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More "Keyhole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... almost shapeless in its monstrous rotundity. He moved with astonishing swiftness to the staircase, looked down, then fixed his black eyes with a kind of animal ferocity upon the closed door of the Judge's office until he reached it, and laid one of his little red ears to the keyhole. ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... Easily, naturally, almost automatically, it poured softly forth, and the Irishman at once understood why he had first mistaken it for an echo of wind from distant hills. The imagery was entirely accurate. For it was precisely the singing cry that wind makes in a keyhole, in a chimney, or passing idly over the sweep of grassy hills. Exactly thus had he often listened to it swishing through the crannies of high rocks, tuneless yet searching. In it, too, there lay some accent of a secret, dim sublimity, deeper far than any other human ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... amazement. It was a relief to him to hear the curious Sarah still rustling in the passage outside. He came out upon her so hastily that Sarah was startled. Perhaps she had been so far excited out of her usual propriety as to think of the keyhole as a ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... though their chief seemed to be in no mood to tolerate mirth. Tom and Fred did not at first understand, though it soon dawned upon them that by this means he escaped being recognised by the man with whom he had so recently conversed through the keyhole of ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... upon her knees beside the door, her ear shamelessly at the keyhole. Jemima heard her ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... palpitating journeys we removed from the dining-room our belongings, and placed them in the kitchen; silence, fraught with dire possibilities, still brooded over the drawing-room. Could they all be asleep, or was Miss McEvoy watching us through the keyhole? There remained only my hat, which was upstairs, and at this, the last moment, Robert remembered his fly-book, left under the clock in the dining-room. I again passed the drawing-room in safety, and got upstairs, Robert effecting at the same moment his third entry into the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the keyhole with my finger. The key was not in the lock. I knelt down, and looked through the keyhole. The next instant, I was up again on my feet, wild and giddy ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... come prepared. By the time Coombe stood in the hall a latchkey was put in the keyhole and, being turned, the door opened to let in Carson—or Bayle—who entered with an air of angered determination, ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... room, and I thought that was funny, seeing as he was locked up in jail. So I kinder listened and heard whispers and the sound of some one moving about. There's a door between his room and mine that is kept locked. I looked through the keyhole, and in Elliot's room there was Wally Selfridge and another man. They were looking through papers at the desk. Wally put a stack of them in his pocket and they went out locking ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... But the door closed with absolute tightness; it had not even a keyhole. His cries came to ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... open up th' office. 'T will be good ixperience fer ye." He cast his eye down the street, where the car line made a turn around the corner. The trolley wire was shaking. "Th' way ye open up," he said slowly, "is t' push th' key into th' keyhole. Push th' key in, Timmy, an' thin turrn it t' th' lift. Wait!" he called, as Timmy turned. "'Tis important t' turrn t' th' lift, not th' right. An' whin ye have th' door open"—the car was rounding the ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... came out by habit-reflex and entered the keyhole while my sense of perception let them have one last vicarious thrill. The girl on the bed was an honest allover ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... approximately by points above and below on the stream, for accurate reading, hold the aneroid face up, gently tap it, and read; then face down similarly, and take the mean. Guard that the wind does not blow against any keyhole in ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... gentleman overwhelmed her yet more. Then they were closeted together for a long time, and the old woman's tongue hardly ever stopped. Sal explained that she would not have been such a fool as to let this conversation escape her, if she could have helped it. She took her place at the keyhole, and had an excuse ready for the old woman, if she should come out suddenly. The old woman came out suddenly; but she did not wait for the excuse. She sent the Cheap Jack's wife civilly on an errand into the kitchen, and then followed ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... his head, opened his eyes, and moved towards the door, rather slowly it is true, but without seeming to feel any ill-effects from his accident on the previous day. He stood still for a few seconds with his ear at the keyhole, then, raising himself, with a strange expression of triumph on his face, he passed his hand over his forehead, and, for the first time since the guards had left the ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... administer "slight corporal punishment" to our servants, it being left entirely to individual taste to decide what "slight" shall be, and my neighbour really seems to enjoy using this privilege, judging from the way she talks about it. I would give much to be able to peep through a keyhole and see the dauntless little lady, terrible in her wrath and dignity, standing on tiptoe to box the ears of some great strapping girl ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... would succeed, for he's a plucky young feller, if it worn't for that snob—who's got charge of 'im—Mister Lumbard—whose pecooliarity lies in preferrin' every wrong road to the right one. As I heard Mr Lewis say the other day, w'en I chanced to be passin' the keyhole of the sallymanjay, 'he'd raither go up to the roof of a 'ouse by the waterspout than the staircase,' just for the sake ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... bother me," said he; "go to your hown bed Capting, and don't keep honest men out of theirs." So the Captain tacked across the square and reached his own staircase, up which he stumbled with the worthy Huxter at his heels. Costigan had a key of his own, which Huxter inserted into the keyhole for him, so that there was no need to call up little Mr. Bows from the sleep into which the old musician had not long since fallen, and Huxter having aided to disrobe his tipsy patient, and ascertained that no bones ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... nearest pine-tree,' said the fairy, 'strike the trunk with it, and a keyhole will appear. Do not be afraid to unlock that magic door. Slip in your hand, and you will bring out a wonderful palette. I have not time now to tell you half its virtues, but they will soon unfold ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... with infinite more violence than was necessary—the faithful Slipslop attending near at hand: to say the truth, she had conceived a suspicion at her last interview with her mistress, and had waited ever since in the antechamber, having carefully applied her ears to the keyhole during the whole time that the preceding conversation passed ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... fix up this hole. Them shoats, I b'leeve, would go through a keyhole, if they could once git their ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... stirred up the fire, and lighted the house, and prepared for the wanderer's refreshment. How fortunate it was that her mother slept! She knew that she did, from the candle-lighter thrust through the keyhole of her bedroom door. The traveller could be refreshed and bright, and the first excitement of the meeting with his father all be over, before her mother became aware of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... keyhole there really,' she said. But there was. And what is more, the key fitted. The panel swung open, and inside was a little cupboard with two shelves. What was on the shelves? There were old laces and old embroideries, old jewelry and old ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... the authorities or informing against their fellow students. The latter was a rare offense and never pardoned. The smoking machine consisted of a short length of stove-pipe with a nozzle at each end, into one of which was introduced a bellows, and the other was put through the keyhole of the door of the offender. In the body of the pipe was a bed of lighted charcoal, and on this was sprinkled tobacco and assafoetida, and the smoke was driven into the room in such quantities that no human being could resist it more than a few minutes. The smoking was continued for ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... listen at the keyhole. Well,—all was fair in war. And to the Chapter-house door she went, guarded by Ranald and some of his housecarles, and listened, with a beating heart. She heard words now incomprehensible. That men who most of them lived no better than their own serfs; who could have ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... up. He would at other times wander between the decks, looking at everything going forward; and when he had been shut in the cabin he has frequently been observed standing on his hind legs looking through the keyhole of the door, in order to watch the proceedings which were carried on. I have a great respect for Snob, who is still alive, and I have no doubt his curiosity ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... door, it observed very attentively, then put a piece of wood in the keyhole, and tried to turn it round. Having been scratched by a cat with which it was playing, it could never be induced to touch pussy again. It untied knots easily, and regularly practised upon the shoes of those who came near. It could lift very heavy burdens, and made as good use of its hind as of ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... light in her room!" she cried, pointing an accusing finger at the white-faced and shaking Amy. "I peeped through the keyhole, and it was a candle burning on her table. She said she didn't have a ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... Lady Wind, my Lady Wind, Went round about the house to find A chink to set her foot in; She tried the keyhole in the door, She tried the crevice in the floor, And drove the ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... of Elizabeth's room, knelt down and tried to look through the keyhole. The inside key was there, which seemed to confirm ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... chest on board altogether beyond regulation size. Jack Larmour soon made short work of that. He called up the carpenters, and bade them saw a portion off the chest, cutting it through just on one side of the keyhole, so that the lock was now in the corner. Cochrane only laughed and said nothing, but I have no doubt the lieutenant expected him to say something hasty and so get himself into trouble. However, Jack soon changed his opinion of the new mid. The earnest desire ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... English plot without giving me warning?" He then proceeded to state that the papal nuncio in Spain had been much troubled in mind upon the subject, and had sent for him. "I went," said Perez, "and after he, had closed the door, and looked through the keyhole to see that there were no listeners, he informed me that he had received intelligence from the Pope as to the demands made by Don John upon his Holiness for bulls, briefs, and money to assist him in his English ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to be seized. The queen, who was extremely diligent in everything that her son desired, went immediately to the king. Furibon, being impatient to know what would be resolved, followed her; but stopped at the door and laid his ear to the keyhole, putting his hair aside that he might the better hear what was said. At the same time, Leander entered the court-hall of the palace with his red cap upon his head, and perceiving Furibon listening at the door of the king's chamber, he took ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... assistance, harassed the enemy in the rear—moved not hand or foot; but Mrs. Squeers, with many shrieks for aid, hung on to the tail of her partner's coat and endeavoured to drag him from his infuriated adversary; while Miss Squeers, who had been peeping through the keyhole in the expectation of a very different scene, darted in at the very beginning of the attack, and after launching a shower of inkstands at the usher's head, beat Nicholas to her heart's content; animating herself, at every blow, with the ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... and then stand clear; we don't want any woman hurt." The key rattled at the keyhole and then dropped to the floor. "You did that by intention! Give me that key!" He tried the lock. "We've jammed it, corporal, but another good kick will fetch ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... pieces of by-play in which I detected her confirmed my unpleasant suspicion. From the corner of the gallery I one day saw her, when she thought I was out and all quiet, with her ear at the keyhole of papa's study, as we used to call the sitting-room next his bed-room. Her eyes were turned in the direction of the stairs, from which only she apprehended surprise. Her great mouth was open, and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... the valet, and followed him to the door, in order to close it after him; and when he had done so, looking straight before him, he happened to see in the keyhole of the adjoining apartment the paper which Bragelonne had slipped in there as he left. "What is this?" ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... chattering teeth) I'm not frightened, but don't you think it would be better not to open the door, but to peep through the keyhole?... ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... door of the passage, the brute snarled at me savagely, and I fully believe would have sprung upon me and torn me limb from limb, had not his masters called him off. I trembled so with agitation that I could scarcely apply the key to the keyhole. Luckily the light did not fall on me, or it would ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... into my room, to lock the door, and call the verse through the keyhole. But you must promise not to say a word to ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... street outside by a large body of their fellow-citizens, who had accompanied them to the Palace, and who had been spending the time since their departure in listening by turns at the keyhole of the front-door. But as the Hall of Audience was at the other side of the Palace, and cut off from the front-door by two other doors, a flight of stairs, and a long passage, they had not heard very ...
— William Tell Told Again • P. G. Wodehouse
... above the whistling wind, I heard the welcome rain,— A fusillade upon the roof, A tattoo on the pane: The keyhole piped; the chimney-top A warlike trumpet blew; Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife, A softer ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... spite of her trade she disliked children, because the rude ones of the neighborhood called her names through her keyhole and mimicked her bent back ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... was locked; they tried to look through the keyhole, but could see nothing. The child within stopped its crying for a moment, as though it heard them, but it began again at once; the sound was low and monotonous, as though the child was prepared to hold out indefinitely. They looked at ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... knees to see the position of the legs beneath the table. He then walked round the room and examined everything with minute attention, particularly the key of the door, which Sir James had replaced in its position on the inside. The keyhole on both sides of the door came ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... young gentlemen, having seen their blooming charges safely within the door of the Alms-House, and vainly endeavored to look through the keyhole at them going up-stairs, scuffle away together with that sensation of blended imbecility and irascibility which is equally characteristic of callow youth and inexperienced Thomas Cats when retiring together from the society of female friends who seem to be still on the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... Lodore. No farmer however hardy has been known to stand more than twenty minutes of this. A quarter-of-an-hour usually sees him bolting and barring himself into the cellar, with the Babe blowing him kisses of fond farewell through the keyhole. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... her mouth at the keyhole, "who took 'em? Your mother? Why? But she can't keep you in that way. Never mind. What have ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... with classic thoroughness. Not a square foot of the room escaped his vigilant eye. The thief had not entered by the windows; he had come into the room by the door which gave to the corridor. He stood on a chair and examined the transom sill. The dust was undisturbed. He inspected the keyhole; sniffed; stood up, bent and sniffed again. It was an odor totally unknown to him. He stuffed the corner of his fresh handkerchief into the keyhole, drew it out and sniffed that. Barely perceptible. He wrapped the corner into the heart of the handkerchief, and put it back into his pocket. ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... He simply must make it up to her! He ran back into the house and stole upstairs. Outside her room he listened with all his might, but could hear nothing; then tapped softly with one nail, and, putting his mouth to the keyhole, whispered: "Sylvia!" Again and again he whispered her name. He even tried the handle, meaning to open the door an inch, but it was bolted. Once he thought he heard a noise like sobbing, and this made him still more ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... she was persuaded to leave the room, but on reaching the hall she stopped, and to Mary's amazement applied her ear to the keyhole. ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... slight and minute as it was, was his starting-point. How had it been made? He had found by experiment that it was impossible to make such a scratch upon the varnish without the exercise of considerable force. It was clear, therefore, that the scratch by the keyhole could not have been made by the thief in his trembling anxiety to get the business he had undertaken accomplished. But why was such ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... it is me that smells frowy," said the boy as he put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, and spit at the keyhole in the door. "I ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... through the crowded little street, which somehow in the rain of millions that lasted for two years, did not manage to attract to itself even the small sum which would have sufficed to widen it by a few yards. It is as though the contents of Rome were daily drawn through a keyhole. In the Tritone are to be seen magnificent equipages, jammed in the line between milk carts, omnibuses and dustmen's barrows, preceded by butcher's vans and followed by miserable cabs, smart dogcarts and ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Beatrice Leigh, you knew I was turning into the wrong alleyway, but you never said a word. You wanted to see me disgraced. The door opened like magic, and there she stood as if she had slid through the keyhole. She stood there plastered against ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... concerts, dogging him through the streets, spying upon him at hotels. At one inn this man of curiosity had the felicity to secure a room next to the one occupied by Paganini; and one morning as he watched through the keyhole, he was rewarded by seeing the master open the case where reposed the precious "Guarnerius." Paganini lifted the instrument, held it under his chin, took up the bow and made a few passes in the air—not a sound was heard. Then he kissed the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the keyhole of the house door. I have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable base wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go hop-picking. I find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption. So the poor creatures ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... a condition that God has invented and arbitrarily imposed. The necessity of it is lodged deep in the very nature of the case. Air cannot get to the lungs of a mouse in an air-pump. Light cannot come into a room where all the shutters are up and the keyhole stopped. If a man chooses to perch himself on some little stool of his own, with glass legs to it, and to take away his hand from the conductor, no electricity will come to him. If I choose to lock my lips, Jesus Christ does not prise open my clenched teeth to put the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... on the threshold, striving to remember where he kept his tinder-box and matches. But the room was small. I knew the geography of it, and could easily—I told myself—grope my way to the corner, find the cupboard, and, feeling for the keyhole, insert the key. I was about to essay this when the thought occurred to me that, as Captain Danny had left the door on the latch, so very likely with equal foresight he had placed his tinder-box handy—on the table, it ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... to venture to the door and knock, in a hesitating manner, not being sure but what my answer might be the mouth of a carbine. However it was not so, for I heard a pattering of feet and a whispering going on, and then a shrill voice through the keyhole, asking, "Who's there?" ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... in a lower tone and he put his ear to the keyhole, to catch what they might say. Then, of a sudden, the door opened and he found himself confronted ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... ald empty press against the wall then, and shoving it aside, sure enough there was the tracing of a door in the wainscot, and a keyhole stopped with wood, and planed across as smooth as the rest, and the joining of the door all stopped wi' putty the colour o' yak, and, but for the hinges that showed a bit when the press was shoved aside, ye would not consayt there was ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... and your lordship knows that the thick carpets return no echo to the footstep, and that the doors open and shut silently. First I peeped through the keyhole, and I saw that her ladyship was sitting within the curtained recess of the hay window, looking out at sea, her attention being absorbed there, and her back being towards the door. So I just softly opened the door, entered ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... wish—what ennui my brother has suffered. It's enough that a week ago, just after you had ostensibly gone to Brussels, something happened to produce an explosion. She found a letter in his pocket, a photograph, a trinket, que sais-je? At any rate there was a grand scene. I didn't listen at the keyhole, and I don't know what was said; but I've reason to believe that my poor brother was hauled over the coals as I fancy none of his ancestors have ever been—even by angry ladies ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... did. So I did," answered the professor sharply. " I often find myself liking that kind of a boy in college. Don't I know them-those lads with their beer and their poker games in the dead of the night with a towel hung over the keyhole. Their habits are often vicious enough, but something remains in them through it all and they may go away and do great things. This happens. We know it. It happens with confusing insistence. It destroys theo- ries. There-there ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Frenchman, narrowly eyed by Mrs. Brandon, who was anticipating a "scene," and preparing to meet it. In these contests the victory generally rested with the lady. The broker finally opened the door, and finding the page with ear glued against the keyhole, quietly took that young gentleman by the lobe of his left ear, and leading him to the head of the staircase, advised him, as a friend, to descend it as speedily as possible, before his gravitation was assisted by the application ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... satisfied. The echo of her cry was still ringing in my ears, and I felt as if I would give the world for a momentary peep into their room. Influenced by this idea, I boldly knocked, and in an instant—too soon for him not to have been standing near the door—I heard his breath through the keyhole and ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... after they had brought him his soup he heard a scratching at the keyhole of his door. He was not too languid to be surprised. He did not think it likely that any of his jailers would come back so soon, and heretofore the key had always turned in the ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... speak, an' her that's stannin afore yer honourable coort, brawly kens the laws. Elspeth Mowdiewort didna soop yer kirk an wait till yer session meetings war ower for thirty year in my ain man's time withoot kennin' a' the laws. A keyhole's a most amazin' convenient thing by whiles, an' I was suppler in gettin' up aff my hunkers then ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... of authority, intentionally exaggerated for the purpose of impressing Parmalee, I closed the drawer, and locked it with the key already in the keyhole. ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... of death seemed to strike upon him. No light stole through crack or keyhole—all was darkness and silence—and he sank upon his knees, to remain motionless for a few minutes, and then rise firmer of ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... the passage and who was the worst bummer in Encina, went down to Fessler, and complained that he couldn't study because of the noise in that number? And Fessler forgot who roomed there and came up and gave them Tartarus through the keyhole and nearly dropped when Torts ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... villa as abandoned as the rest. After toiling up a steep and narrow lane between two walls, our carriage stopped at a solid wooden gateway, and the coachman told us to get out and look through the keyhole. We were aghast, but he insisted, laughing and nodding; so we pocketed our pride and peeped. Through an overarching vista of dark foliage was seen, white and golden in a blaze of sunshine, the cupola of St. Peter's, which is at the farthest end of the city, two miles at the least as the crow flies. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... are uttered, a slouched hat, listening at the keyhole, pops up, moves softly through the hall, and steals down the stairway. Half an hour later the Texan opens the private door of the Richmond House, looks cautiously around for a moment, and then stalks on towards ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... which the key is inserted, the strike, the plate attached opposite the selvage, (often left out as in drawer-locks, but essential in hook-bolt locks, and self-locking locks,) and the escutcheon, the plate around the keyhole. ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... the door produced an agitated 'Who's that?' from the occupant. I explained the nature of the visitation through the keyhole and there came from within the sound of moving furniture. His one brief interview with Buck had evidently caused my employer to ensure against a second by barricading himself in with everything he could find ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... a few minutes, Aaron retired to the workshop in the cellar of the barn. He planed and sanded boards of a native lumber very like to tulipwood. Into the headboard of the cradle he was making, he keyhole-sawed the same sort of broad Dutch heart that had marked his own cradle, and the cradles of all his family back to the days in the Rhineland, before ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... only a soft hat, with no other overcoat. Listening at the closed hall door, she heard him direct the elevator man, "Second off, Joe." The door was locked from the outside. The servant's entrance was locked, all the bedrooms locked, every one with a Yale lock above the ordinary keyhole. The Chinese cook had been sent out sometime before to buy groceries and wine for the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... visiting Edouard at once, or intercepting him. While she was making her little toilet, she heard her mother's voice in the room. This was unlucky; she must pass through that room to go out. She sat down and fretted at this delay. And then, as the baroness appeared to be very animated, Rose went to the keyhole, and listened. Their mother was telling Josephine how she had questioned Rose, and how Rose had told her an untruth, and how she had made that young lady write to Edouard, etc.; in short, the very thing Rose wanted ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... hotel, several travelers, while they were asleep, had been robbed of their money. They could not blame anyone nor tell how the mischief was done. With the key in the keyhole, they had kept their doors locked during the night. They were sure that no one had entered the room. There were no signs of men's boots, or of anyone's footsteps in the garden, while nothing was visible on the lock or door, to show that either had been tampered with. Everything ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... been removed. My lady, I looked through the keyhole. The lights are still burning in ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... to the door that opened into the entry, and locked that softly and bolted it carefully. Then he turned the key so that the wards filled the keyhole, and taking out his handkerchief he hung it over the knob of the door, so that it fell across the keyhole, and no eye could by any chance have ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... did not tell a lie,' but even as she denied it, I could see through the keyhole that in her grief at the charge, and her dread of punishment, she ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... it was he, my friends; he called through the door, 'Will you open, Cut-in-half? will you open? Do not sham deaf; for I see you through the keyhole!" ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Coles, the botanist, writes: 'It is said, yea, and believed, that Moonwort will open the locks wherewith dwelling-houses are made fast, if it be put into the keyhole.' And Culpeper, the herbalist, writes thus: 'Moonwort is a herb which, they say, will open locks and unshoe such horses as tread upon it. This some laugh to scorn, and these no small fools neither; but country people that I know call it Unshoe-the-horse. ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... my Lady, but, as I said, I looked in the door, although forbid to do so. Half-open doors are so tempting, and one cannot shut one's eyes! Even a keyhole is hard to resist when you long to know what is on the other side of it—I always found ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... heavy one with steel bands round it, but no lock or keyhole, was carried in by two men. Shortly afterwards old Simon attended his master. When he came into the room, Mr. Caswall himself went and closed the door; then ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... walking over to the door and examining the keyhole. "Your supposition is all wrong, Grace. The door is locked from the inside. The ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... inquiry by messenger, and being too unwell to go far himself, he could learn no particulars. He was sitting in thought after a lonely dinner when the parcel intimating failure as brought in. The footman, whose curiosity had been excited by the mode of its arrival, peeped through the keyhole after closing the door, to learn what the packet meant. Directly the Baron had opened it he thrust out his feet vehemently from his chair, and began cursing his ruinous conduct in bringing about such a disaster, for the return of the locket denoted not only ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... Mask, who was waiting for him as on the previous night, and who, without saying anything, began to walk rapidly before him. Arrived before one of the side doors on the right, she stopped, inserted in the keyhole a golden key, which Franz saw glitter in the moonbeams, opened the door without making any noise, and entered first, signing to Franz to follow her. The latter hesitated an instant. To penetrate into the Arsenal at night by the aid of a false ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... the bell and promptly put my ear to the keyhole. It seemed to me that a couple of doors were hastily closed, and then someone slowly approached. The outer door was opened and a man's head appeared. I could only see his face and a portion of his left shoulder, because the chain was on the ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... can persuade them to go away—" began Mrs. Tarne; but her daughter had already disappeared, and was parleying through the keyhole with the ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... attention. The old brown wood, though slightly ornamented, was crossed with broad bands of brass wrought both in relief and intaglio. The foliage on these, with the most natural birds sitting in it, I could not sufficiently admire. But, what seemed most remarkable, no keyhole could be seen, no latch, no knocker; and from this I conjectured that the door could be opened only from within. I was not in error; for, when I went nearer in order to touch the ornaments, it ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... lady was ascending the stairs, and closing the door Maggie applied her eye to the keyhole, listening breathlessly for what might follow. George Douglas and Henry Warner occupied separate rooms, and their boots were now standing outside their doors, ready for the chore boy, Jim, who thus earned a quarter every day. Stumbling first upon the pair belonging ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... into the room as if she had been very near the keyhole. She was a powerful woman from Holland, who ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... a flicker of light through the keyhole and crevices of my bed-room door at this crisis. Someone turned the handle cautiously and finding the bolt drawn from the inside, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... conveyed his beloved pupil at once before Judge SWEENEY, and made affidavit of finding the jewelry. The jeweler, who had wound EDWIN DROOD'S watch for him on the day of the dinner, promptly identified the timepiece by the innumerable scratches around the keyhole; Mr. BUMSTEAD, though at first ecstatic with the idea that the seal-ring was a ferule from an umbrella, at length allowed himself to be persuaded into a gloomy recognition of it as a part of his nephew, and MONTGOMERY was detained in custody for ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... I expect you to see that she does. Use any messenger, any artifice, but get her away from this hall for ten minutes, even if it is only into Mrs. Deo's room. When she returns I shall be on my knees before this keyhole to watch her and observe. To see what, I do not mean to tell you, but it will be something which will definitely settle for me this matter of identity. Does this plan look sufficiently harmless ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... more and more fidgety. From time to time he turned towards my companion, as though about to speak, yet always changing his mind at the last moment. Once he went over and opened the door suddenly, apparently to see if any one were listening at the keyhole, for he disappeared a moment between the two doors, and I then heard him open the outer one. He stood there for some seconds and made a noise as though he were sniffing the air like a dog. Then he closed both doors cautiously and came back to the fireplace. A strange ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... had never seen him other than self-contained, supercilious, and mocking, this was an amazing revelation. He shrank from it almost; it gave him the feeling of prying, of peeping through a keyhole. He slapped his ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... man in a passion would have been a terrible wild beast; but the current of his feelings seemed to flow in a deep, sluggish channel, rather than in a violent or impetuous one; and, like William Penn, when he reconnoitred his unwelcome visitors through the keyhole of the door, I looked at my strange guest, and liked him not. Perhaps my distant and constrained manner made him painfully aware of the fact, for I am certain that, from the first hour of our acquaintance, a deep-rooted antipathy existed between us, which time seemed ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... was bid, and, dressing herself hastily, went to the door and looked through the keyhole to see if it were really her master. She saw no one there save the gray mare and a strange ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... the elevator ascended perilously to the fifth floor, and Gabriella walked quickly along the hall, and slipped her latchkey into the keyhole of the last apartment. As the door opened, a woman in worn black came out and spoke to her in passing. She was the old maid of Miss Folly's narrative, and her face, ardent, haggard, with the famished look which comes from a starved soul, gazed back at Gabriella with ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... could not lose so favourable an opportunity of applying his mouth to the keyhole, and calling through it, like a hoarse breeze, 'Poor Wal'r! Drownded, ain't he?' after which he withdrew, and turning in again, slept till ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... door. Thick, solid, iron-barred, and nail-studded door. Where's the handle? None. Yes, an iron knob. It won't be turned. It won't be twisted. It's locked; or, if not, fastened somehow. No; a faint light is admitted through the keyhole, and by putting my eye to it, I can see a stone passage on the other side. Perhaps the old woman has locked this by accident. And perhaps they are not far off. I shake it. A deep, low savage growl follows this, and I hear ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... Here he had to flash his light for a second. Immediately before him a pair of doors gave on the big room. They stood open. There were two more doors, one on each hand, both closed. Evan put out his light. As he did so a tiny ray of light became visible through the keyhole of ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... [29] for the difficulty a man feels, when he finds himself gravelled for conversation with his mistress; so he merely scratched his head, and thought hard to find what he'd say next. I doubt whether the conviction, which was then strong on his mind, that Meg was listening at the keyhole to every word that passed, at all assisted him in the operation. At last, some Muse came to his aid, and ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... to herself she rose, glided noiselessly through the hall, entered a small closet built in the thickness of the wall, and, bending to the keyhole of a narrow door, listened with a half-smile on her lips at the trespass she was committing. A murmur of voices met her ear. Her husband spoke oftenest, and suddenly some word of his dashed the smile from her face as if with a blow. She started, shrank, and shivered, bending ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... he kept coming nearer and nearer to the individual I lurking at the keyhole of every story. Only he had to go home, else how was his ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... arose as soon as the door closed behind the constable, and stuffed a piece of damp sponge into the keyhole; he then returned and took ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... was maddening,—but it was true. Patty was locked in a room and could not get out. She hadn't heard a key turn, but it must have done so. Peeping in the keyhole, she could see that the key was in the lock, ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... decisive reply. Ingolby pressed a bell, and, in an instant, Jim Beadle was in the room. He had evidently been at the keyhole. "Jim," he said, "show the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stay here. It would spoil everything if she caught us. Let us go outside and close the door again, and watch through the keyhole; then, if we see her coming, ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... at the door with her ear to the keyhole. She heard the servant pass her, heard the door open, and Lon's voice asking for Mr. Shellington. Then she slid back to Flukey, trembling from head ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... pain. Then why so ghastly pale? And why, moreover, Septimius, did you listen so earnestly for any sound in Aunt Keziah's chamber? Why did you creep on tiptoe, once, twice, three times, up to the old woman's chamber, and put your ear to the keyhole, and listen breathlessly? Well; it must have been that he was subconscious that he was trying a bold experiment, and that he had taken this poor old woman to be the medium of it, in the hope, of course, that it would turn out well; yet with other views than her interest ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... gently this time; then, with a thoughtful air, he began to play with the door handle, turning it first one way, then the other, so as to make sure the door was only bolted. After this, with a great deal of puffing and blowing, he stooped down to look through the keyhole, but the key was in the lock, and turned in such a way that one could not see through. Standing up on the other side of the door, Raskolnikoff still held the hatchet in his hands. He was almost in a state of delirium ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... etc. This instrument was nothing more than a long, slender hand-vise, with a very powerful grip and a considerable leverage, which last was accidentally owing to the shape of the handle. Nothing was simpler than, when the key was in the lock, to seize the end of its stem in this vise, through the keyhole, from the outside, and so lock the door. Previously, however, to doing this, I burned a number of papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost always burn papers before they destroy themselves. I also emptied some more laudanum into Simon's glass—having ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... left a soup-bone to simmer on the stove while we went away to morning recitations, and when we reached home, smoke was leaking from every keyhole. The room was solid with the remains of our bone. It took six months to get the horrid smell of charred beef out of our wardrobe. The girls all sniffed and wondered ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... also had stooped to the keyhole. "It can't be. Yet that voice! My boy, my boy. But how in the world did ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... appearing again in a few minutes to announce that he had obeyed instructions and the lady had not answered. "But," he added, "one would say that an all little light came through the keyhole." ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... eye, always a mischievous wight, For prying out something not good, Avow'd that he peep'd through the keyhole that night; And clearly discern'd, by a glow-worm's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... other circumstances that kept up the impression produced by these two singular facts I have just mentioned. There was a dark storeroom, on looking through the keyhole of which, I could dimly see a heap of chairs and tables, and other four-footed things, which seemed to me to have rushed in there, frightened, and in their fright to have huddled together and climbed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... treasures which have arrived so mysteriously, read the directions concerning them, and then we'll see what we'll see," and she began to read: "Take the camera into a perfectly dark closet, where no ray of light can penetrate (even covering the keyhole), and then place within it one of the sensitive plates, being careful not to expose the unused plates. Your camera is now ready to take the picture, etc." "That is all very simple, I'm sure, and if the taking proves as ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... air moving across the surface of the earth, which as it passes along bends the tops of the trees, beats against the houses, pushes the ships along by their sails, turns the windmill, carries off the smoke from cities, whistles through the keyhole, and moans as it rushes down the valley. What makes the air restless? why should it not lie still ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... off abruptly, he passed down the dim hallway to the door of the club-rooms. He raised the axe and was about to smash the lock when he espied a key in the keyhole. The door was not locked. Lane set down the axe and noiselessly turned the knob and peeped in. The first room was dark, but the door on the opposite side was ajar, and through it Lane saw the larger lighted room and the shiny floor. Moving figures ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... punishment" to our servants, it being left entirely to individual taste to decide what "slight" shall be, and my neighbour really seems to enjoy using this privilege, judging from the way she talks about it. I would give much to be able to peep through a keyhole and see the dauntless little lady, terrible in her wrath and dignity, standing on tiptoe to box the ears of some great strapping girl big enough ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... did not reflect the admiration frankly displayed upon the faces of the two other women. That satin slip seemed to have a moral quality, an immoral character. It made her feel naked—no, as if she were naked and being peeped at through a crack or keyhole. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... we found that Carlo had nearly gnawed his way through the bed-room door, and was growling horribly at the boots and the chambermaid through the keyhole. Charming dog! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... hundred times, and carry it to any given point where you wish to place the receiver. Originally this device was invented for the aid of the deaf, but I see no reason why it should not be used to aid the law. One needn't eavesdrop at the keyhole with this little instrument about. Inside that box there is nothing but a series of plugs from which wires, much finer than a thread, are stretched taut. Yet a fly walking near it will make a noise as loud as a draft-horse. If the microphone ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... Mrs. Presty was at the door, listening. The men's voices were loud: they were talking politics. She peeped through the keyhole; the smokers had, beyond all doubt, been left to themselves. If the house had not been full of guests, Mrs. Presty would now have raised an alarm. As things were, the fear of a possible scandal which the family might have reason to regret forced her to act with caution. In the suggestive retirement ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... her room!" she cried, pointing an accusing finger at the white-faced and shaking Amy. "I peeped through the keyhole, and it was a candle burning on her table. She said she ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... "boots" walked straight to "No. twenty-three," and commenced a vigorous rattling and hammering at the door, but the only answer he received was "All right!" uttered in a very faint and drowsy tone. Five minutes later, "boots" approached the door, placing his ear at the keyhole, and detecting no other sound than a most unearthly snore, he unceremoniously entered the room, and laying his brawny hands upon the prostrate form of the sleeper, shook him violently and long. This attack was replied to by a testy observation that he "knew all about ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... you in these arms of mine? Has Finette been found again? Do you remember our conversation when we went out with her in leash—when you, little rogue, said you would have "given me the mitten" had not God taken pity on me and permitted me at least a peep through the keyhole of His door of mercy! That came into my mind when I was reading I Cor. vii. 13 ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... 'To the keyhole let's creep, "There can be no harm just in one little peep! "We are women—besides, there are none to behold us! "If he wished us to leave it, he shouldn't have ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... sartin of what I suspicioned. The cabin was locked, but not with the key. THAT was in the keyhole. The door was ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... however, to part from her in anger; so, after having attempted to look through the, keyhole of the door, and applied his eye in vain to the window, ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... good are locks and bars and bolts when they say a ghost can ooze itself in through a keyhole even? But then don't get an idea in your head, Billy, we're going to be bothered by anything except rats. That's the only kind of spooks you'll find in such a place as this. And after we've had our supper I hope you'll all accompany me while I take some ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... Devoid of principle, idle as a scholar, morose and sullen in his manners, he was, in every respect, a true specimen of the whole class of mischief-makers, wherever they are to be found. His mischief consisted, as usual, in such exploits as stopping up the keyhole of the door, upsetting the teacher's inkstand, or fixing something to his desk to make a noise ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... him. While she was making her little toilet, she heard her mother's voice in the room. This was unlucky; she must pass through that room to go out. She sat down and fretted at this delay. And then, as the baroness appeared to be very animated, Rose went to the keyhole, and listened. Their mother was telling Josephine how she had questioned Rose, and how Rose had told her an untruth, and how she had made that young lady write to Edouard, etc.; in short, the very thing Rose ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... him, Adam Adams tried the door and found it locked. More interested than ever, the detective, just avoiding Mrs. Morse, who was passing through the hallway, slipped Into the adjoining room, and finding, as he had imagined, a door between the two, applied his eye to the keyhole. ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... on the dirty staircase so he mounted slowly up till he stood in front of his own door. Slowly, like one making an effort that was almost painful to him he searched for his key and drew it out. His hand shook as he inserted the key into the keyhole. He tried to steady his hand, but he could not control its furtive and perpetual movement. When the door was open he struck a match, and lit a candle that stood on a chair in the dingy and narrow lobby. Then he turned round wearily to shut the door. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... that clothing in his closet," announced Andy, after peering through the keyhole in the door. "He's partly undressed, so I guess he'll go ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... dip in the sugar-bin!" Said the Rolling-pin to the Pudding-stick, "We'll eat and we'll stuff till we make ourselves sick." Off they set with a fine bold stride, That brought them soon to the sugar-bin's side. "Oh! how shall we reach that keyhole high? We might as well try to storm ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... old age had become a great eavesdropper; his ear and eye took turns at the keyhole that night, for he tells things that were not intended for outside hearers. He heard the girl sobbing, and the old man saying, "But you must go now. You cannot stay with me safely or decently, much ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... morning when he saw the blood-stains. He groaned piteously as he walked about the room, and then followed the spots out to the front gate. On seeing that they continued beyond this, he came back with a most dejected and helpless look. Mrs. Potter saw him go into his room, and, by looking through the keyhole of the connecting door, she was enabled to see that he was engaged in washing out the spots on the floor and bed clothes. He did not appear at the breakfast table, but his wife told Mrs. Potter that he had had another severe attack of bleeding during the night, and that ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... your own honour and conscience, but the keyhole is a more trustworthy medium than ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of her trade she disliked children, because the rude ones of the neighborhood called her names through her keyhole and mimicked her bent back ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... knob or ring by way of handle, but close to the edge, and about half-way between top and bottom, I distinguished a diminutive keyhole, outlined with shining metal. I let the curtain drop again, though lingeringly. It could be only a cupboard, or a particularly secure wine cellar, perhaps, behind this dwarfish door, yet had I discovered it in a house not English, ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... could do it myself, if allowed," the good Prior said. Often Leonardo would stand with folded arms and survey the work for an hour at a time and not lift a brush; the Prior had seen it all through the keyhole! ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... have war intelligence to communicate, it is best to believe that every person has ears, and that every door has a keyhole. I learn from this letter that the Scotian sailed from Glasgow, and the Arran from Leith. The agent is of the opinion that both these steamers are fitted out by the same owners, who have formed a company, apparently to furnish the South with gunboats ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Joe, for a moment, looked up at the baronet's face, as though he wanted but the slightest encouragement to disobey the doctor's orders; but not seeing it, he slowly retired, and placed himself, of course, at the keyhole. ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Philip had known would happen, did happen. The great wall held fast, the rope held fast, the dragon held fast. It was the key that gave way. With an echoing grinding rusty sound like a goods train shunting on a siding, the key was drawn from the keyhole in the dragon's side and left still fast to its rope like an anchor ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... at the young librarian, who was leaning upon the counter in a tense, keyhole position, with his private ear turned somewhat ostentatiously towards the ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... "At the—keyhole?" She was proceeding warily now; her mind, as in a game of hide-and-seek, was on tiptoe, in expectation of discovering me at ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... night to support Beale, and when I try to get into my own house his infernal dog barks at me. Upon my Sam it's hard!" He brooded for a moment on the injustice of things. "Here, let me get to the keyhole. I'll reason with ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... your own; never daring to ask for the common things a man cares for. You see, women are mostly too jealous and small to understand a doctor's demands. They usually raise hell sooner or later. I had a friend whose wife used to look through the keyhole of his consulting-room door. A patient tripped over her once and it nearly cost my friend his practice. Doctors are only half human anyway, and women can't go halves ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... up and beat dis game befo' yo' bust yo' britches. (He wags his finger to indicate moves, scratches his head, but doesn't move. Several men enter and group around the players. All offer suggestions. One says, "you got him Cliffert. He's locked up just as tight as a keyhole". Another: "Aw, man he kin break out!" Another: "Yeah, but it'll cost him plenty to git out of ...
— Three Plays - Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing • Zora Neale Hurston
... the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1884, pp. 24-39) I find a Nicobar story which relates how Tiomberombi received a magic mirror from a snake whose enemy he had killed. Its slaves obeyed all his orders if he only put the key into the keyhole, but he was not allowed to open the mirror, as he was too weak to face the spirits openly. He dwelt on an island, but when a hostile fleet came against him, the gunners could not hit it, as the island became invisible. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... with this precaution. After aimlessly moving chairs about for a few minutes, and prowling up and down the room, he paused and listened. What he heard induced him to stuff his pocket-handkerchief into the keyhole, and to lay the hearth-rug across the considerable chink which, as is usual, admitted a healthy draught under the bottom of the door. Then the Honorable Mr. Cranley drew down the blinds, and unpacked his various purchases. He set them out on the table in order—the oranges, ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... the doors, now closed, came the heavy breathing of sleepers who had gone to their beds on rising from the table. A faint laugh was heard from one room, while a slender thread of light filtered through the keyhole of the old lady who was still busy with her dolls, cutting out the gauze dresses with squeaking scissors. A child was crying on the next floor, and the smell from the sinks was worse than ever and seemed something tangible amid this silent darkness. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... up. 'The truth is, those fellows can now afford to buy right and left, corrupt every soul alive! There must have been a spy at the keyhole. I'm pretty certain—I could swear it was not breathed to any ear but mine; and there it is this ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the books of the establishment in a safe, which, if it was similar to the one in Park Lane, I was prepared to open with the false keys in my possession or to take an impression of the keyhole and trust to my anarchist friend for the rest. But to my amazement I discovered all the papers pertaining to the concern in a desk which was not even locked. The books, three in number, were the ordinary day book, journal, and ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... were taken from the bed and hung over the door, that no ray of light from the room might be visible in the hall, through either crack or keyhole. ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... to the itinerancy, not matrimony. And that was my "obituary" if I had only known it. For after that, if I was not dead to the world, I only saw it through the keyhole of the Methodist Discipline, or lifted and transfigured by William's sermons—a straight and narrow path that led from the church door to ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... was extremely diligent in everything that her son desired, went immediately to the king. Furibon, being impatient to know what would be resolved, followed her; but stopped at the door, and laid his ear to the keyhole, putting his hair aside that he might the better hear what was said. At the same time, Leander entered the court-hall of the palace with his red cap upon his head, and perceiving Furibon listening at ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... sound of feet was audible upon the stairs, and then the light of a candle shone through the keyhole of the door. There was a good deal of unchaining and unbolting, and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... you say someding?" said Carl, his voice sounding like the piping noise of the wind through a keyhole. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... of my proximity to the box, I inserted in the keyhole a small morsel of wax which for some minutes past I had been warming in my hand. This done, I laid my hat down on the lid, noting with great exactness as I did so just where its rim lay in reference to the various squares and scrolls with which ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... she went on. "You should not have sent me here by chance, and against my wish. You made me do it: don't complain. You were sure that I had but to appear, and M. de Tregars would fall at my feet. I appeared, and—you saw the effect through the keyhole, didn't you?" ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... the language, or any one in this land a word of yours. Practically, you are alone in the world with me. Even your wretched little dog is not here to snarl. His curiosity took him outside, and he cannot get back through the keyhole of the door, small as he is. Presently the Consul will be at this house. I had meant to go to his had it not been for the accident, but I will send for him. He is my very good friend. He ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in his dreams at night, the wild despairing glare in the eyes of the dying pirate as the flash of the pistol glanced upon the glazing eyeballs for an instant; but he had no time to think about such things now. Stooping down and applying his mouth to the keyhole he said, loud enough to ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... reformed temperance lecturer. I went to his shop to get shaved, but he was absent. I could smell hair oil through the keyhole, but the Colonel was not in his slab-inlaid emporium. He had been preparing another lecture on temperance, and was at that moment studying the habits of his adversary at a neighboring gin palace. I sat down on the steps and devoured the beautiful landscape till he came. Then I sat down in the chair, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Sheer chance may have decreed selection of this chair for the purpose on Nogam's first night in the room; whether or no, it was not in character that, having established this precedent, Nogam should depart from it. And in any event, the coat-draped chair effectually eclipsed a possible keyhole ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... sound of footsteps had completely died away, he softly raised his head, opened his eyes, and moved towards the door, rather slowly it is true, but without seeming to feel any ill-effects from his accident on the previous day. He stood still for a few seconds with his ear at the keyhole, then, raising himself, with a strange expression of triumph on his face, he passed his hand over his forehead, and, for the first time since the guards had ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... curiously—flowed. Easily, naturally, almost automatically, it poured softly forth, and the Irishman at once understood why he had first mistaken it for an echo of wind from distant hills. The imagery was entirely accurate. For it was precisely the singing cry that wind makes in a keyhole, in a chimney, or passing idly over the sweep of grassy hills. Exactly thus had he often listened to it swishing through the crannies of high rocks, tuneless yet searching. In it, too, there lay some accent of a ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... to soothe her troubled spirit. So she made a phantom, like in form and in feature to Iphthime, a sister of Penelope, who lived with her husband in distant Pherae. And the phantom came to the house of Penelope, and entering her chamber by the keyhole, stood by her bedside and spake to her thus: "Sorrow not at all, nor vex thy soul for the sake of Telemachus. The gods love thy son, and ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... had retired to his study with Jenny Jones, as hath been seen, Mrs Bridget, with the good housekeeper, had betaken themselves to a post next adjoining to the said study; whence, through the conveyance of a keyhole, they sucked in at their ears the instructive lecture delivered by Mr Allworthy, together with the answers of Jenny, and indeed every other particular which passed ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Last night on my way home from work I heerd the young feller was back—he got in just as we was knockin' off for the day; an' this mornin' just as you cut loose, Zeb, I'll be danged if he didn't show up in front o' the office door, fumblin' for the keyhole. Yes, sirree! That boy gets in at six o'clock last night an' turns to on his paw's job when the whistle ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... and found his mother still watching the rapid movements of her ivory knitting-needles. The Reindeer was a well-built house, solid and old-fashioned, and listeners lurking in the long passages had small chance of reaping much reward for their pains unless they found a friendly keyhole. ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... wasted no words about it. She had no time to fool away, she let it be known. Whatever she did had to be done with pitiless directness. Often her council was delivered through a crack in the door or even given through the door itself; and there were instances when it was shouted through the keyhole. But no matter where the words came from they were always helpful and friendly and the neighbors came to understand the manner accompanying them and ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... mouth at the keyhole, "who took 'em? Your mother? Why? But she can't keep you in that way. Never mind. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... business. I passed her without a word and heard behind me the door of the studio close with an unexpected crash. It strikes me now that under the circumstances I might have without shame gone back to listen at the keyhole. But truth to say the association of events was not so clear in my mind as it may be to the reader of this story. Neither were the exact connections of persons present to my mind. And, besides, one doesn't listen at a keyhole but in pursuance of some plan; unless one ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... that?' reflected Gideon. 'It seems entirely irresponsible.' And drawing near, he gingerly demolished it. 'A key,' he thought. 'Why that? And why so conspicuously placed?' He made the circuit of the instrument, and perceived the keyhole at the back. 'Aha! this is what the key is for,' said he. 'They wanted me to look inside. Stranger and stranger.' And with that he turned the key and ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a resourceful mind. Very gently she put her hand inside the door and abstracted the key, which, with equal caution, she fitted into the keyhole on the outside; then, quickly shutting the door, she locked it, and ran away before Flossie had even discovered that anybody Was there. The latter naturally noticed the slight noise and turned round, ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... one of the witnesses so slaughtered. The practical good sense of Cromwell is worth noting, the English understanding struggling against Judaic trammels. Williams gives us another peep through the keyhole of the past: "It pleased the Lord to call me for some time & with some persons to practice the Hebrew, the Greeke, Latine, French & Dutch. The secretarie of the Councell (Mr Milton) for my Dutch I read him, read me many more languages. Grammar rules begin ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... opened his door noiselessly, went out upon the landing, and saw a thin streak of light under Father Goriot's door. Eugene feared that his neighbor had been taken ill; he went over and looked through the keyhole; the old man was busily engaged in an occupation so singular and so suspicious that Rastignac thought he was only doing a piece of necessary service to society to watch the self-styled ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... soft whistle answered to his own; somewhere in the room it sounded; there was no mistaking it, though the exact direction was difficult to tell, for while Tim said it was through the keyhole, Judy declared positively that it came from the door of the big, broken cupboard opposite. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... imitator Hawkesworth was is shewn by the following passage in the Carter and Talbot Corresp., ii. 109:—'I discern Mr. Johnson through all the papers that are not marked A, as evidently as if I saw him through the keyhole with the pen ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... dagger: She descends the staircase of the Eastern Tower; and crosses the great Hall! On that night the Porter always leaves the Gates of the Castle open, out of respect to the Apparition: Not that this is thought by any means necessary, since She could easily whip through the Keyhole if She chose it; But merely out of politeness, and to prevent her from making her exit in a way so derogatory to the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... every angle, even going down on his knees to see the position of the legs beneath the table. He then walked round the room and examined everything with minute attention, particularly the key of the door, which Sir James had replaced in its position on the inside. The keyhole on both sides of the door came ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... he went instead to spend a post-graduate year at Belfast, and read for a Master's degree—this in spite of the fact that he was worn out with the strain of eighteen hours' work a day, and used to see authors creeping in through the keyhole and wake in the night to find illuminated letters dancing a ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... him through the intervening rooms to the servants' entrance. They passed Brooks in the rear hall. He bowed stiffly to Braddock. Brooks had been listening at a keyhole. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... get hold of it yet, Gogol," he said in a fatherly way. "When once they have heard us talking nonsense on that balcony they will not care where we go afterwards. If we had come here first, we should have had the whole staff at the keyhole. You don't seem to ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... After some moments, light foot-steps approached the door, and the voice of Sinang said through the keyhole: ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... proceeded to state that the papal nuncio in Spain had been much troubled in mind upon the subject, and had sent for him. "I went," said Perez, "and after he, had closed the door, and looked through the keyhole to see that there were no listeners, he informed me that he had received intelligence from the Pope as to the demands made by Don John upon his Holiness for bulls, briefs, and money to assist him in his English scheme, and that eighty ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... necessary—the faithful Slipslop attending near at hand: to say the truth, she had conceived a suspicion at her last interview with her mistress, and had waited ever since in the antechamber, having carefully applied her ears to the keyhole during the whole time that the preceding conversation passed between Joseph ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... much worse than they kin do. Maybe, he ain't a scamp of the biggest wethers. His rascality ain't to be measured. Why, he kin walk through a man's pockets, jest as the devil goes through a crack or a keyhole, and the money will naterally stick to him, jest as ef he was made of gum turpentine. His very face is a sort of kining [coining] machine. His look says dollars and cents; and its always your dollars and cents, and he kines them out of your hands ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... attempts had been made to account for the light or get rid of it by changing the position of candles or bright objects in the outer room; and Henderson had shut himself into the bedroom with it; but there he still only saw the hazy light—though all was otherwise pitch dark, except the keyhole and the small gray patch of sky at the top of the window-shutters. 'You saw nothing else?' said Griff. 'I thought I heard you break out as Clarence did, just before my ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wonder and longing. It was a small green door, scarcely higher than her head. A grown person could not have passed through without stooping almost double. It was very narrow, too, and no one who was not slender could have squeezed through it. In this door there was a little black keyhole, with no key in it, but it was always locked. Letitia knew that her Aunt Peggy kept the key in some very safe place, but she would never show it to her, nor ...
— The Green Door • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... condition that God has invented and arbitrarily imposed. The necessity of it is lodged deep in the very nature of the case. Air cannot get to the lungs of a mouse in an air-pump. Light cannot come into a room where all the shutters are up and the keyhole stopped. If a man chooses to perch himself on some little stool of his own, with glass legs to it, and to take away his hand from the conductor, no electricity will come to him. If I choose to lock my lips, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... in dirt and in gloom, To peep at the door of the wonderful room Such stories are told about, none of them true!— The keyhole itself has no ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... stood with his wife before the locked gate, there rose from behind it a snarling, nasal, somewhat mocking voice. "Starry—don't groan so much. Take the keys from Oxheady's coat pockets, or else go stick your nose in the keyhole, and so unlock the gate. The people have been standing and waiting a long time." "People!" cried the anxious voice of the man called Nose Star, "I thought there was only one! I beg you, Fool—dear Jaekel Fool—look out and see who ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and round the keyhole did a shaky, unsteady hand guide the wandering key. It scratched above, it dug at the door beneath, while the low indistinct murmur of one repeated word reached me within. At last, in sheer pity, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... nodded. Isaac was either a mind reader or he must have been listening at the keyhole when he poured out ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... you," said Cashel. She gave him the key, and he seized one of the bars of the gate with his left hand, and stooped as though he wanted to look into the keyhole. Yet he opened ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... as soon as possible, and, after assuring myself that my neighbor was still absent, carefully inserted my second nosegay into her keyhole, and rushed from the house as though I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Tabitha pressed her ear to the keyhole to catch the rest of this interesting conversation, but as she listened, her face paled and a rebellious look came into ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... be shaken in her resolve, and leaving the study room a little before one o'clock she settled herself in Helen Richard's cupboard to watch. Fortunately for Judith's plan Helen was in the Infirmary with a sore throat and through the keyhole of her cupboard Judith had a ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... I went with her to the communicating door, cautiously listened, then looked through the keyhole. The silence within was oppressive, but the flickering bougie warned me that I must make an effort, and without allowing myself time to think I hastily turned the key ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... for some token by which I might be governed. I put my ear to the keyhole, and at length heard a voice, but not that of my companion, exclaim, somewhat above a whisper, "Smiling cherub! safe and sound, I see. Would to God my experiment may succeed, and that thou mayest find a mother where I have found a wife!" There he stopped. He appeared to kiss ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... He sat motionless, still listening, for another hour, two; then he rose and, opening the outer door stealthily, stopped, with craned head, still listening. The silence was unbroken, and with noiseless tread, he passed along the corridor to his father's door and, with his ear to the keyhole, listened again. He could hear his father's steady, long-drawn breathing, the breathing of a man in a ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... closed, she was terribly frightened. She put the white kitten down and sprang on top of the trunk and scratched with all her might, but scratching did no good. Then she jumped down and reached up to the keyhole, but that was too small for even a mouse to pass through, and the poor mother ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... worked well . . . . life was all right, wasn't it? One would have thought he had no reason to die, but alas! fate had its eye on him. . . . The poor fellow fell a victim to his habits of observation. On one occasion, when he was listening at a keyhole, he got such a bang on the head from the door that he sustained concussion of the brain (he had a brain), and died. And here, under this tombstone, lies a man who from his cradle detested verses and epigrams. . . . As though to ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... supports them on his back, which lengthens or shortens according to the number of witches he is desirous of accommodating. No witch, when proceeding to the Sabbath, can go out by a door or window, were she to try ever so much. Their general mode of ingress is by a keyhole and of egress by the chimney, up which they fly, broom and all, with the greatest ease. To prevent the absence of the witches being noticed by their neighbours, some inferior demon is commanded to assume their shapes and lie in their beds, feigning illness, until the Sabbath is over. When all the ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... beehive dungeon—it was no wonder, I say, that she should shrink and draw back. A few rays came through the decayed planks of the door which Alec had pushed to behind them, and fell upon the rubbish of centuries sloping in the brown light and damp air down into the abyss. One larger ray from the keyhole fell upon Kate's face, and showed it blanched with fear, and her eyes distended with the effort to see ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... was what made the task arduous. Lydia finished her studying as hurriedly as possible each night and went on to her room. It was bitter cold in the room when the door was closed, but she hung a dust cloth over the keyhole, a shawl over the window shade, wrapped herself in a quilt and unwrapped the bundle. By two o'clock she had finished and shivering and with ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... There was one singular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or anyone else to enter. With a boy's curiosity I have peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... garret stairs, and patrolling the house. In vain the doors of the upper entry had been locked; the ghost either carried a duplicate key in its pocket, or availed itself of a ghost's immemorial privilege of coming through the keyhole, and promenaded as before, with a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a door half hidden among the ivy, which Jean used for his mysterious comings and goings, and of which the abbe had a key. He had brought it with him to-night by a lucky chance. He had to push aside the ivy which hung from the walls in great ropes, and only found the keyhole after a hurried search. But the lock was in good order. Jean, it appeared, was ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... his instructions. From the other side of the door came the sharp sound of the bolt as it was shot back, and at the same time the light ceased to shine through the keyhole. A moment later the handle turned, and Bradshaw ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the cage was all masonry and formed part of the building behind it. In the right-hand corner, almost invisible from outside, was a narrow door of thick teak that opened very readily when the Mahatma fumbled with it although I saw no lock, hasp or keyhole on the side toward us. We followed him through ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... their mouths, by beginning too soon to eat it. And while they were walking, a little old Woman came to the house. She could not have been a good, honest old Woman; for first she looked in at the window, and then she peeped in at the keyhole; and seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch. The door was not fastened, because the Bears were good Bears, who did nobody any harm, and never suspected that any body would harm them. So the little old Woman opened the ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... the kitchenmaid and Lady Devereux' two other servants were shrieking on the kitchen stairs. Mrs. O'Halloran dealt with the rebels first. She opened the baize-covered door and put her mouth to the keyhole of the other. ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... the heavy iron knocker of the house-door drowned his words. A strange voice called aloud through the keyhole: ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... I stole gently down to the scullery and applied the spectroscope to the keyhole. To my mingled amazement and ecstasy, I perceived a large dome-shaped fabric blocking up the entire back garden. Roughly speaking, it seemed to be about the size of a full-grown sperm whale. A faint heaving was perceptible in the mass, ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... to the Citation Amendment (Scotland) Act, which has put an end to keyhole citations in small debt cases throughout Scotland, we may remark that Mr. Anderson aimed, in introducing this measure, at the amelioration of the poorer classes, on whom the keyhole system pressed with undue severity. Previous to the passing of the new Act the officer ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... may then be worked out approximately by points above and below on the stream, for accurate reading, hold the aneroid face up, gently tap it, and read; then face down similarly, and take the mean. Guard that the wind does not blow against any keyhole in ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... fellows were the gunmen of New York he had read about—paid assassins whose business it was to frame innocent men for the penitentiary or kill them in cold blood. They were of the underworld, without conscience and without honor. As he looked at them through the keyhole, the watcher was reminded by their restless patience of mountain wolves lying in wait for their kill. Gorilla Dave sat stolidly in his chair, but the other two got up from time to time and paced the room silently, always with an eye to the ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... four well-defined kinds. First, a long, flat saw, for cross-cutting. Second, a slightly larger saw for ripping purposes. Third, a back saw, with a rib on the rear edge to hold the blade rigid, used for making tenons; and, fourth, a compass or keyhole saw. ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... spaniel called Monster, nothing but a flea-bearing dust mop, do nothing but sit and yap for chocolates?—what man is going to dare do otherwise than suppress a little profanity and then go and whisper apologies at the keyhole? ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... a cat who knew the name of each member of the household. If she was asked about an absent one, she would look at his vacant seat and then at the speaker. If told to fetch him she would run upstairs to his room, take the handle of the door between her paws, mew at the keyhole, and wait to be ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... going on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the keyhole of the house door. I have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable base wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go hop-picking. I find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly picked hop, falling ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... but a chapel and small villa as abandoned as the rest. After toiling up a steep and narrow lane between two walls, our carriage stopped at a solid wooden gateway, and the coachman told us to get out and look through the keyhole. We were aghast, but he insisted, laughing and nodding; so we pocketed our pride and peeped. Through an overarching vista of dark foliage was seen, white and golden in a blaze of sunshine, the cupola of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... him; his breath became short; voice weak and lungs rotting. Early in December, 1909, he believed that he had been chloroformed by the prison officials for five days; he was not certain how this was done but believed that it might have been poured through the keyhole. During this period he sang like a graphophone; voices said "move his head", and his head would move itself. When his eyes were open he saw nothing unusual but when they were shut he could hear them operating a machine on his body; they ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... I'm not to hear: call me if I'm wanted." He descended. Sophy, with less noble disdain of eavesdropping, stood in the centre of the room, holding her breath to listen. She heard no sound; she had half a mind to put her ear to the keyhole, but that seemed even to her a mean thing, if not absolutely required by the necessity of the case. So there she still stood, her head bent down, her finger raised: oh, that Vance ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... door. She heard the buzz of voices; and that was enough. She went into the kitchen, and stirred up the fire, and lighted the house, and prepared for the wanderer's refreshment. How fortunate it was that her mother slept! She knew that she did, from the candle-lighter thrust through the keyhole of her bedroom door. The traveller could be refreshed and bright, and the first excitement of the meeting with his father all be over, before her mother became ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... being obeyed by the men who guarded the entrance, the dwarf began to abuse them. A considerable interval elapsed; the hunchback, who dared not go into the room himself, compromised by kneeling before the keyhole; at the foot of the stairs stood the girl, her strained ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... a cabbage," he answered. "I've scooped out the inside and filled it with tow. We'll set fire to one end, and blow the smoke through the keyhole." ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... the shutters of this grim apartment were kept closed, and an inquisitive eye, applied to the keyhole, could just faintly discern the portrait in crayon of the late Mr. Handsomebody, presiding, like some whiskered ghost, over the revels of the stuffed birds in the ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... expect you to see that she does. Use any messenger, any artifice, but get her away from this hall for ten minutes, even if it is only into Mrs. Deo's room. When she returns I shall be on my knees before this keyhole to watch her and observe. To see what, I do not mean to tell you, but it will be something which will definitely settle for me this matter of identity. Does this plan look sufficiently harmless to ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... the old movements, a little of each one at a time, and take two lengths of ribbon as wide as an ordinary rein, or, better still, two leather straps, and fasten one to the knobs on the two sides of a door and run the other through the keyhole. Call the knob straps the snaffle reins, and the keyhole straps the curb, and, sitting near enough to let them lie in your lap, practice picking them up and adjusting them with your eyes shut. When you can do it quickly and neatly, try and see with ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... shall tell it to the student!" And with these words the goblin went quite quietly up the back stairs to the garret, where the student lived. The student had still a candle burning, and the goblin peeped through the keyhole, and saw that he was reading in the torn book that he had carried up out of ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... sonatas. Leonard took me to see him late one evening at the Hotel de Havane in Paris, where Sivori was staying. When we came to his room we heard the sound of slow scales, beautifully played, coming from behind the closed door. We peered through the keyhole, and there he sat on his bed stringing his scale tones like pearls. He was a little chap and had the tiniest hands I have ever seen. Was this a drawback? If so, no one could tell from his playing; he had a flawless technic, and a really pearly quality of tone. He was very jolly and amiable, ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... poet, with a smile, "I peeped through the keyhole, before going to bed, and I beheld the most delicious dame in her shift that ever made a bed creak ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... party in his lair, and Burns, who roomed across the passage and who was the worst bummer in Encina, went down to Fessler, and complained that he couldn't study because of the noise in that number? And Fessler forgot who roomed there and came up and gave them Tartarus through the keyhole and nearly dropped when Torts opened ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... when she was so very young that it had become a habit before her parents perceived it. She was a very little creature when she was once nearly squeezed to death between two double doors as she was peeping through the keyhole of one of them to see who was in the drawing-room; and another time she was locked up for several hours in a closet in which she had hid herself for the purpose of overhearing what her mother was saying to one of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... clear; the temptation great. These men then were still deceiving him with a feigned antagonism. He listened at the keyhole, not without some compunction; which, however, became less and less as fragments of the dialogue ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... into the world: it was mysterious, very, and I cannot make it out now. My first thought was, that he must have had airy wings, and after he had come they had disappeared. My second thought was that he was so very little as to be able to come through the keyhole, and increased rapidly in size, just as it says in the Bible that a grain of mustard-seed springs to be so large a tree that the fowls of the air can roost ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... chance, for it was cunningly hidden. Whatever the danger, he must enter the garden again in search for his comrade. The door was shut, and as he felt along it from top to bottom, touching no latch nor handle, nor keyhole even, he realized that entrance that way was barred. The door only opened from within. He had stepped back to consider how, and at what point, he could best scale the wall, when a slight movement ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... as well as a set of figures before you can get the lock to work." He rose and showed a double-radiating disc round the keyhole. "This outer one is for the letters, the inner ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... footstool, and a doll, which my mamma had drest for me, while she was sitting in her elbow-chair, her head supported with pillows. With these in my hands, I used to go to the door of the room in which I had seen her in her last illness; and after trying to open it, and peeping through the keyhole, from whence I could just see a glimpse of the crimson curtains, I used to sit down on the stool before the door, and play with my doll, and sometimes sing to it mamma's pretty song, of "Balow my babe;" imitating ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... all work had been suspended at the College for the remainder of the week, Webster was again busy in his room early Wednesday morning. Littlefield could hear him moving about. In vain did the janitor look through the keyhole, bore a hole in the door, peep under it; all he could get was a sight of the Professor's feet moving about the laboratory. Perplexity gave way to apprehension when in the course of the afternoon Littlefield discovered that the outer ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... o'm drink'd so much, he coulden mind The word he wer to zay to meaeke en small; He got a-dather'd zoo, that after all Out tothers went an' left en back behind. An' after he'd a-beaet about his head, Ageaen the keyhole till he wer half dead, He laid down all along upon the vloor Till gramfer, comen down, unlocked the door: An' then he zeed en ('twer enough to frighten en) Bolt out o' door, an' down ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... he is unjust to women; quite unjust. There is hardly any punishment he does not deserve for making Lady Castlewood peep through a keyhole, listen at a door, and be jealous of a boy and a milkmaid. Many other things I noticed that, for my part, grieved and exasperated me as I read; but then, again, came passages so true, so deeply thought, so tenderly felt, one could not ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
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