"Basement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... experience. A knavish fellow, living in a cottage close to the foot of the garden, sought to blackmail the new comer, under threat of legal proceedings, alleging that a catchment well for surface drainage had made his basement damp. Unfortunately for his case, it could be shown that the pipes had not yet been connected with the well, and when he carried out his threat, he gained nothing from his suit in Chancery and his subsequent appeal, except some ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... and long rows of boarding—and rooming-houses. They alighted at a certain corner, walked a little way along a street unkempt and dreary, Mr. Tiernan scrutinizing the numbers until he paused in front of a house with a basement kitchen and snow-covered, sandstone steps. Climbing these, he pulled the bell, and they stood waiting in the twilight of a half-closed vestibule until presently shuffling steps were heard within; the door was cautiously opened, not more than a foot, but enough to reveal a woman in a loose ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... it," said the landlady, "if I could have got hold of his trunk. But he got the start of me, and it was in the hands of an expressman before I knew that he was going to move. I was downstairs in the basement when Mr. Harding took the expressman upstairs, and the trunk was brought down and put in his wagon before I knew what was going on. Mr. Harding didn't even say good-by, and I haven't seen or heard of him from ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... glossiest black hair, to wait upon the table. She was young, and certainly very pretty; she was as gay as a lark, and was courted by a young man whose clothes would have been a credit, if they had not been a reproach, to our lowly basement. She joyfully assented to the idea of staying with us ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... really did leave it at home?" was her distracted thought, as she climbed the basement stairs with a heavy heart, after having thoroughly examined the locker. But a close search of her room that noon revealed no trace of the missing pin. Hot tears gathered in her eyes, but she brushed them away, muttering: "I won't cry. It isn't lost. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... administration of Pericles, and was completed in B.C. 438. The Parthenon stood on the highest part of the Acropolis near its centre, and probably occupied the site of an earlier temple destroyed by the Persians. It was entirely of Pentelic marble, on a rustic basement of ordinary limestone, and its architecture, which was of the Doric order, was of the purest kind. Its dimensions were about 228 feet in length, 101 feet in breadth, and 66 feet in height to the top of the pediment. It consisted of a cella, surrounded by a peristyle. The cella was divided into two ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... says he, "and I begin to perceive by the signs that me wife has retired to slumber. Therefore I will venture a bit in the way of hospitality. 'Tis me wish that ye enter the basement room, where we dine, and partake of a reasonable refreshment. There will be some fine cold fowl and cheese and a bottle or two of ale. Ye will be welcome to enter and eat, for I am ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... occupied by the class in analytical chemistry. When completed, the building will be a beautiful and a convenient structure. The walls will be of pressed brick laid in red mortar, with dark granite base, and Nova Scotia sandstone trimmings. The roof will be covered with Monson slate. The basement will be eleven feet high, mostly above ground, and will serve for the force-pump, heating apparatus, and for ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... while the Benevolent Lady came out of a Basement, in which she had been telling a Polish Family to look at her and be Happy. The Scrappy Kid let drive, and the Tomato Can struck the Benevolent Lady between the Shoulder Blades. She squawked and started to run, fell over a Garbage Box, and had to be picked ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... been built for Queen Elizabeth as a hunting tower—a place, namely, from the top of which you could see the country for miles on all sides, and so be able to follow with your eyes the flying deer and the pursuing hounds and horsemen. The mound had been cast up to give a good basement-advantage over the neighbouring heights and woods. There was a great quarry-hole not far off, brim-full of water, from which, as the current legend stated, the materials forming the heart of the mound—a kind of stone unfit for building—had been dug. ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... general belief that fire-built rocks were older than water-built ones was, that the former are as a rule found to lie lower than the latter. They form, as it were, the basement of the building, while the top-stories are made ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... rarely been seen upon the English stage. Among her wedding presents were: Two Votes for Women, presented by the local Fire Brigade; a Flying Machine of "proved stability. Might be used as a bathing tent;" a National Theatre, "with Cold Water Douche in Basement for reception of English Dramatists;" Recipe for building a Navy, without paying for it, "Gift of that great Financial Expert, Sir Hocus Pocus;" one Conscientious Income Taxpayer, "has been driven by a Lady;" two Socialists ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... meet some one. I had not wept—for oh! I don't know how long—not since—. Then you played on the organ some variations on a tune—'The Sweet By-and-by'—and the tears started, and I seemed but a leaf in a wild storm. That was the song my little boy used to sing! There was a Sunday-school in the basement of a church next to our house, and he would stand at the window, and listen till he caught the tune, and learned the words. Oh, that hymn! Every note stung me like a whip lash when I heard it again. My child's face as I saw him the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... bell, and I went down dark stairs to the basement and to breakfast, wondering if I should be able to recognize Miss Jamison; for I had caught but a glimpse of my new landlady on my arrival the previous midnight. Wrapped in a faded French flannel kimono, her face smeared with cold cream, her hair done up in curling "kids," ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... it, he found himself at the foot of a back staircase. Should he go up it? On the right, the same staircase ran down to the basement. He went down it, entered a kitchen and, seizing hold of the cook, said to ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... reading to her, she very politely asked me if I would not let her remain alone. She says I always want to sing, read, or talk incessantly if she wishes to be quiet. I can't ding on the piano, for it is heard from attic to basement. I don't want to read alone, for I have such a desire to be sociable—now, Aunt Mary, you have a catalogue of my troubles, can't you relieve me, for I am really miserable, if I don't look so!" Alice broke into a laugh, although ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... the Norman Conquest; it extends not only beneath the chancel, as in most cases, but beneath both the transepts. The vaulting (supported partly on low columns of remarkable beauty and partly on the basement wall of the church) is therefore of unusual extent. The external door in the churchyard is now hidden by drifted sand and mould. Many years ago, to give place to the tombs and coffins of my family, the bones of the old Danes were piled together in various corners; and the thought of these bones called ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... what we do with 'em. If we're caught sneakin' 'em into Mexico we'll spend the rest of our lives in a Federal penitentiary for bustin' the neutrality laws. All them rifles an' the ammunition is cased an' in my basement at the present moment—and the government agents knows they're there. But that ain't troubling me. I rent the saloon next door an' I'll cut a hole through the wall from my cellar into the saloon cellar, carry 'em through the saloon into the backyard, an' out into the ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... this name I shall call her—occupied a house back from the street. The ladies ascended the steps leading to the first floor, and inquired if she lived there. "She is in the basement," was the answer. They descended into the area. It was neatly swept, and in perfect order. "It must be a genteel woman who lives here," remarked Mrs. Benton. They knocked. A voice bade them come in. They opened ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... Cambridge was that it must be the only city of its size and amenity in the United States without an imposing hotel. It is difficult to imagine any city in the United States minus at least two imposing hotels, with a barber's shop in the basement and a world's fair in the hall. But one soon perceives that Cambridge is a city apart. In visual characteristics it must have changed very little, and it will never change with facility. Boston is pre-eminently a town of traditions, but the traditions have ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... it, and built him a good, substantial plain, brick farm-house in 1854. Not so palatial as some might admire, but a good substantial house; a brick basement under the whole of it, with two stories above. He set it right facing the "Hard scrabble road" and right in front of his door yard was the junction of three roads. He lived on the corners and, by looking south, he could see to the place where ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... like that which red squirrels build of cedar bark. Another space had been the larder, for it was full of dry bones and feathers; others were for other uses, all showing plainly the careful housekeeping of the family in the basement. ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... look for it now; it is quite gone. The round, white-plastered brick pillars which held the house fifteen feet up from the reeking ground and rose on loftily to sustain the great overspreading roof, or clustered in the cool, paved basement; the lofty halls, with their multitudinous glitter of gilded brass and twinkle of sweet-smelling wax-candles; the immense encircling veranda, where twenty Creole girls might walk abreast; the great front stairs, descending from the veranda to the garden, with a lofty palm on either side, on whose ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... and two or three inches wide, which was hollowed out on one side. Into this hollow he fixed the tube by common tacks and small wire. Then through the middle of this strip he bored a large gimlet hole, and put in a long screw, and went to the workshop in the basement to make a standard into which to screw the strip which held the tube. He couldn't find nor make just what he wanted soon enough—the boys said that "Jupiter had just come out clear"—and so he caught the first box he could lay hold of, and screwed the tube upon one of ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Bull Street.—The Imperial Arcade, in Dale End, next to St. Peter's Church, is also a private speculation (that of Mr. Thos. Hall), and was opened at Christmas, 1883. It contains, in addition to the frontage, thirty-two shops, with the same number of offices above, while the basement forms a large room suitable for meetings, auctions, &c., it being 135ft. long, 55ft. wide and nearly 15ft. high. Two of the principal features of the Arcade are a magnificent stained window, looking towards St. Peters, and a curious clock, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... is a fire in the church basement now, right under your feet. The firemen are working on it, but can't put it out. We have stopped people from coming in to stampede the others. The galleries are filled with the children, and we have to get them out, first. If there is a rush the children will be killed at ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... in what respect Janie lit the flame of love within Nosey's breast. She was diminutive and flat-chested; her skin was sallow from life-long confinement in basement sculleries and the atmosphere of the Bloomsbury boarding-house. She had little beady black eyes, and a print dress that didn't fit her at all well. One stocking was generally coming down in folds over her ankle. Her hands were chapped and nubbly—pathetic as ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... to-night. I am not troubled about those from whom I come. You remember the man whose wife sent him to a neighbor with a pitcher of milk, and who, tripping on the top step, fell, with such casual interruptions as the landing afforded, into the basement; and while picking himself up had the pleasure of hearing his wife call out: "John, did you break the pitcher?" "No, I didn't," said John, "but I be dinged ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... picture, because if we hypnotize him the next time and ask him what the picture contained, he now knows its contents. Thus they must have been recognized in a sub-subconsciousness, and we therefore come to a personality which lives on a floor still below the basement. But experiment can demonstrate that even this most hidden personality has still its secrets which are handed downwards. In short, we finally have not merely two but a number of ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... how about the broken window, Paul?" cried Joe Clausin, with more or less indignation. For while it might be very well to forgive Jud his spying tricks some one would have to pay for a new pane of glass in the basement window, and it was hard luck if the burden fell on the innocent parties, while the guilty one ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... turkey an' de pair o' geese you see hangin' on de fence dar, an' de udder ba'el I jest ca'aed down de cellar full er oishters. De tar'pins was in dis box—seben ob 'em. Spec' dat rapscallion crawled ober de fence?" And Chad picked up the basket with the remaining half dozen, and descended the basement steps on his way through the kitchen to the front door above. Before he reached the bottom step I heard him ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... warm-hearted and sympathetic, with that inner hatred of the police common to all who belong to the coster class, and able to stand up for her rights, if necessary, both with her tongue and her fists. She showed us over a damp, ill-lighted basement shop, in a corner of which was a ladder leading to a large, light shop, which seemed well suited to our purpose, meanwhile expatiating on its excellencies. I was satisfied with it, and would have settled everything in a few minutes, but ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... venetian blinds. I could see that there were lights in most of the rooms, while over the fan-light of the front door was a small transparent square of glass, bearing what seemed to be the representation of some Greek saint. The front steps were well kept, and in the deep basement was a well-lighted kitchen. ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... by distance, but that could not take the terror out of it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It went all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all the rooms, in both stories, and in the basement and the cellar; then outside, and farther and farther away—then back, and all about the house again, and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it did, hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago been ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... which caused this hesitation in the two gondoliers was one of those residences at Venice, which are quite as remarkable for their external riches and ornaments as for their singular situation amid the waters. A massive rustic basement of marble was seated as solidly in the element as if it grew from a living rock, while story was seemingly raised on story, in the wanton observance of the most capricious rules of meretricious architecture, until the pile reached an altitude that is ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Internally there are three floors, the lowest being placed on a level with the door, and this is the apartment chiefly occupied by the hag. In the centre of this room is a trapdoor opening upon a deep vault, which forms the basement story of the structure, and which was once used as a dungeon, but is now tenanted, it is said, by a fiend, who can be summoned by the witch on stamping her foot. Round the room runs a gallery contrived in the thickness of the walls, while the upper chambers are gained ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... drawing-room—a sunny, cheerful room, with a smaller one behind, where Blake can work with his pupils—and two good bedrooms. Biddy (how I wish she were not to be of the menage!) will have to content herself with a dull slip of a room on the basement. Of course the furniture is shabby, and there is very little of it; but I mean to introduce a few improvements by degrees. I like the appearance of the woman of the house. She is a widow, and is evidently very ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... belonged to one owner, the lower part to another landlord. It came about that the roof decayed and the upper owner suggested to the lower owner that they should agree in bearing the cost of repairs. Upon which the owner of the basement remarked that he contemplated ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... that it would be a good idea to make a great rat trap and attract all the rats in the city to it. He had a good deal of work done in the Empire Trust, and rigged up a phonograph with a lot of loud speakers in different parts of the basement. He ran a lot of ropes down a ventilating shaft for the rats to climb on. I think it was his original idea to have them come up to his office by the millions and then use some kind of gas on them. At least, he wanted to get rid of the rats. Someone must have turned ...
— The Rat Racket • David Henry Keller
... if that is what you mean, for after all there is only one 7 o'clock in the morning. And, by the way, I must warn you chaps against the champagne on sale in the Cafe de l'Univers down here in the square. It is made in the basement—of potatoes." ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... the lamps | quiver So far in the river, With many a light, From window and casement, From garret to basement, She stood, with amazement, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... in more than one instance the triangular battlements are decorated with lines and rosettes—similar in principle to those shown above in fig. 106—that can hardly be reconciled with the notion that their form is the result of haste on the part of the artist. In the Assyrian Basement Room in the British Museum there is an interesting bas-relief representing Assyrian soldiers busy with the demolition of a fortified wall, probably of some city just taken. The air is thick with the materials thrown down from its summit, among them a great number ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... small Balzac books somehow do not quite fit my hand; but I shall fetch him yet. I've an idea that Watkins is tapping the old gentleman's Chateau Yquem. Duplicate key of the wine-cellar. Hibernian swarries in the front basement. Young Cheops up stairs, snug in his cerements. Watkins glides into my chamber, with that colorless, hypocritical face of his drawn out long like an accordion; but I know he grins all the way down stairs, and is ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... three years, the shoe merchant in preparing for a fire sale left too many tracks in the snow. The fire marshal reported that the fire was caused by an Israelite in the basement and Leo, after many worries and the loss of his ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... had all our floors deafened. In consequence, you cannot hear anything that is going on in the story below; and when you are in the upper room of the house there might be a democratic ratification meeting in the cellar and you would not know it. Therefore, if any one should break into the basement it would not disturb us; but to please Mrs. Sparrowgrass, I put stout iron bars in all the lower windows. Besides, Mrs. Sparrowgrass had bought a rattle when she was in Philadelphia; such a rattle as watchmen carry there. ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... distinctly audible effects. I remember an experiment made with this telephone, which at the time gave me great satisfaction and delight. One of the telephones was placed in my lecture room in the Boston University, and the other in the basement of the adjoining building. One of my students repaired to the distant telephone to observe the effects of articulate speech, while I uttered the sentence, "Do you understand what I say?" into the telephone placed in the lecture hall. To my delight an answer ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... regard to which such interesting preparations were being made was buried, at the hour I write of, in profound repose. As its fate and its family have something to do with my tale, I shall describe it somewhat particularly. In the basement there was an offshoot, or scullery, which communicated with the kitchen. This scullery had been set apart that day as the bedroom of my little dog. (Of course I knew nothing of this, and what I am about to relate, at ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the dog and the man. The dog was given me by a friend who was dog-mad, and who said to me the puppy would develop into a marvel of his kind, so long a pedigree he had. I relegated the puppy to the servants and the basement, and forgot him. The man came in the form of an accidental new friend, an old friend of my wife, as subsequently developed. I invited him to my house, and he came often. I liked to have him there. I wanted ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... families. The majority of them cannot find individual rooms. Many are crowded into the same room, therefore, and too many into the same bed. Sometimes as many as four and five sleep in one bed, and that may be placed in the basement, dining-room or kitchen where there is neither adequate light nor air. In some cases men who work during the night sleep by day in beds used by others during the night. Some of their houses have no ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... thousands, and I put every cent of it in electric lights, cayenne pepper, gold-leaf, and garlic. I got a Spanish-speaking force of employees and a string band; and there was talk going round of a cockfight in the basement every Sunday. Maybe I didn't catch the nut-brown gang! From Havana to Patagonia the Don Senors knew about the Brunswick. We get the highfliers from Cuba and Mexico and the couple of Americas farther ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... mention to them of the message the Lord was trusting me to give, nor did I know how he would have it delivered. My soul was heavily burdened, and a great fear took possession of me, as I entered the basement of that church, which was soon filled with members and pastors representing the various denominations, also many of the mission attendants. The subject I well remember—"The Forgiving Spirit." It was beautifully discussed and handled, causing me to think ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... he said; "yet by means of this simple device The Gables had been emptied of occupant after occupant. There was small chance of the trick being detected, for, as I have said, there was absolutely no aperture from roof to basement by means of which one of them could have escaped ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... It was then a boy's school, and the big garden used to echo with shouts and laughter on summer evenings. The bell-tower is the most ancient part of the building, and according to local tradition, a subterranean passage leads from the cellarage in the basement to the church on the hillside above. The story is likely enough to be correct; for a passage of some kind there certainly is, and it leads apparently in the direction of the church. A working-man who, with some three or four others, had once ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... his periscope. Now is the time for Blinks to watch out. If he relaxes his vigilance for a moment he'll be torpedoed as he sits, and sent flying, whiskey and soda and all, through the roof of the club, while Jinks dives into the basement. ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... idiot," Corrie snapped impatiently. "Why didn't you do as I told you? Open the basement door, won't you, Gerard, while I bring him? We'll be sure to find a fire there. Are you going to ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... second building, reared on the ruins of the first, was destroyed by an earthquake; but a third, the colonial castle and residence of the governors, stands to this day. It crowns the summit of the rock, is one hundred and forty feet in length, seventy feet in depth, two stories with basement and attic, and has a lookout that commands one of the most romantic and picturesque combinations of land and ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... manors and abbeys of this region. And he was, moreover, the product of a soil into which a great deal of history had been trodden. Balzac was genuinely as well as affectedly monarchical, and he was saturated with a sense of the past. Number 39 Rue Royale—of which the basement, like all the basements in the Rue Royale, is occupied by a shop—is not shown to the public; and I know not whether tradition designates the chamber in which the author of "Le Lys dans la Vallee" opened ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... she was quite competent on our return to take the management of the girls' school. We had eight girls in the house, and a few day-scholars from the town. Lessons used to go on in a room on the basement, where of course I was superintendent, and they learnt sewing in the afternoon. Julia was a very gentle mistress, and I was feeling very happy about my girls, when I found to my sorrow that Julia had an admirer, and I must make up my mind to part with my child who ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... refrigerator is not available, it will be necessary to resort to other means of keeping milk cool. A cool cellar or basement is an excellent substitute, but if milk is kept in either of these places, it must be tightly covered. Then, too, the spring house with its stream of running water is fully as good as a refrigerator And is used extensively in farming districts. But even though a ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... without knowing anything of the technical terms of the noble game of football, instinctively realized that Jack and Tommy were having a "scrimmage." That is to say, she was confronted with a structure made up as follows: basement, the ball; first story, Tommy, with his small and tender stomach placed directly over the ball; second story and roof, Jack, lying stomach upward and wiggling, his back accurately registered on Tommy's back, to the ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... more especially under the Chancel and sometimes used for burial. The word is sometimes given to the basement of a ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... is not only a locality, you understand, it is a point of view. It reaches out imperiously and fastens on what it will. The Brevoort basement—after ten o'clock at night—is the Village. So is the Lafayette on occasion. During the day they are delightful French hostelries catering to all the world who like heavenly things to eat and the right atmosphere in which to eat them. But as the magic hour ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... to leave the room to go about her duties, she remarked that dinner would be served at six o'clock, and that Mona was to come down to the basement to ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... should be a receiving or packing room, where boxes and parcels of books are opened and books mended, collated, and prepared for the shelves. This room may well be in a dry and well lighted basement. Two small cloak-rooms for wraps will be needed, one for each sex. Two toilet rooms or lavatories should be provided. A room for the library directors or trustees, and one for the librarian, are essential in libraries of much extent. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... rattling pace that she lost one of her slippers, the prettiest thing that ever was seen. The servant being unable to catch the coach, which flew like a bird, picked up the slipper, and carrying it to the King told him all that happened. Whereupon the King, taking it in his hand, said, "If the basement, indeed, is so beautiful, what must the building be. You who until now were the prison of a white foot are now the fetter of an ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... Music—wild, intoxicating music made by troubadours direct from a rear basement room in Elysium—set her thoughts to dancing. Here was a world never before penetrated by her warmest imagination or any of the lines controlled by Harriman. With the Green Mountains' external calm upon her she sat, her soul flaming in her with the fire ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... composed of 28 coupled corinthian columns has the most splendid effect, the basement story being perfectly simple, whilst the central mass of the building which forms the gateway is crowned by a pediment of stones, each 52 feet in length and three in thickness; all is vast, all is grand about this noble front, which is justly ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... "What do you require?" but with a grateful glance up at the first floor in remembrance of Captain R-'s examination room (how easy and delightful all that had been) he bolted down a flight leading to the basement and found himself in a place of dusk and mystery and many doors. He had been afraid of being stopped by some rule of no-admittance. However he ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... creature stirred to go or come, No face looked forth from shut or open casement, No chimney smoked, there was no sign of home From parapet to basement—Hood ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... at Washington and Kearny, Big John, at Merchant street between Montgomery and Sansome, Marshall's Chop House, in the old Center Market, and Johnson's Oyster House, in a basement at Clay and Leidesdorff streets, were all noted places and much patronized, the latter laying the foundation of one of San Francisco's "First Families." Martin's was much patronized by the Old Comstock crowd, and this was the ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... to the left instead of to the right, past my suite of sitting-rooms where the gilding was red with blood, into that unknown wing of the castle that fronted the main road lying parallel far below. She guided me along the basement passages to which we had now descended, until we came to a little open door, through which the air blew chill and cold, bringing for the first time a sensation of life to me. The door led into a kind of cellar, through which we groped our way to an opening like window, but which, instead of ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... these sounds grew on my nerves to such an extent that, were it only to punish my cowardice, I felt I must make the 'round of the basement again, and, if anything were there, face it. And then, I would go up to my study, for I knew sleep was out of the question, with the house surrounded by creatures, half beasts, half something else, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... taxi, he veered over to Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, where he bought roses and a spray of orchids. Then, adding to his purchases a huge box of bon-bons, he set his course for the three story and basement house which he ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... sentence, for the flames, gathering headway with wild rapidity, had burst-up some part of the liquor den at the basement and went roaring up the staircase, sending dense clouds ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... sweetness was heightened in the daughter, Louise. She had been born in Chicago, in the first years of the Hitchcock fight. She remembered the time when the billiard-room chairs were quite the most noted possessions in the basement and three-story brick house on West Adams Street. She had followed the chairs in the course of the Hitchcock evolution until her aunt had insisted on her being sent east to the Beaumanor Park School. Two years of "refined influences" in this famous establishment, with a dozen ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... a large basement, and the candle was not sufficient to light its more remote corners. They passed a huge dark furnace with its arms stretching out on all sides like a spider's legs. In front of it was a ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... rushed down a flight of back stairs that led into a coal cellar. With coal shovels and bars, anything they could lay hands on, they attacked the door that opened forward from the coal cellar into the front basement where ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... combined parts of frisky matron and society beauty—an intoxicating experience; while the supporter of that proud position played the humble role of chief comer-stone, unseen and unconsidered in the basement of the fabric. He attended to his investments and increasing infirmities, and made secret visits to a married daughter (wife of a big hotel-keeper), who hated her young step-mother, and whose ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... gazing at the house. It was one in a row of old-fashioned, shabby brick buildings, four storeys in height. A light showed in the basement, but other windows were black. Suddenly, as Clo watched, a yellow gleam flashed in a fourth-storey room but at the same moment a man stepped to the window and pulled down a dark blind. Clo thought that this man ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... foot firmly against the curbstone and met the shock of the collision so vigorously that those who would have sent him headlong into the street were sent backward themselves, and came very near going head first down the stairs that led into a basement restaurant. ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... shot to the basement Theo noticed a change in the appearance of the factory. On every floor they passed there was a hum of machinery and a glimpse of endless rows of china dishes; they stood on shelves; they covered tables; they were stacked one within another ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... of the Palacepaintings, statues, tapestries, rare porcelains and armorie,had been transferred to Moscow during the month of September; and they were still in good order in the basement of the Imperial Palace there ten days after the capture of the Kremlin by Bolshevik troops. I can ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... school liked the little British church at Fossato. It was so utterly different from anything to which they had been accustomed in England or America. To begin with it was not an ecclesiastical building at all, but simply a big room in the basement of the Hotel Anglais. The walls had been exquisitely decorated by a French artist with conventionalized designs of iris in purple and gold, and through the windows there was a gorgeous peep over the bay. The girls used to exercise much ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... for colored children, No. 1, is in the basement of a church on 15th street, near 7th avenue, in a good location, but premises too small for the attendance; no recitation rooms, and is perforce both primary and grammar school, to the injury of ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... Professor Darlington Ruggles made his way to another part of the city, not far from the river, and met a man in a dingy basement room at the rear of ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... fared with the paternal windmill. Time had, of course, wrought many changes both outside and in, but it still remained perched grimly on its pedestal, but now entirely abandoned to the bats and owls. The sails were gone, and the woodwork was slowly crumbling away; but the basement being of hewn granite, it was still in a tolerable state of preservation. The place, however, was said to be haunted; exactly at twelve o'clock at night dismal howls were heard by the villagers to issue from the mill. According to the blacksmith, who was a great authority in such matters, ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... ordered, and, with the Apache chief's revolver prodding him in the back, left the room. At a command he went down the stairs to the basement. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... French window of her bedroom, Eleanor called down to old Calamity's room below. To her surprise, the half-breed woman on the instant poked her head above the balcony railing of the basement quarters. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... reluctantly, as it were. At about five there is a sort of stir, not unlike the stir in a theatre when the curtain is on the point of falling. Ledgers are closed with a bang. Men stand about and talk for a moment or two before going to the basement for their hats and coats. Then, at irregular intervals, forms pass down the central aisle and out through the swing doors. There is an air of relaxation over the place, though some departments are still working ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... again at the respect for her own importance which was implied in Walden's last sentence, and slowly sidled out, the 'Passon' watching her with a smile as she trotted down the passage from his study to a door which led to the kitchen and basement. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... well-kept city park, or it may be one of those smaller but "snug as a bug in a rug" apartments, in another part of the city, where usually there is a sunny back porch; or again some of my readers may themselves be, or their friends may be, in a darkened basement with broken windows, illy ventilated rooms, with no porches, no yards, no bright rays to be seen coming in through windows—and yet into all of these varied homes there come little babies—sweet, charming little babies, to be cared for, dressed, fed, and reared. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... century underwent in subsequent ages so many modifications and additions with a view more to the comfort of the dwellers therein than to their protection from enemies, that in course of time little of the mediaeval buildings remained besides the great hall, the basement, and the keep. These became jumbled up with late Gothic and ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... jar and straighten my cramped arms when I had the opportunity. I had expected my family to be delighted over my treasure, but they exhibited an astonishing indifference, and were far more concerned over the state of my blistered face. I would not hear of putting my Half-luna on the basement screen as they suggested, but enthroned it in state on the best lace curtains at a parlour window, covered the sill with leaves and flowers, and went to bed happy. The following morning my sisters said a curtain was ruined, and when they removed it to attempt restoration, ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... been examined and a tag put on me stating what sort of treatment I was to have, I was taken away with half a dozen others and led down a narrow stone stair to a basement. Here on the cement floor were piles of straw, and the place was heated. The walls were dirty and discolored. One of the few pleasant recollections of my life in Germany has been the feeling of drowsy content that wrapped ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... dressing, said he was tired of seeing her cleaning the room; she seemed to think that that was all he needed—a nurse and a servant, since she never troubled to make herself attractive to him. Several times, coming from doing her cooking in the basement, she found Mr. King slinking along the top landing, but did not associate him with Louis. Several times she thought she smelt whisky, but told herself angrily that she was dreaming. Then, one day, coming ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... the window covering the same is an iron guard such as is used in New York on the lower back windows. The rods running up and down are about four inches apart. There is a projection outside the window such as would be formed by a storm door in the basement; running the full length of the window and about thirty inches wide, raised about a foot from the floor in front and about nine inches in the back, there is opening inward a door at left back, leading into a small alcove, as has been mentioned ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... pipe; that is, the pipes, both suction and discharge, leading to No. 1 condenser are simply branches from No. 2, which was installed first without consideration for a second unit. When No. 1 was installed there was a row of columns from the basement floor to the main floor extending in a plane which came directly in front of the condenser. The column P shown in the plan was so located as to prevent a direct connection between the centrifugal circulating ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... the workman. In consequence of this, he set up the brazen statue of Athene the Healer, near the old altar in the Acropolis. The golden statue of the goddess was made by Phidias, and his name appears upon the basement in the inscription. Almost everything was in his hands, and he gave his orders to all the workmen—as has been said before—because of his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... its flatness, otherwise unbroken except by the deep reveals of window and door. Two huge and unsymmetrical catalpa trees stood sentinels before it, dividing curb from asphalt; and from the centres of the shrivelled, brown grass-plots flanking the stoop under the basement windows two aged Rose-of-Sharon trees bristled naked to the height of the white marble capitals of the flaking pillars supporting the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... paper; and corresponded well with the appearance of the herald who conveyed it. Provided with this, the young woman set out; as she approached the Castle, she waived the summons over her head several times, and drawing near one of the windows on the basement story, made herself heard. She was received by the officers with boisterous mirth; they assured her that they should soon visit the village, and her master's house, again, and drive away the Highlanders. But, when entreated by the girl to take her into Sir Andrew's presence, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... box. It was marked five and sixpence. It seemed to comprise everything needed for the production of the most entrancing and majestic architectural views, and as Edwin took out its upper case and discovered still further marvellous devices and apparatus in its basement beneath, he dimly but passionately saw, in his heart, bright masterpieces that ought to be the fruit of that box. There was a key to it. He must have it. He would have given all that he possessed for ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... this information and intricate instructions concerning street cars (a child once burned dreads a taxi), Winifred started out soon after her own midday meal, eaten in a basement dining-room. ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... a shoe-shining parlour in the basement. At the Cosmopolis shoes left outside bedroom doors are ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... the basement or inner corridor of any large building; the basement of a private home; a subway or tunnel; or even a backyard trench with some kind of shielding material (heavy lumber, earth, bricks, ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense
... half an hour and we—I've only been in the basement. That's why our tours of inspection didn't bring us together sooner. I've been cross-examining the furnace. Do you understand furnaces? (He sits down beside her) ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... modern surface. The southern wall of the presbytery is almost entirely concealed by the eighteenth century chapter room, with its plain, square-headed, sashed windows. The clerestory, however, which is like that on the north side, appears over the red-tiled roof of that modern structure. In the basement on this side some windows have quite recently been inserted, to light the new vestries in the crypt, and a door opens into the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... mainly about the treasonable plot to blow up Parliament, by mining through to its lowest floor, or basement, from an adjacent house. This plot was hatched by a number of Catholic gentlemen, and was quite ingenious. These people came from a wide area of England, and numbered about thirty. One point of interest to your reviewer is that ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... had been brought from Quebec, and no one was permitted to see their work nor to learn what they were doing. Their work was to be in the basement, which had been excavated ten feet deep, the massive walls reaching down until they rested upon solid rock. The building was seventy-five feet square. A furnace occupied the center of the basement. Next, in front, was ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... said. "Come." She led him down rough wooden cellar stairs to a basement, unfastened with pale and dexterous fingers a padlocked wooden door behind the big old-fashioned furnace with its up-curving stovepipe arms, under which he had to stoop ...
— A World Apart • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... show its inaccuracy and its erroneousness, but we cannot judge of the Christian teaching without mastering this view of life. Still less can one criticise a subject on a higher plane from a lower point of view. From the basement one cannot judge of the effect of the spire. But this is just what the learned critics of the day try to do. For they share the erroneous idea of the orthodox believers that they are in possession of certain infallible ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... time Raphael was thirty-one he was a rich man, and had built himself a beautiful house near the Vatican, on the Via di Borgo Nuova. Naught remains of that dwelling except an angle of the right basement, which has been made a part of the Accoramboni Palace. His friends wished him above all things to marry, but he was still true to Margherita though he had become engaged to the daughter of his nephew. He put the marriage off year after year, till finally the lady he was ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... more in that meeting than a stranger would have known of. In the splendid dining room where we sat, which was forty feet in length and floored with tiles of Italian marble, as was the entire large basement, it was impossible not to notice the unpainted casing of one side of a window, and also the two immense patches of common gray plaster on the beautifully frescoed walls, which covered holes made by a piece of shell that ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... of the house, which has been repaired and redecorated inside on Laura's account. My two rooms, and all the good bedrooms besides, are on the first floor, and the basement contains a drawing-room, a dining-room, a morning-room, a library, and a pretty little boudoir for Laura, all very nicely ornamented in the bright modern way, and all very elegantly furnished with the delightful modern ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... struck the door of the very mountain. And no one came. And then Rodriguez saw dimly in the darkness the great handle of a bell, carved like a dragon running down the wall: he pulled it and a cry of pain arose from the basement of ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... was the nearer and most vigorous. Nor could they be stopt from climbing up the contiguous buildings, which being raised high under the idea of undisturbed peace, reach the basement of the Capitol. Here a doubt exists whether the fire was thrown upon the roofs by the storming party or the besieged, the latter being more generally supposed to have done it, to repulse those who were climbing up, and had advanced ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... that leads to the composing room, and then to the basement where the presses are located, the chief runs. He sets about his work with a calmness and speed that is remarkable. The first page is put on the composing table and the form opened. The head lines are removed and the copy that the editor is turning out a dozen words at a time on a page, ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... that he felt bound to make representations to my wife and daughters: positively, it would be better for them to get a new one, of a tempting pattern, which he showed them, than to try to do anything with that. With a stitch or so here and there it might do for a basement dining-room; but, for a parlor, he gave it as his disinterested opinion,—he must say, if the case were his own, he should get, etc., etc. In short, we had a new sofa and new chairs, and the plants ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... here, a prisoner, for two years. Thousands of dollars were expended without avail, and How Wan was deported. Nothing daunted, they accompanied her as far as Japan, and returned with her, secured a license and landed her as a merchant's wife. She lived with the family in a dark basement on Sacramento street, where the mother-in-law abused her with such cruelty that, shrinking girl as she is, she found courage to send word to us if we did not come to her rescue she must relieve herself by suicide—the Chinese woman's only hope. We began at once to plan to get her ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... messenger to the east end of the courtyard, where a broad flight of steps led up to the doorway of the main hall, the outer wall of which is washed by the waters of the Avon. As designed at first, no dwelling had been allotted to the lord of the castle and his family but the dark and dismal basement story of the keep. A more civilized or more effeminate generation, however, had refused to be pent up in such a cellar, and the hall with its neighboring chambers had been added for their accommodation. Up the broad steps Alleyne went, still following his boyish guide, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... basement room under the engine-house. There were four cells, about four by eight, and into one of these Walter was put. The cell opposite was occupied by a drunken tramp, who looked up stupidly as Walter entered, and hiccoughed: "Glad to ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... the kitchen then he rushed, And in the basement dove, Long strived he for to turn the plugs, But all in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... of course," replied Erlingsen. "Long before you came,—from the time the new church was begun, we meant it should have a handsome pulpit. Six of us, within a round of twenty miles, undertook the six sides; and Rolf has great hopes of having the basement allotted to him afterwards. The best workman is to do the basement, and I think Rolf bids fair to be the one. This is good ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... take care to grow wiser and wiser) Midas had got to be so exceedingly unreasonable that he could scarcely bear to see or touch any object that was not gold. He made it his custom, therefore, to pass a large portion of every day in a dark and dreary apartment, underground, at the basement of the palace. It was here that he kept his wealth. To this dismal hole "for it was little better than a dungeon" Midas betook himself whenever he wanted to be particularly happy. Here, after carefully ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... said that the modest President shrank from receiving such a compliment as that. It was too much. He hid away the stone in a storeroom of the capital, in the basement of the White House. It now constitutes a part of his monument, being one of the most impressive relics in the Memorial Hall of that structure. It is twenty-four hundred years old, and it traveled across the world to the prairies of Illinois, a tribute from the first advocate ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... should flow into the kitchen, bathroom, and barn. The barn was on a knoll, so that its floor was almost as high as the roof of the house. Which would have been the best place for the tank: high up on the windmill (which stood on the knoll by the barn), or the basement of the house, or the attic ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... women looked at each other oddly. "Try the basement door," said Anne to the man. They stood at the top of the steps while the footman tried the iron gate that barred the way to the ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... were not the feature of the Hall that one might expect. They were confined to a small wing in the rear, or the basement, and there were no laboratories or other paraphernalia of modern education. The long drawing-room, with its recessed windows facing the river, was hung with "old masters"—a few faded American protraits and some recent ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... looked out. It was at least a twelve-foot drop to the flagged pavement of the court. That might be managed with the help of the bed-clothes, but there remained the high wall and the threatening iron spikes. Below her, she could see that a small door opened from the court into the basement of the house, but it had no ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... pause again till he arrived opposite a long, low, gabled house, evidently one of the oldest buildings in the place, though brightly painted and whitewashed, to look as new and unpicturesque as possible. The basement story was divided into two shops; which, however, proclaimed themselves as belonging now, and having belonged also in former days, to one and the same family. Over the larger of the two was painted in letters of ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... indeed, in a castle in the air, until we unwisely insist on meeting him among the sordid lanes and alleys of lower earth. The portion of the edifice with which Shakespeare had anything to do is hardly large enough, in the basement, to contain the butcher's stall that one of his descendants kept, and that still remains there, windowless, with the cleaver-cuts in its hacked counter, which projects into the street under a little penthouse-roof, as if ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was engaged to Andrey Andreitch, the young man who was standing on the other side of the window; she liked him, the wedding was already fixed for July 7, and yet there was no joy in her heart, she was sleeping badly, her spirits drooped. . . . She could hear from the open windows of the basement where the kitchen was the hurrying servants, the clatter of knives, the banging of the swing door; there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled cherries, and for some reason it seemed to her that it would be like that ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... doubt it, let us descend the adjacent ravine, formed as if some giant hand had rent the firm cliff from crown to basement; stand we now at its upper entrance, where it slopes away to the table-land behind,—didst ever see a sight more wildly beautiful? The grim and frowning buttresses on either hand, too steep for even the snow-flake to rest upon, whilst ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... pedestrian may walk half a mile at midday without meeting a single soul in the streets. A dead silence reigns over these deserted quarters, as if the prevailing lethargy had fallen upon the few inhabitants that remain. Grass grows on the sidewalks, and the basement walls of the houses are covered with moss. A dank, chilly mildew seems to hang in the air. One might become green all over, like a neglected tomb-stone, should he forget himself and stand too long in one spot. I spent ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... for the librarian, for apparatus, and also another large theatre. The ground-floor consists of rooms for lectures, the Professor's offices, laboratory, museum, a spacious cloister 213 feet by 24; rooms for the anatomical school, &c. In the basement are other apartments for the anatomical schools, for the chemical laboratory, the students' common room, kitchen, stewards' room, refreshment rooms, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... twenty minutes past two and left it again at twenty-three minutes past; for, directly he entered, the hall porter had handed him a telephone message. The telephone attendants at London clubs are masters of suggestive brevity. The one in the basement of Brown's had written on Bill's slip of paper the words: '1 p.m. Will Lord Dawlish as soon as possible call upon Mr Gerald Nichols at his office?' To this was appended a message consisting of two ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... as her burden would let her, the old washerwoman passed through the crowd into a broad street and rang the basement bell ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... prisoners. The turnkey, the same who on Aramis' first arrival had shown himself so inquisitive and curious, had now become not only silent, but even impassible. He held his head down, and seemed afraid to keep his ears open. In this wise they reached the basement of the Bertaudiere, the two first stories of which were mounted silently and somewhat slowly; for Baisemeaux, though far from disobeying, was far from exhibiting any eagerness to obey. On arriving at the door, Baisemeaux showed ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... secretary, but Bob Curran said to bring them uptown too and it would be all right. We had planned to have an oyster supper for the Prince at Jim Smith's hotel and then take him either to the Y.M.C.A. Pool Room or else over to the tea social in the basement of ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... yet received the supply of winter coal and was almost empty. He stepped out of it into a part of the basement which had been used apparently for storing articles not worth keeping, but too good to be thrown away—an American habit of thrift. Several decrepit chairs and rickety cabinets and old console tables were piled together in a tangled mass. Ronicky looked at them with an unaccountable shudder, ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... lavatory, powder room; john, jakes, necessary, loo; [in public places] men's room, ladies' room, rest room; [fixtures: see 653 (uncleanness)]. attic, loft, garret, cockloft, clerestory; cellar, vault, hold, cockpit; cubbyhole; cook house; entre-sol; mezzanine floor; ground floor, rez-de-chaussee; basement, kitchen, pantry, bawarchi-khana, scullery, offices; storeroom &c. (depository) 636; lumber room; dairy, laundry. coach house; garage; hangar; outhouse; penthouse; lean-to. portico, porch, stoop, stope, veranda, patio, lanai, terrace, deck; lobby, court, courtyard, hall, vestibule, corridor, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... ruinous and drear, He roamed, constrained to bitter self-effacement, Until one midnight his enraptured ear Detected mortal accents in the basement. Downstairs he crept; beside the cheerless grate Sat four or five ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... monument is beautifully laid out as an ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and shrubbery, all tended with loving care. The monument stands on an elevated site, and consists of a massive basement-story, three-sided, above which rises a light and elegant Grecian temple,—a mere dome, supported on Corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. The edifice is beautiful in itself; though I know not what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the scrubbing of sixty years. On the relations between masters and servants Thackeray was never more severe than in this book; he is irritated by the marching in of the household brigade to family prayers, and he declares that we 'know no more of that race which inhabits the basement floor, than of the men and brethren of Timbuctoo, to whom some among us send missionaries'—a monstrous imputation. He constantly resumes the moralising attitude; and his pungent persiflage is poured ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... flashing on the lawn, dripping over the concrete pavement and filling the air with a damp coolness. No one was visible and, leaving his hat and coat on a chair in an airy hall furnished in black wicker and flowery chintz hangings on buff walls, he descended to the basement dressing rooms. ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... said Sh! Sh! if you ventured to meddle with any question supposed to involve a doubt of the generally accepted Hebrew traditions. To-day such questions are recognized as perfectly fair subjects for general conversation; not in the basement story, perhaps, or among the rank and file of the curbstone congregations, but among intelligent and educated persons. You may preach about them in your pulpit, you may lecture about them, you may talk about them with the first sensible-looking ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... illumination of the windows tonight. From roof to basement not a light twinkled in any part of the great building. Its huge mass loomed up dark and sullen amid the trees which surrounded it, looking more like some giant sarcophagus than ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... foolish, unless they take care to grow wiser and wiser) Midas had got to be so exceedingly unreasonable, that he could scarcely bear to see or touch any object that was not gold. He made it his custom, therefore, to pass a large portion of every day in a dark and dreary apartment, under ground, at the basement of his palace. It was here that he kept his wealth. To this dismal hole—for it was little better than a dungeon—Midas betook himself, whenever he ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... evidently frightened into an abject terror. He had stolen a bill introduced by Senator Bucklin, providing that cities could own their own water works and gas works; but the Senator's wife had been watching him; she had followed him to the basement and stopped him as he tried to escape to the street; and it was the Senator now who had him ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... with Philip, whose acquaintance he had made at the common table in the basement, who appeared to be free of the world of letters and art. He was an alert, compact, neatly dressed little fellow, who had apparently improved every one of his twenty-eight years in the study of life, in gaining assurance and confidence in himself, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... by dwelling upon what is itself debasing, but to let its lower faculties have a chance to air and exercise themselves. After the first and second floor have been out in the bright street dressed in all their splendors, shall not our humble friends in the basement have their holiday, and the cotton velvet and the thin-skinned jewelry—simple adornments, but befitting the station of those who wear them—show themselves to the crowd, who think them beautiful, as they ought to, though the people up stairs ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... terrace before the garage. The square grim back of the big house didn't so much "look down on him" as beautifully ignore him. A maid in a cap peeped wonderingly at him from a window. A man in dun livery wheeled a vacuum cleaner out of an unexpected basement door. An under-gardener, appearing at the corner, dragging a cultivator, stared at him. Far off, somewhere, he heard a voice crying, "Fif' love!" He could see a corner of a sunken garden with stiff borders of box. ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... afternoon there was a conversazione, or reception, for the lunchers and also for the outer fringe of the city's solid respectability. The whole of the town hall from basement to roof was open to view, and citizens of all ages wandered in it everywhere, admiring it, quizzing it, and feeling proudly that it was theirs. George too wandered about, feeling that it was his. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... made of glass and iron, and filled from basement to roof with beautiful suits of clothing of all kinds," said Fritz delightedly. "A man could go in there in a morning-gown, and come out in a quarter of an hour dressed like a gentleman from head to foot. Father told me of a splendid clothing-house here in Frankfort, and ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... house, placing themselves in the angle of an outhouse out of sight from the windows. There was no sound, and no light appeared. Just above the ground about a foot of window was visible, with a grating over it, apparently lighting a basement. Suddenly Hewitt touched his companion's arm and pointed toward the window. A faint rustling sound was perceptible, and, as nearly as could be discerned in the darkness, some white blind or covering was placed over the glass from the inside. Then came the sound ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... the upper floors are quite as desirable as those lower down. The dining-rooms for gentlemen, as well as those for ladies, are located in the basement, which is reached either by stairways or by the elevator. The kitchen, store-rooms, chill-rooms, pantries, and all culinary arrangements are ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... year before the war, upon their brother's advice, and going halves with him, paying a sum of forty-seven thousand francs, every thing included. It was a capital bargain; for they rented out the basement and the first story to the first grocer in Sauveterre. The sisters did not think they were imprudent in paying down ten thousand francs in cash, and in binding themselves to pay the rest in three yearly instalments. The first year all went well; but ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... only in his shirt, who was wandering about the centre of the yard, said that they were in No. 30. The young man decided that this was the most probable report, and conducted me to No. 30 through the basement entrance, and darkness and bad smells, different from that which existed outside. We went down-stairs, and proceeded along the earthen floor of a dark corridor. As we were passing along the corridor, a door flew open abruptly, and an old drunken ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... inconvenience of removing the battery from his laboratory, Dr. de la Rue, despite the great expenditure, directed Mr. S. Tisley to prepare, expressly for the lecture, a second series of 14,400 cells, and fit it up in the basement of the Royal Institution. The construction of this new battery occupied Mr. Tisley a whole year, while the charging of it extended over ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... refined will be useful and happy. There is no gate that a gentleman's hand cannot open. During his last sickness there will be a timid knock at the basement door by those who have come to ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... spoons—these are of little real value. Formerly, however, every man kept all his money—all his wealth—in his own house; if he was a rich merchant he had a stone safe or strong box constructed in the wall of his cellar or basement—I have seen such a safe in an old house pulled down about seven years ago. If he was only a small trader or craftsman he kept his money in a box: this he hid: there were various hiding places: behind the bed, under the hearthstone—but they ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... From the basement to the roof it was literally covered with foliage. A confused mass of orchids, bromelias, and climbing plants, all in flower, rooted in boxes of excellent soil hidden beneath masses of verdure. The trunk of some ficus or mimosa was never covered by a more ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne |
