating his behest; he doesn't soil his bright boots by stepping off the kerb-stone; but, quietly waiting the evaporation of the steam, and the disentanglement of the vehicles, by the smallest possible sign in the world, given at the opportune moment, and a steady adhesion to the flags, the 'bus is obliged either to 'come to,' or lose the fare, and he ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the hearth, one foot on the stone kerb, one elbow leaning lightly on the overmantel, she proceeded ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... train for New York?" I asked. (I talked like a fool, I know; it was like asking a casual wayfarer in East Ham whether that by the kerb is the Moscow express. Yet what was I to do?) "Board her right here," said the fellow, who was in his shirt sleeves. Therefore I delivered myself, in blind faith, to the casual gods who are apt to wake up and by a series ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... wanted to know the time badly. Amid the shifting press of foot-passengers a little white dog stuck to his heels resolutely. The sudden sight of a clock-maker's on the opposite side of the thoroughfare proved magnetic. Pausing on the kerb to pick up the Sealyham, Lyveden crossed the street ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... walked round a garden-bed, and went to sit down near the terrace on the kerb-stone ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... one who never thinks and only eats—and then the heavenly music. It was as strange and arresting as that other mixture, that startling one of the men who sell flowers in the London streets and the flowers they sell. What does it look like, those poor ragged men shuffling along the kerb, and in their arms, rubbing against their dirty shoulders, great baskets of beauty, baskets heaped up with charming aristocrats, gracious and delicate purities of shape and colour and scent. The strangest effect of all is when they happen, round about Easter, to be selling only ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... wanted to see how far Nutter was behind them. He was walking in the opposite direction, looking down on the kerb-stones of the footpath, and touching them with his cane, as if counting them as he proceeded. Dangerfield nodded, and his spectacles in the morning sun seemed to flash two sudden gleams of ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... kerb he saw the dim red rear-light of a car, and almost at the same moment a rough-looking Italian ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... out of the Victoria station, looking undecidedly at the taxi-cabs, dark-red and black, pressing against the kerb under the glass-roof. Several men in greatcoats and brass buttons jerked themselves erect to catch his attention, at the same time keeping an eye on the other people as they filtered through the open doorways of the ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... tiny shaft that carries the edge-roll of the arch; and the lancet arches also, where they adjoin the solid piers between the bays, have a shaft in the jamb. On all three walls the shafts in this storey stand on a kind of kerb or parapet, which is interrupted in the middle of each bay, and the stilt of the round arch is treated almost like a classical entablature, and has a moulding or cornice above it, while the uppermost part ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... the court-compound, and sat upon the well-kerb, wondering whether an unsuccessful dive into the black water below would end in a forced voyage across the other Black Water. A groom put down an emptied nose-bag on the bricks, and Little Tobrah, being hungry, set himself ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... lived about some silly matter that had neither right nor wrong to it. She left her money to me when she died. I used always to go and see her for decency's sake. I had so much to do before night that I didn't know where to begin. I felt inclined to sit down on the kerb and hold my head in my hands. It was as if an engine had been started going under my skull. Finally I sat down in the first cab that came along and it was a hard matter to keep on sitting there I can tell ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... paper containing this new serial, which promises to be the best ever written by ORPHEUS C. KERB, should subscribe now, to insure its regular ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... the regiment which reveal him in this light very nicely. He was once walking with a friend on the esplanade of some English seaside place, and the day was piping hot. Suddenly, without explanation of any kind, B.-P. sat himself down on the kerb, placed his billycock hat solemnly on his knees, and buried his face in a flaming red handkerchief. This unprecedented sight stirred the depths of the one and only policeman's heart, and he strode valiantly across the road, prepared to ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... London in the early winter morning, when the frost lies along the kerb, just melting as the fires are lit; cold, ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... rain which pelted down with torrential fury. Mothers with their little children drew closely into corners or sat upon doorsteps seeking the slightest shelter. As I turned out of the station my attention was attracted by a woman—she had come up on our train—who was sitting on the kerb, her feet in the gutter, the rushing water coursing over her ankles, feeding her child at the breast, and vainly striving to shelter the little mite from the elements. The woman was crying bitterly. I went up to her. She spoke English perfectly. She was Russian and had set out from ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... as she had called herself, stepped down from the kerb. She looked hot and tired. It was a most unusual time for Madame Wachner to be out walking, and by herself, ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... go and ran after it, while she stood waiting at the corner. In a moment he came back followed by the cab, which drew up by the kerb. He opened the door and she got in. He was preparing to follow her when she leaned forward and put her ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... and on without the slightest notion where he was going. Up one street and down another the boy ran, often looking behind to see whether he was being followed, and at last stopping altogether, simply because he could not run any farther. He sat down on the kerb-stone, and then he saw for the first time that it had begun to rain ...
— The Little Clown • Thomas Cobb
... disaster. And talking of cheerfulness reminds me of Lowson's historical game of chess. Lowson said he had been cheerful sometimes—but, drunk! Perish the thought! Challenged, he would have proved it by some petty tests of pronunciation, some Good Templar's shibboleths. He offered to walk along the kerb, to work any problem in mathematics we could devise, finally to play MacBryde at chess. The other gentleman was appointed judge, and after putting the antimacassar over his head ("jush wigsh") immediately went ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... drew up to the kerb; Ashton banged open the door and got in. Micky followed, and they drove some way ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... of Haunaunau, the City of Refuge for western Hawaii. In this district there is a lava road ascribed to Umi, a legendary king, who is said to have lived 500 years ago. It is very perfect, well defined on both sides with kerb-stones, and greatly resembles the chariot ways in Pompeii. Near it are several structures formed of four stones, three being set upright, and the fourth forming the roof. In a northerly direction is the place where Liholiho, the king who died in England, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... the stairs, and so left the hall and the open doorway clear. Whittington looked now straight through the doorway, and saw the carriage and the lady on the point of stepping down onto the kerb. His face assumed a look of extreme surprise. Then he glanced up the staircase after Wogan and laughed as though the conjunction of the lady and Mr. Wogan was a rare piece of amusement. Mr. Wogan did not ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... for bub and grub and doss, Go East among the merchants and their men, And where the press is noisiest, and the tides Of trade run highest and widest, there and then You shall behold him, edging with equal strides Along the kerb; hawking in either hand Some artful nothing made of twine and tin, Cardboard and foil and bits of rubber band: Some penn'orth of wit-in-fact that, with a grin, The careful City marvels at, and buys For nurselings in ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... crossed the courtyard and sat down on the kerb; his head swam and he felt along his legs with shaking hands. A belated fruit seller went by, and he bought a handful of dates, stuck on a small rod and looking like immense beetles, and as he ate his confidence in life gradually returned. The Joss was at a safe distance in his house ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... close to the edge of the footways, while their teams stood motionless in close order as at a horse fair. Florent felt interested in one enormous tumbrel which was piled up with magnificent cabbages, and had only been backed to the kerb with the greatest difficulty. Its load towered above the lofty gas lamp whose bright light fell full upon the broad leaves which looked like pieces of dark green velvet, scalloped and goffered. A young peasant girl, some sixteen ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... to you exactly how Herbert looked. But shame, defiance and unconcern were the principal ingredients in his expression as he stood on the kerb and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... inexperienced, unguided curiosity would be capable of walking through a French street and through an English street, and noting chiefly that whereas English lamp-posts spring from the kerb, French lamp-posts cling to the side of the house! Not that that detail is not worth noting. It is—in its place. French lamp-posts are part of what we call the "interesting character" of a French street. We say of a French street that it ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... the life of cities a crowd instantly began to assemble; and as a burly policeman, notebook in hand, pushed through the people, a middle-aged gentleman stepped, with some difficulty, out of the wrecked cab, and stumbled forward on to the kerb, almost into the arms of Anstice, who reached the spot at the same moment and caught him as he staggered ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... importance of its chief industries Aberdeen is one of the most prosperous cities in Scotland. Very durable grey granite has been quarried near Aberdeen for more than 300 years, and blocked and dressed paving "setts,'' kerb and building stones, and monumental and other ornamental work of granite have long been exported from the district to all parts of the world. This, though once the predominant industry, has been surpassed by the deep-sea ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... wide crossing, and a heavy burden: so death came to a poor woman. People from the house went out to help; and I heard of her, the centre of an unknowing curious crowd, as she lay bonnetless in the mud of the road, her head on the kerb. A rude but painless death: the misery lay in her life; for this woman—worn, white-haired, and wrinkled— had but fifty years to set against such a condition. The policeman reported her respectable, ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... focus his glassy eyes upon the arcana of spiritualism, rocking ambiguously the while upon the kerb. Mark murmured something more about the need for ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... Withers," he said, as we stood in the sunlight on the thronging kerb, saying good-bye, "here I am, and it's all very well; I'm not perhaps as fanciful as I was. But you are practically the only friend I have on earth—except Alice.... And there—to make a clean breast of it, I'm not sure that my aunt cares much ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... a spring— Why square me with a kerb? . . . O cruel force, That gives me not a chance To fill my natural course; With mathematic rod Economising God; Calling me to pre-ordered circumstance Nor suffering me to dance Over the pleasant gravel, With music solacing my travel— With music, and the baby buds ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... at the kerb, and they entered it and sat down side by side in that restricted compartment, and the fat old driver, with his red face popping up out of a barrel consisting of scores of overcoats and aprons, drove off. It was very foggy, but one could see ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... passed the window, and Havill recognized the Power liveries. 'Hullo—she's coming here!' he said under his breath, as the carriage stopped by the kerb. 'What does she want, I wonder? Dare, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... is the dodge—you goes outside and lies down on the kerb-stone; whereby I spies you a-sleeping in the streets, contrary to Act o' Parliament; whereby it is my duty to take you to the station-house; whereby you gets a night's lodging free gracious for nothing, and company ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... 'another time.' We exchanged cards again and his man called a cab for me. A chauffeur came up with a prodigiously long-bonneted and low-seated machine, and Carville followed me down stairs. He got in and waved his hand. With a spring the car leaped from the kerb—no other word will describe the starting of that car. I suppose it must have been at least a hundred horse power. In a flash it was round the corner and gone. I climbed into my cab and made my humble way to Liverpool Street, eventually reaching Wigborough, and taking up ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... There was a crowd of people on the edge of the pavement, and he thrust himself into it, and glanced over the shoulder of a woman at the ground. There was a mess of thick, congealing blood splashed on the road and the kerb. ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... centre of the valley, and this was enclosed on either side by a wall breast high. This gave a singularly urban quality to this secluded place, a quality that was greatly enhanced by the fact that a number of paths paved with black and white stones, and each with a curious little kerb at the side, ran hither and thither in an orderly manner. The houses of the central village were quite unlike the casual and higgledy-piggledy agglomeration of the mountain villages he knew; they stood in a continuous ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells |
