"Switching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Switching on the ICEG took his mind back to the snug apartment where its receiver stood, the armchair, books, desk of diverting work. It looked awful good, but ... life fought back, and always it ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... little rosette for the coat. Notice how I can turn the minute incandescent lamp, placed in the centre of the rose, off or on at my pleasure. If I disconnect it with the battery, which is in my pocket, the lamp goes out; if I connect it with my battery the lamp shines brilliantly. This all comes by "switching it on" or "switching it off," as we commonly express the act of connecting or disconnecting the lamp with the source ...
— The Story of a Tinder-box • Charles Meymott Tidy
... every preparation for cutting through the sudd, and we were well prepared with many hundred sharp bill-hooks, switching-hooks, bean-hooks, sabres, &c. I had also some hundred miners' spades, shovels, &c., in case it might be necessary to deepen the shallows. While the whole English party were full of spirit and determined to succeed, I regret to ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... the ear, and dropping the fingers that lay cold as marble in his, Mr. Dunbar swung himself to the station platform. The train moved off, but he knew that it would return in switching, and so he stood ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... but more because it was an impulse, and furnished me for the moment with some definite objective, something to do. I got up, slipped on a dressing gown, and went downstairs. The lights were all out. I was just on the point of switching on those in the reception hall, when suddenly it seemed as though I had not strength to lift my hand, and I remember that for an instant I grew terribly cold with dread and fear. From the room on my right a voice had reached me. The door was closed, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... sun and the sweep of wind, their throats parched in the dust cloud flung upward from the marching, cloven hoofs. Months it would take in the making,—but sitting there with the green tail-lights switching through cuts and around low hills and out over the level, Luck visioned it all, scene by scene. Visioned the herd huddled together in the night while the heavens were split with lightning, and the rain came down in white-lighted ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... there is the uncertainty,—which is most likely to influence the other," said Nancy, switching dexterously away from hinted personal application, and then with a dash of daring gaiety, adding, "When you marry a girl with a crooked nose, will yours begin to crook likewise, or will hers ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... squire!' she suddenly exclaimed. There they were coming across the flower-garden from the stable-yard, her father switching his boots with his riding whip, in order to make them presentable in Mrs. Hamley's drawing-room. He looked so exactly like his usual self, his home-self, that the seeing him in the flesh was the ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... breaths that had been held came in a shout together. Everyone who saw the pause yelled to the bull to go on and prove his courage. And the bull, when the first shock of surprise and distaste had passed, backed ominously, head lowered, tail switching in spasmodic jerks from side to side. The bear stood a little straighter in her defiance; her head went forward an inch; beyond that she did not move, for her tactics were not to rush but to wait, and to put every ounce of her terrible strength ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... near a bush forty yards away, and was switching his tail. I had heard that this was a sure premonition of an instant charge, but I had not before realized exactly what "switching the tail" meant. I had thought of it as a slow sweeping from side to side, after ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... station agent, 'had endeared himself to the station agents, operators and their families all along the line. As the mixed train did the way-freight work and the switching at Mt. Clemens, it usually consumed not less than thirty minutes, during which time Al would play with my little two-and-a-half-year ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... situated on a mound overlooking the Ganges. There is no garden about it, but a grass field, with a few trees here and there. Between the window at which I am writing and the river is an open shed, in which two elephants are switching their tails, and knocking about the hay which has been given them for their breakfast. This is a much more quiet and rural place than any which I have visited since I have been in India; for Barrackpore ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... young man was standing in an attitude of expectancy—a very handsome man clothed in the picturesque costume of a ranchero. He leaned upon his rifle, but betrayed both anger and impatience in the rapid switching to and fro of his riding-whip. "Plato, she has not come!" He said it reproachfully, as if the ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... made no demur, though, a month before, nothing would have induced her to believe that she would be staying with Susie this March at Whitethorn. Mr. Crawfurd walked with his daughters to the great gate, and Joanna, looking back, saw him, on his return, switching the thistle-heads in the hedge, as she had never witnessed him attempt in her experience; she could almost fancy he was whistling, as Harry Jardine went piping along before he fell ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... threw himself down full length and watched Jim out of the corners of his eyes. Jim on his side of the creek stood thinking and switching his leg. The houses in view were silent, as if a pestilence had swept them clean of every breath of life; but many invisible eyes were turned, from within, upon the two men with the creek between them, a stranded white boat, and the body of the third man half sunk in the mud. On ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... to his bag. "Actually, I suppose I am one of the many. Going to the new world to see whether or not it is worth switching alliances ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... the night operator, and I don't forget the switching he gave some of us a year ago," muttered Ben ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... /n./ 1. obs. Once upon a time, before all-digital switches made it possible for the phone companies to move them out of band, one could actually hear the switching tones used to route long-distance calls. Early {phreaker}s built devices called 'blue boxes' that could reproduce these tones, which could be used to commandeer portions of the phone network. (This was not as hard as it may sound; ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... barrows, the very pails) picked up the maize, touched it, tasted it, said something to the girls that made them laugh, and something to the head farmer that made him look very glum; and then led me into a huge stable, where some twenty or thirty white bullocks were stamping, switching their tails, hitting their horns against the mangers in the dark. Alvise III. patted each, called him by his name, gave him some salt or a turnip, and explained which was the Mantuan breed, which the Apulian, which the Romagnolo, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... displeasure at our approach. "Go back, Job!" Theodora said to him; Wealthy stepped to the rear of the others, being still a little afraid of "Job." He was a grievous biter, Theodora informed me, and had bitten her several times, till she had given him a switching for it. ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... system composed of open-wire lines, cables, and microwave radio relay links; Internet available but expensive; principal switching centers are Casablanca and Rabat; national network nearly 100% digital using fiber-optic links; improved rural service employs microwave radio relay international: 7 submarine cables; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) and 1 Arabsat; microwave ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... way down into the cellar, switching on an electric light when he reached the foot of the stairs. There was a small bar in the rear of the dingy, underground room, a table or two, and dozens of small boxes stacked ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... really sleepy, but only dazed a little by the adventure. I fixed some things on the floor by one of the windows and lay down, switching out the light. Through a top window the sunlight slanted down to fall around Garth, at his instrument board, in a bright glory. From my window I could see the Earth and the ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson
... beautiful whiskey, and forgot all about his fad. He is strong and subtle, but I talked him off his guard. He is going to the Kirkleathams' to-night—I saw the card stuck up. I stuck some wax into his keyhole as he was switching ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... both married and single, with and without families, streamed back to the dear old village. The two livery stables were crowded with vehicles of all sorts, and lines of buggies and wagons were drawn up along the sides of the shady roads, the horses switching their tails in luxurious idleness. The streets were filled with people wearing their best clothes, and the fashions included not only "the latest thing," but the well preserved relic of a bygone day. There were all sorts and conditions of men and women, for there were ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... beast with her whip, and then I laughed cheerfully, and our glances met. It was enough, and in a few yards she had reined up, and the little horse she rode, still full of fire, was pawing the earth, and switching his foam-flecked sides with his tail, whilst Diane was looking at me with tightened lip and a flush ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... varied so much by the type of the ground and the nature of the situation, each type of ground affording a different solution of the problem, it is thought the best results can be obtained by finishing each subject before proceeding to the next, thus not losing the "atmosphere" of one subject by switching to the next, and also confusing the minds of the men with ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... pistols from the box and loaded them. Sir John stood apart, switching the heads of the tall grasses with ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... to see its exact place upon the clearly-defined line, afterwards noting it in his book in cryptic figures, and then carefully switching off again, when ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... to Lane to go over with her the minute detail of his full day: how he had considered an application from a large shipper for switching privileges, had discussed the action of the Torso and Northern in cutting the coal rates, had lunched with Freke, the president of a coal company that did business with the A. and P.; and had received, just as he left the office, the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... under the scant shelter of the eaves, switching at flies and trying to doze. Johnny led him down to the creek and gave him about half as much water as he wanted, then took him to the corral and unsaddled him under the brush shed that sheltered his own horse from the worst of the heat. Whatever her mood and whatever her ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... walked briskly up the wooded road, chatting and laughing, with now and then a sage and critical glance at the water, of which they caught many glimpses through the trees. Gethryn and Ruth were soon far ahead. The colonel sauntered along, switching leaves with his rod and indulging in ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... snowy vapor that floated lazily across that grim-visaged southward scarp. The drowsy hum of insects, the plash of cool, running waters fell softly on the ear. Under the shade of willow and cottonwood cattle and horses were lazily switching at the swarm of gnats and flies or dozing through the heated hours of the day. Out on the level flat beyond the corral the troopers had unsaddled, and the chargers, many of them stopping to roll in equine ecstasy upon the turf, were being ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... the barrel, which glistened in the dying flame of the match. He unlocked his door, closed it, and shot the bolt. Switching on the electric light, he cautiously drew back the sheet. Apparently satisfied, he sniffed the air. It was nothing more than stuffy, as a stateroom that has been closed for a week or ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... a pile of newspapers, which he sent flying all over the office by switching them violently with his stick; after which ebullition he departed—not, however, without walking several times to the door of the press-room, as if he had half a mind to enter. While Albert was lashing the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Princes Street, with the hairs straggling under her hat and her fierce eyes holding back the tears, telling him haughtily that a great cause made one indifferent to discomfort; and he nearly laughed aloud. He looked across the hall at her and just caught her switching her gaze from him to the platform. He felt a curious swaggering triumph at the flight of ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Dick Annesley-Seton sauntered about the immense room into which they had come from the state banqueting hall, switching on more and more of the electric candle-lights set high on the green brocade walls. This was known as the "green drawing room" by the family, and the "Room of the Miniatures" by the public, who read about ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... for evermore. He paid his obligations to engineers and firemen as he believed they deserved, and only his bank knows what he gave the crews who had sympathized with him. It is on record that the last crew took entire charge of switching operations at Sixteenth Street, because "she" was in a doze at last, and Heaven was to help any one who ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... the cellar stairs with a basket of clothes in her hand. Just as she passed the side entry door she heard someone fumbling with the knob on the outside. The knob turned and the door began to open softly. "Who's there?" called Sahwah sharply, switching on the light in the entry and throwing wide the door. There stood Veronica, with her violin under her arm and her hat and coat on. She started back when she saw Sahwah and the two stood looking into each other's eyes. "She hasn't been home, she's still ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... wing-feathers are curiously shaped and stiffened in the male, so that the bird is able to produce with them a peculiar snapping or cracking sound; and the tail-feathers of several species of snipe are so narrowed as to produce distinct drumming, whistling, or switching sounds when the birds descend rapidly from a great height. All these are probably recognition and call notes, useful to each species in relation to the most important function of their lives, and thus capable of being developed by ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Instantly upon switching on the light, the young engineer sprang to a telephone on the wall. Tad observed that the wires from it followed out into the passage through which they ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... from him, her quirt in her hand switching restlessly at the carpet, her eyes showing a little sympathy for his illness but more anger ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... conspicuous, in Baltimore, a few years ago. His name was L—, and he hailed from Richmond, we believe, and built some consequence upon the fact that he was a son of the Old Dominion. He dressed in the extreme of fashion; spent a good deal of time strutting up and down Market street, switching his rattan; boarded at one of the hotels; drank wines freely, and pretended to be quite a judge of their quality; swore round oaths occasionally, and talked of his ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... midnight march through the forest, with the rain falling in a deluge through the dripping trees, the lightning flashing and the thunder rolling. We stumbled along upon each other's heels, falling over logs or underbrush, the wet branches switching our faces raw and soaking us through and through. It seemed to me that we must have covered fifteen or twenty miles, at least, when the first gray of the morning brightened the horizon and a halt was called, but really we had come little ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... a schoolboy who was caught fishing in forbidden waters. He knew that the penalty was a switching (old style), and his contemporaries were pleased to remind him of the fact. Five o'clock was the hour fixed for the interview. The boy was small for his age, but brainy. All day he studied how he might save his skin ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... his tale. "He's over there with the C.O. now," and switching: "Shell splinter got him in the eye. Guess it's gone and maybe ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... who made up the embassy walked at the usual slow and somewhat shambling pace which the Lancashire rustic assumes at times of leisure—pausing every now and then to emphasise the point of some remark, switching at the hedge with their sticks, playfully kicking up the dust, or sending a tempting pebble spinning along in front of them—faint notes of music reached them, coming apparently from the direction towards ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... "I wonder? I don't think I've thought much about it. The circumstances of my life have developed the habit of switching off my imagination except when I am at my desk. I've also formed the habit of taking things as they come. I'll manage to extract something from ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... bull looked up, and saw Ted approaching him, he ceased pawing, and stood with watchful eyes. Occasionally he sent forth a challenging bellow. His tail was switching from side to side, like that of an ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... the C. P. & D. Railway were crowded into a half-dozen utilitarian rooms on the second floor of the company's freight station building in the Chicago yards. In two of these rooms, with a window outlook upon a tangle of switching tracks with their shifting panorama of cars and locomotives, Ford set up his standard as chief executive of the three "annexed" roads, becoming, in the eyes of three separate republics of minor officials and employees, the arbiter ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... rests first upon the phalanx of snow-crests to the south, then down upon the lake, lying outstretched like some wriggling monster, switching its tail, and finally off to the many places where early Swiss history was made. In point of fact, you are looking at quite a large slice of Switzerland. Victor Hugo seized the meaning of this view when he wrote: "It is a serious hour, and full ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... to look at it a nice young fellow from the office had gone with them; running ahead and switching on rows of electrics down the corridors, and then, with a wire-basketed electric lamp, which he twirled about and held aloft and alow, showing the dustless, sweet-smelling spaciousness of a perfect five-dollar ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... that it is better suited to certain pieces than to others. They find that music may be performed on it with the more triumphant success the less human it is and the nearer it comes to the soullessness of an arabesque. The best operator, by pumping or pulling stops or switching levers, cannot entirely succeed in imbuing it with the breath of life. The disquieting fact remains that the more a certain piece demands to be filled with soul, the thinner and more ghost-like it comes forth. The less intimately human the music, the more satisfactorily ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... person who spoke; somewhat ursine in aspect; sporting a shaggy spencer of the cloth called bear's-skin; a high-peaked cap of raccoon-skin, the long bushy tail switching over behind; raw-hide leggings; grim stubble chin; and to end, a double-barreled gun in hand—a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman, of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and sentiments; and, as the sequel may show, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... to be buried against their will. One by one I dragged shovel gangs away to a distance where my shouting could be heard, one by one I commanded drillmen to shut off their deafening machines, all day I dodged switching, snorting trains, clambered by steep rocky paths, or ladders from one level to another, howling above the roar of the "cut" the time-worn questions, straining my ear to catch the answer. Many a negro did not know ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... as Chester crept toward the inert form of the war correspondent, the cats, not perceiving this new enemy—so intent were they upon the body of Stubbs—also approached quietly. Two of the animals were now directly above the body of Stubbs, and stood switching their tails on the limb of a large tree that overhung the roadway. The third was ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... Density of acid as shown by the hydrometer. (b) Voltage. This may be taken when charging or when idle. In the first case it ought to be from 2.4 to 2.6 volts, according to conditions. In the second ease it ought to be just over 2 volts, provided that the observation is not taken too soon after switching in the charging current. For about half an hour after that is done, the E.M.F. has a transient high value, so that, if it be desired to get the proper E.M.F. of the cell, the observation must be taken thirty minutes after the charging ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to the barn and saw a whole street of horse-stalls, the farthest horse switching his tail in dim distance; and such a mow of hay as impressed him with the advantages of travel. A hostler was forking down hay for the evening's feeding, and Robert climbed to his side, upon which the hostler good-naturedly took him ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Caldecott-like moment, or rather minute, when the huntsmen stood on the green lawn round the moving, tail-switching, dapple mass of hounds; and the red coats trotted one by one from behind the screens of bare trees, delicate lilac against the slowly moving grey sky. A delightful moment, followed, as the hunt swished past, by the sudden sense that these men and women, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... turned in after exacting a promise that Tom would call him at the end of two hours. The old cowman, however, had no such intention. It was not until eight hours later that he summoned Jack. The lights in the cave still burned brightly, for Tom had refrained from switching them off for the obvious reason that they made it easy to keep an eye on the prisoners. Day-light, however, showed at the mouth of the cave. When Jack noted the ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... popular than any arrangement of telephones on a single line. Beginning in 1877, telephone exchanges were developed with great rapidity in all of the larger communities of the United States. Telegraph switching devices were utilized at the outset or were modified in such minor particulars as were necessary to fit them to ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... had the pleasure of seeing the parson's venerable chaise lumbering along the public road at a safe distance away, an hour before noon; and he half wished he were near enough to give the jolly old nag a good switching across the flanks. He had begged a bit of warm breakfast in the morning at an outlying house, and at the hour when he caught sight of his pursuer he was lying under the edge of a wood, lunching upon the gingerbread Keziah had provided, and beginning to reckon up soberly what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... Griffith is commonly credited with having "invented" this technical device, which is simply a frequent switching from one scene to another, and then back again to the first, in order to heighten interest by maintaining the suspense. Its use has been well illustrated by Mr. C.B. Hoadley, who cites a play in which the contrasting pictures ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... nearest to me an old man was seated on the ground, apparently washing himself, for he was stooping over a little pool of water, while behind him stood his horse with patient, drooping head, occasionally switching off the flies with its tail. A mile farther on stood a dwelling, which looked to me like an old estancia house, surrounded by large shade trees growing singly or in irregular clumps. It was the only house near, but after gazing at it for some time I concluded that it was uninhabited. ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... cabin door she heard a little noise and guessed that Jimmy was within. Opening it quickly, without switching on the light, she cried, "Here comes a big bear to eat you all up," as Jimmy often did to her. She grasped someone, and cried out in fear. It was someone grown up, kneeling on ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... trying to," mused the colonel as he got into bed, and turned his thoughts to a passage he had read in Walton just before switching off his light. It was an old rhyme, the source of which was not given, but which seemed wonderfully comforting under the circumstances. It was a bit of advice given by our friend Izaak, and as part of what a good ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... queried Virginia, driven in from her post of vantage on the observation platform by the smoke from the switching-engine. "Didn't I see Uncle Somerville charging across to the telegraph office with war written out large in every ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... in, saying, "We've another locomotive; now we're going!" And everybody else who was outside hurried into the cars; the new propelling power was attached to the other end of the train, and after a deal of switching, there they were at last—off ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... with a stealth that was well under cover of those voices, groping into the first door at her right, feeling round for the wall key, switching the old rose-and-gold room into immediate light. Stood for a moment, her plumage drooping damply to her shoulders, blue foulard dress snagged in two places, her gold mesh bag with the sapphire-and-diamond ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... got beyond the streets and into the Park, attracted thither by strains of martial music, when, in a retired path, I encountered a gentleman dressed in a close-fitting, semi-military coat, with a green scarf round his neck, and switching a cane to and fro as he paced moodily along. I ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... road slowly and stopped there, switching his legs absently with the stalk of a horseweed. He was in his shirtsleeves—a respectable, snuffy old figure; evidently a man deliberate in words and thoughts and actions. There was something about him suggestive of an old staid sheep that had ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... Diana came into her bedroom, and, switching on the electric lights, tossed her gloves and programme into a chair. The room was empty, for her maid had had a vertige at the suggestion that she should accompany her mistress into the desert, and had been sent back to Paris to await Diana's return. She had ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... to say something about her secret. But no! "Not to-night," she thought, and after switching off the light and kissing her hand in the darkness to the stars that hung over the north, she laughed at her own foolishness and went ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... powerful, highly directional antennas are used to transmit and receive the microwave signals; reliable over-the-horizon communications are realized for distances up to 600 miles in a single hop; additional hops can extend the range of this system for very long distances. trunk network-a network of switching centers, connected by multichannel trunk lines. UHF-ultra-high-frequency; any radio frequency in the 300- to 3,000-MHz range. VHF-very-high-frequency; any radio frequency in the ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... nodded Peter, carefully switching his navy plug to the opposite cheek before settling down to reply, "and sez I, 'Why, Martin, what d'ye want o' that there shoat? You ain't got nothin' to keep her on!' 'If I can borrow the pig,' sez he, 'I reckon I can borrow the feed somewheres.' God ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... the office force of the railroad was trying to make up a train. The rabble that had gained entrance to the yards were blocking their movements by throwing switches at the critical moment. As Sommers came up to the fence, the switching engine had been thrown into the wrong siding, and had bunted up at full speed against a milk car, sending the latter down the siding to the main track. It took the switch at a sharp pace, was derailed, and blocked the track. The crowd in the court gave a shout of delight. The switching engine ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... was snuffed out of him like the switching off of an electric current. The dull heavy cloud descended on him again. He stared vacantly at the others, shrugged his shoulders slightly, and turned his back ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... continued O'Brien, smiling. "Mr. Glover has left the dike. He just told me the river had fallen six inches since two o'clock. We'll be out of here now as quick as we can get an engine: they've been switching with ours. There was considerable wind in ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... Hot Rod communications officer was switching each of the control panels in turn to Earth control, while Dr. Benjamin Koblensky, project chief, stood directly behind him, supervising the process. Elbertson took up his post beside Dr. Koblensky, replacing the Security aide who had had the past shift. "Suit up," he said to ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... he must have been glad to get back," I said, switching off the light so that we could talk in the dark, which ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... the study. He placed a little table beside the chair on which I sat. He set a decanter of whisky, a syphon of soda water and a box of cigars at my elbow. He brought a reading lamp and put it behind me, switching on the electric current so that the light fell brightly over my shoulder. He turned off the other lights in the room. He asked me if there were anything else he could do for ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... and added their horses to the tail-switching string in front of the saloon. Racey did not fail to note that none of the other horses gave any evidence of having been ridden either hard or lately. Which, in the face of Thompson's assertion that the men he left behind had ridden in pursuit of the murderer, seemed rather odd. Or perhaps ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... river meadows, the little girl, secure in her seat on the pinto, rode to and fro along the southern edge of the herd, in front of the lowered foreheads and tossing horns of the cattle. Behind her came the blind black colt, switching his tail and whinnying fretfully; but, despite his pleading, the little girl, eager to win the reward she had been promised, never paused in her sentry duty. The pinto fretted, too, for she also was hungry. ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... return immediately with a concerned expression and the announcement that her portmanteau had been robbed of every blessed thing it contained. Miss Loriner accompanied her to make investigations, and, switching on the electric light, pointed out that the maid had unpacked the bag—the articles were on the dressing-table, and hanging up in the wardrobe. Gertie had only to ring, and the maid would come at once to help her to dress. Gertie said she had done this without ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... resting-place. As many as twelve hundred wires are often bunched into one sheath, and each cable lies loosely in a little duct of its own. It is reached by manholes where it runs under the streets and in little switching-boxes placed at intervals it is frayed out into separate pairs of wires that blossom at ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... foiling a suspicious movement of Dolly's switching tail, "mebbe that's so; I feel some cooler without a hat. But 'tain't safe to let the sun beat right down, the way it does, without something between. Then, you see, Henry's got a lot o' these horse hats in the store to ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... Susanna Crane. From the vague southwest he came, now skirting the chimneyed towns and elm-bordered village streets, now exchanging the road for the bright rails and perhaps the interior of a droning freight-car, now switching anew through the edge of odorous pine woods, yet leaving behind him ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... master-at-arms and his corporals are continually prowling about on all three decks, eager to spy out iniquities. At one time, for example, you see Leggs switching his magisterial rattan, and lurking round the fore-mast on the spar-deck; the next moment, perhaps, he is three decks down, out of sight, prowling among the cable-tiers. Just so with his master, and Pounce his coadjutor; they are here, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Roger to himself. "Surely I locked the door?" He walked to the front of the shop, switching on the cluster of lights that hung from the ceiling. The door was ajar, but everything else seemed as usual. Bock, hearing his footsteps, came trotting out from the kitchen, his claws rattling on the bare wooden floor. He looked up with the patient inquiry of a dog ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... dress, Jason," said Jimmie Dale—and, crossing the reception hall, with its rich, oriental rugs, he ran up the wide staircase, opened the door of his "den," locked it behind him, and, switching on the lights, began to strip off his coat and vest, as he hurried toward the further end of the great, spacious, luxuriously appointed room that ran the entire depth of ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... merchant himself. It usually means the promotion of a clerk who gets a swelled head. The new buyer generally feels that he must do something to show his ability and one of the ways he does this is by switching lines. ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... closely, he at length turned tail and leaped the low fence—for the corral was a new one, hastily built for the occasion. The conqueror raised his head inside the fence and bellowed his triumph, and outside the fence the other commenced pawing up the sand again, switching his tail across his bleeding side, and turning his little red eyes here and there. They fixed, at length, upon Kate Cumberland, and she remembered with a start of horror that she was wearing a bright red blouse. The next ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... tamer than the rest, holding out one hand, and saying, "So, bossy," in oily tones, as if he thought she was the finest cow he had ever seen. When he was almost to her she looked at him quickly, kicked her nearest hind-foot at him savagely, and walked off, switching her tail, and shaking her head so that Ollie was afraid it would ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... venture to speak to Pierre, knowing that he would return some hard answer; and he dared not address his mother, knowing that in spite of himself he should speak violently. He sat twitching the water-worn pebbles with the end of his cane, switching them and turning them over. She, with a vague look in her eyes, had picked up three or four little stones and was slowly and mechanically dropping them from one hand into the other. Then her unsettled gaze, wandering over the scene before her, discerned, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... morning following his lean guest's arrival at the ranch the jovial Irishman himself saddled and bridled the swiftest and most vicious horse in the corral; a glass-eyed pinto, bronc from the end of his switching tail to his pink-mottled muzzle. He was a horse with a record which he did not allow to become obsolete, although he had plenty of competition to contend with in the string of broncs that Murphy's riders variously bestrode. Moreover, the pinto, like dynamite, "went off" at the most unexpected intervals, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... from the backs of the horses and patted the nearest animal gently. Then he mounted to his place and drove off. The professor had taken his seat beside the driver, but Yates, putting on his coat and picking up his cane, strode along in front, switching off the heads of Canada thistles with his walking stick ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... mean 'love'?" This was the rhetorical question of the year. "I'm going to tell you something," she said, switching the subject abruptly. "I suppose it's none of my business, but I think it's time for you ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the holes are made simply by turning the straws in the weave. The different shaped holes in other designs (see plates) are made by turning a different number of straws according to the shape desired. Varied border edges may be made by switching the ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... entered I tried to study the different faces, but found it a hopeless task on account of the poor light. Kennedy took his place at the little table, switching on the little shaded lamp and motioning for Mackay to set the traveling bag so he could open it and view the contents. Then Mackay took post at the door, a hand in his pocket, and I realized that the district attorney clasped a weapon beneath ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... thousand reasons,' answered Lesbia, switching the flowers in the balcony with her light little whip. 'First and foremost it is absurd to think of any one so buried alive as poor Mary is finding an admirer; and secondly—well—I don't want to be rude to my own sister—but ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... as lively as riding elephants and playing with bears, but it is respectable; and I guess you'll be happier switching Brindle and Buttercup than being switched yourself," said Mrs. Moss, shaking her head at him ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... which was drawing the ramshackle carryall in which Flint sat, toiled on with sweating haunches, switching his tail, impatient of the flies, and now and then shaking his head deprecatingly, as if in remonstrance against the fate which destined him to work so hard for the benefit of a lazy human being reclining at ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... the fun, anyway," snorted the Cow, switching her tail. "All the choice bits of torturing. Why, I've not had so much as a single toss since I've been on this job; no I haven't!" And she shook her ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... Cooney, shortstop; Ryan, Dugan, Wilmot and Decker in the outfield. The majority of these were green players, as compared with the seasoned material of which some of the other League clubs boasted, and it was only by switching them about from one position to another that it was possible to tell where they ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... of switching the scanner to another frequency and offsetting the effects of the static, Roger?" ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... hand, she argues that splendour of attire is merely a bait to overcome the reluctance of the opposite sex, and on the other hand she argues, at least by fair inference, that it is not. This grotesque switching of horses, however, need not detain us. The facts are too plain to be disposed of by a lady anthropologist's theorizings. Those facts are supported, in the field of animal behaviour, by the almost unanimous evidence of zoologists, including that of Dr. Gamble herself. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... burn brown paper in that grate with the register closed. Windows open at the bottom—plenty of smoke—effect of flames produced by switching off and on the electric light. It ought to be good for a crowd of about ten thousand. Soon as the engines roll up I go out dressed as a fireman. Car at the top of St. James's Street. Coal train in a siding at Addison ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... crashed together and clenched; his strapped-in body was jerked back in its cushioned seat; sweat beaded his brow. A thousand needles prickling his skin couldn't have been worse. He had been told once that the switching-out from this known universe into an unknown one would feel just like a ten-thousand volt jolt in an old-fashioned electric chair; and now he could believe it. Every cell in his body had begun tingling; his stomach pitched under a racking nausea; and an involuntary ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... which, as we assure the unlearned reader, is—"Nor must you pursue with the horrid knout of Christopher that man who merits only a switching." Very true. We protest against all attempts to invoke the exterminating knout; for that sends a man to the hospital for two months; but you see that the same judicious poet, who dissuades an appeal to the knout, indirectly recommends the switch, which, indeed, is rather ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... Now, in the dusky street, pent narrowly by wet stone walls, night seemed to fall, while fresh waves of pungent odor overwhelmed and steeped the senses. Rudolph's chair jostled through hundreds and hundreds of Chinese, all alike in the darkness, who shuffled along before with switching queues, or flattened against the wall to stare, almost nose to nose, at the passing foreigner. With chairpoles backing into one shop or running ahead into another, with raucous cries from the coolies, he swung round countless corners, bewildered in a dark, leprous, nightmare bazaar. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... the old mare would not budge. Switching was of no avail. Saterlee brought down the whip upon her with a sound like that of small cannon. She sighed and walked gingerly into ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... There followed an exhibition of equine delight; the mare's lips twitched, her nose wrinkled ludicrously, she stretched her neck and tossed her head as the sweetness tickled her palate. Even the nervous switching of her tail was eloquent of pleasure. Meanwhile the owner showed his white teeth in ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... the flat with a latch-key and almost pushed me in, as if fearing that I might be seen and perhaps recognized by some passing occupant of the house. Switching on the electricity, the vestibule was lit by a red-shaded light, cheerfully welcoming. Off it opened two or three rooms, and Eagle ushered me into a large oak-panelled study, lined with bookshelves and having long windows, which, when ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... girl was not only accustomed to these periodical embarrassments of Bones, but had acquired the knack of switching the conversation to the main ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... down here quietly and open the envelope," he said, switching on the electric lamp. "That is what he told you to do, isn't it? There may be a message ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was begun with frantic zeal, each and every member of the Jenkins family lending a helping hand. The Boarder, as boss carpenter, worked after switching hours until it grew dark; then the children took turns, in holding a lantern for him. The savings of the Boarder being taxed by the trip to "Niagry" and the furnishing of the apartment, great economy had to be exercised in the erecting of the Annex. He strictly ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... car was shunted to the sidetrack at Logwood and the western-bound train went hooting away through the forest. It was still snowing heavily, there were not many trains passing through the Logwood yard, and no switching during the early part of the day. ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... little the pace slackened and I felt a sharp jolt. They were switching me on to the down line, an improvement upon the original plan so like the Count's manner that it almost proves he must have been on the spot superintending operations. Next it was a face at the window. I used my revolver, but they stunned me and ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... Cat did not quite dare follow Frisky Squirrel to the tip where he swung. She crouched upon the branch a little way from him, where it was safer for her, and with switching tail and bristling whiskers waited to see what he ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... sat down in the first room I came to, to eat a little bread-and-cheese which I had in my pouch, he joined me almost immediately. Apparently he could not stomach my poor fare, however, for after watching me for a time in silence, switching his boot with his whip the while, he called the landlord, and asked him, in a masterful way, what fresh meat he had, and particularly if he had any lean collops, or ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... held erect, and kept constantly switching from side to side, so as to produce a singular and somewhat ludicrous effect upon the mind of ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... Roland," he said, "I did but as 'twere jest with thee—I would not harm thee, man, were it but for old acquaintance sake. But ever look to a man's inches ere you talk of switching—why, thine arm, man, is but like a spindle compared to mine.—But hark, I hear old Adam Woodcock hollowing to his hawk—Come along, man, we will have a merry afternoon, and go jollily to my father's in spite of the peat-smoke and ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... in the direction of his levelled gun, and there at the edge of the jungle was a handsome half-grown tiger cub, beautifully marked, his tail switching angrily from side to side, and his twitching retracted lips and bristling moustache drawn back like those of a vicious cat, showing his ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... seamen did when they got ashore, was to fasten an oakum tail to the rump of one of the most lubberly of the cutter's crew; they then gave him ten yards' law, when they started in chase, shouting amongst the bushes, and switching each other like the veriest schoolboys. I had walked some distance along the beach, pelting the amphibious little creatures, half crab, half lobster, called soldiers, which kept shouldering their large claws, and running out and in ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... ages, the players had sat in tiers, and put them on chairs directly on the stage. Then he shuffled the men, making the cellos change places with the second violins, the battery with the basses. There must have been some merit in all this switching, for several ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... he cannot be held responsible. It cannot be permanently changed or even modified. No power can keep it modified. For it is inherent and enduring, as unchanging as the lines upon the thumb or the conformation of the skull. Throughout his life, circumstance seemed like a watchful spirit, switching his temperament into those channels of experience and development leading unerringly to the career ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... the rays of the sinking sun shot horizontal shafts under the trees to our very feet, and so to the corn-field. I did not glance behind to see who entered it after us, but pushed right ahead between the stalks, the stiff blades switching my cheeks. When we neared the "garden," I ran forward, flushed and impatient, not to display my prize, but to clear myself by proving my words. An envious, jagged blade slashed my forehead as I tore by. I did not feel it at the moment, or for half an hour ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... a minute until we can size you up," cried Jack, stepping into the pilot house and switching on the searchlight, which he trained upon the man standing on the wharf. "We're not unprepared for callers and we want to make sure, you know. What do ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson |
