"Hansom cab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every respect, except for an awful scar along one side of his head. In due time he moved into the Boys' School at St. John's, Waterloo Road (Mr. Davey, headmaster). In July, 1893, a tiny child was playing in the middle of Stamford Street when a hansom cab came dashing along over the smooth wood paving. Little John Clinton darted out and gave the child a violent push, at the risk of being run over himself, and got the little one to the side of the road in safety. A big brother ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... were driving in a hansom cab westward through Cockspur Street. One, a large individual of a bovine placidity, wore the Queen's uniform, and carried himself with a solid dignity faintly suggestive of a lighthouse. The other, a narrower man, with a keen, ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... young gentlemen are greenhorns. No fear. They know what's what. They ain't agoin' to be seen drivin' up the Quad in a Noah's Ark like that. Come along, young gents; leave him for the milksops. The like of you rides in a hansom, I know." ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... the house—I went up in a hansom, for I was bareheaded—my mother was giving the biggest kind of a ball. I had no end of trouble trying to ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... on their coats, exchanged a few words at the door with their hostess, and walked down the street together. Presently a hansom came rattling ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... novelty fakirs who lined the crowded thoroughfare. He turned to confront the liveried carriage attendant of one of the great department stores, who, indicating a cab at the curb, repeated his message. With the hansom's doors thrown wide to display her gown, sat ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... paid his bill hurriedly and ran downstairs. Lord Randolph had come to the window in his greatcoat. His follower waited for him outside. It was possible that he would take a hansom and drive straight to the House, but Andrew had reasons for thinking this unlikely. The rain had somewhat abated. Lord Randolph came out, put up his umbrella, and, glancing at the sky for a moment, set off briskly up ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... ask, what are we, the choicer of spirits as well as the more frugal if not the undeservedly impoverished, what, I ask, are we to do now that the hansom has disappeared, as they say, from the London streets and the taxicab so wonderfully yet extravagantly taken its place? Is there, indeed, else left for us than the homely but hallowed 'bus, as we abbreviatedly ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... minutes later, after composing my soul and powdering my nose, I was telephoning all over the city trying to find Duncan. I got him at last, and he came to the Ritz on the run. Then we picked up a residuary old horse-hansom on Fifth Avenue and went rattling off through Central Park. There I—who once boasted of seven proposals and three times that number of nibbles—promptly and shamelessly proposed to my Dinky-Dunk, though he is too much of a gentleman not to swear it's a horrid lie and that he'd have fought ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... you s'pose I begins? Why, I hires one of these open faced cabs by the hour, and tells the chap up top to take me up Fifth ave. I wanted to think, and there ain't any better place for brain exercise than leanin' back in a hansom, squintin' out over the foldin' doors. I'd got pretty near up to the Plaza before I hooks what I was fishin' ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... is not a happy one. Sitting in the hansom that is taking him all too swiftly to his destination, he dwells with terror on the girl—the undesired ward—who has been thrust upon him. He has quite made up his mind about her. An Australian ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... just finished an account of Bobbie's heroic sacrifice of the day before; and as Bobbie himself was following in a hansom cab, with the other uncle, it was quite safe to relate the whole ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... that matchless Hyde Park and drive all around it, and then I start to enter it at the Marble Arch—and am induced to "change my mind." [Cabs are not permitted in Hyde Park—nothing less aristocratic than a private carriage.] It is a great benefaction—is Hyde Park. There, in his hansom cab, the invalid can go—the poor, sad child of misfortune—and insert his nose between the railings, and breathe the pure, health-giving air of the country and of heaven. And if he is a swell invalid who isn't obliged to depend ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to go; Carter knows me. I am awfully sorry he has been shoving himself into your rooms; the worst of this place is, there is no privacy, Carter just goes where he pleases," and Bunny rang the bell and told his servant that he wanted a hansom in the morning at ten minutes to nine. There were only a few of us left in his rooms, but every one said they would be at Queen's to meet him, though he told us not to make fools of ourselves. "I asked Carter the last time I went to him to let me off a shilling because he had kept ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... still other and lesser things. Money had not been immediately forthcoming when she asked for it lately to pay her mantua maker's bill; and she had noticed on several occasions that her father had taken a 'bus instead of a hansom, or even had chosen to walk. A dull doubt had been creeping over her, which now was no longer obscure, but plainly enough revealed; her father had ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... they are again police officers, they have a very sure appreciation of human nature. They do not harass those with whom they are concerned unnecessarily, but whether it is the London County Council, a powerful omnibus corporation, or an unlucky hansom driver, they act impartially, without ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... no hour for finding cabs; it was the hour of the scavenger and no other being; and Rachel walked into broad sunlight before she spied a solitary hansom. It was then she did the strangest thing; instead of driving straight back for her trunk, when near the house she gave the cabman other directions, subsequently stopping him at one with a card in ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... at Oxford; here it goes over this wall, and we'd better carry the coat and belt before we meet a real officer. I got them once for a fancy ball—ostensibly—and thereby hangs a yarn. I always thought they might come in useful a second time. My chief crux to-night was getting rid of the hansom that brought me back. I sent him off to Scotland Yard with ten bob and a special message to good old Mackenzie. The whole detective department will be at Rosenthall's in about half an hour. Of course, I speculated on our gentleman's hatred of the police—another huge slice of luck. If ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... feet; india-rubber seems to have come into the soles of my feet, and I would see London. It is delightful to walk across Temple Gardens, to stop—pigeons are sweeping down from the roofs—to call a hansom, and to notice, as one passes, the sapling behind St. Clement's Danes. The quality of the green is exquisite on the smoke-black wall. London can be seen better on Sundays than on week-days; lying back in ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... whether the particular work at which he is skilled is wanted at the moment or not. If it is not wanted, some new trade which is wanted ought to be taught at the public expense. Why, for example, should a hansom-cab driver be allowed to suffer on account of the introduction of taxies? He has not committed any crime, and the fact that his work is no longer wanted is due to causes entirely outside his control. Instead of being allowed ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... veil and looked at her sister. Like many strong-minded and vigorous women, she had a dislike of hansoms which amounted to dread. She feared a hansom as though it had been a revolver—something that might go off unexpectedly at ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... I'm a live man, there's our mate, Bill Windy," exclaimed one of the "Crusader's" seamen, "and there's Dick Hansom, and Tom Bowline, I do believe! ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... housekeeper, who believed in his fad, that he dared not send back her dishes untasted. As a compromise I suggested that he could wrap up some of the stuff in paper and drop it quietly into the gutter. We sallied forth, and I found him so weak that he had to be assisted into a hansom. He still maintained, however, that Japanese chambers were worth making some sacrifice for; and when the other Arcadians saw his condition they had the delicacy not to contradict him. They ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... Mr. FEARGUS HUME gives us a story much in advance of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. It is better in construction, its character sketches are more life-like, and its literary style is superior—therefore there is every chance of its not being so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... our means, a great deal of money in telegrams, and I counted on the receipt of news from Rapallo immediately after the junction of the discoverer with the discovered. The interval seemed an age, but late one day I heard a hansom rattle up to my door with a crash engendered by a hint of liberality. I lived with my heart in my mouth and I bounded to the window—a movement which gave me a view of a young lady erect on the footboard of the vehicle and eagerly looking up at ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... of carriage-wheels without, a hansom cab whirled up to the door, and a tall young man leaped out. Two minutes more and the tall young man burst impetuously into the ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... know London very well; but Lady Tilchester had given me the address of the latest and most fashionable dressmaker, and I got into a hansom ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... to rain Vanderbank always walked home, but he usually took a hansom when the rain was moderate and adopted the preference of the philosopher when it was heavy. On this occasion he therefore recognised as the servant opened the door a congruity between the weather and the "four-wheeler" that, in the empty street, under the glazed radiance, ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... hansom cab, Fig. 32, by Mr. Raven Hill, illustrates a very strong color-scheme,—gray and white separated by black, the gray moderating the black on the upper side, leaving it to tell strongly against the white below. Notice how luminous ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... professed surprise and declared herself immensely pleased; she doubtless was; so were the geranium plants blossoming in the window-boxes, and so were the cabbies when the lovers sought the romantic privacy of hansom cabs—quaint device—and the staid bill of fares on which they scribbled "you know I do," pushing it over for the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... square and street, Each with his home-grown quality of dark And violated silence, loud and fleet, Waylaid by a merry ghost at every lamp, The hansom wheels and plunges. Hark, O hark, Sweet, how the old mare's bit and chain Ring back a rough refrain Upon the marked and cheerful tramp Of her four shoes! Here is the Park, And O the languid midsummer wafts adust, The tired midsummer blooms! O the mysterious ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... have been one o'clock before we drove in a hansom as far as Kensington Church, instead of getting down at the gates of our private road to ruin. Constitutionally shy of the direct approach, Raffles was further deterred by a ball in full swing at the Empress Rooms, whence ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... he took a hansom and went to look for some rooms; he would not return to those he had left on the previous afternoon, for the sympathetic landlord had helped him to pack up the wedding clothes and had admired the wedding gift. Arthur felt that he ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... footman, received my order with impassivity and shut us in together with the unconcern of a good servant. It was dark in the carriage, and neither of us spoke as we whirled through the snowy streets. Once the lights of a passing hansom illumined my companion's face and I saw that she was crying. It pleased me to see her suffer; she had cost me eleven weeks of misery; why should ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... could not carry him back to the time when he had hired a cab. A cab was one of the luxuries he had not cultivated. One can only imagine his surprise, then, when he found himself hailing a passing hansom; and greater the surprise he must have felt when he clambered in and ordered the driver to go in a gallop to a certain place in Wells Street. Ten minutes later he was attired in dry, warm clothes and in the cab again, bound for Bansemer's ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... exclamation, in answer apparently to a something I could not hear, "What, man alive!—slept in the passage!—there, take that, and get some breakfast, for Heaven's sake!" So saying, he jumped into the "Hansom," and we bowled away at ten miles an hour, just catching the Express as the doors of the station were closing. My curiosity was full set—for although Balance can be free with his money, it is not exactly to beggars that ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... I think I mentioned, in the heart of the city, and, unless you prefer Shanks's pony, must perforce take a hansom to your hotel, or, if you have much luggage, two hansoms, for four-wheelers are almost unknown. In compensation, the Sydney hansoms are the cleanest and fastest you will ever have the good fortune to come across. Steam trams run out to ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... from the horn on a Happy Hansom means that business men, messenger boys and other persons in a hurry must postpone indefinitely their contemplated journey across the street. Crossing the street in front of a chauffeur who has given the above signal is very bad form, and is generally productive ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... direction; sticks, hats, and umbrellas were hunted up; and while Maitland, half-asleep, was being whirled to his rooms in Bloomsbury in a hansom, his guests made the frozen pavement of Piccadilly ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... stopped rattling and talking from the commencement of the journey until its close (which was a great deal too soon for me, for I never was tired of listening to the honest young fellow's jokes and cheery laughter); and when we arrived at the terminus nothing would satisfy him but a hansom cab, so that he might get into town the quicker, and plunge into the pleasures awaiting him there. Away the young lad went whirling, with joy lighting up his honest face; and as for the reader's humble servant, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... weather. Consequently, when the balance of comfort and convenience has to be struck, it is surprising how small an advantage a really better climate gives when you take away watering-carts and shady streets for hot weather, and sheltered railway-stations and hansom cabs for wet weather, and roads and servants and civility and general convenience everywhere. This particular climate is both depressing and trying in spite of the sunny skies we are ever boasting about, because it has a strong tinge of the tropical element in it; and yet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... and from under it, the next moment, he saw the Captain waving two fingers at him out of the front of a hansom. When he returned to his hotel he found on his table a letter superscribed in Gordon Wright's hand. ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... hansom, cursing himself for having tried to do the thing cheaply. Hornblower also swept past yelling derisively, with his luggage neatly piled above his head. "Let's get out and walk," muttered Ansell. But Rickie was succouring a distressed ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... shall I see a Hansom again?" said Janet in a slightly sentimental tone. But she returned to the charge, "Don't go, mother, I want you ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on the Thursday following the Friday on which the mummy had been sent to the laboratory, the professor received a telegram telling him to come at once to the doctor. Three minutes after he had read it he was in a hansom and on his way to Kilburn, wondering what it was that he was to be brought face to face with ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... building I ever saw," he exclaimed. "It looks as if it was built up of sentry-boxes, and Hansom's cabs, and dovecots, and windmills, and pig-sties, and all sorts of other things. It was built, I see, by Ivan the Cruel, and it is said that he was so pleased with its strangeness that he put out the ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... cracked loudly over the horse's back, and the hansom, lurching into Thirty-fourth Street on one wheel, was presently jouncing eastward over rough cobbles, at a regardless pace which roused the gongs of the surface cars to a clangor of hysterical expostulation. In a trice the "L" extension was roaring overhead; and a little later the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... old. The life of the Outside Men includes plenty of sunshine, and as much air as may be stirring. At the Cape, where the Dutch housewives distil and sell the very potent Vanderhum, and the absurd home-made hansom cabs waddle up and down the yellow dust of Adderley Street, are the members of the big import and export firms, the shipping and insurance offices, inventors of mines, and exploiters of new territories with now and then an officer strayed from ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... reappearance of the landlord on behalf of number 12. He represented to me that I ought in justice to him to come and see how tidy they HAD made it. Half an hour afterwards I was rattling along in a hansom toward Covent Garden, where I heard Madame Bosio in The Barber of Seville. On my return from the opera I went into the coffee-room; it had occurred to me I might catch there another glimpse of Mr. Searle. I was not disappointed. I found him seated before the fire with his head sunk on ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... to an Inspectorship of Fisheries, in succession to the late Frank Buckland. It is almost pathetic to note how he snatched at any spare moments for biological research. No sooner was a long afternoon's work at the Home Office done, than, as Professor Howes relates, he would often take a hansom to the laboratory at South Kensington, and spend a last half-hour at his ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... myself that it would have given me pleasure to have had some part in his chastisement, and as we plodded westward through the empty streets I pictured him driving home in a hansom, trying to gather his scattered wits and to discover some reason why a quiet, respectful waiter should have assailed him without cause. Poor muddled Talcott! He did not know that his betrayer had been distilled in far-off Scotland, ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... you have heard all about. I still can't get over them. I go about haunted by the seriousness, the life-and-death interest people throw into music. It is astonishing! And outside, as we got into our hansom, such sights and sounds!—such starved fierce-looking men, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... men will say, "Why go on believing in him then?" but that is an idea that does not enter the African mind. I might just as well say "Why do you go on believing in the existence of hansom cabs," because one hansom cab driver malignantly fails to take you where you want to go, or fails to arrive in time to catch a train ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... "if it is all the same to you, we will perform the journey in a hansom. I am not in training just at present ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... a hansom pulled up close to where I was walking, and a friend of Toole's jumped out, and, seizing my hand, he said, "I say, Furniss, you travel about a lot, lecturing and all that kind of thing—do ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... costume, was a butterfly of butterflies. Here was the gayety of the period—the soft wine of eyes, the songs that flurried hearts, the toasts and tie bouquets, the dances and the dinners. Here was a Venus of the hansom, cab, the Gibson girl in ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... a good many years ago—an elderly gentleman in evening dress flung himself out of his cab, which had just stopped before a house in Bruton Street, and hastily went to meet a young man who was at the same moment stepping out of another hansom a little farther down ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... An electric hansom, which had sailed up the street in an eminently respectable manner, had suddenly and without apparent reason begun to act in an altogether disreputable way. It had veered round, rushed over the crossing, and made a bee-line for the sidewalk, almost running ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... through raised lorgnettes turned and whispered something with a smile to her companion—once before he had heard an audible titter from a little group of loiterers. He returned the glance with a lightning-like look of diabolical fierceness, and, turning round, stood upon the curbstone and called a hansom. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... requested. The less I understood of this farrago, the less I was in a position to judge of its importance; and an appeal so worded could not be set aside without a grave responsibility. I rose accordingly from table, got into a hansom, and drove straight to Jekyll's house. The butler was awaiting my arrival; he had received by the same post as mine a registered letter of instruction, and had sent at once for a locksmith and a carpenter. The tradesmen came while we were yet speaking; ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... off the Hammersmith Road. We, that is to say dad and myself, live in Warwick Gardens, a bit this side of Addison Bridge, so if you really mean to go home we may as well get a hansom, and you can drop me at ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... promised to use his best exertions in removing those who were least hurt among the wounded men. He was looking anxiously for the return of the boats. One, however, only was seen to put off from the side of the frigate with the remainder of the prize crew, Mr Hansom deeming it imprudent to allow more than necessary to make the passage. It was not without considerable difficulty that this boat reached the side of the prize. Again Denham urged the captain to quit her, ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... was the late passenger on board the Argus, had been from boyhood the inseparable chum of Robert Audley. The tale of Talboys' marriage, his expedition to Australia, and his return with a fortune, was briefly told. The pair took a hansom to the Westminster coffee-house where Talboys had written to his wife to forward letters. There was no letter, and the young man showed very bitter disappointment. By and by George mechanically picked up a "Times" newspaper of a day or ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... dig itself in. It was like this. It was expedient—no matter why—that a large boar should be introduced into Balliol College shortly before 10 p.m. A gigantic specimen was accordingly procured and brought to the Broad Street entrance in a hansom cab. It was then induced to take up a position commanding the wicket-door. The juxtaposition of two hurdles, held in place by my subordinates, frustrated any attempt at untimely evacuation. At a given signal the customary kick ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... would never realize it. I remember hearing a woman in a crowd say something to a man in the most awful voice, full of horror, that I've ever heard. I just caught her saying, 'If he finds it out to-night, either I'll kill myself or he'll do it for me,' and then they got out of the crowd, called a hansom and drove away. Positively, I didn't sleep that night, wondering if he had found it out, wondering if he had killed her, wondering if hundreds of other people had found out hundreds of other horrible things. But it all went in the morning. Cissy had a terrible toothache, and I ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... hansom and bowled silently down the dry grey road. All June was in flower in the pink pyramids of the chestnut-trees, and was already beginning to bleach the colour out of the long coarse grass in the open spaces of the Park. ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... up and read the playbill. He read the name of the play, the titles of its acts, and the names of its actors. He wondered if the man who just then drove up in a hansom was one of the heroes of the piece, or whether he was one of the performers in the farce announced to follow the play. Still the people streamed in. There was no one he knew, ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... Priestly to the Kingly Authority. Thus Solomon thrusts out Abiathar from being priest, I Kings ii. 27; and Jehoahaz administers the funds of the Lord's House, 2 Kings xii. 4, though that money was actually the Atonement Money, the Hansom for Souls ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... me for the third time—as I was driving to Paddington on my way to Oxford and a scholarship. I had just one momentary glimpse. I was leaning over the apron of my hansom smoking a cigarette, and no doubt thinking myself no end of a man of the world, and suddenly there was the door, the wall, the dear sense of ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... mess of things. I felt it as I stood on the top of the steps and watched her going,—she was walking off at four miles an hour; I had not even ventured to ask to be allowed to call a hansom. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... diminished, or, rather, disappeared. It was said about 1800, in derision of the Foxite rump, that the Whig Party came down to Parliament in a four-wheeler. It might literally be said in 1900 that the Whig Party and the Tory Party came to Parliament in a hansom cab. It was not a case of two towers rising into different roofs or spires, but founded in the same soil. It was rather the case of an arch, of which the foundation-stones on either side might fancy they were two buildings; but ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... jackdaw if you like,' says he; 'but what I want you to understand is that it ain't no ornary bird. It's a bird,' he says, 'that'll do you hansom and you'll be proud to have, and I've called here to make you a present of it. All I want is a bit of bread, a pinch of tea, and some sugar to make my breakfast in an hour's time when I git to some cottage by the road where they got a fire ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... was an earnest man and no scoffer, and some of his best friends were priests and clergymen. Nevertheless it was in a rather unusual go-to-meeting frame of mind that he got into a tail-coat and top hat, and set forth in a hansom to St. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... sometimes dig for buttered rolls, Or set limed twigs for crabs; I sometimes search the grassy knolls For wheels of Hansom cabs. And that's the way" (he gave a wink) "By which I get my wealth— And very gladly will I drink Your Honor's ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... the times of the Romans. Instead of using a racquet, it is played with a curved wicker basket strapped on to the right wrist. This basket is not unlike in shape to those wicker-work covers which in pre-taxi days were placed by London hotel porters over the wheels of hansom-cabs to protect ladies' dresses in getting in or out of them. When a back-handed stroke is necessary, the player grasps his right wrist with his left hand, using his wicker-encased right hand as a racquet. The court is nearly three times the length of a racquet-court, and is always open to the ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... that was not as water to reflect her image, or as wind to lift and carry her along. Her fancy soon fluttered gently down to earth, and she caught herself wondering whether Wyndham would walk back to Piccadilly or go in a hansom. ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... he could not stomach the peculiar Moorish saddle with its high-peaked cantle and crupper, and its catch-and-carry stirrups. We took a calesa, as I have said. To my dying day I shall not forget that vehicle of torture. But it may be necessary to tell what is a calesa. Procure a broken-down hansom, knock off the driver's seat, paint the body and wheels the colour of a roulette-table at a racecourse, stud the hood with brass nails of the pattern of those employed to beautify genteel coffins, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... sprawling green stone house on Michigan Avenue, there were signs of unusual animation about the entrance. As he reached the steps a hansom deposited the bulky figure of Brome Porter, Mrs. Hitchcock's brother-in-law. The older man scowled interrogatively at the young doctor, as if to say: 'You here? What the devil of a crowd has Alec raked together?' But the two men ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... hansom; a few seconds more and she would pass from him into London. He saw the horse's hooves, saw the cab appear and disappear behind other cabs; it turned a corner, and she ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... immense interval was passed, the train arrived, the train sped on, the London lights came in view—a gentleman who forgot his carpet-bag in the train rushed at a cab, and said to the man, "Drive as hard as you can go to Jermyn-street." The cabman, although a Hansom cabman, said thank you for the gratuity which was put into his hand, and Pen ran up the stairs of the hotel to Lady Rockminster's apartments. Laura was alone in the drawing-room, reading, with a pale face, by the lamp. The pale face ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... As their hansom threaded its way through the crowded street she rarely smiled, but her sombre eyes took in everything, and she "said things," as the boy put it, which he recalled and quoted years afterward. Incidentally she talked of herself, ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... the pleasure of introducing you to-night. I've had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom, Watson and I ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... lingering sweet good-night, and shut Mildred into the warm, lighted hall, and ran down the steps, and hailed a passing hansom, and was driven back to Chilworth Street. It had rained, and the heat, excessive for April, had abated, and the wise, experienced stars looked down between drifting veils of greyish vapour upon the little ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... and a woman may drive together in the city in a hansom, although this is considered unconventional. Buggy driving is not in ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... communicate with one again, or to write one any foolish letters, he should be perfectly broken-hearted, and telegraph to one all day long, and send one little notes every half-hour by a private hansom, and dine quite alone at the club, so that every one should know how unhappy he was. And after a whole dreadful week, during which one has gone about everywhere with one's husband, just to show how absolutely ...
— A Woman of No Importance • Oscar Wilde
... streets and roads we traversed in our morning's walk from Victoria are still intact, the storms of rebuilding that have submerged so much of my boyhood's London have passed and left them, and I have revived the impression of them again and again in recent years as I have clattered dinnerward in a hansom or hummed along in a motor cab to some engagement. The main gate still looks out with the same expression of ancient well-proportioned kindliness upon St. Margaret's Close. There are imposing new science ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... hansom here completely stuck; No chance to catch my train, worse luck! I sit and wonder: Why should the roads be up in May? Who muddles matters in this ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... called the driver of a hansom the lights of which had twinkled from a judicious distance for some ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... being prepared for the forthcoming season. Some Eton boys—it is evidently a holiday—stand looking on with lively interest. Several people get out of the train, walk into the quaint old-fashioned street, and disappear. We follow them, charter a hansom, and are driven along a picturesque road in the direction of the late Prince Consort's Shaw Farm. This road is almost deserted, save for half-a-dozen cavalrymen who come riding down it, their brilliant red uniforms lighting up the dull air through which the sunlight ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... spectacle once seen, Phil dashed into the street, hailed a hansom, and drove pell-mell, exciting the cabman who conducted him by the promise of a double fare, to the residence of old Brown and old Brown's daughter. There he told the glorious news, a little broken and halting ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... show she was not afraid—she took no account of Jessie. When the elopement came, therefore, it was a double disappointment to her, for she perceived his hand by a kind of instinct. She did the correct thing. The correct thing, as you know, is to take hansom cabs, regardless of expense, and weep and say you do not know WHAT to do, round the circle of your confidential friends. She could not have ridden nor wept more had Jessie been her own daughter—she showed the properest ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... our example; even Egypt and India will soon have their railways, and we now look with no more surprise on the passage of a locomotive with a few hundred passengers or tons of goods than on a wheelbarrow or Patent Hansom Cab. Grouse from Aberdeen, fat cattle from Norfolk, piece goods from Manchester, hardwares from Sheffield, race horses from Newmarket, coals from Leicestershire, and schoolboys from Yorkshire, are despatched and received, for the distance of a few hundred miles, with the most perfect regularity, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... the girls are quite defenceless, and have nobody to consult. That being the case, I'm going back with them also to their lodgings in a four-wheeler. Sarah Ann, go and fetch a four-wheeler this instant, and don't stand gaping. Mind, a four-wheeler, girl, and don't bring a hansom on no account near the place. Yes, ladies, it's my duty to go with the poor orphans, ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... effort of Miss Laura Jean Libbey, a popular American novelist, who describes in glowing colours how two aristocratic Englishmen, fighting a duel near London somewhere in the seventies, were interrupted by the heroine, who drove between them in a hansom and pair and received the shots in its panels! Out West, too, he could probably put more money in his pocket if he were disposed to put his pride there too. One pert youth in Arizona preferred to lose my order for cigars ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... novelty of the streets amused her. Moreover, she had invented her father, clothed him with many qualities as with shining raiment, and set him high among the persons of her dreams. Would he be satisfied with his daughter? That was her fear, and with the help of the looking-glass at the side of her hansom, she tried to remove the traces of travel ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... morning break. Perhaps here and there a drum would begin to beat, the cries of children would rise up from the streets, and I would lie in my bed with my hands clenched, thinking of the jingle of a hansom cab along the streets of London, and the gas lamps paling as ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... in a taxi three times and a hansom once. But I prefer this. I shall have my own some day—only, purple upholstery instead of gray—sort ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... had pricked my finger the night before, and I asked him if it were possible that a prick from a needle, at that time, could have been still unclosed. His opinion was that this was probably the cause of the trouble, and he advised me to get a hansom, drive home as fast as I could, and arrange my affairs forthwith. "For," he said, "you ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... said he, "I'll give you a tow to the nearest repair shop, and a word from me will expedite the business. Meanwhile, you must jump into a hansom and appeal to the sympathies of Miss—Vanrenen, ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... at five minutes past nine she came into the front room clad for Mrs. Prockter's party, he perceived that the tramcar would have been unsuitable. A cab might hold her. A hansom would certainly not have held her. She was all in white, and very complicated. No hat; simply a white, silver-spangled bandage round ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... evening, because she was very particular about my dress, and I remember she sent me upstairs again before we started, because I hadn't got the right pair of shoes on—rather a tight pair—however, I put them on. And there was a hansom outside the hall, and it was our last dance together, and he said, "Shall we sit it out, Miss Bagot?" Well, of course, I was only too glad to, and we sat it out in the hansom, driving all round Surbiton, ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... like water, We might carry a royal ransom; And I think of her waiting, waiting, And long for a common hansom. ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... left his new-made friend a short time afterwards, and took a hansom to his office. His newspaper at once issued a special edition, giving an interview between their representative and Mr. James B. Coulson, a personal friend of the murdered man. It was, after all, something of a scoop, for not one of the other passengers had been found who was in ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Sunday. They reached London late on Monday evening, and there—Louis having telegraphed from Paris—Sir Miles found his favourite room ready for him at Claridge's. Next morning, as his hansom drew up a few minutes after eleven o'clock by the entrance to Paddington Station, he observed that the porter who stepped forward from the rank to attend on him, did so with a preoccupied air. The man was grinning, and kept glancing along ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... guns, tilted at various angles, and beyond are the shells bursting and leaving little clouds of black or white in the sky. We signalled to a gun not to fire down the road in much the same way as a bobby signals to a hansom. When we got beyond the guns they fired over us with a long streaky sort of sound. We came back to the road and picked up the wounded wherever we could ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... Baron Martin and I met once a year, he on the Bench and I in court, with a hansom cab waiting outside ready to start for the Derby. It is necessary for Judges to sit on Derby Day, to show that they do not go; but if by some accident the work of the court is finished in time to get down to Epsom, those who love an afternoon in the country sometimes go ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... word. Oh, Mr. Hillyard, there was a time when she really dressed—dressed, you understand. My word, she was thorough then, too. I remember coming out of the Albert Hall on a Melba afternoon, when we could get nothing but a hansom cab, and a policeman actually had to lift her up into it like a big baby because her skirt was so tight. And ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... one thing that he did not know, and that was the close proximity of this hotel to the railway station. So, having secured a hansom, he briefly told the Jehu to drive him to the Grosvenor. At this, cabby looked down from his perch in sheer astonishment. Then, doubtless, in a considerate and honest spirit—for there are still some ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... establishment. In a second he was up, and had bounded out of the shop with such energy that the shopman was on the point of holloaing "Stop thief!" It was exactly five o'clock, and he was not more than a quarter of a mile or so from Waterloo Station. A hansom was sauntering along in front of him, he sprang into it. "Waterloo, main line," he shouted, "as hard as you can go," and in another moment he was rolling across the bridge. Five or six minutes' drive brought him ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... Suddenly a hansom cab shot past me. It came up silently on the slushy street, and it was only when it was close behind that I heard the muffled sound of its wheels. It was early yet for cabs, so that I turned my head at the sound. It passed in a flash, and ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... judge had issued his cruel fiat, I slipped out, hurried down-stairs into the Strand, jumped into a hansom, and was driven at top speed to Hamilton Terrace, bent upon giving instant effect to a scheme I had long ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... contemporaries. Let it be admitted that in all ages artists have had their grooves, like other men, and have reproduced themselves and their own best effects. But, as this is inevitably true, how careful they should be that the effects are really of permanent value and beauty! Realistic hansom cabs, and babies in strange raiment, and schoolgirls of the last century, and Masters of Hounds, are scarcely of so much permanent value as the favourite types and characters which Lionardo and Carpaccio repeat again and again. We no more think Claude ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... with a groan. "I suffer from heart attacks, and the crossing has altogether upset me. If you could remain with my niece while our luggage is examined, and send her afterwards to the Milan Hotel, you would do a real favor to a sick man. I could myself take a hansom there without waiting for a moment, and get to bed. Nothing else will do ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not wait to witness that interesting ceremony. He went back to his hansom round the corner, and drove at once to Arthur Wardlaw's house ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... vacation baggage. My idea was, go light when chasing the Grail. Had only my rucksack, left rest of my stuff at coll., to be forwarded later. While the other chaps were getting their stuff out of the goods van I spotted Miss Flapper getting off the train. She got into a hansom. Just by dumb luck I was standing near. I heard her say to cabby: "318, Bancroft Road!" Lord, was ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... you must get up early, and be off directly after breakfast, and will have the whole livelong day to amuse yourself in. What a bright sunshiny morning it was, and what fun I had going with John in a hansom cab to Paddington—I like a hansom cab, it goes so fast—and then down to Windsor by the train in a carriage full of such smart people, some of whom I knew quite well by name, though not to speak to. The slang aristocracy, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... an acquaintance, made during one of his night prowls, an old English cabman. When he arrived at the address indicated he found the old man sick in bed with rheumatism. He wanted Jarvis to drive his hansom for a week, on a percentage, until he could get about again. There was no choice. It was that or the park benches, so Jarvis accepted. Old Hicks fitted, or rather misfitted, him in a faded blue tailed coat and a topper, Jarvis looked like ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... said Hansom, decidedly. I forgot to say that it was George Hansom whom Myron had picked up to help us. Anybody in Lime will tell you who George Hansom is,—a clear-eyed, open-hearted sailor; a man to whom you would turn in trouble as instinctively as a rheumatic ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... was leaning against the iron railings of the green enclosure in the middle of the Square. The man's form was in shadow, but his face seemed to be turned to Mrs. Romaine's house. Oliver sedulously averted his eyes and hailed a passing hansom cab. He had no mind to be delayed just then, and he was almost certain that he recognized in that gaunt and shabby figure his disreputable brother. No, by-and-bye he would talk to Francis, he said to himself, but not to-night. He had other game in view on this particular ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... de Lloseta went out of the house together. They walked side by side for some yards while a watchful hansom followed. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... too, I began to be troubled. What had I better do? Would there be a hue and cry—Mysterious Disappearance of an Author, and all that? He had last been seen lunching and dining in my company. Hadn't I better get a hansom and drive straight to Scotland Yard?... They would think I was a lunatic. After all, I reassured myself, London was a very large place, and one very dim figure might easily drop out of it unobserved—now especially, ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... driven a hansom for several years, was compelled by force of circumstances to learn late in life to drive a taxi-cab or perish. He was not a man who, as a rule, took any absorbing interest in the events of the day, with the occasional exception, perhaps, ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... improvement? Scarcely, since I very rarely read these uninteresting entries; and I very much doubt if posterity will care to know that I went to the office at ten o'clock on Wednesday morning; that I couldn't get a seat in the omnibus, and was compelled to take a Hansom, which cost me two shillings; that I dined tete-a-tete with my mother, and finished the third volume of Carlyle's 'French Revolution' in the course of the evening. Is there any use in such a journal as mine? Will the celebrated New Zealander, that is ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... haze, which veils the day just a little from its own loveliness, and lies upon the sighing and expectant city like the substance of a dream made visible. It has the magic to transmute you to this substance yourself, so that while you dawdle afoot, or whisk by in your hansom, or rumble earthquakingly aloft on your omnibus-top, you are aware of being a part, very dim, very subtile, of the passer's blissful consciousness. It is flattering, but you feel like warning him not to go in-doors, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... temper, you proceed to cure yourself by taking it out of the office-boy. He says nothing, apparently does nothing. But that evening, as you are going home in the Tube, a burly working-man treads heavily on your gouty foot. In Ladbroke Grove a passing hansom splashes you with mud. Reaching home, you find that the cat has been at the cold chicken and the butler has given notice. You do not connect these things, but they are all alike the results of your unjust behaviour ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... along the crowded streets, absorbed in his own thoughts, for some distance. Then he suddenly emerged from that quiet shelter, and accepted the urgent invitation of a hansom-cab driver ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Carr stepped into a hansom, and was conveyed to Grafton Street. He found Lord Hartledon knitting his ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... his mind, and he returned home thinking of his play. The sunset still glittering in the skies; the bare trees were beautifully distinct on the blue background of the suburban street, and at the end of the long perspective, a 'bus and a hansom could be seen coming towards him. As they grew larger, his thoughts defined themselves, and the distressing problem of his fourth act seemed to solve itself. That very evening he would sketch out a new dramatic movement ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... to his own room, where for the next few minutes he could be heard bustling Harrison, the clerk, to make haste; then a hansom was whistled for, there were footsteps down the old stairs, the sounds of a departing vehicle on the uneven stones, and after that ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... like a gentleman and a lady in a hansom cab; they dined like a duke and a duchess at the Criterion restaurant; and they were both as happy and light-hearted as schoolboys on the first day of their holidays. Like children they made silly little jokes which would have been jokes to no one but themselves. He caused ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... people of our means, a great deal of money in telegrams and cabs, and I counted on the receipt of news from Rapallo immediately after the junction of the discoverer with the discovered. The interval seemed an age, but late one day I heard a hansom precipitated to my door with the crash engendered by a hint of liberality. I lived with my heart in my mouth and accordingly bounded to the window—a movement which gave me a view of a young lady erect on the footboard of the vehicle and eagerly looking ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... home of Wilkins' former pupil, Lord Berkeley, found there a remarkable group, Petty, Rooke, and Wilkins, amusing themselves with "contrivances for chariots, and for a wheel for one to run races in,"—the first forms possibly of a hansom, and a cycle. "Perhaps," continues Evelyn, "three such persons were not to be found elsewhere in Europe for parts and ingenuity." Lord Rosebery, we may safely presume, would be glad to see ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... indeed for the next three days, thinking that Mr. Prendergast would come to him, or send for him; but Mr. Prendergast did neither the one nor the other. Mr. Prendergast took his advice instead, and putting himself into a Hansom cab, had ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... agreeable" to this proposal, the two left the house together, and, hailing a hansom, drove off in the direction ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... "terra-cotta" dress, And we stayed, because of the pelting storm, Within the hansom's dry recess, Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless We ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... was thronged with cabs and motor cars. The Abbey and The Dead Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the street. Paris traffic regulations are lax and uncertain. I dodged between a limousine and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just as she reached ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to manage that for you," the man remarked encouragingly. "It was one of Steve Hassell's carriages, I guess, unless the lady took a hansom." ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... back to Morley's, and ascertained that Stony Stratford was on the road to Rugby, and that I must leave the train at Wolverton station. I called a Hansom cab, and reached Euston Square depot just in time for the train. I will not attempt to describe the emotions which agitated me as I sped over the country. I was on the point of meeting my mother, and though the rich panorama of an English ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... sketch plan of the elopement, so detailed, even to band-boxes and the Paris night route via Dieppe, that no further room for doubt was left in his intoxicated soul, and he was actually further astonished when, just as he was putting his handbag into the hansom, a telegram was handed to him saying: ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... saved a goodish bit, I should think. Just come home with me now and look at a horse I can let you have cheap. I bought him only a few weeks ago, thinking he'd do for a Hansom, but I was wrong. He's got bone enough for a waggon, but a waggon ain't a Hansom. He ain't got go enough for a Hansom. You see parties as takes Hansoms wants to go like the wind, and he ain't got wind enough, ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... stand on the very edge of the pavement, and waited. His exercised eyes had made out in the confused movements of lights and shadows thronging the roadway the crawling approach of a hansom. He gave no sign; but when the low step gliding along the curbstone came to his feet he dodged in skilfully in front of the big turning wheel, and spoke up through the little trap door almost before the man gazing supinely ahead ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... quite a crowd of idlers—genuinely interested or not—obtained admission to view the body, on the pretext of having lost or mislaid a relative or a friend. At about 8.30 p.m. a young man, very well dressed, drove up to the station in a hansom, and sent in his card to the superintendent. It was Mr. Hazeldene, shipping agent, of 11, Crown Lane, E.C., and ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... couldn't keep me in Dexter after four o'clock this afternoon. Good-by." And Crosby climbed into the hansom and was driven away at breakneck ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... explain that, on the morning after the accident, I had taken a hansom to the Devonshire Mansion with the intention of paying a professional visit to Alresca. I was not altogether certain that I ought to regard the case as mine, but I went. Immediately before my hansom, however, there had drawn up another ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... soon as Trevennack had set off to catch the fast train from Waterloo to Portsmouth direct (he was frequently down there on Admiralty business), she put on her cloak and bonnet, without a word to Cleer, and set out in a hansom all ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen |
