"Flight of stairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exercise. So she collected some dozen curs she kept about the place, demonstrative mongrels for the most part, but all intelligent; and brought them into the hall, where she made them run races for biscuits, the modus operandi being to place a biscuit on the top step of a broad flight of stairs there was at one end of the hall, then to collect the dogs at the other, make them stand, in a row—a difficult task to begin with, but easy enough when they understood, which was very soon, although not without much shrieking of orders from Angelica, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... he was lounging about in this moody state, that he stumbled upon a flight of stairs, dark, steep, and narrow, which he ascended without any thought about the matter, and so came into a little music-gallery, empty and deserted. From this elevated post, which commanded the whole hall, he amused himself in looking down upon the attendants who were clearing away ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... sorrowful hug; and then she ran away, but not straight to her own room. She darted down one flight of stairs, and caught hold of her father, who had come in from the practice, and had been washing his hands ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... that lady had turned off into the drawing room; and the travellers mounted the stairs with Mrs. Lloyd to see their apartments and to prepare for dinner. The ladies went into a large room opening from the upper hall; Norton and the girl Matilda had noticed went bounding up the second flight of stairs. ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... and, accompanied by the superior, moved away. In the hall he took two men with him. Florence walked ahead. She went up a flight of stairs and turned down a long corridor, with rooms on either side of it, which, after turning a corner, led to a short and very narrow passage ending ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... on him. We all thought he was done for, but some of the beams had got jammed, and not five minutes after he steps out of a window all right—only a scratch or two, not worth mentioning; yet that same man fell down a flight of stairs at the same fire, with a boy on his shoulder, and sprained his ankle so bad that he's bin laid up for three weeks; ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... to lose itself in a wretched court that appeared as if it intended to slip into the river—an intention which, if carried out, would have vastly improved its sanitary condition. Here, in a somewhat dark corner of the court, I entered an open door, ascended a flight of stairs, and gained a second landing. At the farthest extremity of the passage I stopped at a door and knocked. Several of the other doors of the passage opened, and various heads were thrust out, while inquisitive eyes surveyed me and my companion. A ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... through a thrifty plantation, we were in front of a European house which gave signs of comfort and taste. At the head of a flight of stairs on the broad veranda was a man in gold-rimmed eye-glasses and a red breechclout. His well-shaped, bald head and punctilious manner would have commanded ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... a flight of stairs, and reached a door which appeared to be the entrance into a separate part of the building. It was a massive oak door, fitted with double locks of remarkable strength for a private house. Copplestone held it open, motioning her to pass before him, and relocked ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... February was close at hand, and the fogs had begun to clear away, she felt so much stronger that she resolved to make a new departure and show Sydney that she was really better. Instead of going into the drawing-room, therefore, she came down another flight of stairs, and resolved to establish herself in Sydney's study, ready to ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... last flight of stairs, and their footsteps passed along the corridor to the room at the back. I, as I was ordered, set my face down ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... points, I glanced round the rectangular court. At my right, off the gallery, was Miss Falconer's room shrouded in darkness; at the left, up another flight of stairs, my own uninviting domain. The quarters of Van Blarcom and his uniformed friends opened from the gallery above the street passage, facing the main portion of the inn which sheltered the kitchen and salle a manger. Such was the simple, homely ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... the window no longer, but ran out of the room and down the flight of stairs into the great hall below. For he knew what had happened now. The Red Terror had come ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... man who has stepped off a flight of stairs one step too soon. "I didn't know it was really business. Of course, if it is, why, you ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... for his card, vanished with it, returned and bade him follow. Up a flight of stairs they went, then to the left, then to the right, then across a little hall. A door with the name of the house and the additional word "Private" loomed ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... western side of Tom Quad, up one flight of stairs, by the porter's aid I discovered the battered oaken door which led to the larium of my friend Echo: that this venerable bulwark had sustained many a brave attack from besiegers was visible in the numerous bruises and imprints of hammers, crowbars, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... down. They followed, and leaned over the bannisters to listen to the surprise. They heard Peggy's laugh as she came to the last flight of stairs and showed herself to her father. They heard her shriek "Daddy! ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... was divided into some five or six apartments, with parlors, a reading room, reception rooms, large dining hall, with an adjoining kitchen and bakery. From the main hall or entry, which was on the left of the centre of the building, arose a flight of stairs which led out on to a corridor or piazza which extended across the whole front of the building. This corridor was duplicated by one above it, and the roof jutted out to a line with the lower story and covered them both. Pillars supported the roof, and were attached to and supported the corridors. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... traced out his ideas, he brought Louis XIV to the spot to judge the distribution of the principal parts of their ornamentation. He began with two grand basins which are on the terrace in front of the chateau, with their magnificent decorations. He explained next his idea of the double flight of stairs, which is opposite the center of the palace, adorned with yew-trees and with statues, and gave in detail all the pieces that were to enrich the space that it included. He passed then to the Allee du Tapis Vert, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... visited one of their gambling houses. Winding our way down a dark and narrow street, we arrived at a porte-cochere. The requisite signal was given, the door opened cautiously, and after some scrutiny we were ushered up a flight of stairs, and entered a room, in the centre of which was a table, round which were a group, composed of every class. An Indian squaw was sitting by the side of a military officer, the one staking her annas, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... made no answer but groaned internally, and they went up the flight of stairs which led to their part of the house. The ground floor was occupied by somebody else. A little entry way at the top of the stairs received the wooden pail of water, and with the tin one Nettie went into the room used by the family. It was her father and mother's sleeping-room, their ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... halted in the second-floor hall. They were on the last flight of stairs now. The mother's ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... Cecilia's return. But not Cecilia alone; she heard the general also coming upstairs, but Cecilia first, who did not stop for more than an instant at the drawing-room door:—she looked in, as Helen guessed, and seeing that no one was there, ran very quickly up the next flight of stairs. Next came the general:—on hearing his step, Helen's anxiety became so intense, that she could not, at the moment he came near, catch the sound or distinguish which way he went. Strained beyond its power, the faculty of hearing seemed suddenly to fail—all was confusion, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... express his delight to Oliver, and turned to find him, but Oliver was not beside him nor did he join his father for five minutes at least. That young gentleman—just as Richard and Nathan had reached the BOTTOM of the second flight of stairs— had suddenly remembered something of the utmost importance which he had left in the INNER room, and which he could not possibly find until Madge, waiting by the banister, had gone back to help him look for it, and not then, until Mrs. Mulligan had left them both and shut the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... allow your servants to leave brooms, brushes, slop-pails, water cans, &c. in outside doorways, or at the head of a flight of stairs when engaged ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... convulsive movements of the extremities. He was taken to a hotel 3/4 mile distant, and during the transportation seemed slightly dazed, but not at all unconscious. Upon arriving at the hotel he dismounted from the conveyance, and without assistance walked up a long flight of stairs to the hall where his wound was to be dressed. Harlow saw him at about six o'clock in the evening, and from his condition could hardly credit the story of his injury, although his person and his bed were ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... (Steerage No. 2 and 3) was a favourite resort. Down one flight of stairs there was a comparatively large open space, the centre occupied by a hatchway, which made a convenient seat for about twenty persons, while barrels, coils of rope, and the carpenter's bench afforded perches for perhaps as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the roofs of houses, and a power of overturning by a single push the chubbiest child who opposed him, made him a fearful joy to the nursery. This last quality was incautiously developed in him by a negro boy-servant, who, later, was hurriedly propelled down a flight of stairs by his too proficient scholar. Having once tasted victory, "Billy" needed no further incitement to his performances. The small wagon which he sometimes consented to draw for the benefit of the children never hindered his attempts to butt the passer-by. On the contrary, on well-known ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... was flanked on either side by stores that would have been more respectable had they been rented as saloons, which they were not, because of the conscientious scruples of Messrs. Lawson & Stone. Parts of two of the buildings were still rented as lodgings. Up one flight of stairs of the centre building, in the front, Mr. Stone had his office, which was approached through what had been a hall bedroom. His room was furnished with black walnut, and a gloomy and oppressive air of mystery. Mr. Stone had the genius and ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... might have been seen, stealing cautiously down a dark, narrow flight of stairs, that led to a little postern, which she opened with a key which she drew from her girdle, and, closing it behind her, stepped out on the stretch of short green turf, which ran along one side of the ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... Saul made one stop. With Donaldson at his heels, he darted down a side street, pushed open, without knocking, a dingy door, went up a flight of stairs, along a dark hallway and down another flight, where he was stopped by a shadow. The big man spoke his name, and the shadow turned instantly from a guard to an obsequious servant. He opened the door and Saul strode across a narrow yard, stooping ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... at the top of a dark flight of stairs in the suburban villa that was now the sisters' home. It contained a fireplace and a long dormer window—three square casements in a row, of which the outer pair opened like doors—facing the morning sun and a country landscape. The previous ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... to meet his employer at the tavern in Hog's Lane. He supped that evening with the keeper. Afterwards, he lighted his pipe, drew a chair up to the open fireplace, and smoked in silence. Still later, he betook himself through a long, narrow entry, up a narrow flight of stairs, and into a small, square room. After he had closed the door behind him, he observed another door, which, he concluded, opened into the next apartment. It was locked. Tommy Taft was to pass the night in this self-same room, and he had good reasons for believing that his ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... with carving. One window there was—a perfect and unpretending cottage window, with little diamond panes, embowered at almost every season of the year with roses; and, in the summer and autumn, with a profusion of jasmine, and other fragrant shrubs.... I was ushered up a little flight of stairs, fourteen in all, to a little drawing-room, or whatever the reader chooses to call it. Wordsworth himself has described the fireplace of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... remaining in the school-room; I could see the hall-door, and up the first flight of stairs, and could hear the opening and shutting of doors up-stairs, and occasional remarks from passers through the hall, so that I felt less lonely than I knew I should feel in the garden. Frisk came and sat with his fore-paws ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... down the broad flight of stairs leading to the basement. There, in the big, dimly lighted, cement-floored playroom, where the children held forth on rainy days, he met a boy from another room, who was likewise in no hurry to return. They hailed ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... the hallway and down a flight of stairs to the office. The woman in the darkness could hear him laughing and talking with a guest who was striving to wear away a dull evening by dozing in a chair by the office door. She returned to the door of her son's room. The weakness had passed from her body as by a miracle ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... other, that I must lie down somewhere immediately, and fall off into a comfortable sleep. So I agreed to the proposal about the bed, and took the offered arm of the old soldier, carrying my money with my disengaged hand. Preceded by the croupier, we passed along some passages and up a flight of stairs into the bedroom which I was to occupy. The ex-brave shook me warmly by the hand, proposed that we should breakfast together, and then, followed by the croupier, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... for that apple had come to our mind. Hastening zealously up a long flight of stairs in a certain large building we went to a corner where sits a friend of ours, a night watchman. Under a drop light he sits through long and tedious hours, beguiling his vigil with a book. He is a great reader. He eats books alive. Lately he has become much absorbed in Saint ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... from the glass as if I had been taken in an act of folly. Rooksby was flicking his leg with his switch in the doorway, at the bottom of the narrow flight of stairs. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... other hand, he cannot do everything himself. He begins the work of creation, which is finished either by creative interpreters on the stage, or by the creative imagination of the reader in the study. It is as if he carried an immense weight to the landing at the turn of a flight of stairs, and that thence upward the lifting had to be done by other people. Consider the affair as a pyramidal structure, and the dramatist is the base—but he is not the apex. A play is a collaboration of creative faculties. The egotism of the dramatist resents this uncomfortable fact, but the fact ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... up his gondola to the top step, help his young master to land without being seen by the bustling servants in the palazzo, some of whom were buzzing about the landing-place like bees at the door of a hive. Emilio stole into the great hall, whence rose the finest flight of stairs in all Venice, up which he lightly ran to investigate the cause of ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... (he was not to be mistaken,—he bore a family resemblance to all the waiters of the world) was instantly at the coach-door, to help us out and to help us in. He conducted us into a lobby, up a flight of stairs, and through a long passage, to a large saloon, where about 150 ladies and gentlemen were assembled,—some sitting, some standing, some talking, some laughing, and some playing with their fingers. But, no! we shrunk ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... was not to be so easily concluded, however; for Bruhl's rascals, in obedience, no doubt, to a sign given by their leader, who stood with Fresnoy on the upper flight of stairs, refused to withdraw; and even hustled the Provost-Marshal's men when the latter would have obeyed the order. The officer, already heated by delay, replied by laying about him with his staff, and in a twinkling there seemed to be every prospect of a very pretty MELEE, the ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... an ancient church, on the top of a high hill," said Mr. George, "where there is a flight of stairs made to imitate those that Jesus ascended at Jerusalem, when he went to Pilate's judgment hall. Nobody is allowed to go up or down these ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... bed. It seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or of my bed, which was that nearest to Mr. Harker's. It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial flight of stairs. ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... from beneath the door of the study, and it meant that her father was still at work. He had owned to having a bad headache, and had promised not to be late. It was perplexing. She stole down the next flight of stairs and listened at Tom's door; then, finding that he was still about, knocked softly. Tom, with his feet on the mantel piece, was solacing himself with a pipe and a novel; he started up, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... gong boomed somewhere below us. A last word from the Count, "Be ready!" He left us. Reappearing almost immediately, he beckoned us to follow him. We noticed that he seemed even more grave than usual. Down a flight of stairs along a great corridor we made our way, no one speaking a word. At the end of the corridor we saw two sentries; then, a big solid oak door, guarded by an attendant in the livery of the Royal Household. At a sign from the Count ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... corridor, opposite the kitchen window, there was a flight of stairs. On the third stair from the bottom stood (teetering a little slowly back and forth, his lean hands joined behind him and twitching regularly, a kepi tilted forward on his cadaverous head so that its visor almost hid the weak eyes sunkenly peering from under droopy eyebrows, his pompous rooster-like ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... night. He led the rush that was intended to sweep away the smaller body of raiders, But when he saw the Kid his manner became personal. Being in the heavyweight class he cast himself joyfully upon his slighter enemy, and they rolled down a flight of stairs in each other's arms. On the landing they separated and arose, and then the Kid was able to use some of his professional tactics, which had been useless to him while in the excited clutch of a 200-pound ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... the memory again where she had dropped it on the second flight of stairs, slowly climbing her way to Ward C, and went on with ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... reputations are made in the art-world accordingly. It is a strange life: not probably conducive to a high development of intellectual and moral excellence, but very much so to the picturesque peopling of the most magnificent flight of stairs in Christendom. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Bannon took the little delegate by the arm. He marched him to the head of the long, straight flight of stairs. Then he hesitated a moment. "I wish you were ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... went up the short flight of stairs to her closed door. There was candle-light shining through the transom. He knocked with a trembling hand. There was no answer. He knocked again; heard her uncertain step; stepped back ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... finding me too dull to understand her expressive motioning that I would follow her to the cinder heap, on which the dead kitten had been thrown, she took the great labour of bringing it to me herself, from the area on the basement floor, and up a whole flight of stairs, and laid it at my feet. I took up the kitten in my hand, the cat still following me, made inquiry into the cause of its death, which I found, upon summoning the servants, to have been an accident, in ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... door, and then, in view of the great landing outside, I paused. Several doors, all except mine now closed, gave admittance from this landing to different rooms. Both landing and stairs were made of oak, black and polished with age. One broad flight of stairs, with heavy carved banisters, pointed the way below; a second and narrower flight led to the regions above. As a matter of course I chose the former, but not till after a minute's hesitation as to whether I should venture to leave my room at all before I should be called. But my desire to see ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... a fresh waist, and to brighten up the shoes, somewhat soiled by the tramp through the thick dust the evening before. Indeed, it was a very charming young woman, her dress and appearance quite sufficiently Eastern, who finally ventured out into the rough hall, and down the single flight of stairs. The hotel was silent, except for the heavy breathing of a sleeper in one of the rooms she passed, and a melancholy-looking Chinaman, apparently engaged in chamber work at the further end of the hall. Timmons was alone in the office, playing with a shaggy dog, and the floor remained ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... the riverside till they fancied their attempt at seizing Maclachlan was secure from the interference of the townfolk. They were packed in a mass in the close and on the stair, and the foremost were solemnly battering at the night door at the top of the first flight of stairs, crying, "Fuil airson fuil!—blood for blood, out ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... conversation the boys had sat down upon the upper step of a steep flight of stairs which led down from the promenade deck to the main deck. They could see pretty well where they were, but not so well, Waldron thought, as they could have ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... deal more trench before we reach the village which forms the head of a salient in the French line. This village is knocked all to pieces. It is a fearful spectacle. We see a Teddy-bear left on what remains of a flight of stairs, a bedstead buried to the knobs in debris, skeletons of birds in a cage hanging under an eave. The entire place is in the zone of fire, and it has been tremendously bombarded throughout the war. Nevertheless, ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... ancestor of great men, the Reverend Stephen Bachelder, interest him as they never did before. But he cannot deceive himself much longer. See him walking on a level surface, and he steps off almost as well as ever; but watch him coming down a flight of stairs, and the family record could not tell his years more faithfully. He cut you dead, you say? Did it occur to you that he could not see you clearly enough to know you from any other son or daughter of Adam? He said he was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and at ten o'clock the lights were put out, and nothing remained but bed. This was gained by descending again to the cellar, by surrendering the brass check to a burly doorkeeper, and by climbing a long flight of stairs into the upper regions. I went to the top of the building and down again, passing several floors filled with sleeping men. The "cabins" were the best accommodation, each cabin allowing space for a tiny bed and room alongside ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... seek the elevator but mounted the first flight of stairs. He saw two doors, one on each side of the landing. He sought one, stooped and peered at the card over the bell. Conover. Gregor's was opposite. Having a key he did not knock but unlocked the door and stepped into ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... of the staircase is twenty-two feet—space sufficient to allow of ten horsemen ascending each flight of steps abreast. Altogether this ascent, which is on a plan unknown elsewhere, is pronounced to be the noblest example of a flight of stairs to be found in any part of the world. It does not project beyond the line of the platform whereto it leads, but is, as it were, taken out of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... flight of stairs, broad and imposing, as became a governor's palace, and then the servant, who had us in charge, stopped before an open door, at which was stationed a man in livery. To the latter was given our names, and in a loud voice the fellow repeated them; at the same time he stood aside and ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... off, rattling through the quiet streets of Bath, and reaching the station barely in time to rush up the long flight of stairs and spring into an empty carriage. Never shall I forget that journey. The train stopped at every single station, and sometimes in between; we were five mortal hours on the road, and more than once I thought Derrick ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... regarded them as a great annoyance. And this is not to be wondered at, if we consider the physical weakness under which he was then labouring. When Chopin went before these matinees to Broadwood's to try the pianoforte on which he was to play, he had each time to be carried up the flight of stairs which led to the piano-room. Chopin had also to be carried upstairs when he came to a concert which his pupil Lindsay Sloper gave in this year in the Hanover Square Rooms. But nothing brings his miserable condition so vividly before us as ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... other, in a desperate hurry, she ran downstairs as fast as she possibly could towards the landing-place, where the handkerchief lay; but, alas! before she reached the handkerchief, she fell, rolling down a whole flight of stairs, and when her fall was at last stopped by the landing- place, she did not cry out, she writhed, as if ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... of the first flight of stairs opened into what had evidently been the great banqueting hall in the old days when sumptuous repasts and numerous guests were not uncommon things in the chateau. A huge beam divided the lofty ceiling into two compartments, which were crossed at regular intervals by smaller joists, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... pulled up at the City Hotel, Tom Ross and Jesse drove in behind a pair of fagged-out broncos at two in the morning. Jesse had had no sleep of any sort and no proper nourishment for five days, and had just strength enough left to drag himself up one flight of stairs and tumble into bed, from which he did not ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... here. I'll do all the seeing. Take off your hat and bathe your face. You'll feel better." Emma hurried out of the room and up the next flight of stairs to Louise Sampson's room, thinking only of Grace and how she might best comfort her. She was more aroused than she cared to let Grace see over Miss Wharton's harsh edict. She made a secret vow that if Grace would ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... the stranger's valise—Fred had only a small paper parcel in his hand, containing a clean shirt and a collar which he had bought in Jersey City before taking passage on the train. Up one flight of stairs the clerk preceded them and paused in front of No. 21, the back room referred to. He unlocked the door, ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... with collars turned up and soft hats rammed down—nodded familiarly to Mrs Verloc, and with a muttered greeting, lifted up the flap at the end of the counter in order to pass into the back parlour, which gave access to a passage and to a steep flight of stairs. The door of the shop was the only means of entrance to the house in which Mr Verloc carried on his business of a seller of shady wares, exercised his vocation of a protector of society, and cultivated his domestic virtues. These ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... deserted hall, she stood at the head of the steep flight of stairs and listened. The snoring of the drunken man in the office below was the only disturbing sound. Out through the open office door a dull bar of yellow light streamed across the lower steps. Like a ghost she stole silently down, treading so softly not ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... Chronicle," and thus sketches his residence and himself: "In the most crowded part of Holborn, within a door or two of the Bull-and-Mouth Inn, we pulled up at the entrance of a large building used for lawyers' chambers. I followed by a long flight of stairs to an upper story, and was ushered into an uncarpeted and bleak-looking room, with a deal table, two or three chairs and a few books, a small boy and Mr. Dickens, for the contents. I was only struck at first with one thing (and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the dim-lit corridor the way they had come, descended a flight of stairs and headed along another corridor—to pause suddenly and gasp with astonishment. For through the door whence they had entered the rocket poured a ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... Ascend yon flight of stairs! Midway the corridor a silver lamp Hangs o'er the entrance of Sarolta's chamber, And facing it, the low arched oratory! 195 Me thou'lt find watching at the outward gate: For a petard might burst the bars, unheard By the drenched porter, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... at last, must be either extraordinarily devoted to hospitality, or this old host of mine must be an extraordinary individual. On the evening of the fourth day, feeling tired of my confinement, I put my clothes on in the best manner I could, and left the chamber. Descending a flight of stairs, I reached a kind of quadrangle, from which branched two or three passages; one of these I entered, which had a door at the farther end, and one on each side; the one to the left standing partly open, I entered it, and found ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... club.' We used to meet almost every evening after dinner in the dining-room, and play until about eleven o'clock, when we would retire. On the above date I dreamed that after playing our usual evening games we took our departure for our rooms, and on the way up the second flight of stairs I heard a slight movement behind me; on looking around I found I was being followed by a tall figure robed in a long, loose white gown, which came down to the floor. The figure seemed to be that of a man—I would say, about seven feet tall—who followed me up the second flight and along ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... downstairs. The more stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed to be to descend, and again and again, when Mr. Pickwick got into some narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained the ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished eyes. At last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen when he entered the house. Passage after passage did he explore; room after room did he peep into; at length, as he was on the point of giving up the search in ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... this, going steadily down a flight of stairs, and all of a sudden bumped into an iron grating. At the same moment I saw that the passageway made a turn just beyond; and by craning my neck and straining my eyes I could see a faintly lighted chamber ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... interrupted. From the hall, apparently from the top of the flight of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the others, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... forest takes fire, all beasts are cousins," said Felipe sententiously. Without another question the friar turned and led the way, down a flight of stairs which plunged (for all I could tell) into the bowels of earth. His lamp flickered on bare walls upon which the spiders scurried. I counted twenty steps, and still all below us was dark as a pit; ten more, and I was pulled ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... of a minute the girl gazed, with a new and softened expression, upon the marble likeness of the last fair mistress of the castle, and then hurriedly crossed the old mosaic pavement, reaching a narrow flight of stairs, which she swiftly ascended. A door that yielded to the fool's shoulder led into a deserted court, on one side of which were the crumbling walls of the chapel. Here several dark birds perched uncannily on the dead branch of a massive ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... but one opened and the jailor received us, with his bundle of keys in his hand. The court is empty and clean; even the grass between the paving stones is weeded out. We entered the 'reception room,' to which the prisoner is first taken; then the bath room, whither he is carried next. We ascend a flight of stairs, and find ourselves in a large hall, built the whole length and height of the building. Several galleries, one over another in the different stories, extend round the whole hall, and in the midst of the hall is the chancel, from which, on Sundays, the preacher delivers his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... led the way out of the library, and Reginald followed. They went up a flight of stairs and along a hall to the extreme end. Here Leon stopped at a door, and proceeded to take a key from his pocket. This action surprised Reginald. He remembered the room well. In his day it had not been used at all, except on rare occasions, and ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... I found that I was to be treated as a human being and not as a brute. With a smile, the superintendent addressed me again, and told me to follow him; and it was with a lighter heart and spirits that I ascended the second flight of stairs than the first, I can assure you. I was brought to the steward, who also greeted me most kindly, conversed with me a short time, fixed up some medicine for me and then took me into the hospital. By the word 'hospital,' dear reader, ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... mansard roof. It faced the river and a country road which ran along the river bank. The visitor stepped upon a broad piazza, and then entered through a wide and ornamented doorway a large hall from which ascended a broad flight of stairs. On the left was a spacious drawing-room, carpeted with an imported Brussels and adorned with several oil paintings. It contained a piano, an instrument seldom seen in those days. Back of this room was the owner's study or ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... yet some devil prompts me to insult you. I hate you because I am driven to make use of you. And this room, in its sober luxury, emphasises the indignity of the position, offering as it does so glaring a contrast to my own quarters—here under the same roof, only one flight of stairs above—that I can hardly endure it. Life is hideously unjust. For what have you done—you, a mere Canaanite, hewer of wood and drawer of water to some grossly Philistine firm of city bankers—to deserve ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... kind arm, and though I didn't see the face of the woman who helped, for she had her head wrapped up in an old shawl, I felt that it was the same which had looked out of the window at me, and went willingly enough when she began to draw me toward the house and up the first flight of stairs, though I could hardly help screaming every time my foot touched the ground. At the top of the first flight I stopped; I could go no further. The woman heard me pant, and pushing the covering from her eyes, she turned my face towards the light and looked at it. I thought she ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... various additions, plastering them one on top of the other, and there would be various lobbies, and passages, and crooked staircases leading to the entresol, where it was only possible to stand in a stooping position, and where instead of a floor there would be a thin flight of stairs like a Russian bath, and the kitchen would always be under the house with a vaulted ceiling and a brick floor. The front of his houses always had a hard, stubborn expression, with stiff, French lines, low, squat roofs, and fat, pudding-like chimneys surmounted with black cowls ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... of the morning warned the two men that they must seek their cover, for despite Jim's natural boldness and daring, he was cautious and careful. Instead of descending to the room which had its entrance from the alley, they mounted another flight of stairs, and gaining the roof by means of the scuttle, walked the flat mansard until another hatch-door was reached, and through it they entered a quiet, unassuming appearing house, which stood on the side street ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... bar underneath the hotel, and a flight of stairs led up to the office. They went up, and a man sitting behind ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... wash-room are two windows. A chimney at the far end accommodates a boiler or two, and a fireplace, if required. A sink stands adjoining the chimney. A flight of stairs, leading to a garret over head on one side, and to the kitchen chamber on the other, stands next the dairy, into which last a door also leads. In this wash-room may be located the cooking stove in warm weather, leaving the main ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... managed in Paris. There you always find a concierge, who tells you all you want to know, and who speaks several languages. In Rome you enter a narrow, dark passage, and look in vain for a door. Then you go up a flight of stairs, and see a door with a string; you pull the string, and a woman puts her mouth to a square hole, covered with tin punctured with holes, and asks what you want. You tell her, and she tells you to go up higher; you repeat the process, and at last reach ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... went towards the second flight of stairs with a rather dazed air. She had passed through a rather tremendous crisis and she WAS dazed. He made her feel so. She had never understood him for a moment and she did not understand him now—but then she never did understand people ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... saying, "My dear K——, I'm delighted to see you." The farmer, seeing the visitor come in, cunningly took the opportunity of sneaking away. He had got what he wanted—the opinion; but O'Connell had not got what he wanted—the fee. O'Connell at once followed the farmer, who had got the start by a flight of stairs. The rustic quickened his pace when he found that the counsellor was in chase. O'Connell saw that he could not catch the runaway client, who was now on the flight leading into the hall. He leant over the bannister, and made a grasp at the farmer's collar, but, instead ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... as its yellow glare lit up their surroundings, they could not repress a cry of astonishment. They had landed at the foot of a steep flight of stairs, at the summit of which they correctly surmised was the trap-door through which they had ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... through the narrow passage, up a stone flight of stairs to the corridor that ran over the little cloister, and pushed open ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... Geoffrey still had time to secure the outer door. Next he lit the chandelier in the hall, but its illumination told nothing. It was Geoffrey's own sharp ears that told him of light footsteps beyond the turn of the stairs. Here Holland recognised at once that the burglar had a great advantage. The flight of stairs from the hall reached the upper story at a point very near where the back stairs came up, while they descended to widely different places in the lower story, so that the burglar, looking down, could choose his flight of stairs as soon as he saw his pursuer ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... ordinary person's imagination. Therefore I need only remind my readers that my bachelor chambers were, during most of my acquaintance with Hewitt, in the old building near the Strand, in which Hewitt's office stood at the top of the first flight of stairs; where the plain ground-glass of the door bore as inscription the single word "Hewitt," and the sharp lad, Kerrett, first received visitors ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... the tea-table?" inquired Jasmine, as their hostess led the way up a flight of stairs, and down a passage. "I hope she does—I want to see her ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... from her despondent mother was now her chief hope and aim. Her fatigue she would not attempt to disguise, for that would be unnatural. It was with difficulty she climbed the one flight of stairs that led to their room, but her wan face was smiling as she pushed open the door and kissed her mother in greeting. Then throwing herself on the lounge she cried gayly, "Come, little mother, give me an old maid's panacea for every ill of life—a cup ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Alicia, "you needn't lay down the law so hard! We're not absolute babes, to be so strictly cautioned and forbidden! If you desire us not to go up the second flight of stairs, of ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... cage, and then she and Rollo, walking along together, followed the gentlemen who had said that they were going down to lunch. They walked forward upon the promenade deck till they came to the short flight of stairs, with the green rope balustrade, which led down to the deck below. These stairs were so steep that the children were obliged to proceed with great caution in descending them, in order to get down in safety. They, however, at length succeeded; and then, passing along ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... the time when women in Vere Street weep. Liza went up into Sally's room for a few minutes on her way to the Westminster Bridge Road, where she was to meet Jim. Harry had taken the top back room, and Liza, climbing up the second flight of stairs, called ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... disobey, the trembling flunkey led the way up one flight of stairs and pointed to a door, which I abruptly opened. There, in his library, sat Brother Porkley, a monstrously fat man with a pale, oily face that contained about as much expression as the surface of ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... tried to grab them back. As he did so John tried to get up, having accomplished the main part of his purpose, that of saving his own and his chums' money. But, as he did so, the thief gave a roll, to get on top. This brought him to the edge of a flight of stairs, and, a second later the two were ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... hour later Austen went down the narrow wooden flight of stairs into the street, and as he emerged from the entry almost bumped into the figure of a young man that was hurrying by. He reached out and grasped the young man by the collar, pulling him up so short as ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Up another flight of stairs, in his own room, Dr. Douglass lighted his cigar, fixed himself comfortably in his arm-chair, with his feet on the dressing-table, and, between the ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... an alley leading out of the Rue Saint-Jacques. The general alighted, leaning on the arm of the president, of whose dignity he was not aware, considering him simply as a member of the club; they went through the alley, mounted a flight of stairs, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... discouraged, and I'll not believe that doctor," she murmured, as she mounted the long flight of stairs which led to the fifth floor. "Aint I always 'ad good luck all the days o' a long life?" She reached her own landing at last, panting a little for breath as she did so. She opened her hall door with a latch-key and entered the kitchen. The kitchen ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... to speak of, really, except the clunk-clunk of one or two moored rowboats down below, and the sh-r-r-r-r-p (if that spells it) of their corrugated plank-sides, as they dipped and dripped alternately. They were close to the bottom flight of stairs, whose lowest step was left forlorn in the air, and had to be jumped off when a real spring-tide came that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... unequal length, like a triangular flight of stairs across the angle of the room, and directly in front of the judge, was the jury—twenty men and twenty women, seated in alternate rows. The men wore loose robes of gray; the women robes of blue. On a seat raised slightly above the others sat ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... of the spectators, a flight of stairs was constructed, which was called the Charonic, and by which, unseen by the audience, the shadows of the departed, ascended into the orchestra, and thence to the stage. The furthermost brink of the logeum must sometimes have represented the sea shore. Moreover the Greeks ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel |
