"Petrol" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... For petrol she can substitute benzol and alcohol, with some inconvenience. Germany is likewise the home and center of industrial alcohol, which it manufactures from surplus products. But when it comes to gold, there is the rub. Germany fixes a price of 20 cents a pound ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... worm, when suddenly an idea occurred to their business imagination. Why should they not use the automobile to advertise and sell the cure about the country? The apostle in charge would pay for his own petrol, take a large percentage on sales, and the usual traveller's commission on orders that he might place. But where to find an apostle? Brave and desperate men came in high hopes, looked at the car, and, shaking their heads sorrowfully, went away. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... left in Fritz; he scooted for a hundred yards in the direction of home, but was winged while running, part of his left wing dropping off. The rest was easy; his machine became unmanageable, an explosive bullet smashed into his petrol tank and he dropped ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... attempted to navigate an airship. His first airship was almost absurdly small; it had little more than six thousand feet of cubic capacity, was cigar-shaped, and was driven by a three and a half horse-power petrol motor. The others followed in rapid succession. M. Deutsch de la Meurthe had offered a prize of a hundred thousand francs for the first airship that should rise from the Aero Club ground at St. Cloud and voyage round the ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... almost like entering another world. Instead of the crowded, wood-paved streets, redolent of petrol, this winding ribbon of a lane where the brambles and tufted grass leaned down from close-set hedges to brush the wheels of the carriage as it passed. Overhead, a restful sky of misty blue flecked with wisps of white cloud, while each inconsequent turn of the narrow twisting road revealed ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... tune fell out, drop by drop, from the unseen sky on to the dusky town. It was like dim, bygone centuries sounding. It was all so far off. She stood in the old yard of the inn, smelling of straw and stables and petrol. Above, she could see the first stars. What was it all? This was no actual world, it was the dream-world of one's childhood—a great circumscribed reminiscence. The world had become unreal. She herself was a strange, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... to procure more in order to continue the pursuit. Major Thompson, who was in command of the armored-car detachment, instructed me to take all the tenders and go back as far as was necessary to find a petrol dump from which I could draw a thousand gallons. I emptied the trucks and loaded them with such of the wounded as could stand the jolting they were bound to receive because of the speed at which I must travel. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... when he saw the rebuilt station on his arrival. He had been out of it all for so long, yet he was of it, and he shuddered away from the increased captivity of London, yet longed to have been part of it.... It was almost bewilderingly a new city. During his absence, the immense change from horse to petrol-driven vehicles had taken place and a new style of architecture had been introduced. The air was cleaner: so were the streets. Shop windows were larger. There was everywhere more display, more ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... suggested by the sight of a man I had known in other scenes, despatch-riding round a fleet in a petrol-launch. There are many of his type, yachtsmen of sorts accustomed to take chances, who do not hold masters' certificates and cannot be given sea-going commands. Like my friend, they do general utility work—often ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... strange beings who have been evolved by the age of petrol, an automaton compounded, seemingly, of steel springs and leather. He had long ago lost the art of speech, having cultivated delicacy of hearing and quickness of sight at the expense of all other human faculties. The old-time coachman possessed ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... goods and for bombs, is continually becoming more practicable. But the air routes that air transport will follow must go over a certain amount of land, for this reason that every few hundred miles at the longest the machine must come down for petrol. A flying machine with a safe non-stop range of 1500 miles is still a long way off. It may indeed be permanently impracticable because there seems to be an upward limit to the size of an aeroplane engine. ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... directions. Although the spherical balloon had been improved, its disabilities were recognized and experiments were made with elongated balloons, man-flying kites, air photography, signalling devices, observation of artillery fire, mechanical apparatus for hauling down balloons, and petrol motors. A grant for a dirigible balloon was obtained in 1903, though it was not until 1907, the year in which Cody began the construction of his aeroplane at Farnborough, and Charles Rolls his experiments, that the airship "Nulli Secundus" made her first flight. ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... 'It's the garage! The petrol has taken fire!' said Naomi. 'Whatever could they have been thinking of to leave it there? Surely they've never left those beautiful cars ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... conversation of ours. Some time, perhaps, I may tell you why. If not, it's not worth remembering. And now, I see she's got everything ready, and is waiting for us. So is Vedder. The car's had a good drink of petrol, and we can be off—for a sight of Carlyle's country. Will that bore you?" He looked at me almost anxiously, as if something depended ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... motor car, sir, and it's broken down, and he wondered if you'd lend him a little petrol. He told me to say how very sorry he was ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... market town which has been practically burned out, German soldiers carrying straw and cans of petrol have been seen in the streets. While the mayor's house was burning, six sentinels with fixed bayonets were under orders to forbid anyone to approach and to ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... news," and Efficiency wiped her eyes with her Fabric and became almost cheerful. "Suppose we think about finishing it now? There will have to be an Engine and Propeller, won't there? And a body to fix them in, and tanks for oil and petrol, and a tail, and," archly, "one of those dashing young ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... can afford half-a-crown, that invaluable contrivance, "Tommy's Cooker"; and occasionally we get a ration of coke. When times are bad, we live on bully, biscuit, cheese, and water, strongly impregnated with chloride of lime. The water is conveyed to us in petrol-tins—the old familiar friends, Shell and Pratt—hundreds of them. Motorists at home must be feeling the shortage. In normal times we can reckon on plenty of hot, strong tea; possibly some bread; probably an allowance of bacon and ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... my mind full of a thousand problems. I had caught the economical British habit of using the trains, conserving the petrol and tyres on my car. The first thing I saw on the Marylebone platform was the crude picture in green chalk of a stolon of Cynodon dactylon. What idiot, I thought as I irritably rubbed at it with the sole of my shoe, what feebleminded creature has been let loose to do a thing ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... commandeered a motorcycle standing outside a cafe and rode it until the petrol ran out, whereupon he abandoned it by the roadside and pushed on afoot. On another occasion he explained to the French officer who arrested him that he was endeavouring to rescue his wife and children, who were in the hands of the Germans somewhere on the Belgian frontier. The ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... and Ungava petrol-tanks punted down leisurely out of the north, like strings of unfrightened wild duck. It does not pay to "fly" minerals and oil a mile farther than is necessary; but the risks of transhipping to submersibles in the ice pack off Nain or Hebron are so great that these ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... Germany. The latest include gutting of the Moabit Goods Station in Berlin wherein tanks of petrol, hydrogen, et cetera, exploded, resulting in the destruction of a part of Vilna and the township of Osjory near the Grodno conflagration station and a basket factory ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... time being raced and shaken over the flat sand basin, meeting and passing more teams on the way, and twice a petrol and drink station of one board shed, and a man with a jolly Irish face and a gun openly in his belt, to attend to it. We had no breakdowns, and just at sunset got into the one and only street of Moonbeams. But there were no stone houses or anything but sheds of one storey, generally, and more often ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... the men, very white and shaky, explained in a few gasps that they had found the chief engineer senseless at the bottom of the iron ladder leading up to the deck, and had themselves been nearly gassed by the petrol fumes. ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... Fig. 81 is designed for heating with a large paraffin or petrol blow-lamp. It has considerably greater water capacity, heating surface—the furnace being entirely enclosed—and water surface than the boiler just described. The last at high-water level is about 60, and at low-water ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... I found it worn into threadbare patches, with edges unravelled like those of some old carpet in a seaside lodging-house. The lanes that fed it were already thick with dust as in thirsty August, and instead of eglantine, wild-roses, and the rest, a smell of petrol hung upon hedges that were quite lustreless. On the crest of the hill, whence we once thought the view included heaven, I stood by those beaten pines we named The Fort, counting jagged bits of glass and scraps of faded newspaper ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... whether killed deliberately by his fellow-criminal was never revealed. For when the end came Orming had apparently planned a final act of venom. It was known that in the basement a considerable quantity of petrol had been stored. The contents had probably been carefully distributed over the most inflammable materials in the top rooms. The fire broke out, as one witness described it, "almost like an explosion." Orming must have perished ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... Black Forest nowadays, over a pass I travelled a few years ago in a mail coach. In those times it was a jog-trot journey occupying the long lazy hours of a summer morning. I suppose that now you whizz and hustle through the lovely forest scenery pursued by clouds of dust and offended by the fumes of petrol, but no doubt you get to your destination quicker than you used. The pleasantest way to travel in Germany, if you are young and strong, is on your feet. It is enchanting to walk day after day through the cool scented forest and sleep at night in one of the clean ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Turnour would have been surprised to hear that her maid dared count herself and a chauffeur in the programme. Creatures like us must be fed, just as you pour petrol into the tanks of a motor, or stoke a furnace with coals, because otherwise our mechanism wouldn't go, and that would be awkward ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... results in excellent behavior and the best of relations between the British soldier and the French inhabitants. At the docks armies of laborers and lines of ships discharging men, horses, timber, rations, fodder, coal, coke, petrol, and the same ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on the barge. The skipper ought to be a smart chap, who can be trusted with money to pay the expenses of the boat as one goes along—bridge-money and all sorts of things. The chauffeur can buy the essence—petrol, you call it in England, don't you?—but the skipper had better ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... anyhow. I'll give it to Bob to keep, in case she goes through my desk again." She poured some ammonia upon the stain, and rubbed gingerly, surveying the result with a tilted nose. It was not successful. "Shall I try petrol? But petrol's an awful price, and I've only got the little bottle I use for my gloves. Anyhow, the horrible old cloth is so old and thin that it will fall to pieces if I rub it. Oh, it's no use bothering about it—nothing will make it better." She ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... without even troubling to turn off the tap. In France one has to go dirty so often that the dream of being always clean seems as unrealisable as romance. Our drinking-water is frequently brought up to us at the risk of men's lives, carried through the mud in petrol-cans strapped on to packhorses. To use it carelessly would be ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... haulers, the caterpillar tractors, cut many a passage through the sand, tugging heavy guns and ammunition, stores for the air and signal services, machinery for engineers and mobile workshops, and sometimes towing a weighty load of petrol to satisfy their voracious appetites for that fuel. The tractors did well. Sand was no trouble to them, and when mud marooned lorries during the advance in November the rattling, rumbling old tractor made fair weather ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... one part of the body and then, after it has taken, transferring it to a third part. Gillies has especially developed this method in the remedying of deformities of the face caused by gunshot wounds and by petrol burns in air-men. A rectangular flap of skin is marked out in the neck and chest, the lateral margins of the flap are raised sufficiently to enable them to be brought together so as to form a tube of skin: after the circulation has been restored, the lower end of the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... derived from a combination of petrol and pulverised smokeless coal, treated with liquid oxygen, which made combustion practically perfect. There was no boilers or furnaces, only combustion chambers, and this fact made the carrying of the great weight of armour under the waterline ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... he said doggedly. "Mr. Kent isn't for bringing Miss Molly back again. They'd their luggage along wi' 'em in the car, and Mr. Kent, he stopped at the 'Cliff' to have the tank filled up and took a matter of another half-dozen cans o' petrol with 'im." ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... discontent produced by the high cost of living—as the Italians not only held Antivari but even fired on French boats that were taking supplies up the river Bojana, it was necessary to revictual all except the new parts of Montenegro from Kotor. The lack of petrol, from which even the American Red Cross units were suffering, compelled the authorities to fall back on ox-waggons, which at any rate are not expeditious. By the way, it was the staff of another mission, calling itself the International Red Cross, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... heard that Mr. Hawker had some intention of flying on a non-stop journey from Sydney to Melbourne—a distance of 500 miles—was most anxious to accompany him, provided the Sopwith biplane would carry two persons in addition to the tank of petrol which would, of course, be indispensable. Mr. Hawker, however, says he would not take a passenger should he undertake the journey. Miss Cole is most anxious for another sea flight, as she is of opinion that the power ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... a very careful survey of the situation. The car was moving very slowly, and evidently the driver had orders to move at no particular pace through the night, in order to economize the petrol. There was an inside handle to each of the doors, and I had to make up my mind by which I was to make my escape. I decided upon the near side. Gathering up my energies for one supreme effort, I suddenly leapt ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... the fields where they fought and saw their bodies and their graves, and the proof of the victory that saved France and us. The German dead had been gathered into heaps like autumn leaves. They were soaked in petrol and oily smoke was ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... Mr. A. E. W. MASON is another of those who hold that the day of war-novels is not yet done. Anyhow, The Summons (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) shows him dealing out all the old familiar cards, spies and counter-spies, submarines and petrol bases and secret ink. It must be admitted that the result is unexpectedly archaic. Perhaps also Mr. MASON hardly gives himself a fair chance. The "summons" to his hero (who, being familiar with the Spanish coast, is required when War breaks out to use this knowledge ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... the machine, and this, too, when a steam engine was the motor. When, therefore, in the years shortly following, the steam engine was for the purposes of aerial locomotion superseded by the lighter and more suitable petrol engine, the construction of a navigable air ship became vastly more practicable. Still, in Sir H. Maxim's opinion, lately expressed, "those who seek to navigate the air by machines lighter than the air ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... in the workshop. From left to right: Hodgeman, Hunter, Lasebon, Correll, and Hannam. The petrol engine part of the wireless plant ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... aware of the popular gaze, and he supported it with negligent pride. He had the air of having been born to greatness; cigarette smoke and the fumes of exploded petrol and the rattle of explosions made a fine wake behind his greatness. In two years, since he had walked into Mr. Haim's parlour, his body had broadened, his eyes had slightly hardened, and his complexion and hair had ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... acting upon his present state of mind, was like pouring petrol on a smouldering fire. So she had gone off with the fellow, had spent the night with him somewhere! The thing was true; there was no good trying to shut one's eyes to it any longer. A dozen tiny incidents recurred to him, each magnified a hundredfold, together bearing ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... rather close and lingerie-scattered bedroom, solemnly rotating her fingers about her cheeks and forehead, stopping to conjecture that the pores in her nose were getting enlarged. She rubbed her hair with Pemberton's "Olivine and Petrol" to keep it from growing thin, and her neck with cocoanut oil to make it more full. She sent for a bottle of "Mme. LeGrand's Bust-Developer," and spent several Saturday afternoons at the beauty parlors of Mme. Isoldi, where in a little booth shut off ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... we went out to find where the wire was cut, and they got Dick. But I got away, and I managed to stay fairly close to them. I followed them when they left Dick in a little stone house, as a prisoner, and I heard this—I heard them talking about getting a big supply of petrol. Now what on earth do they want petrol for? They said there would still be plenty left for the automobiles—and then that they wouldn't need the cars any more, anyhow! What on earth do you make of ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... the comfort is enshrined is rather near the conduit through which flows that sparkling liquid which, when vapoured, supplies our motive power. And foie gras is notoriously susceptible to the baneful influence of neighbouring perfumes. Thank you. If those bits of heaven were to taste of petrol, it would shorten my life. And now, where ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... all the impedimenta of war—marching battalions, traction-engines towing great guns, ammunition trains, long lines of Red Cross lorries; everywhere the pungent odour of petrol. From every little wood belch forth men. They march silently. They might be phantoms, dim hordes of Valhalla, were it not for the spark of a cigarette, a smothered laugh. There is no talking. All is tense excitement. For miles and miles in a wide concentric sweep ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... where to find it, for which reason alone the system of huts and hotels is to be preferred. The hotels are widely scattered and the huts hidden away in odd corners of public gardens and parks, and even in the bed of a lake. By the use of motor-cars (petrol being for official and not for private consumption) such co-operation as cannot be avoided between ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... of the room, in the street, had flung himself upon a hesitant taxi-driver, had bullied and cajoled him to take a monstrous and undreamt-of journey for a man who, by his own admission, had only sufficient petrol to get his taxi home, and when the girl came down she found Bones, with his arm entwined through the open window of the door, giving explicit instructions as to the point on the river where Stivvins' Wharf was to ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... to be horrid and calculating about it, think of the lunches and the dinners and the theatre tickets and the flowers you've given me. Oh, and the gallons and gallons of petrol. How am I ever to pay you ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... disappointment. Everybody was dirty and unfriendly, staring at us with hostile eyes. Add Dublin grease, which beats the Belgian, and a crusty garage proprietor who only after persuasion supplied us with petrol, and you may be sure we were glad to see the last of it. The road to Carlow was bad and bumpy. But the sunset was fine, and we liked the little low Irish cottages in the twilight. When it was quite dark we stopped at a town with a hill in it. One of our men had a brick thrown ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... unimpregnated with petrol eventually sends me stumbling up the companion-way to the deck. Gripping the rail, I make my way forward, and, peering through the mirk, distinguish a huddled figure in a sou'wester. Aloof, detached, he steers the shrewdest, swiftest path ever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... beginning of the great Fishbourne fire, which burnt its way sideways into Mr. Rusper's piles of crates and straw, and backwards to the petrol and stabling of the Royal Fishbourne Hotel, and spread from that basis until it seemed half Fishbourne would be ablaze. The east wind, which had been gathering in strength all that day, fanned the flame; everything was dry and ready, and the little ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... to curtained door, from piles of cushions to stacked-up tables, and bearing a flaming torch hastily improvised out of a roll of newspaper, was Dr. Fu-Manchu. Everything inflammable in the place had been soaked with petrol, and, his gaunt, yellow face lighted by the evergrowing conflagration, so that truly it seemed not the face of a man, but that of a demon of the hells, the Chinese doctor ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... "Plenty of petrol in the car?" asked Allerdyke, turning down the platform. "There is? What time did you ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... best thing to a Djinn's carpet, a military motor, was at my disposal every morning; but war conditions imposed restrictions, and the wish to use the minimum of petrol often stood in the way of the second visit which alone makes it possible to carry away a ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... plunged through or beside the tormented machine, leaving in its wake a thin curling line of blue smoke. I was in the middle of a relentless storm of burning tracer bullets, vying one with the other for the honour of passing through the petrol tank, thereby converting my machine into a seething furnace. Having no observer to defend my tail I turned steeply to meet my new adversary. However, before completing the manoeuvre I received another deadly burst of fire, which, though it somehow missed me, shot away several of ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... Gas and petrol (gasoline) engines have been used extensively in England, providing a cheaper, but, with feeders, a less controllable, prime mover. By far the commonest source of power has been the water motor, as it was economical and readily ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... doing nothing," compromised Anonyma. "And petrol isn't so bad as it will be. And it's a beautiful time of year. And you are not strong yet, really. And we want ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... ten feet square; the roof was a lean-to, and was supported in the centre by three tree-trunks. Four wooden frames, upon which was stretched some wire-netting, served as bedsteads; in a corner stood a bucket-fire, the fumes and smoke going up an improvised chimney of petrol tins. In the centre was a rough table. One corner of it was kept up by a couple of boxes; other boxes served ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... a very good car, sir. If you ask me I should say it was light on tyres and a bit thirsty with petrol. It's one of them cars as anybody can drive—if you understand what I mean. I mean anybody can make it go. But of course that's only the beginning ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... we had found so great a nuisance on the earth. The Martians had evidently overcome all such difficulties, if they had ever experienced them; and their methods were doubtless far in advance of the use of evil-smelling petrol. ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... personal preference, and denied no claim of higher brilliance to electric illumination. Driving slowly through Hyde Park on sunny days when she was able to go out, her high-swung barouche hinted at no lofty disdain of petrol and motor power. At the close of her youth's century, she looked forward with thrilled curiosity to the dawning wonders ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... pleased. A few more questions put and answered found me with that job right enough ... and a right good job, too, as things are nowadays. I was to have four pounds a week and liveries. Such a mug as "Benny" Colmacher would not be the man to ask about tyres and petrol, and if he did, I knew how to fill up his tanks for him. Be sure I went away on my top speed and ate a better lunch than had come my way for six months or more. Who the man was, or what he was, I didn't ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... our money, and I sent down one Hun, and crippled another chap's machine so that he had to turn tail and scoot for home. Then came three other big Gothas that set me to spinning on my head. But after they'd chased me for miles, a leak in my tank let out every drop of petrol; and so the only thing to do was to drop down and ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... believe," she said, shaking her head. "One can always do what succeeds. It's like pouring petrol into ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... firing-line." It was one of the most remarkable speeches I ever heard. I go to these girls for all my news. Lady Dorothy Fielding is our real commander, and everyone knows it. One hears on all sides, "Lady Dorothy, can you get us tyres for the ambulances? Where is the petrol?" "Do you know if the General will let us through?" "Have you been able to get us any stores?" "Ought we to have 'laissez-passer's' or not?" She goes to all the heads of departments, is the only good ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... of Austro-Hungarian territory. She has also declared that she is "fighting for the independence of the small nations," including, of course, Belgium. In further evidence of her humanity she has taken to spraying our soldiers in the West with flaming petrol and squirting boiling pitch over our Russian allies. It is positively a desecration of the word devil to apply it to the Germans whether on land, on or under water, or in ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... something!' He took instead a bundle of papers in the case of 'Magentie versus Wake,' intending to read them on the way down. He did not even open them, but sat quite still, jolted and jarred, unconscious of the draught down the back of his neck, or the smell of petrol. He must be guided by the fellow's attitude; the great thing was to keep ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... evening.—Arrive home. Back the car into the shed. Miss the door and knock the shed down. (7) Friday.—Ran over my neighbour's dog. (8) Saturday.—Silly car breaks down three miles from home. Hire a horse to tow it back. (9) Sunday.—Filling up. Petrol tank caught fire. Wretched thing burnt. ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... and the fair you may be sure they are going on some National business. Both the War Office and the Admiralty keep log-books, in which are faithfully entered—I quote Dr. MACNAMARA—"full particulars of each journey, the number and description of passengers carried and the amount of petrol consumed." Do not therefore jump to the hasty and erroneous conclusion that the gallant fellows and their charming companions are "joy-riding;" such a thing is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... acetylene lamps met them abruptly as they emerged, dazzling them for the moment. The buzz of a motor engine also greeted them, and a smell of petrol ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... reach. It was a quarter past ten o'clock, and the barograph needle pointed to twelve thousand eight hundred. Up I went and up, my ears concentrated upon the deep purring of my motor, my eyes busy always with the watch, the revolution indicator, the petrol lever, and the oil pump. No wonder aviators are said to be a fearless race. With so many things to think of there is no time to trouble about oneself. About this time I noted how unreliable is the compass when above a certain height from earth. At fifteen thousand feet mine ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a main highroad behind the lines passes the station day and night. Chauffeurs drop in to borrow petrol or to repair their cars; visiting officers from other stations come to watch the airship perform. For England has been slow to believe in the airships, pinning her aeronautical faith to heavier-than-air machines. She has considered the great expense for building and upkeep of each of ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... The petrol lamp above the head of the accused had flared up, and begun to smoke, causing the chimney to crack with a sharp report. This diversion effected a momentary silence among the crowd, and the Public Prosecutor was ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... '94, when even the electro-motor was not in general use, and the petrol-driven machine was slowly convincing Paris and New York of its magnificent possibilities. Saxham used a smart, well-horsed, hired brougham for day-visits, and for night work a motor-tricycle. There were no stables to the house in Chilworth Street. He left the motor-tricycle ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... advances, for example, are almost entirely due to the invasion of medical research by the chemist; our naval development to the supersession of the sailor by the engineer; we sweep away the coachman with the railway, beat the suburban line with the electric tramway, and attack that again with the petrol omnibus, oust brick and stonework in substantial fabrics by steel frames, replace the skilled maker of woodcuts by a photographer, and so on through the whole range of our activities. Change of function, arrest of specialisation by innovations in method and appliance, progress by the infringement ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... of the coast to a little south of the Hague lighthouse. Thereabouts he remembers descending for the purpose of replenishing his tank. Not having anticipated a passenger, he had filled up before starting with a spare supply of petrol, an incident that was fortunate. Malvina appears to have been interested in watching what she probably regarded as some novel breed of dragon being nourished from tins extricated from under her feet, but to have accepted this, together with all other details of the flight, as in ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... the joint career of Stephen Cheswardine and Vera his wife. The motor-car stood by the side of the pavement of the Strand, Torquay, that resort of southern wealth and fashion. The chauffeur, Felix, had gone into the automobile shop to procure petrol. Mr Cheswardine looking longer than ever in his long coat, was pacing the busy footpath. Mrs Cheswardine, her beauty obscured behind a flowing brown veil, was lolling in the tonneau, very pleased to be in the tonneau, very pleased to be observed by all Torquay in the tonneau, ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... hadn't been gone five minutes when Fitch arrived on his motor-bike. He'd come to bring us a can of petrol, for after we'd left he remembered the tank ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... laughed, and then turned his attention to the petrol tank, into which he put his measuring iron to see how much it contained, while the facetious chauffeur ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... to the door, which the fat butler held open, she heard the snorting of a motor; the next minute, a superb car, driven by Lowther, pulled up before the front door. Mavis had never before been in a petrol-propelled carriage (automobiles were then coming into use); she looked ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... my mind, anyway," he remarked at length. "For I have a staggering piece of news for you which I hardly dare to impart. Oh, it's no good looking at your watch. It's hopelessly late, nearly six o'clock, and in any case I can't get you home to-night. There's no petrol." ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... is as tetchy as petrol. Trailing fingers are terminals which ignite living flames, and the propeller of the little boat creates an avengeful commotion of light which trails far astern. Blobs of light are cast off from her bows as she rounds the familiar sandspit ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... about to object in his turn, though, for a moment, he philandered with the delightful thought of getting even with Gay by covering her with dust and petrol fumes. Unfortunately, his gallant resistance to this pleasant temptation would never be known, for Gay suddenly and unexpectedly wheeled to the left and put her horse's head to the veld. The swift wheeling movement, with its attendant extra scuffling of dust, sent a further graceful contribution ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... petrol launch," Julian explained, "and I shall land you practically in the dining room in another ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... backs went stumbling by toward the river and the bridge. Motors came honking down from the inner streets, and the quay, which had begun to clear by this time, was again jammed. I threw on some clothes, hurried to the street. A rank smell of kerosene hung in the air; presently a petrol shell burst to the southward, lighting up the sky for an instant like the flare from a blast-furnace, and a few moments later there showed over the roofs the flames of the ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... woman bumped by, sitting in a kind of dreadful bath chair fastened in front of a motor bicycle, spattering noise and petrol. You couldn't see her features under her expression, which was agonized. The young man who propelled her was smirking conceitedly, as if to say, "What a kind chap I am, giving my maiden aunt a ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... source of gratification to Briggs. Seated beside me, the wind beating on his sightless orbs, he discoursed of the wonders of petrol. "Proper to take you about, them cars. W'ere are we now? 'Ave we far to run, like?" I told him we were traversing Battersea Park and that our destination was St. Pancras. It transpired that he was a stranger to London. This drive through ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir |
