"On and off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if the performer were pinching the tails of a dozen mice, that squeaked and squealed as he made the experiment. The bow (like the funambulist with the soles of his slippers fresh chalked) kept glancing on and off, till we hoped he would be off altogether and break his neck; and now the least harsh and grating of the cords snaps up in the fiddler's face, and a crude one is to be applied; and now—but what is the use of pursuing the description? Let us leave the old bass to snore away his lethargic accompaniment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... appeared in England a performer who claimed to be the original Ling Look. He wore his make-up both on and off the stage, and copied, so far as he could, Ling's style of work. His fame reached this country and the New York Clipper published, in its Letter Columns, an article stating that Ling Look was not dead, but was alive and working ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... walked slowly along Jack kept frequently snapping his light on and off so that they could take an instantaneous inventory of what lay just beyond their feet for the night proved exceedingly dark although all that would be changed after a while, when the late moon climbed ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... Elkhorn, as the hotel was called, grunted in discount of this anxiety as he turned his shifty eyes to the stranger, flicking them on and off like a fly. He saw the coins dropped by the cowboy, picked them up, put them in his pocket, face red from what evidently was unaccustomed effort as he straightened ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... seen and liked scraps of my Juliet from the "side." Although he had known me such a long time, my Ellaline seemed to come quite as a surprise. "I wish I could tell you of the dream of beauty that you realized," he wrote after the performance. He bought the play for me, and I continued to do it "on and off" here and in ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... nine weeks after that voice called to me, and coughed, and coughed, sometimes every night for a week, then three nights a week, then miss a night and call on two nights, miss three or four days, and keep calling me the whole night long, on and off, up till 12 midnight or later. One time it would be, 'Georgie! It's me! Ah, Georgie!' Or, 'Georgie, are you in? Will you speak to Irwin?' Then a long pause, and at the end of, say, ten minutes, a most strange, unearthly sigh, or a cough—a perfectly intentional, ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... there was a big wan and a little wan.... Yes, sorr; there was two of them hangin' about on and off these six weeks past, like they was minded to take a job and then again not minded. Sure there was the two o' thim, now I think of it. Wan was big and thin and wan was a little scutt ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... change; and, if you take away from me the faith that I have been taught, it would be long ere I could learn one to set in its place. It is but a chip here and a chip there, yet it may bring the tree down in time. Yet, on the other hand, I cannot but think it shame that a man should turn God's mercy on and off, as a cellarman doth wine with ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies. She would have Sophie to look over all her "toilettes," as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were "passees," and to air and arrange the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys. From school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service, and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... will prove the pink of perfection, god-mother mine; and now, uncle, to see Madame, on and off the canvas, ere I ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... 1/2 in. On the top of A are 3 binding-posts, 1, 2, 3, which consist of metal strips 1-1/4 x 1/2 in. At the lower ends are screws which are connected with the cells, as shown. Spring binders can be easily slipped on and off the upper ends of the strips, so that one or two cells can be used at will. Bent strips, C, are nailed to B, to hold the tumblers firmly in place. This framework is not necessary, of course, to the ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... and eight the next morning he must wash and clean his car. Thus his hours of sleep were abridged. He was obliged to keep an eye on the passengers to see that they put their fares in the box, to be always, responsible for them, that they got on and off without accident, to watch that the rules were enforced, and that collisions and common street dangers were avoided. This mental and physical strain for sixteen consecutive hours, with scant sleep, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... says so, Duke. I 've been a wife meself on and off, with husbands sailin' in and out—kissin' yer and 'oistin' sail. Roundabout, I says, makes 'appy marriages. Has yer a wife, ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... and when he dialogues with the orchestra, he shews much energy and feeling. Independently of these gifts, Nature has granted to RAFFANELLI another most valuable privilege. She seems to have exempted him from the impression of time. In 1788 and 89, I saw him frequently, both on and off the stage; after a lapse of upwards of twelve years, he appears again to my eyes exactly the same man. I cannot perceive ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... a goodish time—on and off. I've paid back some. I'd have paid it all back if I'd only had a stroke of luck. But I've been losing every night for ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... scout-ship moved closer, braking with its forward jets. The pilot was expert. Carefully and surely he aligned the ship with the rock in speed and direction. In the accelleration cot Tom could feel only an occasional gentle tug as the power cut on and off. ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... do, With an intent, if things should turn, Rather to temporise, than burn; Gospel and loyalty were made To serve the purposes of trade; 160 Religions are but paper ties, Which bind the fool, but which the wise, Such idle notions far above, Draw on and off, just like a glove; All gods, all kings (let his great aim Be answer'd) were to him the same. A curate first, he read and read, And laid in, whilst he should have fed The souls of his neglected flock, Of reading such ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... may turn off from the bed without arising combined with a light which may be turned on and off from a lying position, so one can see the time, is the device of H. E. Redmond, of Burlington, Wis. The alarm clock rests ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... give a beautiful glow light, while if turned in the other direction, it instantly gave as beautiful a dark. My then 12 year old daughter used to surprise and please her visitors by suddenly turning on and off the 'glim.' It is not well to despise the day of small things, for although the dynamo had not at that date put in an appearance, and though I used thirty-six Smee cells of six gallons capacity each, yet I demonstrated then and there that the incandescent ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... being turned on and off in the box opposite with unmistakable intention, and, glancing across, Craven noticed that the young men had disappeared, no doubt to smoke cigarettes in the foyer. Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Ackroyde were alone, and, seeing them alone, it was easier ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... straggling settlers had moved on and off the prairie—and those who stayed barely made a mark on the engulfing spaces. The unyielding, harsh life had routed the majority of homesteaders—they had shut the door behind them and left the land to ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... thought Peter, "I've found the nest of Longlegs! He and Mrs. Longlegs may be good fishermen but they certainly are mighty poor nest-builders. I don't see how under the sun Mrs. Longlegs ever gets on and off that nest without ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... wheel, etc., similar to those that were in the Burns cottage. But there is a reel that wuz used by Bonnie Jean herself, I took holt on't tryin' to bring to my mind what emotions she had time and agin as she reeled her threads on and off, love, anxiety, ambition, fear, hopes and sorrows; how they twined and ontwined in her faithful breast as the reel turned, emotions ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... stop (p. 140) there for three days without food or drink. They were thinnin' me out, see! Then I was a draughts manager at a bank, and shut the ventilators; after that I was an electric mechanic; I switched the lights on and off at night and mornin'; now I'm a professional gambler, ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... inviting black civilians to participate in USO dances and entertainments.[21-35] (p. 540) The committee also discussed discrimination in military police assignments, segregation in local transport and on school buses, and the commander's attitude toward interracial associations both on and off the military reservation. ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... than either of these. These figures were taken down at the time, when the animals were actually weighed on the scales. Most of his hunting for bear was done in northern Mississippi, where one of his plantations was situated, near Greenville. During the half century that he hunted, on and off, in this neighborhood, he knew of two instances where hunters were fatally wounded in the chase of the black bear. Both of the men were inexperienced, one being a raftsman who came down the river, and the other a man from Vicksburg. He was not able to ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... investigating the matter. This compulsion once acceded to, it becomes more and more easy to succumb. The next step is to blur, by constant repetition, the mental image of the act. In extreme cases the doubter, after turning the gas on and off a dozen times, is finally in doubt whether he can trust his own senses. A certain officer in a bank never succeeded in reaching home after closing hours without returning to try the door of the bank. Upon ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... with secrets of the utmost value and took part in making the plans and procuring the dynamite to execute them. The quality of his nerve (as well as his foolhardiness) is shown by the fact that he once carried a dress-suit case full of the explosive around the city, jumping on and off street cars, and dodging vehicles. When the proper moment came and the dynamite had been placed in an uncompleted building on Twenty-second Street, Guthrie gave the signal and the police arrested the dynamiters—all of them, including Guthrie, who was placed with the rest in a cell ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... this evening about eight or nine. I heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but couldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. Now, if you wasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can catch half a crown in your t'other hand. One, two, three, and there you ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... ion producing device. The symptoms returned. He turned it on and off. He took a step forward. He tested again. The cloud of ions from the innumerable jagged points was invisible, but somehow it refracted or reflected—in any case, neutralized—the weapon of the beings at Boulder Lake. He went on and presently he felt the very faintest possible ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... you to think of counting the tickets and finding out where people got on and off! I never should have thought ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the waitress, tossing her head scornfully, and shaking back her little corkscrew curls. "What next, I wonder? That bun has been here on and off for seventeen years, and I never had a complaint about it before. Stale, ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... dream, one knew it was absurd, but did not care. The magnificent, brilliant staging dazzled till one lay back in one's chair and refused to name the colours to oneself or admire their blending any more. The chorus-girls trooped on and off till they seemed countless, and one abandoned any wish to pick the prettiest and follow her through. And the gay palace of luxury, with its hundreds of splendidly dressed women, its men in uniform, its height and width and gold and painting, and its great ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... stinging reference to his pose in the matter of dress, though in frankness she had to admit that he wore his gray sweater vest with an air of genuine comfort and unconsciousness. Then she remembered, barely in time, that her own style in garments both on and off the stage was far more startling than his, and decided that she would merely be laying herself open to a disastrous counter-attack if she hurled her sarcasm in that direction; therefore she sought another opening. She had made up her mind to begin humbling ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... frequently and often re-shunted; some are left and others taken to far-off places; the guard's van has to be detached always in order to have it at the end of the train; the stoker is hard at work with the brake putting it on and off, jumping down to hold the points, or coupling wagons—this is not his business, but he does it to facilitate the work. When the luggage train had to get into a siding to let a passenger train go by, there was no pit (except at ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... When she reached the stone steps leading down to the cellar she looked far less a heroine than a much frightened little girl. Still, there was the gun! Vivian's nervous fingers kept pushing the safety on and off—a rather terrifying sound to the ears of a much surprised man, who, papers in hand, ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... came, I saved him a good deal of trouble by swooning away the moment he touched my wound, and remained in that condition, on and off, till I heard the anchor running out at the bows, and understood from those who lay near that we were at ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... in wind blouses, as though one's body kept warm enough on the march the arms got numbed with the penetrating wind no matter how vigorously they were swung. Another thing is that one cannot stop the team on the march to get clothes on and off, so it is better to go the whole hog and be too hot than cause delays. We had the addition of a little pony meat for breakfast to celebrate the day. I am the cook of our tent ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Sahara, but sovereignty is unresolved and the UN is attempting to hold a referendum on the issue; the UN-administered cease-fire has been in effect since September 1991; Spain controls five places of sovereignty (plazas de soberania) on and off the coast of Morocco-the coastal enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla which Morocco contests, as well as the islands of Penon de Alhucemas, Penon de Velez de la Gomera, and ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... their ways, to catch them (which we sometimes did), to take them home and be kind to them, and try to tame them, and teach them our ways (with never varying non-success, it is true, but in, oh, such jolly company!) became a hobby that lasted me, on and off, for seven years. ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... the following to answer the purpose well, which is a box of sheet iron twenty inches long, eight wide and five high, with one end left open and the other closed; the cover is made of the same material, with the edges bent over to go on and off. There are several wires running through the centre of the sides, which it is necessary to cover with cloth or paper to absorb all the moisture that may be made by applying the heat, and the buffs are put in and taken out at the open end. In ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... of all you can do in the way of avoiding soililoquies and getting your characters on and off the stage in a dramatic manner, a time will come when you realize sadly that your play is not a bit like life after all. Then is the time to introduce a meal on the stage. A stage meal is popular, because it proves to the audience that the actors, ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... of this, on and off, for a long time in the establishment; but when the rumours so unexpectedly, immediately right after the death of Jennka, turned into realities, the misses could not for a long time come to themselves for amazement and fear. They knew ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... up his hands. He went toward the spiral-ladder-with-handholds that led below. He went down into the main saloon. A tiny green light winked on and off, urgently, on the far side. Babs was seated at a tiny board, there. As Cochrane looked, she pushed buttons with professional skill. Bill Holden sat in a strap-chair with his face ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... best," said the crone in her defence; "they're not so slippery, but they know how things should go on and off. Ah, and give me a young mistress and a beauty," she went on to sigh, "such as God Almighty ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... a welcome for him," he said, and so turned out the electric light at the end of the long flexible wire. He had arranged a neat little switch of the accumulator, and so snapped the light on and off at his pleasure, without the trouble of unscrewing the nuts which held in place one of the copper ends of the wire. Going to the edge of the stream and lighting his candle, he placed the glass bulb in the current, paid ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... with the use of elevators, and which no doubt is common, is the habit many parties have of keeping a key or wrench to turn on and off the water at the curb. This we have sought to remedy by embracing in our plumbers' rules the following: "All elevator connections in addition to the curb stop for the use of the Water Company must be provided with another ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... no doubt that the drama was extremely popular both on and off the stage; and although it is now one of the scarcest of our old plays, it must have been a profitable speculation to the publisher. In order that the various parties interested might more effectually avail themselves ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... sign of suspecting that he was put on and off, according to Dan's necessity or desire for comfort or congratulation; but it was part of their joke that Dan's coming to him always meant something decisive in his experiences. The reporter was at his late breakfast, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... all the auroras observed since for its sudden changes and startling climaxes. Draped auroras are common in this country, though it has been wrongly stated that they are only seen near open seas, but their undulations are generally more deliberate and their character maintained; this one flashed on and off and changed its nature as though some finger were pressing buttons that controlled the electrical discharges of the universe. Yet it was noticed that even in its brightest moments the light of the stars could ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... his conception of the strong man that he must needs become as water at some woman's touch and go dancing and babbling like a sylvan brook. Women were the light of life—he was willing enough to admit it, but one must be able to switch the light on and off at will. All these were reasons for not falling in love—they were not reasons for not marrying. And so, Amber being determined to marry him, there was really less difficulty than if it had been necessary for him to fall ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... everybody. Mrs. Barrie played the gipsy and danced most of the time, which she said was her conception of the part as it was in the book. Her husband explained that this was a play, not a book, but she did not care and danced on and off. She played my daughter, and I had a great scene in which I cursed her, which got rounds of applause. Lady Lewis's daughters in beautiful Paquin dresses played Scotch lassies, and giggled in all the sad parts, and one actress who had made a ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... a repetition of dinner, and he took it with us in the dining-room. After supper he generally read a novel before the fire except in the very hottest weather, and he frequently dozed on and off till he retired at eleven. He made himself a cup of cocoa while preparing for bed, and drank it just before ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... which are very largely nervous in their origin, a powerful soothing influence is required. This is secured by the use of soap lather (see Lather; Soap). Cover the back and head, piece by piece, with this, rubbing it on and off four or five times. Cover the fifth application with a soft cloth, and leave it on for the day in the morning, and for the night in the evening, the patient being in bed. Hot olive oil or occasionally cold drawn oil of mustard is gently rubbed on the stiff parts; when this cloth is removed, gently ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... down next to the other one, and flicked the toggle for the air pumps, then put on the fishbowl and went about unattaching the suit from the ship. When the red light flashed on and off, I spun the door, opened it, and stepped out onto the rock, moving very cautiously. It isn't that I don't believe the magnets in the boot soles will work, it's just that I know for a fact that they won't work if I happen to raise both feet at ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... served as an excuse for instant dismissal, but there was now no hope of that happening. What was to be done? He would like to get rid of Linden, who was now really too old to be of much use, but as the old man had worked for Rushton on and off for many years, Hunter felt that he could scarcely sack him off hand without some reasonable pretext. Still, the fellow was really not worth the money he was getting. Sevenpence an hour was an absurdly large ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... remember the day Bull came?" Whitey asked. "And how I said maybe it was a good omen, and there ought to be something doing on the ranch? Well, there has been something doing—on and off." ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... sensory paralysis below the site of the lesion, with absence of superficial and deep reflexes. Retention of urine. Great abdominal distension, pain, and vomiting. Bed-sores over the sacrum developed on the third day; meanwhile the vomiting continued on and off for a week, and very ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... power, you could torture him at your own sweet will. Every minute, every hour, you could delight in his anguish and drink his tears. You could go down into his cell and speak to him and bargain with him, laugh at his tortures, and discuss his ransom; you could live on and off him, through his slowly ebbing life and his plundered treasures. Your whole castle, from the top of the towers to the bottom of the trenches, weighed on him, crushing, and burying him; and thus family revenges ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... view. Harry Horn. There was no mistaking his face. It had flashed on and off the telecaster throughout ...
— Spies Die Hard! • Arnold Marmor
... Mataafa daily surrounded (when he awakes) with fresh "white man's boxes" (query, ammunition?) and professing to be quite ignorant of where they come from; marches of bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and rag-tag as the devil himself could ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and laughed. The sort of a laugh that could be turned on and off, like a light. Rainsford assured him that the Fuzzies were ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... conventional daughter, who thinks and acts and speaks by rule, and whose life is like the life of an apricot, canned, or a music box wound up with a key. But to my thinking, my dear, good manners are not put on and off like varying fashions, nor done up like sweetmeats, pound for pound, and kept in the storeroom for state occasions. They strike root from the heart out, and the prettiest manners in the world are only the blossoming ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... about in affectionate companionship with his son, never faded from Horace's mind. The ways of the city were superimposed upon the ways of the country, but never displaced nor even covered them. They were a garment put on and off, sometimes partly hiding, but never for long, the original cloak of simplicity. It is not necessary to think its wearer insincere when, constrained by social circumstance, he put it on. As in most dualities not consciously ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... could give my readers a glimpse of the passengers who got on and off my train between Manila and Daguban: Filipino women carrying baskets on their heads, smoking cigarettes, and looking after babies—in some cases doing all three at once; Filipino men, likewise smoking, and with various ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... "Cinna," are not characters abounding in tenderness. Lady M—— saw her the other day in "Marie Stuart," and cried her eyes almost out, so she must have some pathetic power. —— was so enchanted with her, both on and off the stage, that he took me to call upon her, on her arrival in London, and I was very much pleased with the quiet grace and dignity, the excellent bon ton of her manners and deportment. The other morning too, at Stafford House, I was extremely ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... me as bearer of dispatches, intended for the Navy Department. During the first twenty days of our journey he was so weak that I had to lift him on and off his riding animal. I did not think for some time that he could live, but I bestowed as much care and attention on him as any one could have done, under the circumstances. Before the fatiguing and dangerous part of our route was passed over, he had so far ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... you are on and off your horse at the change of a thought. Your horse is not an animate exercise-maker that John brings around for a couple of hours each morning; he is your companion, and shares the vicissitudes of your life. You even consult him on occasion, especially on matters relating to the road. ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... dry snow the runner grates, And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, 150 While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, And until bedtime plays with his desire, Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;— ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... put on and off the Blackfriars stage, through the hisses or cheers of the motley audience, the autocrats of the "pit" seeming to be the real umpires of the cessation or continuance ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... are divided into two watches. Of these the chief mate commands the larboard, and the second mate the starboard, being on and off duty, or on deck and below, every other four hours. The watch from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. is divided into two half, or dog, watches. By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven instead of six, and thus shift the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to mark the channel in a cheek (smooth or furrowed, yours or mine), and where tears should course I'd draw the waters down: to say where a joke should come in or a pun be left out: to bring my personae on and off like a Beau Nash; and I'd Frankenstein them there: to bring three together on the stage at once; they are so shy with me, that I can get no more than two; and there they stand till it is the time, without being ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Toby's extravagantly friendly laughter with some mechanical cachinnations which, like an obliging salesman, he turned on and off with no effort. "Not by a dern sight!" he answered. ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... head of her bed was a little toy lamp. A chain hung from it. She tugged at the chain—pouff! Out went the light. She tugged at the chain. On went the light. A magical chain, that! It put the light on and off, both. Kedzie could find no chains to pull the ceiling lights out with. She ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... lift her gently on and off, with a kind word that comforted her immensely, and gentle Ed would come and teach her new bits of music, while the other fellows were frolicking below. Ralph added his share to her amusement, for he asked leave to model her head in clay, and set up his work in a corner, coming to ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... with these people. They are the wildest of any people that I have yet come across in Luzon. But like all wild people, they are cordial and hospitable. I live in their houses and so have their presence day and night. I hunt, fish and hike with them, see them on and off their guard, observe them in all their varying moods—in short, I'm very close to them all the time. Some time I will tell you a ...
— The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon • David P. Barrows
... possible, she wondered, after Mark had left the house, that Bridget had two strings to her bow? Was she holding Colonel Faversham on and off until Mark's return to London? Did she intend to make a last bid for the younger man, and if he eluded her to fall ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... and water out of the dredger, that it may not be lumpy; then put in a piece of butter, set it over a quick fire; have it on and off every instant to shake it, and it will not oil, but will become ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... introduced us, he turned his attention to the electric light, and switched it on and off so rapidly that, as was very fitting, Mary and I may be said to have met for the first time to the accompaniment of flashes of lightning. I think she was arrayed in little blue feathers, but if such ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... blue lights flashed on and off with the lurid glare of sulphur pits burning in hell, and screaming, winged Orconites, all mixed up together, pelted toward us as thickly as the snowflakes of a blizzard. I don't suppose the destruction of one little mesh of wires had ever ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... set, first bring the hinged coil of wire close up to the fixed coil and adjust the detector until you can hear in your receivers the loudest click caused by the turning on and off of the key to a nearby electric light. If no light is available, a buzzer and dry battery should be used. When the detector is properly adjusted you will be able to hear the buzz quite distinctly in the head phones if the buzzer is not too ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... technically called "deeps," are about six miles deep, in which Mount Everest would be engulfed. There is enormous pressure in such depths; even at 2,500 fathoms it is two and a half tons on the square inch. The temperature is on and off the freezing-point of fresh water (28 deg.-34 deg. Fahr.), due to the continual sinking down of cold water from the Poles, especially from the South. Apart from the fitful gleams of luminescent animals, there is utter darkness in the deep waters. The ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... undoubtedly a "card," not unrelated, I should say, to Mr. BENNETT'S Machen. He is an entertaining fellow with his enthusiasms, his truculences, his fluctuating standards of honesty. Mr. VACHELL didn't quite get me to believe in Joe's expert knowledge, which indeed seemed to be turned on and off in rather an arbitrary way as the exigencies of the story rather than the development and experience of the character dictated; but he did make me see and like the fellow. Mrs. Quinney, that faithful timid soul, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... water, the crow's call, and the song-sparrow's ecstasy. Once or twice the notes of a bugle found their way down the hill, and reminded me that I was in a place of delightful novelty. It was just a fillip to my enjoyment, as I looked on and off my ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... two pretty good ones and not slow either. We took care of that when we bought them. Nobody ever saw us on bad ones since we were boys, and we had broken them in to stand and be caught day or night, and to let us jump on and off ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... kept informed, through Henry, into whose hands had fallen a letter in Cora's handwriting, bearing the Bellair postmark, and addressed to Lucian Davlin, who, so Henry said, "went down, on and off," and always appeared satisfied with the result ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... knowledge except Aberdeen (not North Carolina, but Scotland). Its book-shops, however, are as naught to its yacht clubs. And for one yacht club I personally would sacrifice many book-shops. It was an exciting moment in my life when, after further wandering on and off coast roads, and through curving, cobbled, rackety streets, and between thunderous tram-cars and under deafening elevated lines, I was permitted to enter the celestial and calm precincts of the Boston Yacht Club itself, which overlooks another harbor. The ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... nothing to do with the mechanical running of the train, though he receives the orders and is, in a general way, responsible. The passengers are his special care, and it is his business to see that their getting on and off is in accordance with their tickets. He is responsible for their comfort also, and must be an animated information bureau, loaded with facts about every conceivable thing connected with travel. The brakemen are his assistants, and stay with him to the end of the division; the engineer ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... Ricci and La Cesari made their appearance, the former as Giulietta, the latter as Romeo. The Ricci is a thin young woman, with a long, pale face, black eyes and hair, long neck and arms, and large hands; extremely pretty, it is said, off the stage, but very ineffective on it; but both on and off with a very distinguished air. Her voice is extensive, but wanting cultivation, and decidedly pea-hennish; besides that, she is apt to go out of tune. Her style of dress was excessively unbecoming to her style of beauty. She wore a tight white gown, a tight blue satin-peaked body, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... that may be used on and off the field of battle. The authorized bugle signals are published in Part ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... hands when unemployed; they never wear mittens aloft, since aloft they literally carry their lives in their hands, and want nothing between their grasp of the hemp, and the hemp itself.—Therefore, it is desirable, that whatever things they cover their hands with, should be capable of being slipped on and off in a moment. Nay, it is desirable, that they should be of such a nature, that in a dark night, when you are in a great hurry—say, going to the helm—they may be jumped into, indiscriminately; and not be like a pair of right-and-left kids; neither of which will ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... cannot be put on and off like a dress-coat; they are lasting qualities, the growth of years, the result of constant practice and self-denial or self-neglect. And, as I wish you success in life, allow me to conclude this lecture by recommending to you the assiduous cultivation ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... we were very expeditious in regaining our station, where we got the 29th at noon, yet in plying on and off till the 6th of October we had not the good fortune to discover a sail of any sort, and then, having lost all hopes of making any advantage by a longer stay, we made sail to the leeward of the port in order to join our prizes; but when we arrived on the station appointed for them ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... the doctor is often one of even greater difficulty. Often enough there will be a combination of organic disturbance with functional trouble. For example, a girl of eighteen years old suffered from a pain in the left arm which has persisted on and off since the olecranon had been fractured when she was two years of age. She was the youngest of a large family, and had never been separated for a day from the care and apprehensions of her mother. The joint was stiff, and there was ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... On and off during the bitter night the white beam of light flashed out through the snow. For a few seconds it swept the sea close around and was then shut off. In the pall-like blackness which followed ears listened intently, but could distinguish ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... the short cut through the woods," said the pig lady when they had alighted from the trolley car on which a nice toad gentleman was the conductor, because he could hop on and off so quickly, and not step on ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... They have built marvelous mansions, where every comfort is instantly furnished by contrivances as complicated and accurate as the machinery of a modern warship. The doors and windows open and close, the lights are turned on and off, and the elevator stops—all automatically. If the temperature of a room rises above a certain degree the heating apparatus shuts itself off; if it drops too low something else happens to put it ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... indignant look at him she let him. The indignation would have puzzled him; but Marjorie's feeling was that a man who would doom you to this sort of a life, put you to such a test as Francis had, was adding insult to injury in helping you on and off with wraps. He, of course, couldn't grasp all this, ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... Stillwater continued to make herself more and more useful to her host and benefactor. She enlivened his table and his evenings at home by her cheerful conversation, her music and her games. She waited on him hand and foot, helped him on and off with his wraps when he went out or came in; warmed his slippers, filled his pipe, dried his newspapers, served him in innumerable little ways with a childlike eagerness and delight that was as the incense of frankincense and myrrh to the ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... and Negroes so much as my gloves. Am obliged to put them on and off frequently a dozen times a day, for their especial gratification. My Leghorn hat, on the contrary, here, as in The Mountains, is an object of admiration, on account of the fineness of the platting. It astonishes ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Barchester was supposed to have added it to the cathedral. It was built immediately over a portion of the cloisters, and a flight of stairs descended from it into the room in which the cathedral clergymen put their surplices on and off. As it also opened directly into the dean's house, it was the passage through which that dignitary usually went to his public devotions. Who had or had not the right of entry into it, it might be difficult to say; but the people of Barchester believed that ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... to spend his leisure ashore in a cloud, or a gutter, or a flower-pot, or a thunder-storm, or anywhere else where water was needed. "That's only a little priming, a little carrying-over, as they call it. It'll happen all night, on and off. I don't say it's nice, but it's the best we ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... that way about your part, I shall think you want to play Mr. Gabblewig. Your role, though a small one on the stage, is a large one off it; and no man is more important to the Guild, both on and off. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... The gas comes in through pipes built into the houses, and is turned on and off with a valve, somewhat as we let ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... of this scene, when every one present, on and off the stage, was lavishing homage upon her, she lifted her eyes to the young girl who leaned forward, poising herself in the box, like a bird preparing for flight, and clapped her little hand with the glee of a ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... opposite shadows of some elms lights twinkled in the sky, incontinent sparks, as though glow lamps on an invisible pattern of wires were being switched on and off by an idle child. That was shrapnel. I walked along the empty street a little to get a view between and beyond the villas. I turned to say something to my companion, and saw then my silent neighbours, shadowy groups about me, as though they had not approached ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... a stubble field. Surely there must be a path which would lead to the road, thought the boy. Backward and forward over the field he waved the light. His hands trembled so that he could not hold the switch steady, and the lamp blinked on and off. ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... seemed to yawn between him and all that hitherto he had been. He did not care to look back, so he looked forward. He felt as if he were the central figure (when was he not a central figure?) in a new drama. He was fond of acting, on and off the stage, and now he seemed to be playing a new part, in which he was not yet thoroughly at ease, but which he rather suspected would become him exceedingly well. It amused him to see himself going to church—to church—to hear himself conversing on flowers and music ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... forever and a day Through ever trying to be and ever being— In the evolution of successive spheres— Before its actual sphere and place of life, Halfway into the next, which having reached, It shoots with corresponding foolery Halfway into the next still, on and off! As when a traveller, bound from North to South, 790 Scouts far in Russia: what's its use in France? In France spurns flannel: where's its need in Spain? In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers! ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... arrangements to infrequent times of call and departure. The more frequent a local service, the more it comes to be relied upon. Another point—and one in which the omnibus has a great advantage over the railway—is that it should be possible to get on and off at any point, or at as many points on the route as possible. But this means a high proportion of stoppages, and this is destructive to speed. There is, however, one conceivable means of transit that is not simply frequent but continuous, that may be joined ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... the temptation of the diamond ring. She slipped it on and off her finger. She had large beautiful hands in perfect proportion to her large beautiful form, and the ring that had fitted the banker's long thin finger fitted her round white one perfectly. So, she took the jewelled box from her bosom, opened it, put the diamond ring in it, then closed and ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... vibrated, gently and not unpleasantly, as the contragravity field alternated on and off, occasionally varying its normal rate of five hundred to the second when some thermal updraft lifted the vehicle and the automatic radar-altimeter control acted to alter the frequency and lower it again. Sometimes ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... foil and glass cloth. The thermal adjustors were already working at capacity, transmitting the light and heat that filtered through the mirror-tone hull into stored, useful energy. Batteries were already overcharged and the voltage regulators snapped on and off like a ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... from Paris; or for dark-hued Martha who thumps out on a luckless shirt the damage she plans to inflict on a certain Pullman porter when he shows up at her back door again, provide an iron that cannot over-heat. With a thermostat that turns current on and off, it and the ironing board can remain forgotten for hours. The electric light company may benefit ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... under the impression that the portrait was never finished; but Posh is very certain about it. "I mind settin' as still as a cat at a mouse-hole," says he, "for ten min't or a quarter of an hour at a time, on and off, and then a stretchin' o' my legs in the yard. Ah! I was somethin' glad when that wuz finished, that I was! Tired! Lor! I niver knowed as dewin' narthen' would tire ye like that. The picter was ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... seven or eight years old, his uncle's wife came one day to the house on horseback. She was a fat, clumsy woman, and got on and off her horse with difficulty. Isaac knew that all the family were absent; but when he saw her come ambling along the road, he took a freak not to tell her of it. He let down the bars for her; she rode up to the horse-block with which every farm-house was then furnished, rolled off her ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... and as soon as the intellectual zest is gone from absorbing companionship with one person, they turn to another. One such instance showed through twenty years a series of such friendships on the part of a well-meaning but foolish woman, in which her husband figured briefly, passing on and off the stage as violently as, and even more speedily than, the ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... but emphatically as honest, sober and willing. By way of the usual caution we wrote to this good lady direct and asked her to be so kind as to elaborate her views to us in confidence. In reply she wrote that James had been with her for eleven years on and off, had left her only because she was leaving "The Cottage," would be welcomed back by her when she settled down again, and meanwhile was very honest, very sober and very willing. There was that about the handwriting and style of this letter ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... better velocity and position information about the missile from the ground radar, it sent course corrections to the ship, which were accepted in the computer as changes to the pre-set trajectory. The navigation computer hummed and buzzed; lights flickered on and off on the instrument panel; relays clicked behind the panel. The ship steered itself toward the correct intercept point. All this automatic operation was required because no merely human pilot had reflexes fast enough to carry out an ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino
... Thucydides. Of its essence, it is free from many of the conventions and restraining influences of earlier forms of literature, and enjoys much of the liberty of choice of subject and licence of method that marks present-day conditions of literary production both on and off the stage. Its very existence presupposes a fuller and bolder intellectual life, a more advanced and complex city civilization, a keener taste and livelier faculty of comprehension in the people ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... facetia of the gallant expressman, who knew everybody's Christian name along the route, who rained letters, newspapers, and bundles from the top of the stage, whose legs frequently appeared in frightful proximity to the wheels, who got on and off while we were going at full speed, whose gallantry, energy, and superior knowledge of travel crushed all us other passengers to envious silence, and who just then was talking with several persons and manifestly ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... dykes, within which the black tents were pitched. The dogs were of immense size, and ragged, like the yaks, from their winter coat hanging to their flanks in great masses; each was chained near a large stone, on and off which he leapt as he gave tongue; they are very savage, but great cowards, and ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... almost like human beings; he understands them better than some human beings, for the most cunning of the animals are yet simple. He knows what they are thinking when I cannot read a word of their faces. I remember one terrible night, winters ago—there had been a blinding drift on and off during the day, and my father and mother were getting anxious about him—how he came staggering in, and fell on the floor, and a great lump in his plaid on his back began to wallow about, and forth crept his big colley! They had been to the ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. Peggotty was stowing his bag among the luggage, 'his life is quite broke up. He doen't know wheer he's going; he doen't know—what's afore him; he's bound upon a voyage that'll last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take my wured for 't, unless he finds what he's a seeking of. I am sure you'll be a friend ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... on and off, but especially of late, in regard to the painted and etched portraits which Rosenthal produced nearly a generation ago, and in particular respecting portraits which were hung in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Statements in the case by Rosenthal and by the late ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... musical show had not so very far falsified its attractions. There was plenty of action in the piece, much trotting on and off the stage; a great many songs with an exceedingly active chorus doing its best, and the dancing was unusually good. It had a big company of principals, well costumed; and such music as ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... Anglo-Saxon Republic of the United States, where brusque assertion of even the meanest authority is evident, in the present development of that country. Nor is it to be supposed that Mexican politeness is a mere veneer, or mask, to be put on and off as occasion dictates, for it arises from native kindliness—a species of Quixotism of ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... out of the Straits, and were fairly in the great Pacific Ocean, we had a steady wind for the first time since leaving Ternate, but unfortunately it was dead ahead, and we had to beat against it, tacking on and off the coast of New Guinea. I looked with intense interest on those rugged mountains, retreating ridge behind ridge into the interior, where the foot of civilized man had never trod. There was the country of the cassowary and the tree-kangaroo, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... turned the reflector of her drop light toward the academy in such a way that the light would be cast out across the night, then by turning the key on and off quickly she flashed its rays three times, paused a moment, then ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... with the ring in which blazed a splendid ruby, and which she was putting on and off ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... Ludwig, and heir presumptive to one of the best delicatessens in Newport News) reveled in love-making on and off. Carl was attracted by her constantly, uncomfortably. She smiled at him in the wings, smoothed her fluffy blond hair at him, and told him in confidence that she was a high-school graduate, that she was used to much, oh, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... crackling, splitting, and sending up clouds of black smoke dotted with brilliant sparks, as I had once seen at the burning of a coal brig in Falmouth harbour; but they did not, and the utter stillness of the night, in that hot calm, which had on and off lasted for days, had so far saved ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... uses to give a very light heat," Mary explained. "He is working on a new electric system, and had just turned the current on to try it last night. It is off now. I know how to throw on and off the switch," she assured the girls, as Madaline edged gingerly ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... mere theatric pomp. [Footnote: The cardinal-patriarch officiates in the Basilica San Marco with some ceremonies which I believe are peculiar to the patriarchate of Venice, and which consist of an unusual number of robings and disrobings, and putting on and off of shoes. All this is performed with great gravity, and has, I suppose, some peculiar spiritual significance. The shoes are brought by a priest to the foot of the patriarchal throne, when a canon removes the profane, out-of-door chaussure, and places ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... On and off, one had done the same thing since the year 1858, at frequent intervals, and had now reached the month of March, 1897; yet, as the whole result of six years' dogged effort to begin a new education, one could not recommend it to the young. The outlook ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... ... strictly ... horizontal. It seems to me that if he could see those trams, mark Saturdays and Sundays by the increase of passengers, make little games to himself involving the number of persons to get on and off (for the stopping-place is within view: I know, for I looked) it might be possible to draw him back from that apathy which I too, as well as you, ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... far when he arrived in the pilot-house. Grasping the switch-handle of the great electric lantern, he proceeded to switch the light on and off rapidly, which act had the effect of almost immediately attracting the attention of the three men who were sitting on the skylight of the wreck. He saw them look at each other, as though speaking, and ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... would not be long in making use of his "instrument." He recalled various individuals who a few days ago were strolling slowly along the wharf examining the vessel, and spying upon those going on and off. If he could manage to see them again he would go off the steamer just to say a ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... obstinate complaint, dementia senilis, many thought it was not so much the force of his arguments as a kind of tendency to jump as the bellwether jumps, well known in flocks not included in the Christian fold. His bereaved congregation immediately began pulling candidates on and off, like new boots, on trial. Some pinched in tender places; some were too loose; some were too square-toed; some were too coarse, and did n't please; some were too thin, and would n't last;—in short, they could n't possibly find a fit. At last, people began to drop in to hear old Doctor Honeywood. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... lump of white sugar and the linnet half an egg, because of her young ones. Then he stood and watched them washing their beaks and wings and splashing in the water, pecking at their troughs now full of seed and at their sugar and cheerfully hopping on and off their perches. Then, when they were all hung up again in their places on the wall, they all started whistling together till the kitchen rang with it. The baby screamed in its cradle. Trientje cried and mother stamped across the floor in her heavy ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... "On and off the stage, I mean. And that's knowledge," said Rickman. "Anybody can know them on; but it's not one man in a thousand knows ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... a standard war game. The CIA man was well acquainted with it. He watched the general flip a switch, then sit back and fold his arms over his chest. A row of lights on the desk console began blinking on and off, one, two, three ... down to the end of the row, then back to the beginning again, on and off, on and ...
— The Next Logical Step • Benjamin William Bova
... the Kremlin and Washington officialdom are working hand-in-glove to deceive the people of both nations, turning the Berlin "crisis" on and off to cover up failures and to provide excuses ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... suspicion. If this were not so, the entire effect of the test would be lost upon the investigators. Having secured his assistant, he hands him, for examination, a solid steel ring, just large enough to slip on and off the hand and arm easily. The ring is perfectly solid, and may be examined by anyone desirous of doing so. When this part of the performance is finished, the medium and his sitter then join or clasp their ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... tumbles off himself—and another Rule seems to be that they hold their clubs with their arms, as if they were Punch and Judy—What a noise they make when they tumble! Just like a whole set of fire-irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the horses are! They let them get on and off them just as if ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... witness as to Gilbert's childhood. For information on the next period of his life, I talked to Monsignor O'Connor, to Hilaire Belloc, Maurice Baring, Charles Somers Cocks, F. Y. Eccles and others, besides being now able to draw on my own memories. Frances I had talked with on and off about their early married years ever since I had first known them, but she was, alas, too ill and consequently too emotionally unstrung during the last months for me to ask her all the questions springing in my mind. "Tell Maisie," ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... was a week. We were working the clock around and our little sun was misbehaving again. It was a feverish week, not measured by day and night, for the sun would wink on and off as though it were getting ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... the church to which the baby's parents belong, the house christening is by far the easier, safer and prettier. Easier, because the baby does not have to have wraps put on and off and be taken out and brought in; safer, because it is not apt to catch cold; and ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Coupler, the mechanism of which is described and illustrated in Stainer's Dictionary, a device was formerly found in some organs by which the keys of the Swell were caused to act upon the keys of the Great. The coupler being brought on and off by a pedal, sforzando effects could be produced, or the first beat in cadi measure strongly accented in the style of the orchestration of the great masters. Hope-Jones in his pioneer organ at St. John's Church, Birkenhead, England, provided a pedal which brought the Tuba on the Great organ. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... Lord Harrowby, and communicated conversation with Palmerston and Melbourne. He has not been able to decide the Archbishop, who is on and off, and can't make up his mind. Lord Harrowby is going to Lord Grey to talk with him. The Tories obstinate as mules. The Duke of Buccleuch, who had got Harrowby's letter, and copied it himself that he might know it by ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... ran into another little clutter of buildings and drew up, puffing, at the station. Conniston's eyes were alert, fixed upon the passageway from the observation-car rather than on the view from his window. Mail-bags were tossed on and off, a few packages handled by the Wells Fargo man, and the train pulled out. Conniston leaned back ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... once the mistake directly we understand that a genuine style is the living body of thought, not a costume that can be put on and off; it is the expression of the writer's mind; it is not less the incarnation of his thoughts in verbal symbols than a picture is the painter's incarnation of his thoughts in symbols of form and colour. A man may, if it please him, dress ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... international Non-Proliferation Treaty. In mid-2003 Pyongyang announced it had completed the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods (to extract weapons-grade plutonium) and was developing a "nuclear deterrent." From August 2003, North Korea has participated on and off in six-party talks with the China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States to resolve the stalemate over ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... jumped back, imagining that I had been crushed to death, in fact, I could feel that my right hand was mashed to a pulp. But it was a false alarm; it wasn't. I had made the coupling without a scratch to myself, and it wasn't long before I became bolder, and jumped on and off of the foot-boards and brake-beams like any other lunatic. That all four of us were not killed is ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady |
