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noun
Porter  n.  A man who has charge of a door or gate; a doorkeeper; one who waits at the door to receive messages. "To him the porter openeth."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Porter" Quotes from Famous Books



... between the head of an important division and the humblest copying-clerk; one is as powerful as the other in an arena outside of which each lords it in his own way. Education, equally distributed through the masses, brings the son of a porter into a government office to decide the fate of some man of merit or some landed proprietor whose door-bell his father may have answered. The last comer is therefore on equal terms with the oldest veteran in the service. A wealthy supernumerary splashes his superior ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... a little before the Christmas holidays in the year 18—, the personages just described were seated around Ned's fire, some with their chirping pints of ale or porter, and others with their quantum of Hugh Traynor, or mountain-dew, and all with good humor, and a strong tendency to happiness, visible in their faces. The night was dark, close, and misty; so dark, indeed, that, as Nancy said, "you could hardly see your finger before you." Ned himself ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... papers, the bronze, iron, and marble relics we had picked up, and all the articles that usually weigh down a tourist's baggage. I screwed up the negative-gravity apparatus until the trunk could be handled with great ease by an ordinary porter. I could have made it weigh nothing at all, but this, of course, I did not wish to do. The lightness of my baggage, however, had occasioned some comment, and I had overheard remarks which were not altogether complimentary about people travelling around with ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... PORTER, P.: Creation de vitamines dans l'intestin des lapins recevant une nourriture sterilise a haute temperature. ...
— The Vitamine Manual • Walter H. Eddy

... tender shoots are cultivated for food like the asparagus; the roots are carved into fantastic images of men, birds, and monkeys. The tapering culms are used for all purposes that poles can be applied to, in carrying, supporting, propelling, and measuring; by the porter, the carpenter, and the boatman; for the joists of houses and the ribs of sails; the shafts of spears and the wattles of hurdles, the tubes of aqueducts and the handles and ribs of umbrellas and fans. The leaves are sewed upon cords to make rain-cloaks for farmers and boatmen, ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston

... intelligence that Captain Sutherland, of the ram Queen of the West, was married, a few days since, on board the gunboat Tylor, to Mrs. Harris, of Skipwith Landing. Several officers of the army and navy were present to witness the ceremony, which was performed by a Methodist clergyman, and Admiral Porter gave away the blushing bride. She is represented to be a woman of indomitable pluck, and, for the present, shares the life of her husband, on the ram Queen of ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... passage-room, between the outer or house-door which opened to the vestibule, and an inner door which closed the entrance of the atrium. In the vestibule, or in an apartment opening upon it, the porter, ostiarius, usually had ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... rock, and ran baffled into every corner of that market-place of nothing. For in that garth was neither knight nor squire nor sergeant; no spear-head glittered from the wall, no gleam of helm showed from the war-swales; no porter was at the gate; the drawbridge over the deep ghyll was down, the portcullis was up, and the ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... The porter of the cathedral inhabited an extremely small dwelling, built up against the wall, and surrounded by high, dark buildings; but we were pleased to see that he had cheered this dismal place of abode by a gay parterre, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... a sunbeam with a sword. It unites again, and the impotent edge passes through and has effected nothing. Death can shear asunder many bonds, but that invisible bond that unites the soul to God is of adamant, against which his scythe is in vain. Death is the grim porter that opens the door of a dark hole and herds us into it as sheep are driven into a slaughter-house. But to those who have learned what it is to lay a trusting hand in God's hand, the grim porter is turned into the gentle damsel, who keeps the door, and opens it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... no parsnips" means that reward of other kinds is needed to give substance to praise. Praise only without reward losses its value. "I get lots of 'Thank you's' and 'You are a good fellow'," complained a porter to me once, "but I cannot bring up my family on them." In their hearts, no matter what they say, the majority of people place highly him who is just in compensation and reward and they want substantial goods. Many a young scientist of my acquaintance has found that election ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... company, besides Ann, Nabby Porter, Grandma's old hired woman whom she had made over to her, and a young man who had been serving as apprentice to Mr. Samuel. His name was Phineas Adams. He was very shy and ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... with William Walker's expedition, and who ever since had lived in Honduras; Major Reeder and five captains, Miller, who was in charge of a dozen native Indians and who acted as a scout; Captain Heinze, two Americans named Porter and Russell, and about a dozen lieutenants of every nationality. Heinze had been adjutant of the force, but the morning after my arrival the General appointed me to that position, and at roll-call announced the change ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... Sotheby's house, Miss Jane Porter, author of 'The Scottish Chiefs', etc., etc., met Byron. She made the following note of his appearance, and after his death sent ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... the man of the platform appeared at the end of the aisle, accompanied by the porter who carried his bundle. Instantly he became the cynosure of a ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... said that he was with Porter when he took possession of the Nukahiwa Islands. Not this Porter, you know, but old Porter, his father, Essex Porter—that is, the old Essex Porter, not this Essex. As an artillery officer, who had seen service in the West, Nolan knew more about fortifications, embrasures, ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... pleasing young person who sat idly on a pile of luggage and fixed large, speculative, innocently assured eyes upon him when he went by, while near her her mother and a tawny sister disputed bitterly with a porter. Most of the ladies who hastened to and fro seemed, while very energetic, also very jaded. They were packed as tightly with experiences as their boxes with contraband clothing, and they had both, perhaps, rather heavily on their minds, wondering, it was probable, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... witnesse, for of the one side I am holde and bounde after part porter uray tiesmoygnage, car dung coste je ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous

... Yankees,' and it should have an airy belvedere, with a gilded image tiptoeing and shining on its peak, and from it you should see, far across the gleaming folds of the river, the red roof of Belles Demoiselles, the country-seat. At the big stone gate there should be a porter's lodge, and it should be a privilege even ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... position difficile dans laquelle je me suis trouve depuis trois mois—la delicatesse de celle dans laquelle je suis place maintenant vis-a-vis M. le President de la province de Maragnon, m'imposant le devoir de porter a la connoissance de votre Excellence les justes motifs de plainte que j'ai a lui exposer centre la conduite de M. le President Bruce envers un Agent de Sa Majeste le Roi de France, et venir a ce titre reclamer un appui que je ne puis ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... Admiral David Porter in his Naval History of the Civil War described the attack, which was directed against the U. S. S. Housatonic, one of the newest Federal battleships, ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... themselves. [Looks round] Look at the furniture! Just look at it! They say I'm stingy, that all I want is that the locks on the doors should be polished, that the employees should wear fashionable ties, and that a fat hall-porter should stand by the door. No, no, sirs. Polished locks and a fat porter mean a good deal. I can behave as I like at home, eat and sleep like a pig, ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov

... follows:—that, at the hour—of the night—the state of the weather being also—I, an infant of a certain age—was suspended by somebody or somebodies—at the knocker of the Foundling Hospital. Having made me fast, the said somebody or somebodies rang a peal upon the bell which made the old porter start up in so great a hurry, that, with the back of his hand he hit his better half a blow on the nose, occasioning a great suffusion of blood from that organ, and a still greater pouring forth of invectives from the ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... to look after the forfeiture of land grants; to restrict importation of foreign adulterated goods; to stamp out contagious diseases of animals; to establish a department of commerce; to repeal the act prohibiting ex-confederate officers from serving in the United States army; to relieve Fitz John Porter, and hundreds of bills for the relief or benefit of individuals in different parts of the country. There are also bills for the regulation of transportation companies and for the establishment of a system of government telegraph. As yet no appropriation ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... of his memory, for which he was all his life eminent to a degree almost incredible[126], the following early instance was told me in his presence at Lichfield, in 1776, by his step-daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, as related to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... went out of the hotel, hatless and gloveless, into the garden of orange trees which lies between the buildings and the gate. She strolled leisurely along the path towards the exit, on one side of which is the porter's lodge, while the little square stone box of a building which is the telegraph office stands on the other. She knew that just before twelve o'clock Ruggiero and his brother were generally seated on the bench before the lodge waiting for orders for ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... smiling little fellow in the tonneau. "Say, I'm afraid I'm all at sea. I've come to live with you fellows, but I'm blessed if I haven't already forgotten what that fellow with the gun told me down at the porter's lodge." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... gracious goodnesse giue vnto the English merchants and their company, their house in the Citie of Mosco lying hard by the Church of S. Marke behinde the market place: which they shall keepe and remaine therein after their old accustomed vse. Prouided alwayes that they shall keepe one Russe porter or one of their owne people, & may keepe any other Russe seruant at their discretion. Also their houses in sundry places, as at Ieraslaue, Vologhda, Colmogro, and at S. Michael Archangel, all these houses they shall keepe and vse at their owne pleasure, according to our former letters patents ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt

... remarkably good dinner, and even the afflicted Mrs. Chopper wields her knife and fork with much of the spirit and elasticity of youth. But Mr. Merrywinkle, in his desire to gratify his appetite, is not unmindful of his health, for he has a bottle of carbonate of soda with which to qualify his porter, and a little pair of scales in which to weigh it out. Neither in his anxiety to take care of his body is he unmindful of the welfare of his immortal part, as he always prays that for what he is going to receive he may be made truly thankful; and in order that he may be as thankful as possible, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... the left, they rush forward, are halted by a picket guard, exhibit Sherman's order, and are directed to the commanding-officer. That personage has no knowledge of General Hunter's whereabouts, but Colonel Andrew Porter is just beyond, commanding the brigade. To him Jack makes known Sherman's message, and is directed farther to the southwest, the Union right now facing nearly to the east in the execution of McDowell's ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... Richard tipped the porter with the last coins in his pocket, a shilling and five coppers, turned slowly down Berkeley Street and crossed Piccadilly. He passed the Ritz, of pleasant memory, and entered into the sleeping apartment of London's destitute—the ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... three-year-old denizen of Dublin, who knew the names of the contributors to the "Nation", who had constantly listened to the indignation and enthusiasm of O'Connell, Smith O'Brien, and O'Neill Daunt, in their addresses from the rostrum of the Conciliation Hall [7]; who had drank much porter at Jude's, who had eaten many oysters at Burton Bindon's, who had seen and contributed to many rows in the Abbey Street Theatre; who, during his life in Dublin, had done many things which he ought not to have done, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... steps. Innesmore Mansions did not boast elevators. The flats were comfortable, but not absurdly expensive, and their inmates climbed stairs cheerfully; at most, they had only to mount to a second storey. Each block owned a uniformed porter, who, on a night like this, even in May, needed rousing from his lair by a bell ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... make another mistake. But I would like to tell you what some of the boys said about the dance last night. They were just raving about you. Did you like Porter?" ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose

... The porter at the station did not know where Captain von Wegstetten lived. But the turnpike-keeper had a piece of luck: outside the station he met a gunner, who readily told him the address—"11 Markt Strasse, up two flights of stairs"—and showed ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... live, these Bernardines, as they are called, as much in prison as if they were the most dangerous felons ever brought to justice; and a prison-house, indeed, the convent looks with its high walls, bars, and bolts. I had a little talk with the sister in charge of the porter's lodge, and she took me into the church, pointing to the high iron rails barring off the cloistered nuns, with that imbecile self-satisfaction as much inseparable from her calling ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... Did not your sublime shades glide wrathful by and menace the wretch in whom your divine art had been so degraded? How did I pray, as I passed the scowling porter, for the death of your great predecessor; that some eagle would drop a tortoise on my head, and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... piece of deduction on Sarah's part, however, was made rather negligible by experiments presently carried out by the porter, Fairlow, with the aid of a piece of string. He showed that a person outside the shut door could quite easily pull the ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... porter told me that everyone in Xiormonez was asleep at that hour, and recommended me to spend the night in the waiting-room, but I bribed him heavily; I offered him two pesetas, which is nearly fifteenpence, and, leaving the train to its own devices, he shouldered ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... leaned on others for support. Daisy was, perhaps, in all particulars younger than her years. When at last, after inconceivable difficulties—after being jostled about by an indifferent crowd, and pushed rudely against by more than one stupid, blundering porter—she did find her way to the right ticket-office, and did secure her single third to Rosebury, and then get a very small allowance of room in a crowded third-class carriage her heart was beating so loudly that she almost wondered it did not burst. ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... loudly at this early hour?" asked the fat old porter in great indignation. "Whoever it be, I trow he may e'en wait outside till I have ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... be charming to laugh, to be unable to help laughing. Have them sent to my porter in the northern wing and I will interview them before the masque. Ah, here comes the Duchess leaning upon her Prince's arm. I must say she looks as if there might be something more amusing to ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange

... more respectable and less demonstrative, skirt a common, are stopped at a porter's lodge and turn into a parkland. The glow of sunset is ended; the blue-grey of twilight is settling down. Between flowered borders we pick our way, pause here and there for directions and at last halt. Again the stretcher-bearers! ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... along the platform, followed by a porter with Ashton's baggage. Micky looked at it resentfully; Ashton was evidently prepared to enjoy himself; this was no rush after ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... fond of him; and having taken the thing into her head, she would not rest until she married him. They had their banns published at St. Clement's, and nobody heard it or knew any just cause or impediment. And one day she slips out of the porter's lodge and has the business done, and goes off to Gravesend with Lothario; and leaves a note for me to go and explain all things to her Ma. Bless you! the old woman knew it as well as I did, though she pretended ignorance. And so she ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... first consisted of a porter with the most charming manners in the world, and a cabman with a supreme intelligence, both observing my profound ignorance without contempt or humor of any kind observable in their manners. It was ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... an inferior sweater, standing by the track in a melancholy autumnal light, waving to her as the train pulled out, disappearing in a dun obscurity, less significant than the station, the receding ties, or the porter who was, in places known only to his ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... a foot deep here. There is a theatre, and opera,—the Barber of Seville. Balls begin on Monday next. Pay the porter for never looking after the gate, and ship my chattels, and let me know, or let Castelli let me know, how my law-suits go on—but fee him only in proportion to his success. Perhaps we may meet in the spring yet, if you ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... over. But no! A magnificent porter within the gate had just consented to get my luggage off the cab, and was in the act of beginning to do so, when a savagely-dressed, ugly and ageing woman, followed by a maid, rushed neurotically down the steps and ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... expressed both energy and wit; and her mouth, of which the upper lip was caught up a little at one corner, seemed as though quivering with unspoken and, as he thought, sarcastic speech. Was she, perchance, the Swedish Schriftstellerin of whom he had heard the porter talking to some of the hotel guests? She looked a lonely-ish, ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... performed. The patient was then taken back to the ward and the corneal reflex was noticed as being present. Voluntary movements were also said to have been seen. Later he opened his eyes "and seemed to recognize an onlooker." After this no special supervision was exercised. A hospital porter engaged in the ward noticed the man was breathing in gasps; this was twenty minutes after the patient had been taken from the operating theater and half an hour subsequent to the first administration of the ether. The surgeons were fetched from the operating ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... exorbitant price, what he called "Lord Byron's pencil," declaring that his lordship had presented it to him. My uncle was on the eve of bargaining with the man, when he perceived his own initials on the silver. In fact, it was my lost gift. Byron, in his abstraction, had evidently mistaken the porter for myself; so the servant was rewarded with a trifling gratuity, while my virtuoso uncle took the liberty to appropriate the golden relic of Byron to himself, and put me off with the humbler remembrance ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... sprung up in America,' 1650, L12 10s.; and a copy of Dame Juliana Berners' 'Booke of Hauking,' etc., L13. Nearly fifty items appear under the name of Aphra Behn; whilst there are twenty-one editions of Jane Porter's 'Poems,' which realized the grand total of 14s. The library comprised 3,076 lots (representing, perhaps, twenty times that number of volumes), and realized the total of ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... drawings and painting materials together, and followed his friend, who quickly led the way into the Hotel. The gorgeously liveried hall-porter nodded familiarly to the artist, whom he had seen for several seasons selling his work on the landing, and made a good-natured comment on his "luck" in having secured the patronage of a rich English "Milor," but otherwise little notice was taken of the incongruous couple as they passed up the ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... letters any more there, where they returne me no fruit. My father is your servant, for Sir Cph[EK] Widington, I hope he will compose this quarell without a suite. Is T. Triplett at London yett, or have you any great occasion to draw him up. These are all safe things to be convey'd by a porter to a carier, and by him to me, though my Lord Marshalls himself had feed them to intercept, or brake open your letters. Well when you are most idle, for I must confesse the thinking of me is not worth any time, wherein you may doe any ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... my return to the land of the Franks, by ordering a beef-steak, and a bottle of porter, and bespeaking the paper from a gentleman in drab leggings, who had come from Manchester to look after the affairs of a commercial house, in which he or his employers were involved. He wondered that a hotel in the Ottoman empire should be so unlike one in Europe, and asked me, "If the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... three and six each, and feebly fluttered there, but sank to three, and did not rise again. At our admirable lodging the landlady, the butler and the chambermaid had descended with us to the outer door in a smiling convention of regret, the kindly Swiss boots allowed the street porter to help him up with our trunks, and we drove away in the tradition of personal acceptability which bathes the stranger in a gentle self-satisfaction, and which prolonged itself through all the formalities of registering our baggage for the continent at the station, of bribing the guard in the ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... in, if it had not been closely following the favourite book. But, in fact, the only trouble which Timothy had, was to prevent his eager charge from leaping at the volume while it was yet on his tutor's back. The procession was closed by a porter, bearing the desk, who, under the direction of Titus, placed it before the sultan, at such a distance as would conveniently enable the reader to stand between it and his sublime highness, who might thus see the book over his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... Saucelito, where many a "hop" is given during the summer, and where, on one occasion, "H.M.S. Pinafore" was sung with great effect on the deck of the "Vira," anchored a few rods from the dock; the dock was, for the time being, transformed into a dress-circle. Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., made his entree in a steam launch, and all the effects were highly realistic. The only hitch in the otherwise immensely successful representation was the impossibility of securing a moon for the ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... to Margaret's 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 ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... gates terrific porter lifted the northern bar: Thel enter'd in & saw the secrets of the land unknown; She saw the couches of the dead, & where the fibrous roots Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists: A land of sorrows & of tears where never ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake

... veritable que j'eprouve dans un endroit correspondant a la partie qui souffre chez celui que je touche: ma main va naturellement se porter a l'endroit de son mal, et je ne peux pas plus m'y tromper que je ne pourrois le faire en portant ma main ou ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... the next thing to do was to pull the bell. The porter opened first his wicket and then the door. The superior could not be approached for a quarter of an hour, so I was asked to wait in the lodge. Thus I had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the porter. Although he was very much ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... official importance in his mien, at No.— Wall street, where a great gilt sign betokened the presence of the head-quarters of the "Columbus River Slack-Water Navigation Company." He entered and gave a dressy porter his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a sort of ante-room. The porter returned in a minute; and asked whom ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... about Sophy," Flora confided to Ella. Flora, on shopping bent, and Sophy, seeking hats, had made the five-hour run from Chippewa to Chicago together. "She talks to everybody. You should have heard her with the porter on our train. Chums! And when the conductor took our tickets it was a social occasion. You know how packed the seven-fifty-two is. Every seat in the parlor car taken. And Sophy asking the colored porter about how his wife was getting along—she ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... gate. 205 Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day, And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks. Sirrah, if any ask you for your master, Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter. Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well. 210 ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... glory," said Tavia. "Every eye in the car is on that sofa. My gaze is simply crowded out. Let's want something. Oh, yes. I have lost my—'Porter!'" called Tavia sweetly, at the same time touching the button at the window. The man in the brass-buttoned uniform turned promptly. "I have lost my hand bag," said Tavia. "I surely had ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... winter long, whenever free to choose, Did I by night frequent the College groves And tributary walks; the last, and oft The only one, who had been lingering there Through hours of silence, till the porter's bell, 70 A punctual follower on the stroke of nine, Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice, Inexorable summons! Lofty elms, Inviting shades of opportune recess, Bestowed composure on a neighbourhood 75 Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree With sinuous trunk, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... of the stout old chestnut, he and the train were simultaneously at the station, and the passengers were getting out on the opposite platform. The Doctor made a dash to cross in the rear of the train, but was caught and held fast by a porter with the angry exclamation, 'She's backing, sir;' and there he stood in an agony, feeling all Harry's blank disappointment, and the guilt of it besides, and straining his eyes through the narrow gaps between the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hour—is still to be seen through a chink in the shutter. At the entrance a carriage, a sledge, and a cabman's sledge, stand close together with their backs to the curbstone. A three-horse sledge from the post-station is there also. A yard-porter muffled up and pinched with cold is sheltering behind the ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... know, Miss Porter," replied the young man, "unless we have discovered a runaway simian from the London Zoo who has brought back a European education to his jungle home. What do you make of it, Professor Porter?" he added, turning to ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... doubt that if the second principle could be carried out, namely, the total exclusion of air, the fire would go out of itself; but it seems, to say the least of it, very doubtful indeed if this can be accomplished, and if it could, the carelessness of a porter leaving open one of the doors or windows, would make the whole useless. The fifth principle shows that Mr. Fairbairn has omitted to allow for the loss of strength the iron may sustain from the increase of temperature. The last principle would not be likely to answer its purpose, ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood

... The shining porter said, "Walk in." He sought to do so; the gate was strait: Hard he struggled his way to win, The way was narrow, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... For a short time he was usher in a school at Market Bosworth, but found the position so irksome that he threw it up, and gained a meagre livelihood by working for a publisher in Birmingham. In 1735, being then 26, he m. Mrs. Porter, a widow of over 40, who brought him L800, and to whom he was sincerely attached. He started an academy at Ediol, near Lichfield, which, however, had no success, only three boys, one of whom was David Garrick (q.v.), attending ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... there is Lady Gwendoline. O Edith! Edith! what are you made of? Flesh and blood like other people, or waxwork, with a stone for a heart? How can you sell yourself, as you are going to do? Sir Victor Catheron is no more to you than his hall-porter, and yet you persist in marrying him. You love my brother and yet you hand him over to Lady Gwendoline. Come, Edith, be honest for once; you love ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... without a word. Wingrave walked straight back to his own house. Several people were waiting in the entrance hall, and the visitors' book was open upon the porter's desk. He walked through, looking neither to the right nor the left, crossed the great library, with its curved roof, its floor of cedar wood, and its wonderful stained-glass windows, and entered a smaller room beyond—his absolute and impenetrable sanctum. He ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... ever tried such a thing in his life," Bella remarked. "There's nothing like personal experience. You don't realize that it isn't easy when you give a porter sixpence to lift your biggest trunk ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... employer, he resolves to escape from the latter's power, puts to sea, and lands in England at the place afterwards to be called from him Grimsby. Havelok is brought up simply as a rough fisher-boy; but he obtains employment in Lincoln Castle as porter to the kitchen, and much rough horse-play of the chanson kind occurs. Now it so happens that the heiress of England, Goldborough, has been treated by her guardian with as much injustice though with less ferocity; and ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... habits on political economy is sufficiently remarkable. The monopolizing eater of animal flesh would no longer destroy his constitution by devouring an acre at a meal, and many loaves of bread would cease to contribute to gout, madness and apoplexy, in the shape of a pint of porter, or a dram of gin, when appeasing the long-protracted famine of the hardworking peasant's hungry babes. The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the carcase of an ox, would afford ten times the sustenance, undepraving indeed, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... last," he concluded, "when we arrived in Holland, at Amsterdam, they let me go free because I was useless, and the merchant to whom the ship belonged sympathized with me, too, and wanted to make me his porter. But," he shook his head, "I preferred to beg my way along ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... and its vicinity has a cordon of pickets, the Sunday farewell kisses of sweethearts are never witnessed by the platform porter, as the lovers in khaki are never allowed to see their loves off by train, and week-end adieux always take place at the station entrance. Some time ago the pickets allowed the men to see their sweethearts off, but as many youths abused the privilege and took train to London ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... my business might not wait, and so, after a little of this talk, went up to the gate and thundered thereon in such sort that the wicket opened, and the porter's face looked through it angrily enough, and he would have bidden us begone, for war and travel had stained us both, so that doubtless we were in no better case, as to looks, than the crowd that pressed after us—very quietly, indeed— to ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... Station, of which the gates were closed, the first workman's train being not yet due. And there they stood. Not another human being was abroad. Only the clock of St. Bude's was faithfully awakening every soul within a radius of two hundred yards each quarter of an hour. Then a porter came and opened the gate—it was still exceedingly early—and Priam ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... the cardinal; "then you know Ennis? Fifty odd years ago there was a house, just out of the town of Ennis, with iron gates and a porter's lodge. The ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith

... parabolically of sheep, of the shepherd, and of the door of the sheepfold; and discovers that he alluded to the sheepfolds which were to be hired in the market-place, by speaking of such folds as a thief could not enter by the door, nor the shepherd himself open, but a porter opened to the shepherd, John x. 1, 3. Being in the mount of Olives, Matth. xxxvi. 30. John xiv. 31. a place so fertile that it could not want vines, he spake many things mystically of the Husbandman, and of the vine and its branches, John xv. Meeting ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton

... to the blackboard until the announcer called the number of the track and wrote it down in his slow deliberate hand. From that minute to the time when the first porter came up the stairs and through the gate seemed an eternity, but at last Tom's head and shoulders appeared ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill

... received twenty bouquets from as many different admirers, each of whom asked her hand for the first dance. They had ascertained that Guy was not a disciple of Terpsichore, though I understand he did try some of the square dances, with poor success, I imagine, for Lucy Porter laughed when she told me of it; and I do not wonder, for my grave, scholarly Guy must be as much out of place in a ball room as his little, airy doll of a wife is in her place when there. I can understand just how she enjoyed it ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes

... frigate walks the sea Or skirts the safer shores Of all that bore to victory Our stout old commodores; Hull, Bainbridge, Porter,—where are they? The waves their answer roll, "Still bright in memory's sunset ray,— God ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... them as persons who had been dead some time. They looked mournfully at him, as if sorry that he had come there, but did not speak. He was much alarmed, and made his way back to the door to escape, but was stopped by a stern, sullen-looking' porter, who said, in a sepulchral voice, "You cannot pass." He said, "I came in this way, and I want to go out." "You cannot," said the solemn voice. "Look, the door opens only one way; you may come in by it, but you cannot go ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... books and papers of Admiral Porter Turck, who lived two hundred years ago, and from whom I am descended, many volumes still exist, and are in my possession, which deal with the history and geography of ancient Europe. Usually I bring several of these books with ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... back gears placed where they ought to be, with many minor improvements, it is not safe to assume that the end has been reached; and when we consider that as a piece of machine designing, considered in an artistic sense entirely, the Bement post drill is the finest the world ever saw (the Porter-Allen engine not excepted, which is saying a good deal), is it not strange that of all mechanical designs none other has taken on ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... the porter of the monastery came through the archway of the arcade followed by a young man. As I looked up at him I was uncertain of his nationality. But I scarcely thought about it—except in the first moment. For something else seized my attention—the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... he carried on his person. His stock-in-trade consisted simply of a stout bamboo pole and a good strong rope, the usual signs of a porter; but his willingness to oblige, and the hearty, pleasant way in which he performed his arduous duties, gained him the goodwill of all who employed him. Before many months had passed he was in constant demand, and was slowly saving up money that was ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan

... blow of the massive glittering knocker brought a servant to the door. The promptitude with which this summons was answered showed that, notwithstanding the early hour, the Alderman was an expected guest. The countenance of him who acted as porter betrayed no surprise when he saw the person who applied for admission, and every movement of the black denoted preparation and readiness for his reception. Declining his invitation to enter, however, the Alderman placed ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... was collected in the middle of the hall, the night porter, one or two of the servants of the hotel, and some men in blouses, all gathered round a tall prostrate man, half lying on a bench placed under the centre lamp, half supported by two men, who had apparently just carried him in. He was quite insensible, his head had fallen forward on his ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... they would not be suffered to go through their dialogue on stilts, but would converse in the natural graceful way at present customary. By the way, what a strange custom that is in modern lady novelists to make the men bully the women! In the time of Miss Porter and Madame D'Arblay, we have respect, profound bows and curtsies, graceful courtesy, from men to women. In the time of Miss Bronte, absolute rudeness. Is it true, mesdames, that you like rudeness, and are pleased at being ill-used by men? I could point to more ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... men are quick to grasp the game and get into some shell holes and wait until it gets a little dark and then crawl back to our own line. We have quite a few wounded and some killed. Nothing though when you look at the resistance. One chap by the name of Porter came crawling into the trench with an ugly head wound and blood pouring all over his face. He started swearing at Fritz and ended up by asking for a chew of tobacco before he went out to the dressing station. We got settled away once more all prepared for the ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis

... woman and the two demented men, retained upon their faces an expression of the utmost horror—a convulsion of terror which was dreadful to look upon. There was no sign of the presence of anyone in the house, except Mrs. Porter, the old cook and housekeeper, who declared that she had slept deeply and heard no sound during the night. Nothing had been stolen or disarranged, and there is absolutely no explanation of what the horror can be which has frightened a woman to death and two ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle

... knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. (33)Take heed, watch; for ye know not when the time is. (34)As a man who is abroad, having left his house, and given authority to his servants, to each one his work, also commanded the porter that he should watch; (35)watch therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house comes, at evening, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning; (36)lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. (37)And what I say to you, I ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... she expects that the tea will be of the finest flavor, and never boiled; that steaks will be porter-house steaks; that green peas will be in plenty; and that the American girl, who is chambermaid for the summer, and school-teacher in the winter, and who, ten to one, could put her to the blush in five minutes by superior ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... disbanded, driven out of this Eden by the fiery sword of the Law, driven back to their homes. Sighing over the marcescibility of human happiness, I peered between the pillars into the excavated and chaotic hall. The porter's hatch was still there, in the wall. There it was, wondering why no inquiries were made through it now, or, may be, why it had not been sold into bondage with the double-door and the rest of the ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... Sunday he knocked at the door in Grosvenor Square and asked for the ladies. Up to the moment of his knocking,—even after he had knocked, and when the big porter was opening the door,—he intended to ask for Mr Melmotte; but at the last his courage failed him, and he was shown up into the drawing-room. There he found Madame Melmotte, Marie, Georgiana Longestaffe, and—Lord Nidderdale. Marie looked anxiously into ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... for a few days from revisiting the place where she knew she had been detected. He devoted the first days therefore, to a careful study of the secrets of the street. A novice at such work, he dared not question either the porter or the shoemaker of the house to which Madame Jules had gone; but he managed to obtain a post of observation in a house directly opposite to the mysterious apartment. He studied the ground, trying to reconcile the conflicting demands of prudence, ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... bitter memories. He knows where boys that start as you are starting end if they don't turn back. Your pa turned, but he recollects the career of the Blue boys, who are divided between the penitentiary, the poor-house and the southwest corner of hell; he recalls the Winklers—one dead, one a porter in a saloon in Peoria, one crazy; and he looks at you, and it seems to him that he must take you in his arms as he did when you were a little child in the prairie fire, and run to safety with you. ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... the threats of the judges or the fear of the question. The holy and devout priest said his mass, praying the Lord's help for confessor and penitent alike. After mass, as he returned, he learned from a librarian called Seney, at the porter's lodge, as he was taking a glass of wine, that judgment had been given, and that Madame de Brinvilliers was to have her hand cut off. This severity—as a fact, there was a mitigation of the sentence—made ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Inn guests was driving over to catch this fast train at a country crossing, and there was a spare seat in the hired carry-all. Griswold considered the alternative for the length of time it took the hotel porter to put the departing guest's luggage into the waiting vehicle. Then he turned his back and let the chance escape. The issue was fairly defined. To become a fugitive now was to plead guilty as charged—to open the door ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... the whirlpool. The descent to the water's edge, which is not often made, is, as you will remember, all but vertical, down a steep of some three hundred and sixty feet. One of the party was about going down, when Mr. Adams remarked that he would accompany him. Gen. Porter and the other gentlemen present remonstrated, and told him it was a very severe undertaking for a young and hearty man, and that he would find it, in such a hot day, quite impracticable. He seemed, however, to know his capacities; and this old man, verging on four ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... tarnished gas-stars, and suffused the dusty atmosphere with palest gold. But somehow the utter absence of excitement in the crowd, the calm, methodical tone of the auctioneer, and the occasional mournful cry of "Lot here, gentlemen!" from the porter when any article was too large to move, all served to ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... seen how we all clustered about them. The ship was a merchantman from Bristol, bound to New York; she had been out eleven weeks, her provisions were beginning to run short, and the crew was on allowance. Our captain, who is a gentleman, furnished them with flour, tea, sugar, porter, cold tongue, ham, eggs, etc., etc. The men remained about half an hour on board, and as they were remanning their boat we saw a whole cargo of eatables carried to it from our steerage passengers. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... wages, positively, through the absorption of capital required for their relief, and, negatively, through the absence of those additions to capital which the surplus services of instructed artisans always occasion.—G. R. Porter's Lecture at Wandsworth, entitled 'Services for Services.' London: ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various

... her now and then while she wiped her tears with a corner of her 'kerchief. She passed him without turning to look at him. He then hastily returned to see the justiciary. The latter had left his room, and Nekhludoff found him in the porter's lodge. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... appeared that twenty-five of them, headed by Thistlewood, had formed a plot to attack the Ministers when dining at Lord Harrowby's. Two of them were to go there with red Boxes in lieu of dispatch Boxes. Whilst the porter was taking these pretended dispatches, one of them was to open the door to the remainder of the gang. They were to throw fire-balls into the Mall, and, in the midst of the confusion thus occasioned, to rush into the ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... bareheaded, Lanyard swung to face the door porter, a towering, brawny animal in livery, self-confident and something more than keen to interfere; but his mouth, opening to utter some sort of protest, shut suddenly without articulation when Lanyard displayed for his benefit a .22 Colt's automatic. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... cavalry, in the vicinity of the Antietam battle-ground. After getting through with General Burnside's corps, at the suggestion of General McClellan, he and the President left their horses to be led, and went into an ambulance to go to General Fitz John Porter's corps, which was two or three ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure



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