"First floor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they sat was one of those third rooms on the first floor, by which city house-builders, self-styled architects, have made the second room useless except at night, in their endeavor to reconcile a desire for a multitude of apartments with the fancied necessity that compels some men to live where land costs five ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Clapeyron, is separated from the Boulevard des Batignolles by the house at the corner. The professor went up to the first floor and rang. A gentleman opened ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... to a Lady, Master, that shall stifle you with Kindness, as pretty a piece of Wild-fowl as paddles about Covent Garden; but you'll tip her a Guinea, her Lodgings are extremely fine; and you must know a first Floor comes ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... fifteen minutes' lesson on the blackboard for making out your checks, and the rest's up to you. But look sharp. We've been open to customers for half an hour now. At ten-thirty a two-hours' bargain sale of blouses, sashes, and ladies' fancy neckwear opens on the first floor. That's yours. You must be in the square more than half an hour before the sale begins, to see stock and ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... reached the first floor. Opposite to us, not three yards away, was the door of the sitting-room which I knew to be ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... home earlier than usual; it was not five o'clock. He passed Dr. Parret's flat on the first floor—Dr. Lily MacComb Parret. She was a great friend of his, and he felt a decided temptation to go in and tell her the news first; but reflecting that no one ought to hear it before his mother, he went on up-stairs. He ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... boy had reached a rapid conclusion. This was that his father was not on the first floor of the house, nor in the cellar. Consequently, if he was in the building at all— and Dick believed he was— he must be somewhere upstairs. While the three rascals were in the sitting room he intended to ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... Street at the corner of Bow Street. "It was Dryden who made Will's coffee house the great resort of the wits of his time." (Pope and Spence.) The room in which the poet was accustomed to sit was on the first floor; and his place was the place of honor by the fireside in the winter, and at the corner of the balcony, looking over the street, in fine weather; he called the two places his winter and his summer seat. This was called the dining-room floor. The company did not sit in boxes as subsequently, but ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... morning the family assembled in the breakfast-room for prayers; but Margery, usually the first on foot, had not made her appearance. She slept in a little room on the first floor, with a window looking out over the sea; it was prettily papered, and had white dimity curtains, and everything in it looked fresh and nice, like herself. Charley ran up and knocked at the door, but got no answer; then Becky went to the room, ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... a huge room, taking up all the rear part of the house, from the first floor to the roof. Gray daylight streamed through a sky-light, twenty feet overhead. The ends of the vast room were cluttered with electrical and chemical apparatus; but Larry's eye was caught at once by a strange and complex device, ...
— The Pygmy Planet • John Stewart Williamson
... the first floor, above an entresol, and looked into the back street. I raised my hand to open the window, knowing that on that action hung, by the merest hair-breadth, my chance of safety. They keep vigilant watch in a House of Murder. If any part ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... to listen to these comments. He pushed his way through the throng up the stairs, to his late employer's lodgings on the first floor. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... suppose you heard of the fright we had two weeks ago last Saturday? No? Why that is strange—but come to remember, you've all been away to Richmond. Francois tumbled from the sky light—in the second-story hall clean down to the first floor—" ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... poor were taught, where the sparrows were plentiful and loud, and where groups of patient little ones would hover all day long before the hospital, if by chance they might kiss their hand or speak a word to their sick brother at the window. Desborough's room was on the first floor and fronted to the square; but he enjoyed besides, a right by which he often profited, to sit and smoke upon a terrace at the back, which looked down upon a fine forest of back gardens, and was in turn commanded by the windows ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... all he dared to his mother, Dan went to his room and carefully locked up the mysterious paper. He returned to the first floor just as the Marquis and Jesse drove up in the sleigh to the ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... apartments where lay the body of the murdered man. Under the direction of Dr. Westlake, the jury individually viewed the wounds, noting their location and character, and, after a brief visit to the room in the tower, all passed downstairs and were shown into the large library on the first floor. ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... the present, have resulted in almost its destruction and depopulation—especially in those of 1645 and 1658, as we shall see later. But in the midst of these ruins, the houses which suffered most always preserved the principal walls, some even the first floor, and others more—although these were stripped of their covering, and, as it were, the skulls and shapeless skeleton which indicate the robust symmetry of that building's corpse. Only in the area and place where this lamentable tragedy occurred (namely, the archiepiscopal palace ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... the marble cupolas that stand above each face of the building. The four noble minarets are, however, wanting. The apartments are all in number and form exactly like those of the Taj, but they are somewhat less in size. In the centre of the first floor lies the beautiful marble slab that bears the date of this small pillar of a tottering state, A.H. 1167;[5] and in a vault underneath repose his remains by the side of those of one of his grand-daughters. The graves ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the same time being reserved, simple, and pleasing. It was in marked contrast to the rest of the architecture of the street. Cowperwood's dining-room, reception-room, conservatory, and butler's pantry he had put on the first floor, together with the general entry-hall, staircase, and coat-room under the stairs. For the second floor he had reserved the library, general living-room, parlor, and a small office for Cowperwood, together with a boudoir for Lillian, connected with a ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... mother's room on the first floor—right off the piazza. You know, we could not begin to use all the house," the girl added frankly. "There are only mother and I ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... the Marlborough Street officers apprehended at the gaming house, No. 3, Leicester Square, thirteen out of twenty persons, from the first floor, playing at Rouge et Noir. One of the gamblers, when they first entered, threw up the sash, and, stepping from the leads, fell into the area, and died in being conveyed ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... were two large rooms on each side of the hall. A broad, massive stairway led from the lower hall to the one above. The house stood high from the ground, the porch was small for the size of the building, and the windows were high and narrow. The ceilings of the rooms on the first floor had heavy, carved beams of cedar that ran the length of the house. On the left of the house as you approached from the river road, stretched a dense woods, abounding in deer, and in those days these animals would venture near the homes of men, ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... language, gross laughter behind the closed doors of the first floor hurried her on her way to the rooms on the higher flight. Here there was a change for the better—here, at least, there was silence. She knocked at the door on the landing of the second floor. A gentle voice answered, in ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... later, Lutie Tresslyn and Anne Thorpe entered the elevator on the first floor of the building and went up together to the apartment of Simeon Dodge. Anne had lifted her veil,—a feature in her smart tribute to convention,—and her lovely features were revealed to the cast-off sister- in-law. For an instant they stared hard at ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... communication between the different rooms, so that separate families, if need be, may inhabit each. Now, however, let us grant that some person has achieved the miracle of getting into the front room, first floor, 18 feet from the ground. At half-past six, or thereabouts, he cuts the throat of the sleeping occupant. How is he then to get out without attracting the attention of the now roused landlady? But let us concede him that miracle, too. How is he to go away and yet ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... possible, indeed, for the simple-minded to come to the capital and not become involved in cabals? With some misgivings William Wetherell watched Mr. Bixby disappear among the throng, kicking up his heels behind, and then went upstairs. On the first floor Cynthia was standing by ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... General commanding. We advanced to the entrance—the sentries carrying arms—and were immediately ushered into a large saloon, the massive stair winding up along the walls, with the usual heavy wooden balustrade. We ascended to the first floor, where we were encountered by three aides—de—camp, in full dress, leaning with their backs against the hardwood railing, laughing and joking with each other, while two walllamps right opposite cast a bright flashing light ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... judge for yourself, O tribune. As required, I visited all the cells, beginning with those on the first floor, and ending with those on the lower. The order that the door of number V. should not be opened had been respected; through all the eight years food and drink for three men had been passed through a hole in the wall. I went to the door ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... acquainted with Mr. Lamb, he lived, I think, in the Temple; but I did not visit him then, and could scarcely, therefore, be said to know him, until he took up his residence in Russell Street, Covent Garden. He had a first floor there, over a brazier's shop,—since converted into a bookseller's,—wherein he frequently entertained his friends. On certain evenings (Thursdays) one might reckon upon encountering at his rooms from ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... began to feel some apprehensions that he would not be found competent for his post. It seemed such a rise from the streets to be employed in such an imposing building. But Dick did not long permit timidity to stand in his way. He entered the large apartment on the first floor, which he found chiefly used for storing large boxes and cases of goods. There was a counting-room and office, occupying one corner, partitioned off from the rest of the department. Dick could see a young man through the glass partition sitting at ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... wall of a house on the site of the ancient church of S. Peter; and the Casa dei Santi in the Via Predol, which probably occupies part of the area of the convent and church of S. Cassiano, has two figures on brackets between the windows of the first floor, apparently late eleventh-century work. The Canonica, built in 1251, a fine piece of Romanesque domestic architecture, has six two-light windows on the first floor, and shell-headed niches round the ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... and Mr. Wingfold followed. He opened the door of a room on the first floor, and announced him. Mr. Wingfold entered immediately, that there might be no time for words with the man ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... the least deformed, she no longer seemed a dwarf. She was in perfect harmony with the room, which was low-ceiled, full of strange curves and low furniture with curved backs. It was all Eastern, as was the first floor of the house. Maria understood with a sort of intuition that this was necessary. The walls were covered with Eastern hangings, tables of lacquer stood about filled with squat bronzes and gemlike ivory carvings. The hangings were all embroidered ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in the early days of his rusticating, he was enthusiastic about his Italian-looking brick cottage, with its covered platform or gallery running round the first floor and supported on slender pillars, Its value, he was sure, would double when he had created the garden of Eden round about it, planted with poplars, birches, vines, evergreens, magnolias and sweet peas. His humour-barometer went up to "set fair." ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... which Guitiote conducted Julien was on the first floor, and had a cheerful, hospitable appearance. The walls were whitewashed; the chairs, table, and bed were of polished oak; a good fire of logs crackled in the fireplace, and between the opening of the white window-curtains could be seen a slender ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... costs too much. The few plain houses are all occupied by their owners." The very best he could do was one house, half a mile from the church, for $1,800. He had one other for $1,500, but it was opposite an immense stable, and had neither cellar nor furnace, and croton only on the first floor. I thanked him and said I would look in again if ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... nearly all crumbled, we are not in a position to affirm that they did not have windows opening on the public streets. I have already shown you maeniana or suspended balconies from which the pretty girls of the place could ogle the passers-by. But it is certain that the first floor, consisting of the finest and best occupied apartments, grouped its rooms around two interior courts and turned their backs to the street. Hence, these two courts opening one behind the other, the development ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... left the apartment in darkness. Out in the kitchen he could faintly hear the voices of the domestics and the sound of crockery and glass in process of cleaning, above-stairs the murmur of softer tongues. All in the front part of the house on the first floor was silent. Presently, out on the parade the bugler began to sound the signal, "taps," to extinguish lights, and at the same moment Miller heard the click of the latch at the front door. There had been no footsteps that he could hear, and he thought ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... was not afraid to speak pretty loudly, "no. By way of precaution, he keeps everything on the first floor, in his bedroom and in the two rooms on either ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... that neighbourhood; but she did tell her several things that must have pleased her immensely, for in a short while, after Mrs. Mangenborn had disposed of a second cup of tea, that lady was fairly ensconced in a seven-dollar front room on the first floor for a price that did not exceed three dollars. However, if half her predictions came true, it would have been a fine bargain for Miss Husted or any other landlady to ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... rather a singular house in which I had taken up my abode. I occupied the front part of the first floor; my apartments consisted of an immense parlour, and a small chamber on one side in which I slept; the parlour, notwithstanding its size, contained very little furniture: a few chairs, a table, and a species of sofa, constituted the whole. It was ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... bottles, pots, kettles, etc., are placed in their respective bins and finally, repaired, find their way to the retail store. Heavy articles, such as stoves and furniture, do not go up in the elevator, but are retained on the first floor, where they go, first to the repairing and storage room, and then out to the stores. The paper and rags, when baled, are sold to the nearest paper mill for a good price. Some idea of the amount of this class of material may be gained ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb
... bowed to the ground, presented his condolences to Stradella on the unhappy accident, and led the way to a spacious and well-furnished room on the first floor, to which he had ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... beds of flowers—Provence roses, Madonna lilies, and old perennials and biennials such as honesty, sweet-william, snapdragon, the pink and white everlasting pea, with bushes of fuchsia, southernwood, and rosemary. Along the first floor of the alms-buildings ran a deep open gallery, or upstairs cloister, where in warm weather the old women sat and knitted or gossiped ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... are you going?" "Up stairs to see the author," said Munsey. "Pho! pho! come down, the author is here." Dr. Munsey came, and, as he entered the room, said in his free way, "You scoundrel! I was going up to the garret. Who could think of finding an author on the first floor?"' Mrs. Montagu wrote to Lord Lyttelton from Tunbridge in 1760:—'The great Monsey (sic) came hither on Friday ... He is great in the coffee-house, great in the rooms, and great on the pantiles.' Montagu Letters, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... springing on one's lap and trying to bury its head in one's coat—of the proximity of a ghost. I had a dog with me, when ghost-hunting, not so very long ago, in a well-known haunted house in Gloucestershire. The dog—my only companion—and I sat on the staircase leading from the hall to the first floor. Just about two o'clock the dog gave a loud growl. I put my hand out and found it was shivering from head to foot. Almost directly afterwards I heard the loud clatter of fire-irons from somewhere away in the basement, a door banged, and then ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... was brilliantly lighted on the first floor. The street door opened on to a staircase, and as I mounted it the sound of a piano and a singing voice reached me. At the top of the stairs I caught sight of a waiter loaded with glasses. I ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... are many narrow streets crowded with shops on both sides. Here may be seen the real life of Old Cairo, unhampered by any foreign innovations. The street is not more than twelve feet wide and above the first floor of the houses projecting latticed windows and open balconies reduce this width to three or four feet. Looking up one sees only a narrow slit of blue sky, against which are outlined several tiers of latticed windows. From these the harem women look ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... a church organ often induce sympathetic resonance that may be felt beneath the feet of the listener. One writer, a singer, speaks of living in the same house with two deaf-mutes. He lodged on the first floor, they on the third. One day, meeting at luncheon, one of the deaf-mutes told the singer that he had begun practice earlier that morning than usual. Surprised, the writer asked how he knew. The deaf-mute replied that they always knew ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... Residence building and the Laboratory proper, and therein large fish which had been caught in traps or elsewhere, and which were too big for the indoor tanks, flitted as dark shadows within the pool. Smaller fish were in the Aquarium in the first floor of the laboratory opposite the wide space where stood the serried rows ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... will be sure to take his part; she's always so silly about Don. If she were well enough I'd be tempted to rush the wedding through before Christmas. But then, we couldn't have it in the new house, and I have practically built that first floor for the wedding. Everything depends ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... appearance. It consisted of a parlour opening to the court, and communicating with a sitting-room that looked into a small garden. From the sitting-room a door led into a small study, in which was a piano. There was a winding-staircase to the first floor, where the master of the house lived, and thence ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... it will do you. You are on the top floor of a tenement house, and there are no tenants except on the first floor. You can yell until you are hoarse, for there is a big electric light plant near here. It runs night and day and it makes so much noise constantly that all the yelling you can do won't be heard above it. Besides, if the tenants should happen to hear you yelling, they'll pay no attention to ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... husband, a poor thatcher, sadly out of work except in ricking time, and crippled in both legs by having fallen from a hay-stack: and as to the family, it was already as long a flight of steps as would reach to an ordinary first floor, with a prospect (so the gossips said) of more in the distance. Susan was a Wesleyan Methodist—many may think, more the pity: but she neither disliked church, nor called it steeple-house: only, forasmuch as Hagglesfield ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... East India Dock Road, Poplar. A large, high room on the first floor of an old-fashioned house. Two high windows right. A door at back is the main entrance. A door left leads to other rooms. The walls are papered with election literature. Conspicuous among the posters displayed is "A Man for Men." "No Petticoat Government." "Will you ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... surveyed the side of the wall for the last time. The sill of the window of the first floor was no higher than his shoulders. The eaves above that window projected well out, and they would afford an excellent hold by which he could swing himself up. But having swung up, the great problem was to obtain sufficient purchase for his knee to keep from sliding off before ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Maizie hurried and they were the first downstairs. The house was much more simply furnished, of course, than the big one in Anchorville, but as the children went about they found many interesting things. In one long, narrow room, the length of the first floor, was a fireplace taking up one entire end, and built of irregular stones, giving a charming effect. There were big easy chairs and sofas; tables heaped with magazines and books. On the walls were color pictures ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... Soisy-sous-Etioles. On March 11 an explosion shook the house on Boulevard Saint-Germain, in which lived M. Benoit, the judge who had presided in August, 1891, at the trial of Decamps at Levallois. On March 15 a bomb was discovered on the window of the Lobau barracks. On March 27 a bomb was exploded on the first floor of a house on rue de Clichy, occupied by M. Bulot, who had held the office of Public Minister at the trial in Levallois. It was only by chance, on the accusation of a boy by the name of Lherot, who was employed ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... never spoke of herself, she never ceased to think of the martyrs for whom she wept. At the Tuileries, she occupied the Pavillon de l'Horloge and the Pavillon de Flore, the first floor apartments that had been her mother's. She used for her own a little salon hung with white velvet sown with marguerite lilies. This tapestry was the work of the unhappy Queen and of Madame Elisabeth. In the same room was a stool on which Louis XVII. had languished and suffered. It served ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... roof was supported by strong upright posts between which hammocks were slung, leaving space for a passage from one end to the other, as also for fires in the centre. At the further end was an elevated stage, which might be looked upon as a first floor, formed of split palm-stems. Along the walls were arranged clay jars of various sizes, very neatly made. Some, indeed, were large enough to hold twenty or more gallons; others were much smaller; ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... it on the stairs, or on the first floor landing, but I could not be so rude as to send you out ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... a little room in the house which had three names: the little room, the passage room, and the dark room. There was a big cupboard in it where they kept medicines, gunpowder, and their hunting gear. Leading from this room to the first floor was a narrow wooden staircase where cats were always asleep. There were two doors in it—one leading to the nursery, one to the drawing-room. When Nikitin went into this room to go upstairs, the door from the nursery opened and shut with such a bang that it made the stairs ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... will only be, Where? A circus, a polygon, crescent, or place, With ideas of magnificence tally; Squares are common, streets queer, but a lane's a disgrace; And we've no such thing as an alley. A first floor's pretty well, and a parlour so so; But, pray, who can give themselves airs, Or mix with high folks, if so vulgarly low To live up in a two pair of stairs? The garret, excuse me, I mean attic floor, (That's ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... later a footman in a red coat opened the door of a flat on a first floor in the Rue Taitbout in answer to ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... panelled in elaborate geometrical designs, and the principal one, which is reached by a short flight of stone steps, is set in a lofty recess, the trefoil head of which is richly carved. This gives access to the reception-room on the first floor. One side is entirely open to the air, and through three archways connected by a low balustrade of perforated stonework overlooks the court. The floor is paved in tiles or marble of various colours, usually in some large design, in the centre of which is a shallow ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... be scared about that, Julius. I ain't sayin' but what you'll live to see things. That girl will be livin' up on the first floor some day and we'll be glad to have her condescend to know us. What is it the doctor said to me? Your daughter, he says, is a handsome girl; she'd make a stir on ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... which was fixed upon for the place of my first accouchement, we looked out for more agreeable apartments than we had in the Rue Grenier St. Lazare, which we only had temporarily. Bonaparte used to assist us in our researches. At last we took the first floor of a handsome new house, No. 19 Rue des Marais. Bonaparte, who wished to stop in Paris, went to look at a house opposite to ours. Ha had thoughts of taking it for himself, his uncle Fesch (afterwards Cardinal ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... door, but it was locked, as, indeed, he had expected it would be. Then he crept very cautiously, and peeped through the first floor window. He could see in quite plainly. There was a polar bear crouching on the floor, and the head looked at him so directly and vindictively that if he had not been a hero he would have fled. The unexpected is always terrible, and when one goes forth to kill a giant it ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... "More than fifteen hundred inhabitants! Two hundred houses at the very least! Some of them with a first floor! And two or three ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... French town in June 1846 there lived a very little girl just four years old. Her home was on the first floor of a small house on a narrow street not far from the Place de la Monnaie, an open square that led into one of the principal streets known as the Rue Voltaire. The house was built in the usual French fashion with a large arch-way under the ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... management of Messrs. Codlings and Short. You turn a corner and you meet the coffin of little Paul Dombey borne along. Who would have thought of encountering a funeral in this place? In the afternoon you hear the rich tones of the organ from Miss La Creevy's first floor, for Tom Pinch has gone to live there now, and as you know all the people as you know your own brothers and sisters, and consequently require no letters of introduction, you go up and talk with the dear old fellow about all his ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... both become quickly fond of it. It was a house with white paneling, graceful ceilings and carved fireplaces, and a shallow staircase of oak. There was a tiny but welcoming hall, and the landing on the first floor suggested potpourri, chintz-covered settees, and little curtains of chintz moved by a country wind coming through open windows. There were, in fact, chintz-covered settees, and there was potpourri. Rosamund had ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... the rain. David mounted a winding iron stair which connected the downstairs shop with an upper room in which a large proportion of the books were stored. It was a long, low, rambling place made by throwing together all the little bits of rooms on the first floor of the old house. One corner of it had a special attraction for David. It was the corner where, ranged partly on the floor, partly on the shelves which ran under the windows, lay the collection of books that Purcell had been making for ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but for five dollars would tell fortunes, cast horoscopes, and recover lost articles. Jimmie found him in the back room on the first floor of an old-fashioned house of sandstone on a side street. A blonde young woman, who was directing envelopes and enclosing in them the business card of the prince, accepted Jimmie's five dollars and ushered him into the presence. The back room was very dark. There ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... hall one comes upon a very picturesque arrangement of staircase. It is lit from above by a broad skylight. The stairs begin to rise against the wall of the dining-room which is recessed; while on the first floor the wall of the studio is projected and carried on columns, beyond which the stairs rise. So that figures coming through the hall in the light, begin mounting the stairs in the shadow, and re-emerge into ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... up into Mr. Furnival's room, a pleasant apartment on the first floor, with windows looking out upon a charming oasis of grass and trees. The lawyer apologized for keeping him waiting, intimated delicately that he had a pressing appointment in five minutes' time, and expressed his sympathy with Oswyn's difficulty as ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... it is unluckily not a foolish joke, but a sad truth. The treasure is on the first floor, in a room in which I can ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... looked on food at 7 A.M., neither the view of the street obtainable from the first floor parlour window, nor even the contemplation of the remarkable sacred pictures that adorned its walls, had the interest they might have held earlier in the day, and the dirty cruet-stand on the dirtier tablecloth was endued with an almost hypnotic fascination ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... his soup was cool enough to swallow, and affecting to give a romantic turn to his narrative, "one fine morning the mail coach dropped at the Hotel National a gentleman from Paris, who, after seeking apartments, made up his mind in favor of the first floor in Mademoiselle Galard's house, Rue du Perron. Then the stranger went straight to the Mairie, and had himself registered as a resident with all political qualifications. Finally, he had his name entered on the list of the barristers to the Court, showing his title in due form, and ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... to announce him, and leisurely mounted the stairs. No. 56 was the sitting-room of a private suite on the first floor. The waiter was holding the door open. As he approached it a faint perfume from the interior made him turn pale. But he recovered his presence of mind sufficiently to close the door sharply upon ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Street. The ground floor is an office; our four rooms are on the first floor, to which we ascend by a ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... its bare booths were smoking with rain all down the street. Mr. Thomas Idle, melodramatically carried to the inn's first floor, and laid upon three chairs (he should have had the sofa, if there had been one), Mr. Goodchild went to the window to take an observation of Wigton, and report what he ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... satisfied with the assurance of any respectable person that everything was "handsome." Tristram accordingly secured for him an apartment to which this epithet might be lavishly applied. It was situated on the Boulevard Haussmann, on the first floor, and consisted of a series of rooms, gilded from floor to ceiling a foot thick, draped in various light shades of satin, and chiefly furnished with mirrors and clocks. Newman thought them magnificent, thanked Tristram heartily, immediately took possession, and had one of his ...
— The American • Henry James
... keeping house at once. Certain things must be done which, no doubt, were costly in their nature. The bride must take with her a well-dressed lady's-maid. The rooms at the Folkestone hotel must be large, and on the first floor. A carriage must be hired for her use while she remained; but every shilling must be saved the spending of which would not make itself apparent to the outer world. Oh, deliver us from the poverty of ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... first floor is the drawing-room, which will be at our disposal," began Frances, evidently quoting "Sister." "It's pretty and sweet, Mother dear, very simple with a little upright piano and quite a number of books and a fireplace. Just behind is a room ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... been so near to him and yet had not tried to find him. He had heard that she was expected in London, and he knew now how strong had been the hope that he should meet her, and that she would do something for him. He was so tired and so ashamed of the life he led—now here, now there, now on the first floor, now on the fifth floor back, now plenty now penury and absolute want, according to Daisy's luck. For Daisy managed everything and bade him take things easy and trust to her; but he would so much rather have staid quietly at Stoneleigh with but one meal a ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... however; and it did not take long to make her new boarders "know their places," so far as their rooms were concerned. That house was largely made up of its one "wing," on the first floor of which was the dining-room and sitting-room, all in one. In the second story of it were two bedrooms, opening into each other. The first and larger one was assigned to Dab and Ford, and the inner one ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... to-morrow," said the good woman, who was always ready for friendly gossip. "The apartment upon the first floor," and she nodded to me significantly, and with good-natured encouragement. "Perhaps you may get pupils," she added. "They are Americans, and speak only English, and there is a young lady, ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Cellar workroom we calls Rheumatic Ward, because of the damp. Ground-floor's Fever Ward—them as don't get typhus gets dysentery, and them as don't get dysentery gets typhus—your nose'd tell yer why if you opened the back windy. First floor's Ashmy Ward—don't you hear 'um now through the cracks in the boards, a puffing away like a nest of young locomotives? And this here most august and upper-crust cockloft is the Conscrumptive Hospital. First you begins to cough, then you proceeds to expectorate—spittoons, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... obeyed. Even the horrors of the situation could not eliminate from his carefully trained nature that desire to accumulate which is the prime qualification of his profession. The Americans walked up one flight and found spacious rooms on the first floor, of which they ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... difficult at times to prevent slipping. The irregularity of the front of the houses, and their evident want of repairs, in fact, their general tumble-down look, relieved here and there by a handsome middle-age doorway or window on the first floor, while the second story would show a confused modern wall of rubble-work and poverty-stricken style of architecture generally; all these contrasts brought out the picturesque element in force. As they ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... under the arcades are chiefly devoted to articles of luxury, and are among the most elegant in Paris. Many restaurants are on the first floor; here, were formerly the gambling-houses which rendered this place so notorious. The best time for visiting Palais Royal is in the evening, when the garden and arcades are brilliantly illuminated and full of people. The shops ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... wear rubbers and keep dry feet and skirts. Sleeping in damp unused beds is bad. Putting on underwear that has not been dried thoroughly and aired, and the use of bedding, pillows, etc., in the same condition should not be tolerated. Sleeping on the first floor is generally unhealthy for such persons, for it is ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... irregular layers of stone. I followed, pressing my knees firmly against the rough wall, and trusting more to my hands than feet for security against falling. There was evidently a fireplace of some kind on the first floor, with a considerable opening leading from it into the chimney we were scaling, for as Jed slowly passed, I could perceive a sudden gleam of light streaming across his face from the glare of the lamps within. He glanced anxiously that way, but did ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... and gunroom was on the first floor. Like Rand's own, his collection was hung on racks over low bookcases on either side of the room. It was strictly a collector's collection, intensely specialized. There were all but a few of the U.S. regulation single-shot pistols, a fair representation of secondary types, most of the revolvers ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the first floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from within demanded, who's there? My conductor answered that it was him. But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again repeated the demand: to which he answered louder than before; and now ...
— English Satires • Various
... staircase leading to the dormitories she was aghast. It was very, very wide, and the steps were low and easy to mount, but there were so many of them before one reached the first floor. For a few seconds mamma hesitated and stood there gazing at them, her ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... and desolation. The inundation had swept away trees, crops, and cattle, and left in their stead a waste of red sand and gray mud. The two brothers crept shivering and horror-struck into the kitchen. The water had gutted the whole first floor; corn, money, almost every movable thing, had been swept away and there was left only a small white card on the kitchen table. On it, in large, breezy, long-legged letters, were engraved the ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... behind, and preceded by Bigot, bearing his cloak and pistols, he escorted the Countess into the house. Not many minutes had elapsed since he had called for silence; but long before he reached the chamber looking over the square from the first floor, in which supper was being set for them, the news had flown through the length and breadth of Angers that for this night the danger was past. The hawk had come to Angers, and lo! ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... repose and distance, the house was of that old-fashioned sort which I have always loved best, familiar to the eyes of my parents, and associated with childhood. It had seats in the windows, a small third room on the first floor, of which I made a sanctum, into which no perturbation was to enter, except to calm itself with religious and cheerful thoughts (a room thus appropriated in a house appears to me an excellent thing;) and there were a few lime-trees in front, which ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... exquisitely drilled, made no apparent difference, when the bride and bridegroom arrived there about half-past seven o'clock, than if they had been an elderly brother and sister; and they were taken to the beautiful Empire suite on the Vendome side of the first floor. Everything was perfection in the way of arrangement, and the flowers were so particularly beautiful that Zara's love for them caused ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... the neighbors knew of the money being received. It came at an hour when no one was coming home or happened to be on the sidewalk. The shutters on the first floor were solid wood so no one could molest us. We had been clearing the house and packing things away. We were all tired and slept well. Mary and Emma occupied the front room and for some unknown reason left the wooden bar off that made the door secure, ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... this peremptory order, the butler led the way to the first floor. In an open doorway stood a gentleman whom Lupin recognized from his photograph in the papers as Baron Repstein, husband of the famous baroness and owner of Etna, ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... to rest? When she returned she found him quietly seated, resting, as she had left him. He did indeed look tired and pale, so she hurried him back to bed. The next day and the next this was repeated. Then came his chance. His nurse was going to a lecture in the assembly room on the first floor. She would be gone ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... ago a large meteorite was unearthed in a small room on the first floor of one of the highest of the buildings. When discovered it was found carefully put away and covered with cotton wrappings. No doubt it once had served some religious purpose. On account of its glittering appearance, the Mexicans thought it was silver, and everybody ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... balcony, to him will they give her to wife." In a fourth, the princess is to marry the man "who, on horseback, bounds up to her on the third floor." At the first trial, the Durak, or Fool, reaches the first floor, at the next, the second; and the third time, "he bounds right up to the princess, and carries off ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... nursery-living room in this house, the latter overlooking the mews, through the curving iron rails of a tiny balcony. Below us my father occupied a small bedroom and a large sitting-room, the latter being the 'first floor front.' ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson |
