"Petrol" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from a combination of petrol and pulverised smokeless coal, treated with liquid oxygen, which made combustion practically perfect. There was no boilers or furnaces, only combustion chambers, and this fact made the carrying of the great weight of armour under the waterline possible. The speed of the Ithuriel was forty-five ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... Gas and petrol (gasoline) engines have been used extensively in England, providing a cheaper, but, with feeders, a less controllable, prime mover. By far the commonest source of power has been the water motor, as it was economical ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... Commander Briggs, the first of the aviators to reach the scene, flew as low as one hundred feet above the roofs, dropping his bombs with deadly accuracy. But he paid for his temerity with the loss of his machine and his liberty. A bullet pierced his petrol tank and there was nothing for him to do save to glide to earth and surrender. The two aviators who accompanied him although their machines were repeatedly hit were nevertheless able to drop all their bombs and to fly safely back to Belfort whence they had ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... and Ungava petrol-tanks punted down leisurely out of the north like strings of unfrightened wild duck. It does not pay to "fly" minerals and oil a mile farther than is necessary; but the risks of transhipping to submersibles in the ice-pack off Nain or Hebron are so great that these ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... back as far as possible. By all the laws of aeronautics this aeroplane should have crashed before leaving the ground, but it did not. Sammie climbed it to five hundred feet in an hour and a half. As Sammie now had seven and one half hours petrol left and was still four hours away from his objective, it would have been quite justifiable for him to return without going any farther; in fact, it was the only reasonable thing for him to do; but Sammie always trusted ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... settin' the 'ouse on fire, Mr. Netlips, I'm afraid," said Mrs. Frost, severely, putting her arms akimbo, and sniffing at the board as though she could smell the spirit it proclaimed—"You don't know nothink about petrol! An' we ain't goin' to have motor-cars often 'ere, please ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... for a receipt for the car, saying that he had to go by train to Marseilles, and that his master would probably call for the car on the following day, and produce the receipt. He asked that it should be filled up with petrol in readiness for his master. About two hours before the police made inquiry three gentlemen entered the garage, the descriptions of whom tallied with those of De Gex, Despujol and Moroni. De Gex produced the receipt for the car. He paid for the petrol, and he and Despujol drove ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... troubling to turn off the tap. In France one has to go dirty so often that the dream of being always clean seems as unrealisable as romance. Our drinking-water is frequently brought up to us at the risk of men's lives, carried through the mud in petrol-cans strapped on to packhorses. To use it carelessly would be like washing in ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... appointed rendezvous, the celebrated band stand at Kemmel. There were, of course, no lights; rations and trench fuel, which had been taken up by the Transport, were issued in sandbags, and water in petrol tins, and each platoon was then led off by itself. When one looks back on trench reliefs, one is inclined to wonder how on some occasions they were carried out at all, the possibilities of going wrong seemed so great. In the ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... beggars," drawled McKay lighting a cigarette. "Where the devil they got a permit for petrol is beyond me." ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... lying next us watched his home burn to pieces. It was straight across from us. A soldier came to tell him that his wife was wounded but not dead. He lay through the night, motionless, and not once did he turn his eyes away from the blaze of his home. Petrol burns slowly ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... olives from a sea of pines. The white main road in the distance was empty, and silent with the digestive silence of Riviera thoroughfares at noon, when all the world, from millionaire to peasant, begins to think of the midday meal. Even motors were at rest, comfortably absorbing petrol and leaving the roads to sleep in peace. Far off among the trees Vanno caught a glimpse of two men picnicking, cabdrivers eating their bread and meat and drinking the rough red wine of the country, while ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... upon them told of the graves of France's defenders. Far ahead I could discover groups of men with shovels, hastily burying those who remained. To the right a lazy column of dense smoke rose reluctantly in the heavy air. I fancied it came from a funeral pyre; we certainly smelled tar and petrol. The ground beneath rocked with the thundering of the distant cannon, and as one peal burst louder a flock of jet black crows mounted heavenward, ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... tune fell out, drop by drop, from the unseen sky on to the dusky town. It was like dim, bygone centuries sounding. It was all so far off. She stood in the old yard of the inn, smelling of straw and stables and petrol. Above, she could see the first stars. What was it all? This was no actual world, it was the dream-world of one's childhood—a great circumscribed reminiscence. The world had become unreal. She herself ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... whinns and bring what ye bring for the living!" said McKay in a loud, joyous voice. "And if you've petrol and speed take the Banff road and be on your way, for the Boche are crawling to cover, and it's fine running the night! Get on there, ye Glenark beagles! And leave a car behind for ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... considerably greater than the weight of the machine, and this, too, when a steam engine was the motor. When, therefore, in the years shortly following, the steam engine was for the purposes of aerial locomotion superseded by the lighter and more suitable petrol engine, the construction of a navigable air ship became vastly more practicable. Still, in Sir H. Maxim's opinion, lately expressed, "those who seek to navigate the air by machines lighter than the ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... hill go all the impedimenta of war—marching battalions, traction-engines towing great guns, ammunition trains, long lines of Red Cross lorries; everywhere the pungent odour of petrol. From every little wood belch forth men. They march silently. They might be phantoms, dim hordes of Valhalla, were it not for the spark of a cigarette, a smothered laugh. There is no talking. All is tense excitement. For miles and miles in a wide concentric sweep every road and lane and bypath is ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... great interest on all sides. At that time we were doubtful how far they would be able to fulfill the hopes that were entertained of them. Some of them had already been knocked out near Courcelette. One lay partly in the ditch by the road. It had been hit by a shell, and the petrol had burst into flames burning up the crew within, whose charred bones were taken out when an opportunity offered, and were reverently buried. The tank was often visited by our men, and for that reason the Germans made it a mark for their shell-fire. It ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... action is undoubtedly increasing almost month by month. From remarks made to me I do not believe that these submarines have many land bases at great distances—certainly none in the United States. They may have floating bases; but this I do know—that their petrol-carrying capacity altogether exceeds that of any earlier type of submarine, and that their surface speed, at any rate in official tests, runs up to nearly ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... village of Polperro. They ran into the inn yard and tried to bespeak a lodging for the night but in this they were unlucky for there was no accommodation to be had. The best obtainable was a shake down in the stable loft, granted on a promise to refrain from smoking. Having refilled the petrol tank and assured themselves that the Ford was in sound running order against the morrow's ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... the biggest wrecking jobs I ever did before were a couple of petrol dumps and a railroad bridge." He got to his feet along with the lawyer. "No need to call the butler; I'll ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... American plenipotentiaries that the United States would be Persia's creditor for this help and that she would invite American financiers to put her money matters in order, American engineers to develop her mining industries, and the American oil firms to examine and exploit her petrol deposits.[316] In a word, Persia would be Americanized. This naive announcement of the role reserved for American benefactors in the land of the Shah might have impressed certain commercial and financial interests in the United States, but was wholly alien to ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... like a country squire, surrounded by his relatives and descendants. He seemed fond of good living, and his wife was an excellent housekeeper. In the midst of a somewhat colourless Christian population, wearing trousers and slovenly dresses, using enamel pots and petrol-lamps, Agelan and his household were a genuine relic of the good old times, and no one could have pretended that his home was less pleasant than those around him. These things are largely a matter of taste; ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... taken the first step on the new road. Nothing you could have said would have altered my determination, so you need never think that, Sandy boy. I know your first impulse will be to put the 'stink-pot' along at forty miles an hour in wild pursuit of me. But you can spare your petrol. Be very sure that even if you overtook me, I shouldn't ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... coal, glance coal; German tinder, pyrotechnic sponge, punk, smudge [U. S.]; solid fueled rocket. [fuels for candles and lamps] wax, paraffin wax, paraffin oil; lamp oil, whale oil. [liquid fuels] oil, petroleum, gasoline, high octane gasoline, nitromethane[ISA:CHEMSUB@fuel], petrol, gas, juice [coll.], gasohol, alcohol, ethanol, methanol, fuel oil, kerosene, jet fuel, heating oil, number 2 oil, number 4 oil, naphtha; rocket fuel, high specific impulse fuel, liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, lox. [gaseous fuels] natural gas, synthetic gas, synthesis ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the romance of business and is monomaniac, while the Frenchman has the romance of life and is sane. But the romance of business really is a romance, and the Americans are really romantic about it. And that romance, though it revolves round pork or petrol, is really like a love-affair in this; that it involves not only rushing but ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... long, yet he was of it, and he shuddered away from the increased captivity of London, yet longed to have been part of it.... It was almost bewilderingly a new city. During his absence, the immense change from horse to petrol-driven vehicles had taken place and a new style of architecture had been introduced. The air was cleaner: so were the streets. Shop windows were larger. There was everywhere more display, more colour, more and swifter movement, and yet in the ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... killed deliberately by his fellow-criminal was never revealed. For when the end came Orming had apparently planned a final act of venom. It was known that in the basement a considerable quantity of petrol had been stored. The contents had probably been carefully distributed over the most inflammable materials in the top rooms. The fire broke out, as one witness described it, "almost like an explosion." Orming must have perished in this. The roof ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... feet in diameter, with a capacity for hydrogen of 100,000 cubic feet. The framework is of steel and aluminium, made in sections, with cars for ten persons, including aeronauts, mechanics, and passengers. It is driven with two petrol aerial engines of from ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... and sure that he had plenty of time, looked at the machinery and filled up the petrol tank from a gallon tin in the back of the car. Then he went ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... the glimpses of the moon, would find little change, for these hills have been less interfered with than any district within twice the distance from London. The English dislike of climbing has saved them. They will probably be the last stronghold of the horse when petrol has ousted ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Christina doing nothing," compromised Anonyma. "And petrol isn't so bad as it will be. And it's a beautiful time of year. And you are not strong yet, really. And we want ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... upon his present state of mind, was like pouring petrol on a smouldering fire. So she had gone off with the fellow, had spent the night with him somewhere! The thing was true; there was no good trying to shut one's eyes to it any longer. A dozen tiny incidents recurred to him, each magnified a hundredfold, together bearing incontrovertible ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... impossible. Her oeuvre must continue for several months. Sick and wounded men do not recover miraculously with the cessation of hostilities. No doubt she should be grateful for this refuge, and now that the war was over it might be possible to buy petrol for an ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... Efficiency wiped her eyes with her Fabric and became almost cheerful. "Suppose we think about finishing it now? There will have to be an Engine and Propeller, won't there? And a body to fix them in, and tanks for oil and petrol, and a tail, and," archly, "one of those dashing ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... sleep on the barge. The skipper ought to be a smart chap, who can be trusted with money to pay the expenses of the boat as one goes along—bridge-money and all sorts of things. The chauffeur can buy the essence—petrol, you call it in England, don't you?—but the skipper ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... makes a buzzing sound when the petrol tank is getting low. This is nothing compared with the motor-taxes invented by the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, which make the motorist ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... hundred yards of your front line. We got an issue of rum from the Captain when he came and we needed it bad. About eight that night a ration party came up with our rations and water. Say, you should have tasted it; full right up with the taste of petrol, but still it was good to us. You know we lose all fancy ideas about taste ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... Now that petrol is being increased by eightpence a gallon, pedestrians will shortly have to be content to be knocked down by horsed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... National business. Both the War Office and the Admiralty keep log-books, in which are faithfully entered—I quote Dr. MACNAMARA—"full particulars of each journey, the number and description of passengers carried and the amount of petrol consumed." Do not therefore jump to the hasty and erroneous conclusion that the gallant fellows and their charming companions are "joy-riding;" such a thing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... firing on our house with mitrailleuses, I took refuge in the cellar with my two sons, Jean, aged six, and Maurice, aged two, and also my daughter Jeanne, nine years of age. The Aufiero family was also there. Soon petrol was poured over the house; it got into the cellar through the air-hole, and we were surrounded by flames. I saved myself, carrying my two little boys in my arms, while my daughter and little Beatrice Aufiero ran along holding on to my skirt. As we were crossing the Rougeval brook, ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... on to London—dear old foggy, fried-fishy London! Ever notice that London is ringed around with the smell of fried fish and naphtha of an evening? The City smells of caretakers; and Piccadilly of patchouli; and the West End of petrol; but the smell of fish fried in tenth-rate oil in little side-streets rings them around and bottles them up. In Paris it's wood-smoke and roast coffee, and I daresay heaps healthier, but I sigh me for the downright odours of old England! Imitaciong poetry—excuse ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... hear it. I was shy of telling you when we reached the hotel, but you understand, of course, that I pay your expenses during this trip. The arrangement with Simmonds was that my father ante'd for petrol and allowed twelve shillings a day for the chauffeur's meals and lodgings. ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... used by the Tissandiers, he employed the small petrol engine out of a motor tricycle. With this he started on his aerial voyages. But before we follow him we must look at his ship for a moment. From each end of the long balloon he allows a cord to hang, supporting a small weight. These are ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Saturday night," said Frank. "Yes, they wouldn't have had to make more than eighty miles an hour steady flying to do it. But where did they get the petrol?" ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... into thin air. All that has radically changed. The change has been slow and gradual, but it has been continuous and sure. Such a change as that can never be reversed. You might as well talk of the world going back to the days before electricity or petrol as hope to bring back the prejudices and the ignorance of the masses of the people in this country about Ireland, as they existed ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... fair until the war was over. The armistice, of course, put an end to the business. But some months after the armistice a sum of L150,000 was paid to Parrish through a Spanish bank in settlement, Marbran told me, for petrol indirectly delivered to the German Admiralty. Parrish pouched the lot. Not a penny ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... You ought to have been told last night. You must go back for your things for the night and then as quickly as you can to the Hotel de l'Europe. I don't know how many days you'll be, but here is an order for fifty litres of petrol and a can of oil, and Pichot is getting you ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... said he. "Neutralize the currents delivered by the magnetos of hostile planes to their spark-plugs, and you transform the most powerful engines into inert matter. Not all the finely adjusted mechanism in the world, nor the best of petrol, nor yet the most perfect skill is worth that," with a snap of the strong fingers, "when ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... continue in Germany. The latest include gutting of the Moabit Goods Station in Berlin wherein tanks of petrol, hydrogen, et cetera, exploded, resulting in the destruction of a part of Vilna and the township of Osjory near the Grodno conflagration station and a ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... moorland and the stone-strewn courtyard—more again on the edges of the road itself. There, too, were plain signs that a motor-car of some sort had recently been pulled up opposite the tower—Gilling pointed to the indentations made by the studded wheels and to droppings of oil and petrol on ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... a very good car, sir. If you ask me I should say it was light on tyres and a bit thirsty with petrol. It's one of them cars as anybody can drive—if you understand what I mean. I mean anybody can make it go. But of course that's only the beginning ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... retire. Dr. Ob promised us a motor by four, but added that they had no oil and very little benzine. Then growing more confidential, he took us by the buttonholes and asked us to use our best influence with the Count de Salis, and request him to tell the Admiralty to allow petrol to be brought up from Salonika, where the British had laid an embargo upon it. He promised pathetically that all the petrol would be brought ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... caterpillar tractors, cut many a passage through the sand, tugging heavy guns and ammunition, stores for the air and signal services, machinery for engineers and mobile workshops, and sometimes towing a weighty load of petrol to satisfy their voracious appetites for that fuel. The tractors did well. Sand was no trouble to them, and when mud marooned lorries during the advance in November the rattling, rumbling old tractor made fair weather of it. The mechanical transport trains ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... be no time being raced and shaken over the flat sand basin, meeting and passing more teams on the way, and twice a petrol and drink station of one board shed, and a man with a jolly Irish face and a gun openly in his belt, to attend to it. We had no breakdowns, and just at sunset got into the one and only street of Moonbeams. ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... 'It's the garage! The petrol has taken fire!' said Naomi. 'Whatever could they have been thinking of to leave it there? Surely they've never left those beautiful cars to ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... frightfully sorry. And then we went out to find where the wire was cut, and then got Dick. But I got away, and I managed to stay fairly close to them. I followed them when they left Dick in a little stone house, as a prisoner, and I heard this - I heard them talking about getting a big supply of petrol. Now what on earth do they want petrol for? They said there would still be plenty left for the automobiles - and then that they wouldn't need the cars any more, anyhow! What on earth do you make ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... slowly, "and mind you, Roger, there's no doubt whatever that a devilish secret service system exists; or that it's being used against us for all it's worth. Secret petrol bases for their submarines, secret signallying from the shore, mine-laying by so-called neutral ships; all that sort of thing is going on under our noses. I've got several very shrewd suspicions and hope to bring off one or two little discoveries ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... that Mr. A. E. W. MASON is another of those who hold that the day of war-novels is not yet done. Anyhow, The Summons (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) shows him dealing out all the old familiar cards, spies and counter-spies, submarines and petrol bases and secret ink. It must be admitted that the result is unexpectedly archaic. Perhaps also Mr. MASON hardly gives himself a fair chance. The "summons" to his hero (who, being familiar with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... fellow," said the doctor. "What about petrol? And do you feel able to take these gentlemen ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... Fritz; he scooted for a hundred yards in the direction of home, but was winged while running, part of his left wing dropping off. The rest was easy; his machine became unmanageable, an explosive bullet smashed into his petrol tank ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... over a pass I travelled a few years ago in a mail coach. In those times it was a jog-trot journey occupying the long lazy hours of a summer morning. I suppose that now you whizz and hustle through the lovely forest scenery pursued by clouds of dust and offended by the fumes of petrol, but no doubt you get to your destination quicker than you used. The pleasantest way to travel in Germany, if you are young and strong, is on your feet. It is enchanting to walk day after day through the cool scented forest and sleep at night in one of ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... there was very little petrol in the car when I went away. More was taken, but it was taken from the middle tins—these." And ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... No.— people and found them encamped on the wharf among the stuff,[1] trying to get it stored with only one motor transport lent them by the Flying Corps. They were very nice to us, offered us lunch on packing-cases, and Major —— cleaned my skirt with petrol for me! ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... a man of mystery, but just an ordinary London business man, differing in no way to thousands of others who are at the head of prosperous commercial concerns. London with all its garish glitter, its moods of dulness and of gaiety, its petrol-smelling streets, its farces of passing life, and its hard and bitter dramas always appealed to me. It was my home, the atmosphere in which I had been born and bred, nay, my very existence. I loved London and was ever true to the city of my birth, even though its climate might be ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... but no notice was taken of her remonstrance. After we had had breakfast, Lyra went downstairs and chartered an auto for 750 marks. The owner would not promise to take us farther than Hannover, owing to the difficulty of procuring petrol, and moreover both car and chauffeur were required in a couple of days for military duty. We consulted a large map, and decided to motor via Hannover to Osnabrueck, and then go on to the frontier, wherever ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans
... turned his attention to the petrol tank, into which he put his measuring iron to see how much it contained, while the ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... eagerly. "It is so difficult to make oneself understood. This spirit is not cognac, it is some kind of petrol!" ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... be horrid and calculating about it, think of the lunches and the dinners and the theatre tickets and the flowers you've given me. Oh, and the gallons and gallons of petrol. How am I ever to pay ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... night the sea is as tetchy as petrol. Trailing fingers are terminals which ignite living flames, and the propeller of the little boat creates an avengeful commotion of light which trails far astern. Blobs of light are cast off from her ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... night, standing wearily before a milky mirror in the rather close and lingerie-scattered bedroom, solemnly rotating her fingers about her cheeks and forehead, stopping to conjecture that the pores in her nose were getting enlarged. She rubbed her hair with Pemberton's "Olivine and Petrol" to keep it from growing thin, and her neck with cocoanut oil to make it more full. She sent for a bottle of "Mme. LeGrand's Bust-Developer," and spent several Saturday afternoons at the beauty parlors of Mme. Isoldi, where in a little booth shut off by ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... close to the front line, and never consisted of anything more than a small shelter. The cooking was done in cook-houses in the company areas, fatigue parties being detailed to bring up rations and water in petrol tins. Battalion headquarters were housed in dugouts in the wood adjoining the White Chateau at Potijze, in front of which was a large cemetery. While in Ypres itself three companies were billeted in the cellars of the gutted houses in the neighbourhood of ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... Perfect Stranger). I swear by petrol, sir; always use it myself. Now what, may I ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... of those strange beings who have been evolved by the age of petrol, an automaton compounded, seemingly, of steel springs and leather. He had long ago lost the art of speech, having cultivated delicacy of hearing and quickness of sight at the expense of all other human faculties. The old-time coachman possessed a certain fluent ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... chimney, or a church steeple; to pursue his flight above it in the deepening dusk might carry him miles out of his way, and though a southerly course must presently bring him to the sea, he could not tell how far east or west of his intended landing-place. Meanwhile the petrol was running short, and it was clear that before long his dilemma would be solved by the engine stopping, and bringing him to the ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... perhaps," said Dalton. "Or he's short of petrol. I'll fetch him along. A whisky and soda in a big tumbler is the thing for him. I dare ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... attention. The promised lorries were waiting for us—three lorries for eighty men. We marched towards them in file, but as we got nearer to them, the men broke rank and everybody rushed wildly to get in first so as to secure any available boxes or petrol-tins that might serve as seats. A noisy, turbulent throng clustered round each lorry. We scrambled in, pushing, hustling, and swearing. We were soon so crowded together that there seemed to be no room for any more, ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... a schoolroom. It contained a magnificent dolls' house fitted up with Louis Quinze furniture and illuminated with real electric light; a miniature motor car in which two small people could drive themselves with authentic petrol round and round the polished floor; a mechanical rocking-horse; a miniature billiard-table and croquet set; a gramophone; cricket on the hearth, roller-skates; a pianola, ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... cycles were piled up—at least five thousand pounds' worth—and brand-new motor-cars were then run into it, thus forming a steel wall of solid machinery, upon which, later in the "war," the rebels poured petrol and set the whole pile alight, with the result that the neighbouring houses, hotels, and eventually the Hibernian Academy, with its five hundred pictures, were burnt to ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... of personal preference, and denied no claim of higher brilliance to electric illumination. Driving slowly through Hyde Park on sunny days when she was able to go out, her high-swung barouche hinted at no lofty disdain of petrol and motor power. At the close of her youth's century, she looked forward with thrilled curiosity to the dawning wonders ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you would see half the boys figuring away at their sums or learning to write and read, while the other boys were hammering and sawing and planing at the carpenter's bench; cutting leather and sewing it to make shoes for the other boys and girls; cutting petrol tins up into sheets to solder into kettles and saucepans; and cutting and stitching cloth to make clothes. A young American Red Cross officer who went to see them wrote home, "The kids look happy and healthy and as ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... here," said I. "You know what the place is. The slightest spark sends gossip aflame like the fumes of petrol." ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... the silence. A small, very small, French soldier—he was not more than five feet two—appeared, and we followed him to an ambulance that had broken down for want of petrol. It belonged to the Societe de Femmes de France. The little soldier had put on a uniform as a volunteer for the only service his stature would permit. In those days many volunteer organizations ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... to London, my mind full of a thousand problems. I had caught the economical British habit of using the trains, conserving the petrol and tyres on my car. The first thing I saw on the Marylebone platform was the crude picture in green chalk of a stolon of Cynodon dactylon. What idiot, I thought as I irritably rubbed at it with the sole of my shoe, what feebleminded ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... a motor car, sir, and it's broken down, and he wondered if you'd lend him a little petrol. He told me to say how very sorry he ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... machinery, the difficulties he had to overcome were enormous. On one occasion he congratulated himself because one of his steam-cylinders was only three-eighths of an inch out of truth in the bore. Nowadays a good firm would reject a cylinder 1/500 of an inch out of truth; and in small petrol-engines 1/5000 of an inch is sometimes the ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... the faintest idea," replied Hal, "but if we can find any petrol I should say it is a lucky ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... coming out on the eleven-thirty, Sara," said the girl nervously, "unless you will send the motor in for him. The body of his car is being changed and it's in the shop. He must have been jesting when he said he would pay for the petrol—I should have ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... stumbling by toward the river and the bridge. Motors came honking down from the inner streets, and the quay, which had begun to clear by this time, was again jammed. I threw on some clothes, hurried to the street. A rank smell of kerosene hung in the air; presently a petrol shell burst to the southward, lighting up the sky for an instant like the flare from a blast-furnace, and a few moments later there showed over the roofs the flames of the ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... you will know delights me. The old gas-engine at home was nothing to it. I have had to set aside a special suit for daily use, as even with overalls on there is not sufficient protection against grease, oil, petrol and mud. I cannot tell you how supremely happy I am in ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... it to Bob to keep, in case she goes through my desk again." She poured some ammonia upon the stain, and rubbed gingerly, surveying the result with a tilted nose. It was not successful. "Shall I try petrol? But petrol's an awful price, and I've only got the little bottle I use for my gloves. Anyhow, the horrible old cloth is so old and thin that it will fall to pieces if I rub it. Oh, it's no use bothering about it—nothing will make it better." She squeezed the water ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... flotillas of motor lorries in commission and himself in his flag char-a-banc, aptly named the Queen of Eryx, at their head. Lever, marlin-spike or steering wheel, it is all one to the brain which can co-ordinate squadrons as easily as rolling-stock, to the man who is now sometimes known as the Stormy Petrol of the Cabinet. Yet even so the sailor is strongest in him still. It is not generally known that Sir ERIC has already cocked his weather eye at our inland waterways as an auxiliary line of defence in case of need. Experience has taught him that it is even now quicker to travel, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various |
