"Billet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opinion, and was glad to take the Marquis' place and give her countenance to one of her husband's relations. She meant to be ostentatiously gracious, so as to put her husband more evidently in the wrong; and that very day she wrote, "Mme. de Bargeton nee Negrepelisse" a charming billet, one of the prettily worded compositions of which time alone ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... delicately expressing her sense of obligation to him, and concluding with the hope that she might soon have it in her power to do something towards alleviating his present situation. Having signed, sealed, and superscribed the billet, she rose and stood some ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... hand, regards a knowledge of French as immoral and only knows enough of it to order himself a drink. He is also gifted with a slight stutter, which under the stress of a foreign language becomes chronic. So when we evacuate a billet William furnishes the Babe with enough money to compensate the farmer for all damages we have not committed, and then effaces himself. Donning a bright smile the Babe approaches the farmer and presses the lucre into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... fine specimen of Norman work. The arch is of four orders supported by nook-shafts with plain cushion-capitals. The innermost order has a very uncommon moulding—large chevrons with a fleur-de-lis in the angles. The outermost order has a double zigzag moulding, and a double-billet hood moulding surrounds the whole arch. The other archway at the west end, called the Bishop's door, is an insertion of the thirteenth century, with bold ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... Beginning of August, a few Men were taken ill of the same Fever at Munster, in one of the Hospitals which was too much crowded; but its further Progress was stopped by sending a Number of recovered Men to Billet. ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... protesting against the idea that any apology had been due. There was but one line which could be considered even mildly significant. "The little net," wrote Blakely, "has now a value that it never had before." Yet Angela was snuggling that otherwise unimportant billet to her cheek when the creaking stairway told her portentously of a solemn coming. Ten minutes more and the note was lying neglected on the bureau, and Angela stood at her window, gazing out over dreary miles of almost desert landscape, of rock ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... it may be necessary to release it quickly is the "Lark's Head" (Fig. 30). To make this tie, pass a bight of your rope through the ring, or other object, to which you are making fast and then pass a marline-spike, a billet of wood, or any similar object through the sides of the bight and under or behind the standing part, as shown in A, Fig. 30. The end of the rope may then be laid over and under the standing part and back over itself. This knot may be instantly released by merely pulling ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... and led the way into the kitchen. The fire that had been used to prepare the evening meal was nearly out; Mathews raked the ashes together and threw a fresh billet into the grate; then reaching from a small cupboard a bottle and a glass, he drew a small table between them, and stretching his legs towards the cheering blaze he handed a glass of ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Palumbus [519], he said, "He would give them one when he could catch it." The following was well-intended, and well-timed; having, amidst great applause, spared a gladiator, on the intercession of his four sons, he sent a billet immediately round the theatre, to remind the people, "how much it behoved them to get children, since they had before them an example how useful they had been in procuring favour and security for a gladiator." He likewise represented in the Campus Martius, the assault and sacking of a town, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... could make poisons too, as well as antidotes; and said I to myself, 'Maybe that little dagger in the cathedral was specially prepared, eh?' Which would account for Carmona hurrying off to Granada after it had found the wrong billet. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the other, who was right in his way, he raised his revolver, waited till he was as close as he was likely to get, and then at intervals fired three shots, the little bullets whizzing through the clear morning air, and the last, to the boy's surprise and delight, finding its billet with a ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... the release of the cords had caused the aide to fall forward out of the chair; but he instantly scrambled to his feet, and without so much as a glance behind him, seized the billet from the hands of the cook and sprang toward the doorway, reaching it at the moment the dragoon turned about to learn the cause of the sudden commotion. Bringing the log down with crushing force on the man's head, Jack stooped as the man plunged' forward, possessed himself of his sabre, caught ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... of his prescription, replete as it is with a disgusting repetition of low expressions: but I could not but, in justice to myself, point out to him the passages in my case which he had overlooked. Accordingly, having marked them with letters, I sent it back, with the following billet. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... astounded that evening, just as he was speculating on the reason of Heathcote's non-appearance, to see Coote's round head suddenly thrust in at the door, and a small billet tossed ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... Morton took the billet, and crimsoning up to the ears, between joy and surprise, read these words: "If you can serve these poor helpless people, you will oblige ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a rare lark that night, partly with Biggs, his lordship's chauffeur, and partly with a motor expert who came along on a bicycle, and said he'd have my Renault going in twenty minutes. I'm not one that can stand a billet in servants' quarters, and I chose rather to put up at the little inn down by the bay and take my luck there. It was here that Biggs came after supper, and he and the motor expert got going on my ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... there frightfully mutilated, and the knife with which her wounds had been inflicted still sticking in her side. The two girls Julia and Emma, who had recovered sufficiently to be able to talk yesterday morning, declare that their father knocked them down with a billet of wood and stamped on them. They think they were the first attacked. They further state that Hopkins had shown evidence of derangement all day, but had exhibited no violence. He flew into a passion and attempted to murder ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... this chance and made the best of my way back home, there was the possibility that I might be out of employment for a considerable period, while at best I could hope for nothing better than another billet as fourth officer in a Planet boat. In fine, the more I considered the boatswain's proposal, the better I liked it; but at the same time some inward monitor whispered that it would be wise not to manifest too keen a readiness to fall in with the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... doorway, which remains intact, is a fair specimen of the rich mode of decoration so prevalent in that age. It must be considered rather as a continental than as an English example. Had it been executed by native artists we should not entirely miss the billet moulding which was so favourite a mode of decoration with all the nations of the north." Kugler, the great art historian, also thinks it continental in style, and compares it with the architecture of the south-west of France. We even find it spoken of, on account of the richness ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... we halted, glad to rest our weary feet—I, especially. I cannot say that my leg hurt me, but my feet! I had never undergone such fatigue. With our billet for lodging we had the right to a corner of the fire, but our hosts also gave us a place at the table. We had nearly always buttermilk and potatoes, and often fresh cheese or a dish of sauerkraut. The children came to look at us, and the old women asked us from what place we came, and ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... should pass sentence on every single person who had stayed behind at Rome, or who had been within Pompey's garrisons and had not contributed their assistance in the military operations; that by the first billet they should-have power to acquit, by the second to pass sentence of death, and by the third to impose a pecuniary fine. In short, Pompey's whole army talked of nothing but the honours or sums of money which were to be ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... the twitching eyebrows of old Stroud; he saw at once how it must annoy a man who had a billet in the "Woods and Forests," and plenty of time for "bridge" and gossip at his club, to see these people with untidy lives. A minute later the man with the "game leg" passed close behind his chair, and Shelton perceived at once how intelligible the resentment ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... realized that he had no chance of escape, but he meant to give them all he could before the end came. One Indian raised a queer old rifle at him, but he let it drop before it was discharged. Another bullet had found its billet in the pit of ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... simple-minded domestic women. The former care only to please their lovers, the latter their husbands. Neither the one nor the other, however, have any ambition beyond indulging themselves in vanities and luxuries. They only employ their pens in scribbling billet-doux or love-confessions, neither one nor other bother their brains as to how the grain grows, whilst talking about business makes their heads ache. Our women, on the contrary, whether prudes or flirts, old or young, stupid or clever, will intermeddle with everything. No honest woman," to ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Rust, with a warrant from United States Commissioner H.K. Smith, went on board the boat. Daniel was called up from below, and as his head appeared above the deck, Rust struck him a heavy blow, upon the head, with a large billet of wood, which knocked him back into the cook-room, where he fell upon the stove and was badly burned. In this state, he was brought before the Commissioner, "bleeding profusely at the back, of the head, and at the nose, and was moreover so stupefied by the assault, that he fell asleep several times ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society
... he, had not he been properly prepared by Mademoiselle—she had, before M. de Connal went to Corny, sent him a little billet, which told him the test that would be proposed, and thus prevented all possibility of her dear niece's being disappointed in her lover ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the Queen's Attendants, tho' it was Dead of Night, knock'd at the Door of Zadig's Apartment, wak'd him, and deliver'd into his Hands a Billet from the Queen. At first he could not well tell whether he was only in a Dream or not, but soon read the Letter, with a trembling Hand, and a heavy Heart: Words can't express his Surprise, and the Agonies of Despair ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... upon the fire. The dense smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him. Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into the ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... bunch of sergeants nearly asphyxiated themselves before they discovered the secret of the damper in the stove. They were nearly pickled in pine smoke. And a whole company of soldiers nearly lost their billet in Kholmogori when they started up the sisters' stoves without pulling the plates off ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... "down to sleep," "down to sleep," "down to sleep," till I discovered myself, when I ceased. Then a shell, apparently just in range, dashed toward me, and the words spasmodically leaped up: "Now's your time. This is your billet." With the same insane pertinacity I continued to repeat "Now's your time, now's your time," and "billet, billet, billet," till at last I came up to the nearest battery, where I could look over the crest of the hill; and as if I had looked into ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... captain, pushing him to the window; "on the plain, near the houses of Villafranca, where there is a gleam of bayonets. There stand our troops, motionless. You are to take this billet, tie yourself to the rope, descend from the window, get down that slope in an instant, make your way across the fields, arrive at our men, and give the note to the first officer you see. Throw off your belt ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... musing, in fearful anxiety, on Wallace's solemn adieu, and the confirmation which the recitals of Grimsby and Hay had brought of his determined exile, when he was struck with a new consternation by the flight of his son. A billet, which Edwin had left with Scrymgeour, who guessed not its contents, told his father that he was gone to seek their friend, and to unite ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... hampered by a rope to its fore feet, to the which was attached a billet of wood called technically "a clog," so that it had no fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had justly provoked. But, the ass turned round with unusual nimbleness at the first stroke of the cane, the Squire caught his foot in the rope, and went head over ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... his acquaintances, all manner of shiftless or luckless fellows were in the habit of looking to him for advice and help. As soon as they found themselves adrift they turned to Gammon. Every day he had a letter asking him to find a "berth" or a "billet" for some out-at-elbows friend, and in a surprising number of cases he was able to make a useful suggestion. It would have paid him to start an employment agency; as it was, instead of receiving fees, he very often supplied his friends' immediate necessities out of his ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... Excellency's billet requesting to be informed of the amount of the bills drawn by me; as Superintendent of the Finances, on Messrs Le Couteulx & Co. of Paris, under the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long, 115 Leap'd up, and wak'd his mistress with his tongue. 'T was then, Belinda, if report say true, Thy eyes first open'd on a Billet-doux; Wounds, Charms, and Ardors were no sooner read, But all the Vision vanish'd from ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... et ecrire seulement le langage de la Republique de France—langage des Dieux et des Anges—langage, en un mot, des Francais! Hier au soir je rencontrai a l'Athenaeum Monsieur Mack Leese, qui me dit que MM. les Commissionnaires des Beaux Arts lui avaient ecrit, par leur secretaire, un billet de remerciements a propos de son tableau dans la Chambre des Deputes, et qu'ils lui avaient prie de faire l'autre tableau en fresque, dont on y a besoin. Ce qu'il a promis. Voici des nouvelles pour les champs de Lincoln's Inn! Vive la gloire de France! Vive la Republique! ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... knees and began crawling towards his countrymen like a poor, stricken dog, in the hope that they would spare him when they saw his condition. But pitilessly once more the rifles crashed out, and this time their bullets found a billet in his vital parts, for the beggar rolled over and remained motionless. There he now lies where he was shot down in the dust and dirt, and his white beard and his rotting rags seem to raise a silent and eloquent protest to high Heaven against the devilish complots ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... curious white lock (possibly from some bad cut), was always cuddled close against her shoulder, and how she loved him! But she died some months ago, and I gave up my outpost work for a time, with a year's leave, and have come to England until my next billet is fixed. We named the boy "Paul" after myself, and have given him the surname which was with difficulty made out on the brass collar of a dog which came with him—the name of "Fife," presumably that ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... which ran outside, from one fosse to the next, for we were now in the Lens coal district with mines dotted about here and there. On the other hand, we soon learnt to refrain from sleeping or showing lights in the second storey of our billet which was evidently under direct observation by the enemy, who did not take long to acquaint ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... yes, you may laugh, old chap, but I got round the R.T. officer. Christmas! you know. And I can stow it in my billet. Cheers the other fellows ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... want of money or want of admiration, to take due pains—would inevitably become a clever writer. As it is, her notes and 'jeux d'esprit' struck off 'a trait de plume,' have great point and neatness. Take the following billet, which formed the label to a closed basket, containing the ponderous present alluded ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... confiding heart. No excuse but that of indisposition could be made, under the circumstances; and, attempting to screen himself, in his own estimation, from falsehood, he assumed, in his own thoughts, a mental indisposition, while, in the billet he dispatched, he gave the idea of bodily indisposition. The night that followed was, perhaps, the most unhappy one the young man had ever spent. Days passed, and he heard nothing from Edith. He could not call to see her, for she had interdicted ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... Excellency, for disturbing you," said Paolo, producing a letter from his pouch; "but our Patron has just written to me to say that he will be here to-morrow, and desired me to lose not a moment in giving to yourself this billet, which he enclosed." ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... stiff face with an eternal grin; nay, you even committed poetry, and muffled your harsh tones into a lover's whisper to sing it yourself, so that even my mother said you were the smartest old bachelor she ever saw—a billet-doux engrossed on buckram!!!!!! [Footnote: These notes of admiration are in the original, and seem meant to express the surprise of the author at the extravagance of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... firm in town.' 'Oh, yes, he is with Barrington and Smiles, of Essex Street. He is getting on very well there, I believe. He is head of their conveyancing branch. I wish I could drop into as good a billet, Doctor. I should be very glad of a change.' So much for that business. Things are getting on pretty much the same up at the old place. Brander still comes up to his office for an hour or so every day. ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... feared. Recapture meant the destruction of his hopes, and he wanted badly to save Brick's father from paying fifteen thousand dollars to the rascally schemers. But he seemed doomed to failure. His enemy was rapidly and surely overhauling him. In desperation he picked up a short, thick billet of wood. He faced around and ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... never miss. And this I can do the day by the length, and never grow weary. Then again, for pleasaunce, my father used to put me to the cutting of light wood with an axe, not always laying it upon a block or hag-clog, but sometimes setting the billet upright and making me cut the top off with a horizontal swing of the axe. And in this I became exceedingly expert. And how difficult it is no one ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... so much that she was said to be in a fair way of solving the problem of how many sticks go to a crow's nest; criticisms of the books read by each party, and very often a reference to that celebrated billet, unfortunately delivered over night to Prince Talleyrand, informing him that his devoted friend had scarcely closed her eyes all night, and then only ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... before, to report themselves to their patron, to keep up good relations, to drink Capri wine and to join in the tarantella. They arrived late, while we were at supper; they received their welcome and their billet, and I am not sure it was not the conversation and the beautiful manners of these obscure young men that most fixed in my mind for the time the sense of the side of life that, all around, was to come out strongest. It would be artless, no ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... what on earth he finds to do, Mrs. Elliott?" said he one morning, after he had just read the hasty billet ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... donkey was hampered by a rope to its fore-feet, to the which was attached a billet of wood, called technically "a clog," so that it had no fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had justly provoked. But the ass turning round with unusual nimbleness at the first stroke of the cane, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... another before the wet season comes on, and we are drowned out of the place with rain, or rotted by fever. Take your afternoon out, Miss Clifford; every maid of all work is entitled to as much, and I am afraid that is your billet here. Only," he added, with that care for her safety which he always showed in his more temperate moods, "pray be careful, Clifford, to get back before sundown. That wall is too risky for your daughter to climb in the dusk. Call me ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... is the most prudent line of conduct for us both, at least till better days, which, I think myself now entitled to suppose, she, as well as I myself, will look forward to with pleasure. If you were surprised at reading the {p.214} important billet, you may guess how agreeably I was so at receiving it; for I had, to anticipate disappointment, struggled to suppress every rising gleam of hope; and it would be very difficult to describe the mixed feelings her letter occasioned, which, entre nous, terminated in a very hearty ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the feeling that I am living with some capricious creature who frequently growls and may possibly bite. Well, it won't be very long before I write again, and by that time I shall probably know whether I am likely to find any permanent billet here or not. I am so sorry to hear about Mrs. Swanborough's indisposition. You know that I take the deepest interest in everything that affects you. They tell me here that I am looking very fit, though I think they ought to ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... billet lay, unknown to its writer as to him, the turning-point of his life! God help us! what avail are experience, prescience, prudence, wisdom, in this world, when at every chance step the silliest trifle, the most commonplace meeting, an invitation to dinner, a turn down the wrong street, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... pocket pen, a cheap affair made of tin. I instructed him to find it, and J. B. is one of those perfect factotums who do as they are told. He has a sharp eye and no scruples, and so, owing to the fact that three other officers live in my billet, he was able to find two valuable fountain pens and one stylographic in no time. The exigencies of war necessitate some little irregularity now and then; but how, I asked him, did he justify this excess of zeal? J. B. is distinguished ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... the Squire. "I understand your wishes. I will have the steeds ready, and at early dawn we will ride forth, and leave a sweet-scented billet to thank the lady for her courtesy, and to inform her ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... that, as Don Pedro, I always lamented not having been gifted with a voice, and have even in the presence of my companions, sent a billet to brother Anselmo to serenade a lady whom I courted as Don Pedro. I do not believe until ulterior circumstances, that there was ever in the mind of any the slightest idea that, under my dissimilar habits, I was one ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hard squalls, with rain. At 3 p.m. saw something upon the Water, which must either have been a Billet of Wood or a Seal. At Noon a hard gale and Squally, which obliged us to take in the Topsails. Wind Westerly; course South 80 degrees West; distance 15 miles; latitude 37 degrees 52 minutes South, longitude ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... wrecked the people's self-reliance and initiative. As soon as a man gets out of work now his first aim is to demand that the State make him a billet. This, of course, the State cannot do, and the rejected job-seekers, who are growing in numbers daily, are like a lot of hornets round the ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... question, which, it may be remembered, had not added to the pleasure the billet had given the Marchese, had been added at the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... sorrow better dinner than she'll give you: you'll get all instantly—(To Miss GALLAGHER) And am not I telling you, Florry, that the drum-major did not come in yet at all, but went out through the town, to see and get a billet and bed for the sick ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... this matter a fair trial," he said. "The paper is spread out upon a plane surface; but the human throat is cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the circumference of which is about that of the throat. Wrap the drawing around it, and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... about these here billet ducks," said Caleb, cunningly; "I must hurry up, you see, or I shan't get ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... In making either the boards or the shakes, if it is found that the wood splinters down into the body of the log too far or into the board or shake too far, you must commence at the other end of the billet or log and split it up to meet the first split, or take hold of the split or board with your hands and deftly tear it from the log, an art which only experience can teach. I have seen two-story houses composed of nothing but a framework ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... great person at court, and much trusted by Queen Isabeau in old days. How he came to suspect me I cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledge; and this morning, as we came from mass, he took my hand into his, forced it open, and read my little billet, walking by my side all ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... billet-doux (love letter) conversazione (conversation) ad nauseam (to disgust) distingue (distinguished) ad infinitum ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... ain't it? And that was a chance shot, too, though he meant it for you. I say, sir, he won't blow up no more magazines;" and Peter made a great smudge across his moist forehead with his powder-blackened hand. For the second spear had found its billet in the chest of the Frenchman, whose sufferings were at ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... you had stuck to your husband." She seemed to be a sort of termagant, and she said nobody said that about her unless you told them. He made some insulting remark, and she made something in return to him, and he took a billet of wood and struck her on the shoulder, and he pulled a pistol and beat her with it, and she went for him to kill him. They found the man not guilty and they found her guilty, but Judge Avery set the verdict aside and ordered the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... to probe the future, instead of setting Mr. Sands to work that December afternoon, he would have paid his way to London, had a trans-Atlantic trip been made the price of being rid of him. But a Senator is not a soothsayer, and no impression of the kind once touched him. He got Mr. Sands his billet, and said it gave him pleasure to comply with the request of his young friend, Mr. Storms. To Richard, the hereafter was as opaque as it was to Senator Hanway, and, having seen his protege installed, he walked away unconscious of a morn ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... very different to those of the nave. The triforium is much larger, and the clerestory much smaller. The main arches, slightly smaller in proportion than those of the nave, are extraordinarily rich and beautiful in detail. Their mouldings are very complex and deep, and are varied with dog-tooth and billet ornament. ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if it understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram's horn. Sad however because it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping and papa's pants will soon fit Willy and fuller's earth for the baby when they hold him out to do ah ah. No soft job. Saves ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... stranger could get lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," says he, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better." He brought me to the Crooked Billet, in Water Street. Here I got a dinner; and, while I was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance that I might be some runaway. After dinner my sleepiness returned, and, being shown to a bed, I lay down without undressing, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... was overwhelmed by the full measure of all this tragic drama. The vastness and the duration of its horror appalled me. I went to my billet in an old monastery, and sat there in the darkness, my window glimmering with the faint glow of distant shell-flashes, and said, "O God, give us victory to-morrow, if that may help us to the end." Then to bed, without undressing. There was an early start before the dawn. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... upon the threshold of the "billet" (half a limber load of bricks and an angle iron) was quite sure the Salvage Company couldn't take a dog, as they had an infant wild boar and two fox cubs numbering on their strength; but he thought that he could ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... it was all lost trouble. At length he sits down at the table and begins to write, and his look brightens: 'You can help me, my good friend,' he says; 'I have a hope left—who knows—who knows,'—and he writes a few lines like an enraged and folds them and kisses the billet. 'Find means,' says he, 'Rene, to get Johnny, the Shearman boy, to take this to the old churchyard and place it in the place he knows of; or, better still, should he chance upon Miss Landale to give ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... o'er an almond bush, And ere she looked up I had read the note, And calmed my heart, that, bounding, sent a flush To brow and cheek, at sight of aught he wrote. "Ma Belle Maurine:" (so Vivian's billet ran,) "Is it not time I saw your cherished guest? 'Pity the sorrows of a poor young man,' Banished from all that makes existence blest. I'm dying to see—your friend; and I will come And pay respects, hoping you'll be at home To-night at eight. ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... carefully despatched to Stevenlaw's Land, Middlemas, with a suitable letter. Menie knew the hand-writing and watched her father's looks as he read it, thinking, perhaps, that it had turned on a different topic. Her father pshawed and poohed a good deal when he had finished the billet, and examined ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... see the West Indies? Or what more likely than that, after what has happened, the doctor has advised a sea-voyage, to soothe your mind? As for me, I am Harry's tutor; every one in Falmouth knows it, and thinks me lucky to get the billet. It won't take five minutes to explain Mr. Goodfellow here, just ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... this job's done," one of them was saying, "I'm going to look for a billet as stoker in the gas works, or sign on in one o' them factories that roll red-hot steel plates and you 'ave to wear an asbestos sack to keep yourself from firing. After this I want something as hot and as dry ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... do a good deal while the runners were going to Ranjitgarh and back. But as Antony will probably punish your misdeeds by sentencing you to stay on here and keep the peace between the rival Regents, it's just as well you didn't make yourself impossible by accepting. Can't say I envy you the billet." ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... with a string, they could walk very slowly. Every four slaves were also fastened together by a rope of twisted thongs; and during the night their hands were fettered, and sometimes a light iron chain was put round their necks. Those who betrayed any symptoms of discontent, were secured by a thick billet of wood about three feet long, which was fastened to the ankle by a strong iron staple. All these fetters were put on as soon as the slaves arrived at Kamalia, and were not taken off until the morning they set out ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the cavalry, scion of a Philadelphia family well known to the Stuyvesants of Gotham and "trotting in the same class," had come over from department head-quarters, where he had a billet as engineer officer, to call on Stuyvesant and to cheer him up and contribute to his convalescence, and did so after the manner of men, by talking on all manner of topics for nearly an hour and winding up by a dissertation on Billy Ray's pretty daughter and "Wally" Foster's infatuation. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... alarms, and the care of our wounded, had not kept better watch. Then knew I that some one had been less faithless than I, and I hoped that poor Henry was at least dying in peace; I had never deemed that he could survive. But when I saw thy billet, and heard Ferrers' tale, I had no further doubt, remembering likewise how strangely familiar was the face of ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tells of his vain vigils in front of Rosina's balcony, and, so soon as he learns that Figaro is a sort of man of all work to Bartolo, employs him as his go-between. Rosina now appears on the balcony. Almaviva is about to engage her in conversation when Bartolo appears and discovers a billet-doux which Rosina had intended to drop into the hand of her Lindoro. He demands to see it, but she explains that it is but a copy of the words of an aria from an opera entitled "The Futile Precaution," and drops it from the balcony, as if by accident. She sends ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... his injured foot was painful, moved forward a pace or two noiselessly in his soft moccasins. A billet had rolled in his direction, and swaying lithely from the waist, with his eyes fixed upon the man, he seized it. The homesteader was stooping still, and he made another pace, crouching a trifle, ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... themselves. From morning till night the most flattering testimonies of his success crowded his table from the grave tributes of the statesman and the philosopher down to (what flattered him still more) the romantic billet of some incognita, or the pressing note of invitation from some fair leader of fashion; and, in place of the desert which London had been to him but a few weeks before, he now not only saw the whole splendid interior of high life thrown open to receive him, but found himself among its ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... mark as possible. It was the first time I had "smelt powder," and as the shot began to hum past us, I must plead guilty to having at the outset experienced a certain amount of nervous trepidation. I had an idea that every shot would find its mark, that "every bullet has its billet," and I momentarily expected to feel the crushing blow which would tell me that I had been hit. But on we swept, the shot flying close over our heads, or just past us on either side, occasionally striking the water within such near proximity as to dash a ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... when Don Rafael's eye, once more alighting upon the little billet which promised to yield him a moment of sweet happiness, called the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... happened there, but I think there was an uproar; there was a wound upon his head, the first wound that he received in the house of his friends, that I saw on him a little later, and he told me he had had it on his first coming to London. It was such a wound as a flung bone or billet of wood might make. He had now the caput vulneratum, as well as the cor vulneratum [wounded head ... wounded heart.] of the true ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... brusler trois heretiques; l'ung en ce lieu et les deux autres en pays; et sont apres pour continuer contre les obstinez: dont les nobles et le peuple heretique murmure et s'altere; selon que l'ay faict entendre au roy par ung billet par escript duquel la copie va avec les presentes; et la noblesse tousjours desire d'avoir occasion d'attirer le peuple et le faire joindre a revolte avec elle; et prevoys si Dieu n'y remedie, ou que telle precipitation ne se modere, les choses ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... carried out, and after a few days the Battalion moved by a short railway journey to Estaires, where it occupied billets in the town, all the officers—except the Commanding Officer, Adjutant, Transport Officer and Capt. Cardew—being in one billet, the Convent. At this time Estaires, though a very short distance behind the ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown
... night of the Chalmetta's voyage, as Henry was about to retire, the steward handed him a note. An hour before he had struck a "fashionable" man a severe blow, and he conjectured at once that it had called forth this note. On opening the billet, his supposition proved to be correct. It was a challenge ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... you how you can do me a good turn, old man,' he says, sitting up. 'Can't you get me a billet, here? Just ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... very short range without receiving very severe punishment. I therefore exhorted our people to maintain a hot fire upon the ports of the junk, feeling-convinced that every bullet which passed through would be almost certain to find its billet in the body of a Chinaman, thus tending to flurry their gunners and possibly cause them to ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... replied young Seyton, "as when he carried the billet enclosed in the sword-sheath to Lochleven—marry, the good youth knew no more than a pack-horse what ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... read the telegram from his aunt, Lady de la Paule, his emotion was so great that he staggered a little, and a friend standing by in the billet took out his flask and gave him some brandy, thinking that he ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... terms; but were fortunately herded together again before they could strike a blow. It may have been only a slip of the tongue on the guard's part; but the canons of martial law held such "slips" to be unpardonable. The one in question lost a man his liberty for two years, and his billet ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... distinguished signature, it possessed the first essential of a superior autograph; for, although a rose under any other name may smell as sweet, yet it is clear that with regard to every thing coming from the pen, whether folio or billet doux, imaginative poem, or matter-of-fact note of hand, there is a vast deal in this important item, which is often the very life and stamina of the whole production. Then again, the subject of extreme want is one of general interest, while the allusion ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... at six in the morning; when some Patriot Deputy, warned by a billet, awoke Lafayette, and they went to the Tuileries?—Imagination may paint, but words cannot, the surprise of Lafayette; or with what bewilderment helpless Gouvion rolled glassy Argus's eyes, discerning now that his false ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... a couple of shots, but sent in under such conditions that they failed to find a billet, and were wasted. Those who fired were possibly more concerned about their own safety just then, than the chances of cutting down any of the ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... detail. The architrave is composed of several bands of the simplest moulding, inclosed within three of a different style; the two outermost being formed of the chevron ornament, with its angles unusually acute; the inner, of the billet moulding. The capitals of the pillars are studded with small heads, placed under the Ionic volute, exhibiting a mixture of classical and barbarous taste, which is likewise to be found at Cerisy, and upon one of the capitals in the abbey church ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... "are these your tricks upon travellers? But I hope to prove as cunning as you." Then getting out of bed, he groped about the room, and at last found a large thick billet of wood; he laid it in his own place in the bed, and then hid himself in a dark corner of the room. In the middle of the night the giant came with his great club, and struck many heavy blows on the bed, ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... my head in all directions for a minute or two; after which I returned to the dingle. Isopel was seated near the fire, over which the kettle was now hung; she had changed her dress—no signs of the dust and fatigue of her late excursion remained; she had just added to the fire a small billet of wood, two or three of which I had left beside it; the fire cracked, and a sweet ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... so?" thought Jack. "Are these your tricks upon travelers? But I hope to prove as cunning as you are." Then, getting out of bed, he groped about the room, and at last found a large thick billet of wood. He laid it in his own place in the bed, and then hid himself in a dark ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... the Revolooshun? Jest wait till the live citizens o' these United States end Territories gits a chance, end we'll show them gentry what a free people, wi' our institooshuns, kin do. There'll be no more talk o' skoolin fer Injuns, you bet! I'd give them Kernel Crunch's billet. ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... happened that on the very next day our old man's servant went sick, and in spite of my extreme youth and innocence, I was selected from the crowd to fill the vacant billet. And then it was that the Colonel realised that fate had dropped a heaven-sent blessing on his knees in the shape of a—well, in the shape of an ingenious bloke like me. He lifted up his voice in thanksgiving for that the British ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... considerable expectations. I was left at home, with no other company than my books: my books I found were not now such companions as they used to be; I was restless, melancholy, unsatisfied with myself. But judge my situation when I received a billet from Mr. Winbrooke informing me, that he had sounded Sir George on the subject we had talked of, and found him so averse to any match so unequal to his own rank and fortune, that he was obliged, with whatever reluctance, to bid adieu to a place, the ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... first line trench after its treatment by the preparatory bombardment, or the mutilation of men peacefully sleeping in billets behind the battle front and thrown, broken and bloody, through their billet walls under the wheels of passing transport, as one has ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... such terms of respectful camaraderie, yet with such suggestiveness of an Old Guard in reserve, that his innocence became a supererogatory merit. Besides which, he had been, in a general way, a servant of servants in every quarter of the globe, and had been run out of every billet for utter incompetency; often having to content himself with a poor half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack. So he enjoyed (or otherwise) opportunities of seeing things that the literary tourist never ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... she was to do; he told her to bestride the plank and lie prone upon it; which she did with great trouble and timidity; but as she was unable, on account of the fullness of her bust, to lay her neck upon the block, this had to be raised by placing a billet of wood underneath it; all this time the poor woman, suffering even more from shame than from fear, was kept in suspense; at length, when she was properly adjusted, the executioner touched the spring, the knife fell, and the decapitated ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and a great many sensible old gentlemen of his date, spoke of the art of husbandry as a mystery. And so it is; a mystery then, and a mystery now. Nothing tries my patience more than to meet one of those billet-headed farmers who—whether in print or in talk—pretend to have solved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... greeting I received from Surgeon Major "Alick" MacKenzie when I rode up to the door of my billet on the 22nd. ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... coroneted billet-doux for you. [He throws the circulars into the fender, and posts himself on the hearthrug, with his back ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... reiterating themselves in my mind, just as they did in the old schooldays. And lastly, there has been the joyous sense of having completed my book, on which for three years I have laboured lovingly in tent, and billet, and trench. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... whiteness. blandir to brandish. blando soft, smooth. blanquear to whiten, whitewash. blanquecino whitish. blasfemar to blaspheme. blasfemia blasphemy. bobo stupid, silly. boca mouth. bola ball, globe. boleta soldier's billet. bolsillo pocket, purse. bondadoso kindly. Bonifacio Boniface. bonito pretty. boqueron m. anchovy. boquete m. gap, narrow entrance. bordar to embroider. bordo board (of ship). borrar to blot, ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... was deliciously calm; and as I approached the little rustic mill, I could not help feeling struck with Power's taste in a billet. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... inhabitants have left it and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke pipes, make campfires of the Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and cook themselves meals twice a day. In peacetime it is only necessary to billet troops in the villages of any district and the number of fires in that district immediately increases. How much then must the probability of fire be increased in an abandoned, wooden town where foreign troops ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... his office window and gazed out upon his garden. His thoughts were also pleasant, for the garden belonged to him by right of billet law, and in the garden grew strawberries ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... prosaic existence. So, as I say, I want to live in Boston awhile and my only possibility of so doing is to get a position on some Boston paper, something that will afford me a living and allow some little time for social and literary life. However I don't care much what the billet is. I can bring letters of recommendation from all the good newspaper men in San Francisco, both as to my ability at editorial work (I have done considerable for the San Francisco NEWS LETTER and EXAMINER), and at all kinds of reportorial ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane |
