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More "Valet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on, when the Marquis of Ely went to the Hall to spend some time there. His valet was put to sleep in the tapestry chamber. In the middle of the night the whole family was aroused by his dreadful roars and screams, and he was found lying in another room in mortal terror. After some time he told them that, soon after he ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... sons went to the army and Phil was sent to care for him while he was there; an aristocratic man never went to the war without his valet. His [HW: Phil's] duty was to cook for him, keep his clothes clean, and to bring the body home if he was killed. Poor soldiers were either buried [HW: where they fell] or left lying on the field for vultures to consume. Food was ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... great for a man. His clear-cut and cold features seemed to be a wax copy of the head of Meleager or Antinoues; his brilliant complexion seemed to be the result of rouge and powder, and his somewhat reddish hair curled naturally as accurately as an expert hairdresser or clever valet could have made it curl. On the other hand, the firm glance of his steel-blue eyes and the slightly sneering expression of his lower lip corrected whatever there might be of effeminate in ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... remember Gaffer John! He was well over ninety when I left Beechfield, and he had been valet years ago to ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... very well, Japhet; but I had rather trust to our own prudence. Now hear what I have to say. You will be as much assisted by a trusty valet as by any other means. I shall, as a gentleman, be only an expense and an incumbrance; but as a valet I shall be able to play into your hands, at the same time more than one half the expense will be avoided. With your leave, therefore, I will take my proper situation, put on ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... which Manuel could have sworn was not there when he looked into the chamber a short half-hour before, sat Guy Cecil, complacently puffing at a briar pipe. His tweeds were as immaculate as though he had just stepped from the hands of his valet, and his tan shoes showed mark neither of mud nor rough trails. Manuel's quick glance caught these details and they set ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... other side of the apartment was a toilet-room, with all conveniences required for washing and other purposes, including a water-cooler. In this compartment the traveller takes his servant, and often a cook, for the valet cannot meddle with culinary matters; and they sleep on the floor wherever they can find a place. A reasonable additional price is charged for accommodations in ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... any retinue, having quitted Florence with only a single valet, who died of sudden illness on the road. Thus did I enter Naples alone, with my package of necessaries fastened to the saddle of the steed that bore me. I put up at a small, but respectable hostel; and the first few days of my residence ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... had already taken all the previous measures for their departure, when an accident happened, which our hero did not fail to convert to his own advantage. This was no other than the desertion of Renaldo's valet, who, in consequence of a gentle chastisement, which he had richly merited, thought proper to disappear, after having plundered his master's portmanteau, which he had forced open for the purpose. Ferdinand, who was the first person that discovered the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... rather than submit to the "yoke" of the Northern manufacturers; in North Carolina the legislature declared the tariff law unconstitutional. At the commencement of the University of Georgia the orator of the occasion appeared in a suit of white cotton cloth, while his valet wore the cast-off suit of shining broadcloth. The "Tariff of Abominations," passed in 1828, was producing revolutionary results in all the region where tobacco, cotton, and rice were grown, and this was the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... devoted Merat was annoyed; as well she might be, for Thornton Grange was a pleasant house for valets and lady's maids. "Some new valet," Evelyn thought, and she was sorry to drag Merat away from him, for Merat's sins were her own—no one was answerable for another; there was always that in her mind; and what applied to her did not apply to ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... at half-past nine, and remained until he had put up the shutters. It seemed as if he was accomplishing a duty in placing himself at the service of the two women. If he happened occasionally to neglect the tiresome job, he apologised with the humility of a valet the following day. On Thursdays he assisted Madame Raquin to light the fire, to do the honours of the house, and displayed all kinds of gentle attentions that charmed ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... care except his valet. Dallam cared and read and made notes. He was horrified at the thought of Dyckman's marrying a movie actress. He would have preferred any intrigue to that disgrace. It would mean the loss of a good position, too, for while Dyckman was an ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... us of wonderful performances by the horse on which the king was mounted. The name of the horse was Savoy, and it was the most beautiful horse he had ever seen. During the battle the king was personally attacked, when he had nobody near him but a valet de chambre, a little fellow, and not well armed. "The king," says Commines, "had the best horse under him in the world, and therefore he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a great way from him, arrived ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... F. Taylor owes everything he has or is to the Irish National Party; nor is he slow to confess it where the acknowledgment will serve his personal interests. His sneers are all anonymous, and, like Mr. Fagg, the grateful and deferential valet in The Rivals, "it hurts his conscience to be found out." There is no honesty or sincerity in the man. His covert gibes are the spiteful emanation of personal disappointment; his lofty morality is a cloak for unscrupulous self-seeking. He has always shown himself ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... Provost, in his "Lettres a Francois," "the clothes worn by men of quality were more costly than those worn by women. To-day all men dress with such uniformity that a Huron, transported to Paris or to London, could not distinguish master from valet. This will assuredly be the fate of feminine toilets in a future more or less near. The time must come when the varying costumes now seen at balls, at the races, at the theatre, will all be swept away; and in their place women will wear, ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London's best tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... had been borne part way up the stairs—a man who was so entirely helpless that he had to be carried to and from the table. He was a large, heavy man, and his valet had with the greatest difficulty managed to bear him on his back halfway up the stairs, where he had paused to take breath. In the meantime, the pressure from behind had become so tremendous that it had forced him to his knees; and he and his master were taking up the whole width of ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... the Belgian gentleman who owned the house and his cook brought me some food. She was the only member of his household who had not deserted him, and together they were serving the staff-officers, he acting as butler, waiter, and valet. The cock was an old peasant woman with a ruffled white cap, and when she left, in spite of the sentry, she patted me encouragingly on the shoulder. The owner of the house was more discreet, and contented himself with winking at me and whispering: "Ca va ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... thought Casanova, "since last I stood thus measuring sword with sword?" But none of his serious duels now recurred to his mind. He could think only of practice with the foils, such as ten years earlier he used to have every morning with his valet Costa, the rascal who afterwards bolted with a hundred and fifty thousand lire. "All the same, he was a fine fencer; nor has my hand forgotten its cunning! My arm is as true, my vision as keen, as ever..... Youth and age are fables. Am I not a god? Are we not both gods? If anyone ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... taken advantage of this accident to slip away from his travelling companions and drive alone to his lodgings in Jermyn Street. He was still greatly excited; and when his valet, an old retainer with whom he was on familiar terms, brought him a letter that had arrived during his absence, he asked him four times whether any one had called, and four times interrupted him by scraps of information about the splendid day he ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... as faithless a valet as any servant who ever watered wine, lost a gimcrack, or hooked a weed. Studs, neckcloths, bootjacks, silk socks, pins, underwear—all magically and eventually faded from my wardrobe, wafted to those silent bournes of swag that valets wot of. What in hell do you want ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... dangers. Then the special train for the passengers from South America had brought him to Paris, leaving him at four in the morning on a platform of the Gare du Nord in the embrace of Pepe Argensola, the young Spaniard whom he sometimes called "my secretary" or "my valet" because it was difficult to define exactly the relationship between them. In reality, he was a mixture of friend and parasite, the poor comrade, complacent and capable in his companionship with a rich youth on bad terms with his ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... he was seized with an attack of smallpox, which laid him prostrate on the low flock bed of the miserable little inn to which he had been conveyed on landing from the boat. Here he lay for some time incognito, his identity unknown to any save the faithful valet who attended him, until he had perfectly recovered from the disease, which, however, was found to have left the most frightful traces of its passage in scar and seam and furrow from forehead to chin. The handsome young cavalier ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... words on her lips he came, silent, noiseless, to her side. With his hands on her shoulders he forced her to her feet. His eyes were fierce, his stern mouth parted in a cruel smile, his deep, slow voice half angry, half impatiently amused. "Must I be valet, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... way, in reference to that painful and alarming rheumatic affection. One year, staying incautiously beyond the Alps as late as the middle of September, he had been laid up for three months in that lonely country house with no one but his valet and the caretaking couple to attend to him. Because, as he expressed it, he "kept no establishment there." He had only gone for a couple of days to confer with his land agent. He promised himself never to be so imprudent in the future. The first weeks of September ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... on to relate how he had been sent to Pau, to the college, to be brought up to the church, with an old servant to act both as his valet and his guardian. How his head was too full of gaming to learn Latin. How they gave him his rank at college, as the youth of quality, when he did not deserve it; how he travelled up to Paris to his brother to be polished, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Excellency," replied the valet de chambre, "the Master of the Hounds came this morning to inform him that he had marked down a stag. At first the king answered that he would not go; but he could not resist his love of sport, and set out ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... minutes, seen the curiosities of the place (I did not care to see the King's palace, for chairs and tables have no great charm for me), I had ordered horses, and wanted to get on I cared not whither, when Fate threw Dorothea in my way. I was yawning back to the hotel through the palace-garden, a valet-de-place at my side, when I saw a young lady seated under a tree reading a novel, her mamma on the same bench (a fat woman in light blue) knitting a stocking, and two officers, choked in their stays, with various orders on their spinach-colored coats, standing by in first attitudes: ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fullness of time I was graduated, and went with two of my servants—my chamberlain and my valet—to travel in foreign countries. During four years I flitted upon careless wing amid the beauteous gardens of the distant strand, if you will permit this form of speech in one whose tongue was ever ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... alone. However, as soon as I became accustomed to him, I got over all that, and now I would not lose him for anything; he seems to know instinctively what I want. He is excellent as a waiter and valet; I should feel almost lost without him now; and the clumping about of an English man servant would annoy me as much as his noiseless way of going about did at first. He has come to speak English very fairly. Of course, my brother always talked to him in his ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... Askinforit has been in my service for eight years. I should not be parting with her but for the fact that I am compelled by reasons of health to leave England. Askinforit is clean, sober, honest, an early riser, an excellent plate-cleaner and valet, has perfect manners and high intelligence, takes a great pride in her work, and is most willing, obliging and industrious. She was with me as parlour-maid (first of two), and now seeks temporary employment in that capacity; but there is no branch of domestic service with which she is not ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... whereby they are moved." A similar transparency of motive and purpose, of individual traits and spontaneous action, belongs to the Bible. From the hand of Shakspeare, "the lord and the tinker, the hero and the valet, come forth equally distinct and clear." In the Bible the various sorts of men are never confounded, but have the advantage of being exhibited by Nature herself, and are not a contrivance of the imagination. "Shylock," observes a recent critic, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... leeches for the hospitals, which circumstance made us conclude that the simple name of "Herr Simon" by which he called himself probably concealed some deep mystery. Nothing, alas! remains to me of his German, nor of that of a valet of the same race, who had been put about me, so ill adapted has my mental constitution always proved to any ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... trip there with Twichell thirty-three years earlier, and at "Bay House," the residence of Vice-Consul Allen, where he was always a welcome guest, he could have the attentions and care and comforts of a home. Taking Claude, the butler, as his valet, he sailed January 5th, and presently sent back a letter in which he said, "Again I am leading the ideal ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fortune. "He had been called 'Your Majesty;' now he can hardly find any one to call him 'Sir.' He had coined money; now he has not a penny of his own. He had had two Secretaries of State; now he has but one valet. He had sat on a throne; but since that time he had laid on straw in a London prison." In fact, his state was so doleful, that the other ex-kings subscribed twenty sequins apiece to buy him some coats and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... laying claim to no slight degree of present consequence, modestly ignored it, and spoke with pride of the grand way in which life was carried on by their ancestors, the Deephaven families of old times. I think Kate and I were assured at least a hundred times that Governor Chantrey kept a valet, and his wife, Lady Chantrey, kept a maid, and that the governor had an uncle in England who was a baronet; and I believe this must have been why our friends felt so deep an interest in the affairs of the English nobility: ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... truth of his system. Godwin had argued that private affections resulted in partiality, and therefore injustice.[83] If a house were on fire, reason would urge a man to save Fenelon in preference to his valet; but if the rescuer chanced to be the brother or father of the valet, private feeling would intervene, unreasonably urging him to save his relative and abandon Fenelon. Lest he should be regarded as a wrecker of homes, Godwin wished to show that domestic ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... disguise," continued Chi Foxy. "Me and Shermlock, when we had on tramp disguises we were tramps. Why, I used to go home and my valet would throw me downstairs. I was so thoroughly disguised, and I kept actin' so trampish while I had the disguise on, that he used to come at me with a golluf stick and whack me on the head. And when I got into my own room I kept right on being a tramp. Took off my clothes—still a tramp. Took off ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... neighbouring house, from which post he could not be dislodged, till the doctor, having lost patience, had sent home for another wig, and never after could be prevailed on to accept of this, which had been so much disgraced. That, enfin, his valet, to whom the monkey belonged, had, ever since that adventure, obliged the culprit by way of punishment to sit quietly, for an hour every morning, with the periwig on his head.—Et pendant ces moments de tranquillite je suis honore de la societe du ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... sure, began his first canto with conscious Spenserian. He called his poem a "romaunt," and his valet, poor Fletcher, a "stanch yeoman," and peppered his stanzas thinly with sooths and wights and whiloms, but he gave over this affectation in the later cantos and made no further excursions into the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... after his first visit he came in a taxicab, greatly excited, for them and their luggage, and drove them to Waterloo Station. On the platform they found Emily Gibbs, in charge of Lawrence, the duke's valet, awaiting them. She found favour in the exigent eyes of Pollyooly, who let her take charge of the Lump without a single anxious qualm. Emily Gibbs fell in love ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... pass my time here [he says] with extreme regularity and quietness, not knowing, even to speak to, a single individual in Rome; and the direction to my valet when I start on my perambulations, 'al Campidoglio,' 'al Foro,' forms the largest part of my daily utterances.... In a fit of desperation I took to writing a kind of political philosophy, in default of my poetical aim, which ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... he laughed, when the social secretary met him shortly after his arrival, "I'm the poor boy at this frolic, and I'm just as much at my ease as a Hottentot at college. When I found that I was the only man here without a valet, I ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... have faith in ghosts," retorted the landlady obstinately. "Haven't you heard of the haunted house in a West End square, where a man and a dog were found dead in the morning, with a valet as ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... 231: On the 23rd of September, Henry executed a deed by which of especial grace he gave "for the term of life to William Malbon, our valet de chambre, the office of Raglore [Qu: Regulator?] of the commotes of Glenerglyn and Hannynyok in our county of Cardigan. Given under our seal in our castle of Caermarthen, in the ninth year of the reign of ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... parts as their masters in the humors of the time. Rich people were always surrounded by a throng of servants. First came the valet de chambre, who was expected to know a little of everything, from shaving and wig-making to skill in country sports, and had as much experience in all town matters as a servant out of Terence or Moliere. Last came the negro slave, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... "Not only valet. He will be groom, cook, guide, interpreter and, whether you wish it or not, your chum. Moreover, he will do it all with the face of a clown and the manner of a tricksy monkey. As a panacea for the blues, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... sweetened with kisses; and, as the plot now thickens, change the scene to the dressing-room of Rainscourt, who had now just risen, at his usual hour, viz., between two and three in the afternoon. His French valet is in attendance shaving him, and dressing his hair, and communicating what little intelligence he has been enabled to ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... snuff.] Begar, sair, I am von man of fashion aussi, I am valet de sham to capitain Pendragoon; ve are in ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah
... deal struck and affected by this revelation, and astonished at the slighting tone Betty took in speaking of so remarkable a man. The saying that "No man is a hero to his valet" was not yet current, or perhaps she would have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... one of the maids, and Champreau the courier and valet who had been engaged by Abner Power. They had been sitting behind the other pair throughout the service, and indeed knew rather more of the relations between Paula and De ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... stern answer. "One hundred dollars when I get back here. And," he added, "if it should occur to you at the hotel that you might pawn these studs, or the flask, or the clothing for more than a hundred, let me remind you that my chauffeur will be watching one entrance, my valet ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... treasonable to strike a herald, or to counterfeit the character of one. Yet Louis "did not hesitate to practise such an imposition when he wished to enter into communication with Edward IV of England.... He selected, as an agentfit for his purpose, a simple valet. This man... he disguised as a herald, with all the insignia of his office, and sent him in that capacity to open a communication with the English army. The stratagem, though of so fraudulent a nature, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... holding the envelope between the folds of her skirt without glancing at it, and trying to hide the trembling of her arm. She sat down, forcing her hand around and her gaze to meet it. The envelope was blank; she tore its flap and read: "Valet Service. Suits Cleaned and ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... packages for the journey, but who proved in other respects very poor travellers. He also secured the services of that now well-known hero, Bombay, captain of Speke's faithfuls, and five of his other followers, Uledi, Grant's valet, and the bull-headed Mabruki, who had in the mean time lost one of his hands, but, notwithstanding, was likely to prove useful. They were the only remains of the band to be found, the rest having died or gone elsewhere. These six still retained their medals for assisting ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... I don't remember whether Lord Bacon has left us anything in that line,—unless, indeed, he wrote Romeo and Juliet' and the 'Sonnets;' but if he has, I don't believe they differ so very much from those of his valet or his groom to their respective lady-loves. It is always, My darling! my darling! The words of endearment are the only ones the lover wants to employ, and he finds the vocabulary too limited for his vast desires. So his letters are apt to be rather tedious except to the ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... valet brought him with his morning beverage a piece of flat rock. On it was carved a simple human thigh-bone. He uttered a loud cry. She had rejected him. The parcel-post, an hour later, brought him his own ideograph, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... two Incas, who appeared to be our personal attendants—for we were actually able to recognize them after half a dozen visits—arrived to perform the offices of chambermaid and valet. The floor of the apartment was scrubbed, the urns refilled with oil, and the skin cover of the granite couch was changed. It seemed that another belief—in cleanliness—had refused to be dislodged from the ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... went on; "the way people would be looking at me in trains and omnibuses; the things people would say of me, the things I should imagine they were saying; what my valet would be thinking of me. Oh, I'm ashamed enough of myself. It's the artistic temperament, I suppose. We must always be admired, praised. We're not the stuff that martyrs are made of. We must for ever be kow-towing to the cackling geese around us. We're so terrified lest ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... her window going up Highgate Hill, on his last journey to the seat of his ancestors. Mary had been much interested in the account Trelawny had sent her of Byron's latest moments. She had been to see the poet's remains at the house where they lay in London. She saw his valet, Fletcher, and "from a few words he imprudently let fall, it would seem that his Lordship spoke of C——- in his last moments, and of his wish to do something for her, at a time when his mind, vacillating between consciousness and delirium, would not permit ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... abuses our brains. Suppose now that our bookman has decided to 'read up' the French Revolution, a subject to which we all turn at some period of our lives. He has been led thereto, perhaps, by having lighted upon a translation of someone's memoirs, the recollections of some insignificant valet-de-chambre or dissolute cure (for such memoirs abound), more interesting by reason of its piquancy than its historical accuracy. He reads of persons and events that he recollects vaguely to have heard of before, and so he goes on ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... bundle out of here posthaste. They sail tomorrow morning. Your duties as valet have been light and short-lived; but I can give you an excellent recommendation should you desire to take service ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... enough to postpone telling me more about such little matters, may I ask you, Colonel, who will show me to my rooms? I shall need quite a few, for, outside of two chauffeurs—I have five auto cars you know—I have also four household servants and a valet." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... house, as she had fondly hoped would be the case. She was permitted to spend an occasional week, sometimes stretched to ten days or a fortnight, in Cavendish Square; but the cook-housekeeper and the clever German servant, half valet half butler, still reigned supreme in that well-ordered establishment; and Urania felt that she had no more authority than a visitor. She dared not find fault with servants who had lived ten years ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Hanover, fifth son of George III., was gazetted as Field-Marshal November 27, 1813. His "wounds," which, according to the Duke's sworn testimony, were seventeen in number, were inflicted during an encounter with his valet, Joseph Sellis (? Slis), a Piedmontese, who had attempted to assassinate the Prince (June 1, 1810), and, shortly afterwards, was found with his throat cut. A jury of Westminster tradesmen brought in a verdict of felo ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... learned to distinguish between Mohammedans and other dark-complexioned people and held himself aloof from the former, thereby escaping any humiliating races with the heavy boots of the gunbearers and other followers of Allah. He made friends with little Ali, the monkey's valet, a small Swahili boy who looked like a chocolate drop in color, and like a tooth-powder ad in disposition. It was Ali's duty to carry the ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... by a young man, who was pacing restlessly up and down the room, of which he was, with the exception of his valet de chambre, an Italian named Michel, the person who had opened ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages—twenty times repeated—of a sonata ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... his lordship found it necessary to keep a secretary, to aid him in his politics not only to write but to think; and I afterward learned, from his valet, that he had allowed a hundred a year to one who had left his service that very day. His lordship was doubtless therefore well satisfied with the meeting of this morning, in which he not only recovered his diamond repeater but rewarded the youth who brought it, by suffering him ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and parcel of the man. His appearance would doubtless have violated the proprieties of the Albany, for in my rural retreat he was called upon to perform other and more important services than those of a valet. His neatly shaved chin, stolid red countenance and perfectly brushed hair were unexceptionable of course, but because his duties would presently take him into the garden he wore, not the regulation black, but an ancient shooting-jacket, khaki breeches and brown gaiters, ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... was put up by a great nobleman, of whose subterranean palace and strange seclusion I had before heard. Common report attributed his unwillingness to be seen to a disfiguring malady with which he was said to be afflicted. The story was that he was visible only to his valet. But a lady of quality, whom I met in this country, told me she had seen him, and observed nothing to justify it. These old countries are full of romances and legends and diableries of all sorts, in which truth and lies are so mixed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Redmain," said her husband when Mary entered. "Get out, Mewks," he added; and both lady and valet disappeared. ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... which began to characterize the Swedish nobility in the eighteenth century, and which continued to assert themselves almost to the end of the nineteenth. But in English that form would not have the same significance, and nothing in the play makes its use imperative. The valet, on the other hand, would most appropriately be named Jean both in England and here, and for that reason I have retained this form of ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... lad, had now been at the pains to warn him; Gotthold looked for something at his hands. Well, none should be disappointed; the Prince, too long beshadowed by the uxorious lover, should now return and shine. He summoned his valet, repaired the disorder of his appearance with elaborate care; and then, curled and scented and adorned, Prince Charming in every line, but with a twitching nostril, he set forth unattended ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... life before now, she had remembered her father doing what she considered a strangely hard thing. A valet in whom he had always reposed full confidence had robbed him of one hundred pounds. He had broken open his master's desk at night and taken from thence notes to that amount. The deed had been clumsily done, and detection was very ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... money at my camp. If that is not enough to pay your blackmail, my valet has gone back to the railway with my guide for a remittance of a thousand dollars, which must have come on a ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... came back with the message that the bank no longer cashed foreign cheques; whereupon he disappeared, and was never heard of again. The Princess was beside herself with rage, and cried that she would have him knouted. She summoned her German valet, but he was busy buckling on his Feldwebel uniform. She ordered her French chauffeur to be ready to start instantly; I went down to the garage with the message myself so as to get away from her, and discovered that the fellow was a reservist from Saint-Mihiel, ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... their servant—their valet," said Aaron to himself, and a curious half-amused, half-contemptuous look flickered on his face. It annoyed him. The falsity occasioned by the difference in the price of the tickets was really humiliating. Aaron had lived long enough ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... for three years (our two boys intimately), and he always shuddered at hurting anything, and was peculiarly gentle and kind towards children and animals, and if anything rather timid; so that all who knew him said he never could have had a chance in his own country. His valet, who is a very respectable Englishman, and has been with him ever since his twelfth year, says that he never knew a kinder or more amiable disposition. The Queen fears that people who do not know him well have been led away by their present ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... later than 1366; the probability is, that it closely followed his return from the wars. In 1367, Edward III. settled upon Chaucer a life- pension of twenty marks, "for the good service which our beloved Valet — 'dilectus Valettus noster' — Geoffrey Chaucer has rendered, and will render in time to come." Camden explains 'Valettus hospitii' to signify a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber; Selden says that the designation was bestowed "upon young heirs ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... visitors to the Emperor's palace, which he gave them to understand was open for that day only, and as a special privilege due to Tanaka's influence. While expatiating on the wonders to be seen, he brushed Geoffrey's clothes and arranged them with the care of a trained valet. In the evening, when they returned to the hotel and Asako complained of pains in her shoulder, Tanaka showed himself to be an ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... at once," he went on hurriedly, looking hard at the bracelets. "I shouldn't like to be unkind to her, mother, but do you think Clara would give me up? I don't need a nurse now. It's rather silly. May one of the men-servants valet me? I should like Winter best, because he's been here always, and I shouldn't feel shy with him. Would it bore you awfully to speak about that now, so ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... a large box full of delicious bonbons of every variety. She commanded a valet to raise the box and place it upon one of the mules which ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... from the snares and temptations of this wicked world. While I am tormented with ennui, blue-devils and dyspepsia, you sit still and grow in stature and knowledge. By Jove! you are too big to wear my cast-off suits now. My valet will bless the increase of your outward man, and I don't think you have at all profited by the circumstance. Where the deuce did you get that eccentric turn-out? It certainly does not remind one ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... presence of the above-named military aspirant one day, about two months after the date of his commission. He was introduced to his brother officers, examined by them from head to foot, shown into a bare uncomfortable garret—of which he was installed proprietor, allotted a tough old grenadier as his valet-de-chambre, and then left to his own ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... evidence of wickedness, wrongdoing, and petty personal motives, of low ambitions, of bargains and sales, of timidity, of treachery. The reverse of the most costly tapestry looks mean and cheap. It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. The reason is not that the hero is mean or base, but that the valet cannot see anything that is great and noble, but only what is mean and base. The history of no people is heroical to its Mugwumps. But, thank God, what is petty and personal ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... passengers. This was his fifth trip in the Carnatic. He took no truck in passengers beyond showing them the patient politeness enjoined by the Company's rules. He knew nothing of Mr Markham, who dispensed with the services of a valet and dressed with a shabbiness only pardonable in the extremely rich. Mr Markham, 'the Insurance King,' had arrayed himself this morning in gray flannel, with a reach-me-down overcoat, cloth cap, and carpet slippers that betrayed his flat, Jewish instep. ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... that evening he was so absent-minded that his valet held forth for an hour in the servants' hall, with assurances that some mighty coup was toward. Not since the days of B.L. & W. or the rate war on the S. & O. had his master shown ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... valets to attend them, their rooms, and their clothes. Think of that! Don't do anything like that, even if you are a hundred times a millionaire. Of course you won't—you who read this—because not one out of ten thousand young Americans can afford to have a valet ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... Greyne repeated after a short interval. "Am I to go alone?" "Of course you must take Darrell." Darrell was Mr. Greyne's valet. ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... have criticized Frenchmen more severely than ever had he known that even Sully gave way in private to a passion for dancing. At least Tallemant des Reaux says that "every evening a valet de chambre of the King played on the lute the dances of the day, and M. de Sully danced all alone, in some sort of extraordinary hat—such as he always wore in his cabinet—while his cronies applauded him, although he was the most awkward man in ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... elegance of taste in everything that he liked, in his luxurious habits, in his ways, and in his whole life, to which she bowed down in astonishment and delight, as though she herself were not the mainspring of it all and his cashier. Her son's valet did not seem to her like an ordinary domestic; his horse was not merely a horse, it was her son's horse. When her son went out she gave orders that she should be told so that she might have the satisfaction of seeing him get into the ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... stories seldom exceed ten pages in length, while some do not exceed four. They constitute a series of sketches, of miniatures of rare value, among which can be found some real gems. One cannot say as much for his longer works, where certain parts are exaggerated, as in "The Valet de Chambre," "Ward No. 6," ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... of Champagne named Jean Voute, published a collection of Latin verses in which were three epigrams upon her. It is to be supposed that the poet was sure of protection in high places, for the pamphlet has a preface in praise of itself, signed by Salmon Macrin, first valet-de-chambre to the king. Only one passage is quotable from these epigrams, which are ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... illa conclusione differt? 'Si mentiris, mentiris: mentiris autem: mentiris igitur.' Hoc negas te posse nec approbare nec improbare. 97. Qui igitur magis illud? Si ars, si ratio, si via, si vis denique conclusionis valet, eadem est in utroque. Sed hoc extremum eorum est: postulant ut excipiantur haec inexplicabilia. Tribunum aliquem censeo adeant: a me istam exceptionem numquam impetrabunt. Etenim cum ab Epicuro, qui totam dialecticam et contemnit et irridet, non impetrent ut verum esse concedat quod ita ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... substitute the indirect phrases, vuestra Merced (in Spanish) and vossa Merce (in Portuguese), both much contracted in speaking and familiar writing, and both signifying "your Grace." The joke of invariably applying this epithet to one's valet would seem sufficiently grotesque in either language, and here the Spanish stops; but Portuguese propriety has gone so far that even this phrase has become too hackneyed to be civil. In talking with your equals, it would be held ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... interrupted by the entrance of a valet, who came to offer his services. Voules, supposing from his appearance that he was one of the other guests who had mistaken his room, made him a polite bow, and said something to that effect. The valet, uncertain whether the young gentleman was a lord or a commoner, thought it wise ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... dress was designed by Sir John Gilbert. It was never replaced, and only once cleaned by Henry's dresser and valet, Walter Collinson. Walter, I think, replaced "Doody," Henry's first dresser at the Lyceum, during the run of "The Merchant of Venice." Walter was a wig-maker by trade—assistant to Clarkson the elder. It was Doody who, on being asked ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Baron, "also my valet, my cook, my chambermaid, my man to do all, what you call factotum, is it not? But he speaks not English, so ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... irritating actions. He took from them the delicious morsels which they cooked. Four men, for another had joined them, greatly enraged, sullenly abandoned their work, and retiring a short distance agreed to avenge themselves by killing Moranget, and also by killing Nika and another man who was the valet of La Salle. Both of these men were ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... dead, or body-washer, who were in his pay; and for the moment they were loyal to him. For his purpose, too, they were the most useful of mercenaries: for the duties of a barber are those of a valet-de-chambre, a doctor, registrar and sanitary officer combined; and his coadjutor in information and gossip was the moghassil, who sits and waits for some one to die, as a raven on a housetop waits for carrion. Dicky was patient, but as the days ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was an operation which occupied some time if carefully performed. It is stated in the "Life of Mrs Elizabeth Thomas," published in 1731, of Mr Richard Shute, her grandfather, a Turkey merchant, that he was very nice in the mode of that age, his valet being some hours every morning in starching his beard, and curling his whiskers, during which time a gentleman, whom he maintained as a companion, always read to him upon some useful subject. In closing, we have to state ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... face with him. It would be an interesting encounter. Hunted him for weeks, and to-day laid eyes on him for the first time. Had my clumsy paws on him this very afternoon. He seemed so willing to be locked up that I grew careless. Biff! and he and his accomplice, an erstwhile valet, had me trussed like a chicken and bundled into the clothes-press. Took my star, credentials, playing-card, and invitation. It was near eleven o'clock when I roused the housekeeper. I telegraphed ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... the head hanging back, the wide glazed eyes looking up to the summer sky whence the sweltering heat would soon pour down upon it. We looked shuddering at the face. It was that of a servant, a valet who had been with Louis at Caylus. We recognised him at once for we had known and liked him. He had carried our guns on the hills a dozen times, and told us stories of the war. The blood crawled slowly ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Gummersbach the Valet comes to Rochow's bolster: "Hst, Herr Oberst-Lieutenant, please awaken! Prince Royal is up, has on his top-coat, and is gone out of doors!" Rochow starts to his habiliments, or perhaps has them ready on; in a minute or two, Rochow also is forth into the gray of the morning;—finds ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... was the reply; "Likewhich the Delphy Inums. An' I've put enough sweet peas in to supply Covint Garden market, bearin' in mind as 'ow you sed you couldn't have enough on 'em. Sir Morton Pippitt's Lunnon valet came along while I was a- doin' of it, an' 'e peers over the 'edge an' 'e sez, sez 'e: 'Weedin' corn, are yer?' 'No, ye gowk,' sez I! 'Ever seen corn at all 'cept in a bin? Mixed wi' thistles, mebbe?' An' then he ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... civilians. You must appear before them as a soldier, and they will shout you King till their throats are hoarse and the water stands in their eyes. They are a dramatic people, lovers of effect. They must be taken by storm. I cannot offer your Highness a valet, but perhaps ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... He put forth all his eloquence, and flashed wit, like rays from a beacon, all through the lesson. Like a man roused from lethargy, he revealed to me a new world of thoughts. He told me the story of some poor devil of a valet who gave up his life for a single glance ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... curiosity, went sometimes to their levees, where I saw the Commissioners, the Duke of Queensbury, the Chancellor, the Secretary, Lord Mar, and other great men of Scotland, hang on near an hour; and when admitted, treated with no more civility than one gentleman pays another's valet-de-chambre; and for which the Scots have none to blame but themselves, for had they valued themselves as they ought to have done, and not so meanly and sneakingly prostituted their honour and country to the will and pleasure ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... entirely inhibited. French ladies under the old Regime (as A. Franklin points out in his Vie Privee d'Autrefois) sometimes showed no modesty towards their valets, not admitting the possibility of any sexual advance, and a lady would, for example, stand up in her bath while a valet added hot water by pouring it between her ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... to a commission and the Cross of St. Louis; but the piping times of peace turned all such brave grapes sour. I was glad enough, when the alternative was given me, of accompanying my Captain, Monsieur de la Ribaldiere, to Paris, as his Valet de Chambre, or of mouldering away, without hope of Promotion, in some country barrack, to choose the former, and led, for a year or two, a gay, easy life enough in the French Capital. But, alas! that which I had hidden from a whole army in the field, I could not keep a secret from one rubbishing, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... luscum regnare posse. Apud rudes valet saepe fucata disputatio, quam schola Philosophorum exsibilat. Multa peccat adversarius in hoc genere; sed quatuor fallacies plerumque consuitur, quas in Academia malim, ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... Beau Brummell, a fastidious aristocrat with luxurious tastes and a depleted fortune; Isidore, his valet; Mr. Fotherby, his ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... made to be looked up to. I'm not going to be a hero to my valet de chambre, or to anybody else, my dear, if that's what ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... indignation with so majestic an air that the landlord was soon apologising for having disturbed a gentleman in the proper exercise of belabouring his valet. ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... arrayed in velvet collars, which so preyed upon my uncle's spirits that he took to his bed, and never showed his face in public again. His money, which had ruined what might have been a great life, was divided amongst many bequests, an annuity to his valet, Ambrose, being amongst them; but enough has come to his sister, my dear mother, to help to make her old age as sunny and as pleasant as even I ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Was there not Private Valentine in that very house, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and nurse, in the family of his captain, Monsieur le Capitaine de la Cour,—cleaning the floors, making the beds, doing the marketing, dressing the captain, dressing the dinners, dressing the salads, ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... wear the military uniform? Why do they all hold military reviews, why do they organize maneuvers, distribute rewards to the military, and raise monuments to generals and successful commanders? Why do rich men of independent position consider it an honor to perform a valet's duties in attendance on crowned personages, flattering them and cringing to them and pretending to believe in their peculiar superiority? Why do men who have ceased to believe in the superstitions ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... Seeing his valet and confidant, Giustiniano da Sesena, he said: "We are going to Signore Lorenzino's, but what shall I put on?" Giustiniano handed him a crimson silk dressing-gown, and asked him whether he would wear his sword and ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... announced one morning that the lady had absolutely and for ever taken the veil, and that the world would see her no more. When, at the very tail of this rumour, there came the assurance that the celebrated operating surgeon, the man of steel nerves, had been found in the morning by his valet, seated on one side of his bed, smiling pleasantly upon the universe, with both legs jammed into one side of his breeches and his great brain about as valuable as a cap full of porridge, the matter was strong enough to give quite a little ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the country, the people and the ways she has left. The Parisian shopkeepers had made everything for her from measures and models sent from Vienna. Napoleon had had these models shown him, and taking one of the shoes, which were remarkably small, he had sportively stroked his valet's cheek with it, and said, "See there, Constant; here's a shoe that will bring good luck with it. Did you ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... up early, and out with the hounds to-morrow. By my faith, it is half-past twelve; so good night." He went to his chamber, ignorant that the ominous hour was not yet past. His guests, notwithstanding their avowed unbelief, remained together in fearful dread. They heard the valet descending from his master's room; it was just twelve o'clock. Lord Lyttelton's bell rang violently; the company ran to his apartment, and found the unhappy nobleman lying in bed lifeless, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... do weill to take heid what women he medles wt; for if he get a woman of degre below himself wt child he most ether mary hir or tocher hir: if his aequal, ether marry hir or be hanged (which few chooses): if she be far above his condition (especially if a valet engrosse his masters daughter or sister not married) he is hanged wtout al process brevi manu; the maid is thrust unto a convent to lead repentance their for hir lifetyme, since she hath prostrat ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... "He claims this valet's a friend of his, too," says the Kid. "I'll bet he'll turn out to be another one of them sweet spirits of ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... pack-saddles and packages for the journey, but who proved in other respects very poor travellers. He also secured the services of that now well-known hero, Bombay, captain of Speke's faithfuls, and five of his other followers, Uledi, Grant's valet, and the bull-headed Mabruki, who had in the mean time lost one of his hands, but, notwithstanding, was likely to prove useful. They were the only remains of the band to be found, the rest having died or gone elsewhere. These six still retained their medals for assisting ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... fallen wholly to the middle, much less the lower middle, classes. In one place there was a marquis overhead; in another there was a lordship of unascertained degree, who was heard on a court night being got ready by his valet and the landlord's whole force, and then marking his descent to his cab by the clanking of his sword upon the stairs, after which the joint service spent a good part of the night in celebrating the event at a banquet in the basement. At two lodgings in a most unpretentious street, it was the landlords' ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... closely pressing Cicely's hand as they passed through the corridor to the Queen's apartments, gave the word to the two yeomen who were on guard for the night at the head of the stairs, and tapped at the outmost door of the royal suite of rooms. It was opened by a French valet; but Mrs. Kennedy instantly advanced, took the maiden by the hand, and with a significant smile said: "Gramercy, madam, we will take unco gude tent of the lassie. A fair gude nicht to ye." And Mrs. Talbot felt, as she put the little hand into that of the nurse, and saw the door shut on them, as ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as to forgive me for having kept you waiting so long, but Smerdyakov, the valet sent me by my father, in reply to my inquiries, told me twice over that the appointment was for ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... old black servant, quite black, who had been a valet in the Tichborne family. His name was Bogle; and the Claimant was told by the poor old dowager that if he could meet with him, Bogle could tell him a good many things ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... and gentlemen there who flogged their slaves—men, women, and children—nearly to the death; that one gentleman of an irascible disposition, when irritated by some slight oversight on the part of the unfortunate boy who acted as his valet, could find no relief to his feelings until he had welted him first into a condition of unutterable terror, and then into a state of insensibility. Neither did he inform them that a certain lady in the town, who seemed at ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... and looked around for my clothes. Funny, they weren't laid out on the bed as usual. It wasn't a bit like Rob O to be careless, either. He had always been an ideal valet, the best household ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf
... on entirely," I promised, "if you choose to leave your present employment. You shall be my own man, my valet and personal attendant. It is likely that I may wander about the Continent for some time, and it may suit ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... those celebrated men of the Convention of whom Europe had stood in dread. The gossip of the period abounds in illustrations of this fact. One day, in the midst of a Council of State, Napoleon grossly insults Beugnot, treating him as one might an unmannerly valet. The effect produced, he goes up to him and says, "Well, stupid, have you found your head again?" Whereupon Beugnot, tall as a drum-major, bows very low, and the little man raising his hand, takes the tall one by the ear, "an intoxicating sign of favour," writes Beugnot, "the familiar ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... despatched a note to his servant, and the gig speedily returned with a complete assortment of clothing and linen. The man also brought a dressing case, with the result that a dip in the bath, and ten minutes in the hands of an expert valet, ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... hopeless case for renovation; and Osbert joyfully displayed a beautifully-embroidered coat of soft leather, which he had purchased for a very small sum of a plunderer who had been there before him. The camp had been so hastily abandoned that all the luggage had been left, and, like a true valet, Osbert had not neglected the opportunity of replenishing his master's wardrobe. 'And,' said he, 'I saw there on whom M. le Baron ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the lands; a consecrated change becomes a new departure; accept it and turn it to the best advantage. These are things to which the theory of the Church concerning lay baptism is strictly applicable. Fieri non debet, factum valet. If in our narrow and unsympathetic strivings after precision we should remove the hallowed imperfections whereby time has set the glory of his seal upon the gospels as well as upon all other aged things, ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... night, to see these Puppets act a play called 'St. Helena, or the Death of Napoleon.' It began by the disclosure of Napoleon, with an immense head, seated on a sofa in his chamber at St. Helena; to whom his valet entered ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... "His French valet, Victor, who travelled with him in Europe, told brother Will all about it. Seven or eight years ago they were spending the summer upon the banks of the Rhine, and in a cottage near them was an American with a Swedish wife and baby. The man, it seems, was a dissipated ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... acquaintance with his several employers' decanters. He is never under fifty, is round of form, short in the legs, broad of shoulder, and wears his gray hair cut close. He has had a long and varied experience; he has been buttons, valet, second man, first man, lord high butler, and then down the scale again to plain waiter. This has not been his fault but his misfortune—the settling of an estate, it may be, or the death of a master. He has, with unerring judgment, summed you up in his mind before you have taken ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the institution in much tribulation. "Here is Mrs. Sheppard, from one of the most influential families on Fifth Avenue, offering anything for a nurse. Her brother is dying with consumption, she says. He has a valet in attendance, but the physician in charge says he needs a trained nurse, for he wants constant watching. He is liable to die at any moment. We haven't a nurse unemployed. Do you feel ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... in fishing after them. Be quiet, said Gymnast, and stir not, my minion. I am now coming to unhang thee and to set thee at freedom, for thou art a pretty little gentle monachus. Monachus in claustro non valet ova duo; sed quando est extra, bene valet triginta. I have seen above five hundred hanged, but I never saw any have a better countenance in his dangling and pendilatory swagging. Truly, if I had so good a one, I would willingly hang thus all my lifetime. What, said the monk, have you almost done ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... chattels; and upon the sale thereof, have become, and been, and are, the slaves and property of the purchasers thereof.' It was stated that Mr Stewart, who resided in Virginia, had Somerset as a domestic slave or valet—that having business to transact in London, he took his usual attendant there, intending to take him back to Virginia. Somerset, however, made his escape; and when he was apprehended, his master, probably believing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... actor, is said to have been first a cook to Samuel Foote, "the English Aristophanes," and then a valet, before he appeared on the stage. In 1761, described as "of Drury Lane theatre," he was seen at the theatre in Smock Alley, Dublin, as Gomez in Dryden's Spanish Friar. Two years later he was a regular member of the Drury Lane company in London, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... of the hotel would have been surprised at the appearance of his sitting-room, for it had none of the rugged simplicity which was the keynote of its owner's personal appearance. Daniel Brewster was a man with a hobby. He was what Parker, his valet, termed a connoozer. His educated taste in Art was one of the things which went to make the Cosmopolis different from and superior to other New York hotels. He had personally selected the tapestries ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... man called Obry who thus met the Prince. He was the old man's godchild. The old man's left eye was bleeding, and there was a scratch on his cheek as if made by a fingernail. To Obry the Prince attributed these wounds to the spite of the Baronne de Feucheres. Half an hour later he told his valet he had hit his head against a night-table. Later again in the day he gave another version still: he had fallen against the door to a secret staircase from his bedroom while letting the Baronne de Feucheres ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... be attended on by servants I had only been accustomed to in inns. My toilet had long been military, to a moment, at the note of a bugle, too often at a ditch-side. And it need not be wondered at if I looked on my new valet with a certain diffidence. But I remembered that if he was my first experience of a valet, I was his first trial as a master. Cheered by which consideration, I demanded my bath in a style of good assurance. There was a bath-room contiguous; in an incredibly short space of time the hot water ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and gone to bed, he ordered his valet to draw the curtains at the foot, as if to screen him from a second sight of the mysterious lady, and, sitting up in bed, watch in hand, he awaited the fatal hour of midnight. As the minute hand slowly but surely drew near to twelve he asked to see his valet's watch, and was relieved ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... her temper. All suavity and gentleness and delightful gaiety and perfect manners when everything goes right, she startles you by her outburst of petulance when the first cross comes. If no man is a hero to his valet, neither is a spoilt woman a heroine to her maid; and the lady who has just been the charm of the drawing-room, upstairs in her boudoir makes her maid go through spiritual exercises to which walking on burning ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... and the sentiments elsewhere advanced respecting the measure of cultivation and knowledge which is suitable to a man of rank, were all intended to convey Moliere's own opinions himself on these subjects. We may here trace in him a certain vein of valet-de-chambre morality, which also makes its appearance on many other points. We can easily conceive how his education and situation should lead him to entertain such ideas; but they are hardly such as entitle him to read lectures on human society. That, at the end, Trissotin ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... asked Allan. "Not the man who let us in last night? Ah, I thought not. The second footman, eh? Character? Oh, yes; capital character. Stop here, of course. You can valet me, can you? Bother valeting me! I like to put on my own clothes, and brush them, too, when they are on; and, if I only knew how to black my own boots, by George, I should like to do it! What room's this? Morning-room, eh? And here's the dining-room, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... mistake is inexcusable. I cannot hold up my head among the others. I meant that diamond for our King's tiara or the Queen's necklace—bah! Please, Master Professor, put me among the miners, or take me for your valet. I care not what ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... two more, and his lordship got up, and proceeded to wash his face and hands, ordering Cosmo about after the things he wanted, as if he had been his valet. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... meanwhile, was pirouetting sublimely before the long mirror in his dressing-room, while his valet, a sour-faced individual, looked on in great but gloomy interest. The Marquis was superbly dressed in a Louis Seize costume—an exact reproduction of the one worn by that monarch on his wedding-day—and he presented a very fine figure. In features, expression, colouring, and manner ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... or heroine, to the ruinous precincts? Would not the owl have shrieked and the cricket cried in my very title-page? and could it have been possible for me, with a moderate attention to decorum, to introduce any scene more lively than might be produced by the jocularity of a clownish but faithful valet, or the garrulous narrative of the heroine's fille-de-chambre, when rehearsing the stories of blood and horror which she had heard in the servants' hall? Again, had my title borne, 'Waverley, a Romance from the German,' what head so obtuse as not to image forth a profligate ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... mistresses, his valet, his groom—tiger, we should have called him,—"and many a change of clothes besides," says his biographer, "with which he appeared more like a lord than a highwayman." And what more, we should like to know, would a lord wish to have? Few younger sons, we believe, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... testifying that your attentions to her will lay me under obligations. I am, sir, your obedient servant, J. Burgoyne.' She set out in an open boat upon the Hudson, accompanied by Mr. Brudenell, the chaplain, Sarah Pollard, her waiting maid, and her husband's valet, who had been severely wounded while searching for his master upon the battle- field. It was about sunset when they started, and a violent storm of rain and wind, which had been increasing since the morning, rendered the voyage tedious and perilous in the extreme. It was long after dark ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... that is, if when the term for renting this said lodge expires, I can find a place to which I can bring my sister Emily, Here there is hardly room enough for myself and Philips, who is still my factotum, valet, groom, and I know not what besides; however, he is content, and so am I. Heartily sick of town, and its conventualities, and tired of being courted and feted, not for myself, but my fortune, I care not, if I never see it again. I am weary, too, of 'single ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... the young men rode, the mule-litters, wheelbarrows, and jinrikishas were at the door of the hotel early in the morning; and the mandarin, with his valet, were on time. The company reached Tung-chow before noon; and a Chinese lunch was ready for them, ordered by the new passenger. The Blanchita was all ready for them to step on board when they had partaken of roast goose, duck, and chicken at ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... besides some very severe injuries to his head. The doctor wished to telegraph for a nurse from London, but Sir Edward had a horror of them, and having recovered consciousness shook his head vehemently when it was suggested; and so it ended in Milly's nurse volunteering to assist his valet in nursing him. Poor little Milly wandered about the house with Fritz at her heels in a very woe-begone fashion. What with the anxiety in her heart lest her uncle should die, and the absence of her nurse—who could spare little time now to ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... me?" He wore his best politician's smile, but there was resentment in his voice. "Your job is keeping things quiet—for Sloanehurst. Mr. Sloane's ill, too ill to see me without endangering his life, so his funeral-faced valet tells me. Miss Lucille says, politely enough, she's told all she knows, told it on the stand, and I'm to go to you if I want anything more from her. The judge here knows nothing about the inside relationships of the family and Webster, ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... Venice during the carnival, when he gave a melancholy account of his reverse of fortune. "He had been called 'Your Majesty;' now he can hardly find any one to call him 'Sir.' He had coined money; now he has not a penny of his own. He had had two Secretaries of State; now he has but one valet. He had sat on a throne; but since that time he had laid on straw in a London prison." In fact, his state was so doleful, that the other ex-kings subscribed twenty sequins apiece to buy him some coats and shirts ("Candide," ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... suffered herself to be conducted to the chamber of her sister, the Duchess of Lorraine. It was but a few steps; but, on the way, a Huguenot was killed at three paces' distance from her, and two others—the first gentleman of the King of Navarre, and his first valet-de-chambre—ran to her imploring her to save their lives. She sought and obtained the favor on her knees before Catharine and Charles.[1005] A few other Huguenots who were in the Louvre were ready to purchase their lives at any price, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... contend for the cup. He received his boots from Paris, but they were made by a Swiss boot-maker, the same one who provided the foot-gear of Edward of England; he counted his trousers by the dozen, and never wore one pair more than eight or ten times; his linen was given to his valet almost before it was used, his hats all came from London. He had eight frock-coats made every year, that often grew old without ever being worn, of different colors to suit the circumstances and the hours when he must wear them. One in particular, dead black with long skirts, gloomy and ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Philip IV. and the Cardinal Infante, a correspondence which might well make the king and his minister uneasy, since it was carried on through Madame de Chevreuse, and there was war at the time with Spain. The queen employed for this intercourse a valet named Laporte, who was arrested and thrown into prison. The chancellor removed to Val-de-Grace, whither the queen frequently retired; he questioned the nuns and rummaged Anne of Austria's cell. She was in mortal anxiety, not knowing what Laporte might say or how to unloose his tongue, so as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in possession of the Petit Chateau, Mme. de Combray had some large secret places constructed in it. For this work she employed a man called Soyer who combined the functions of intendant, maitre d'hotel and valet-de-chambre at Tournebut. Soyer was born at Combray, one of the Marquise's estates in Lower Normandy, and entered her service in 1791, at the age of sixteen, in the capacity of scullion. He had gone with his mistress to Rouen during the Terror, and ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... of his great age, the Holy Father enjoys excellent health, and leads a life full of occupations from morning till night. He rises very early, and when, at about six o'clock in the morning, his valet, Pio Centra, enters his little bedroom, he more often finds the Pope risen than asleep. He is accustomed to sleep little—not more than four or five hours at night, though he rests a short time after dinner. We are told that sometimes he has been found asleep in his chair at his writing-table ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... tables sat men and women, old and young, playing away estate and fortune and honour at tick-tack or ombre or basset. One noble lord was so old that he could not see to game, and must needs have his valet by to tell him how the dice came up. On the walls hung the works of Vandyke and Correggio and Raphael and Rubens; but the pure faces of art's creation looked down on statesmen bending low to the beck of adventuresses, old men pawning ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... down. She was tired of paying his bills at his clubs and at various hotels, tired and weary of the days he lay in bed all morning while his valet concocted various things to enable him to pull himself together. He had been four years sowing his wild oats, and now at twenty-five she felt he should ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... been given up to the gentlemen, I invited him to make his toilet in mine, and indeed, wanting him to create a favorable impression, became his valet pro tem., tying his cravat and teasing the divinity-student look out of his side hair. My little dandy Billy came in for another share of attention, and when I managed to button his jacket for him so that it showed his ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... the seat adapted to him. His wife and daughter, perhaps, thought somewhat slightingly of him, for he had no literary tastes, and had never been at a theatre since he took his bride from one. He was valet to Lord Slapper at the time, and certain it is that his lordship set him up in the "Bootjack," and that stories HAD been told. But what are such to you or me? Let bygones be bygones; Mrs. Crump was quite as honest as her neighbours, and Miss had five hundred pounds to be paid down ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Adjoining it is the haunted room, where the ghostly monk, whom Byron introduces into Don Juan, is said to have his lurking-place. It is fitted up in the same style as Byron's, and used to be occupied by his valet or page. No doubt in his Lordship's day, these were the only comfortable bedrooms in the Abbey; and by the housekeeper's account of what Colonel Wildman has done, it is to be inferred that the place must have been in a most wild, shaggy, tumble-down ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eighteenth century, this discipline is relaxed, the institution nevertheless subsists;[2132] in default of obedience, tradition, interest and amour-propre suffice for the people of the court. To approach the king, to be a domestic in his household, an usher, a cloak-bearer, a valet, is a privilege that is purchased, even in 1789, for thirty, forty, and a hundred thousand livres; so much greater the reason why it is a privilege to form a part of his society, the most honorable, the most useful, and the most coveted of all.—In ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... vehemently, and Lewis was not easy to convince. At last he said that there was nothing to be done, and gave orders to set out. But the queen in a fury turned upon him, and exclaimed: "Now I know you for what you are!" Lewis told his valet to wait his return; but as they crossed the garden, where the men were sweeping the gravel, he remarked: "The leaves are falling early this ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... know not whom, for it is an old faded yellow manuscript scrap in our drawer—thus rebukes an Englishman's aspiration to be independent of foreigners: A French cook dresses his dinner for him, and a Swiss valet dresses him for his dinner. He hands down his lady, decked with pearls that never grew in the shell of a British oyster, and her waving plume of ostrich-feathers certainly never formed the tail of a barn-door fowl. The viands ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... times as "my dear Robarts;" nor is there any other wit in the article. This is surely a mere assumption of superiority from his Lordship's rank, and is the sort of quizzing he might use to a person who came to hire himself as a valet to him at Long's—the waiters might laugh, the public will not. In like manner, in the controversy about Pope, he claps Mr. Bowles on the back with a coarse facetious familiarity, as if he were his chaplain whom he ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... five hours afterwards to breakfast, between eleven and noon. The chambermaid is at the door, or on the stairs, or on the landing, talking with somebody's valet: she runs in on hearing or seeing you. Your servant is laying the cloth in a most leisurely style, stopping to look out of the window or to lounge, and coming and going like a person who knows he has plenty of time. You ask for your wife, ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... picture through the rings of smoke; "I could talk over things with her, and she could hit off people with that tongue of hers. Gods! how it could cut! Poor old lady! I wonder if I shall ever find her equal." After which, he fell asleep and forgot his sorrows until his valet awakened him and told him it was ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the serpent knight. "This valet, this groom, dared to kiss her? and I would think myself blessed but to touch her shoe-tie;" and ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... with his unfathomable sea-craft and his autocratic power, a regular old Viking such as you might read of in your history books, but would hardly expect to meet with in the flesh? And was there not a real Italian Count, elderly but impressive, who had dealings with no one but his valet, the latter being a nimble personage with a wicked eye who seemed to possess the faculty of starting up through the deck as if summoned by a species of wireless telegraphy? Best of all, was not Blythe's opposite neighbour at the Captain's table a ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... my teeth, "who will tell me about Dalens?" For Larive had told me nothing except what a valet might learn. From whom had he learned it? From some servant or peasant. I must have some witness who had seen Dalens with Madame Pierson and who knew all about their relations. I could not get that Dalens out of my head, ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... of Orleans, ex-constituent P D Le Comte de Tally Tollendal, ex-constituent P D Le Comte de Cazales, ex-constituent P D Baron de Beaumarchais, author of Figaro P L D'Abancourt, minister of war M R Duperron, administrator of police M L Thierry, principal valet de chambre of the King M L Chantraine, master of the wardrobe to the King M D De Rhuliers, commandant of the household cavalry, (la gendarmerie a cheval) M L Dom. Chevreux, general of the benedictines M L De St. Palaye, counsellor (sic) of the chamber of accompts M L Maussabre, ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... natty little old housekeeper, in snowy cap and apron, and Mrs. Sharp, my lady's maid, of somewhat vinegar aspect and flaunting attire; the men by Mr. Bellamy the butler, and Mr. Warren, Sir Christopher's venerable valet. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... two hesitating syllables which I addressed to him were answered only by a bow and a look, as if he did not understand the language; and I awaited the approach of the terror of France, the horror of Europe, during half an hour, which seemed to me interminable. The door at last opened, a valet came in, and the name of "Robespierre" thrilled through every fibre; but, instead of the frowning giant to which my fancy had involuntarily attached the name, I saw a slight figure, highly dressed, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... morning, on coming downstairs, Marguerite learned from Lemulquinier that Monsieur Claes had gone out. This simple announcement turned her pale; her face was so painfully significant that the old valet remarked hastily:— ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... fine gray horse, and carrying with him the paraphernalia of a gentleman. His clothing was cut in the latest possible London style, and he was splendidly equipped. He lamented the one thing Australia could not produce, a satisfactory valet. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... over a tenpun-note, "here's your wagis, and thank you for getting me out of the scrape with the bailiffs: when you are married, you shall be my valet out of liv'ry, and ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fancies, such as her wish to have a blue tilbury to drive into Rouen, drawn by an English horse and driven by a groom in top-boots. It was Justin who had inspired her with this whim, by begging her to take him into her service as valet-de-chambre*, and if the privation of it did not lessen the pleasure of her arrival at each rendezvous, it certainly augmented the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... bold young prince—Prince Rupert, of course—who went into Wonderland in search of adventures. He reached Wonderland by leaping from the castle of Drachenfels into the Rhine. Then there was one Snaps, the prince's valet, who did not in the least want to go, but went, and got terribly frightened by the Green Demons of the Chrysolite Cavern, which made us all laugh—it being such a pleasant thing to see somebody else scared nearly to death. Then there were knights in ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... decorated with the orders of the respective courts, while the imperial guards of both emperors received food and drink for a great festivity. Next day Napoleon paid his farewell visit. At his morning toilet he had his valet loosen the threads which fastened the cross of the Legion of Honor to his coat, and as the Czar advanced to meet him he asked in audible tones permission to decorate the first grenadier of Russia. A veteran named Lazaref was summoned ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... shield he gives alike to bear, As to a valet; hence proceeds the peer, Gladdening the fearful pilgrim every where, Who joys to think, henceforth his way is clear. So far an end does bold Astolpho fare, He is to Memphis' tombs already near, — Memphis renowned for pyramids; in sight, He ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... "foreign nobleman" is welcomed everywhere, feted, petted, and allowed almost any privilege he chooses to claim—and he is far from being very modest in this respect; and by and by he is found out to be an impostor, probably the valet of some gentleman of rank in Europe. Then society holds up its hands in holy horror, and vows it always did suspect him. The men in society are weak enough in this respect; but the women ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... ivory, and her lips like the hue of a fresh-opened rose." Love is not, however, in this case, as in that of Theagenes and Chariclea, instantaneous on both sides; and the expedient adopted by Clitophon, with the aid of his servant Satyrus, (a valet of the Scapin school,) to win the good graces of the lady, are detailed at length, evincing much knowledge of the human heart in the author, and affording considerable insight into the domestic arrangements of a Grecian family.[4] An understanding is at last effected between them, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... have considered, and called to his memory, the first rudiments of Philosophy, that a dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter, non valet consequentia; As it is not enough to say, the Black-a-Moore is white, because his teeth are white; for he may be blacke, though he hath white teeth; and so it is not enough to say, that the Cacao is stopping; and therefore ...
— Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma
... said before, you are captain. I learned to obey orders long ago as well as to give them;" and the major summoned his valet and ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... his divorced wife Marion Lea Brooks, her footman Frederick Kerby Benson, her maid Belle Bohn Sir Wilfrid Cates-Darby George Arliss John Karslake John Mason Mrs. Cynthia Karslake, his divorced wife Mrs. Fiske Nogam, his valet James Morley Tim Fiddler Robert V. Ferguson Thomas, the Phillimore's family servant ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... journeys in the interior of the country. In General Montero's case it enabled him to rise from the ranks. Pedrito, the younger, incorrigibly lazy and slovenly, had drifted aimlessly from one coast town to another, hanging about counting-houses, attaching himself to strangers as a sort of valet-de-place, picking up an easy and disreputable living. His ability to read did nothing for him but fill his head with absurd visions. His actions were usually determined by motives so improbable in themselves as to escape the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... that journey to Yorkshire by the pretty dark-eyed girl who was his daughter Lola, and by his valet, a very silent, stiff-necked, morose individual, whose personality did not attract me. He seemed, however, to be an exceptionally efficient person, so far as his duties were concerned, and on our arrival at ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... said Tulacque, "was a motorist, dressed in cloth that you'd have said was satin, with new stripes, and the leathers of an English officer, though a second-class soldier as he was. With his finger on his cheek, he leaned with his elbows on that fine carriage adorned with windows that he was the valet de chambre of. He'd have made you sick, the dainty beast. He was just exactly the poilu that you see pictures of in the ladies' papers—the pretty little ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... time here [he says] with extreme regularity and quietness, not knowing, even to speak to, a single individual in Rome; and the direction to my valet when I start on my perambulations, 'al Campidoglio,' 'al Foro,' forms the largest part of my daily utterances.... In a fit of desperation I took to writing a kind of political philosophy, in default of my poetical aim, which is quite gone from me. It is ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... was to obtain for the brothers an invitation from Lady Eleanor to quarter themselves at Penford-bourne. Once he had settled them there, he obtained, through Frank Masterton's valet, a puritanical knave called Gabriel Jones, complete information as to their plans, which he was thus ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... "Stephens! I once had a valet of that name, and a very good one he was, who left my service rather abruptly, taking with him numerous portable memorials of myself, including a set of diamond studs. I endeavored at the time to keep up my acquaintance with him; but he took measures ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Knapsack, there's more goes to the finishing of a true Valet, than tying a Wig smartly, or answering a Dun genteely. I have sometimes such weighty Matters warring in my Brains, and a greater Conflict with my self how I shall manage 'em, than a Merchant's Cash-keeper, that's run ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... readings, always something new, often in the form of a surprise or a joke. Of the latter, the best known is the one played on the Count of Guise whose fondness for mushrooms had become proverbial; on one occasion when he had consumed an immense number of them at table, his valet, who had been bribed, took in all his doublets; on trying to put them on again, he found them too narrow by fully four inches. "What in the world is the matter—am I all swollen—could it be due to having ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... small farmer, who lived at the Bush on the opposite side to Balmoral. He is the second of nine brothers—three of whom have died—two are in Australia and New Zealand, two are living in the neighbourhood of Balmoral; and the youngest, Archie (Archibald), is valet to our son Leopold, and is an excellent, trustworthy young man.' The Queen had that memory for old faces almost peculiar to her royal house, and no sooner did she set foot in the new garden which was being made at Dalkeith, than ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous
... in his own country a valet, in Prussia a soldier, then he came to Russia to be a tutor, not knowing very well what the word meant in our language. He was a good fellow, astonishingly gay and absent-minded. His chief foible was a passion for the ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... natural supposition was that Sir Philip had been murdered for the sake of plunder; and this supposition was borne out by the fact to which his valet deposed, namely,— ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... setting, of spiritual works, which it finds itself quite impotent to do under the commonplace routine of life. The race experience is accurately enough summed up in the cynical proverb: "No man is a hero to his valet." It expresses the fact that in ordinary circumstances, and under commonplace temptations, we do not succeed in holding life to the accomplishment which is ours when we are, as it were, on dress parade. In other words, we respond to the ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... some church tell the hours. But no noise disturbs my rest, unless perhaps a belated gondolier moors his boat beneath the window. My one maid, Catina, sings at her work the whole day through. My gondolier, Francesco, acts as valet. He wakes me in the morning, opens the shutters, brings sea-water for my bath, and takes his orders for the day. 'Will it do for Chioggia, Francesco?' 'Sissignore! The Signorino has set off in his sandolo already with Antonio. The Signora is to go with us in the gondola.' ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... volleying orders at the valet and the others. Then, with the secretary and two of the other crooks he left by another door from that by which he had ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... the whole combination of springs and wheels whereby they are moved." A similar transparency of motive and purpose, of individual traits and spontaneous action, belongs to the Bible. From the hand of Shakspeare, "the lord and the tinker, the hero and the valet, come forth equally distinct and clear." In the Bible the various sorts of men are never confounded, but have the advantage of being exhibited by Nature herself, and are not a contrivance of the imagination. "Shylock," observes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... points of view from which a portrait can be drawn—I mean, mental points of view. And, as in a biography, the value of the work will depend on the insight and distinction of the author or artist. The valet of a great man might write a biography of his master that could be quite true to his point of view; but, assuming him to be an average valet, it would not be a great work. I believe the gardener of Darwin when asked how his master was, said, "Not at all ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... and it will be my care to see that you have no power to make any that is likely to be effectual. Linen, and all other necessaries for one in your circumstances, are amply provided, Cristal Nixon will act as your valet,—I should rather, perhaps, say, your FEMME DE CHAMBRE. Your travelling dress you may perhaps consider as singular; but it is such as the circumstances require; and, if you object to use the articles prepared for your use, your mode of journeying will be as personally unpleasant as that which ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... rail, leaning on the mizzen shrouds, inhaling, as it were, poetical sympathy, from the gloomy Rock, then dark and stern in the twilight. There was in all about him that evening much waywardness; he spoke petulantly to Fletcher, his valet; and was evidently ill at ease with himself, and fretful towards others. I thought he would turn out an unsatisfactory shipmate; yet there was something redeeming in the tones of his voice, when, some time after he had indulged his sullen meditation, he again addressed ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... have some here," his father sneered. "What do they call you? You seem to be something better than Master Geoffrey's valet and a good deal worse than ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... it is," dryly remarked the hunchback's valet as he briskly plied his little hammer, "these clothes are so heavy you couldn't run ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... a young man, who was pacing restlessly up and down the room, of which he was, with the exception of his valet de chambre, an Italian named Michel, the person who had opened the door, the ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... and after all the trousseau had been purchased and the wedding presents bought, he deliberately jilted his royal fiancee, and married at Nice, an actress named Mlle. Loesinger, an offspring of the valet and the cook of the old Austrian ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... of practice in the Rue de Courcelles had not yielded him enough to pay his servant's wages. For he had a servant, of course. He had a valet for the same reason as he had a suite of rooms of a superficially sumptuous aspect. Faithful to his system, or, rather, to his master's system, he had sacrificed everything to show. The display of gilding in his apartments was such as to make a man of taste shut his eyes to escape the sight of ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... sporadic expectancy. Men stopped and consulted their watches. A few stood along the curb, and talked in low voices. Groups of men in khaki walked by, or stopped to glance into the shop windows. They, too, were waiting. She could see, far below, her valet de chambre in his green felt apron, and the concierge in his blue frock coat and brass buttons, unbending in the new democracy of hope ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Quis comprehendere valet modi (sic) diligentise orationis ejus omnes, namque psalmos, et ymnos et Apocalipsi, ac omnia cantica spiritualia scripturarum cotidie (quotidie) decantabat seu in uno loco seu in itinere gradiens. From vespers on Sunday night until tierce on Monday Patrick would not come from the place ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... knows where is not your cousin! How do we know he is your cousin? He may be a valet who has taken his master's portmanteau, and run away ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I want a regular valet, Smithson. I have grown sadly indolent, and I often wish a war would break ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... Strawberry Hill was usually served up in the small parlour in winter, the large dining-room being reserved for large parties. As age drew on, he was supported down stairs by his valet; and then, says the compiler of Walpoliana, 'he ate most moderately of chicken, pheasant, or any light food. Pastry he disliked, as difficult of digestion, though he would taste a morsel of venison-pie. Never but once, that he drank two glasses of white wine, did the editor see him ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... government. The person who gave this advice was Antonio Tassino, of Ferrara, a man of low origin, who, coming to Milan, fell into the hands of the duke Galeazzo, and was given by him to his duchess for her valet. He, either from his personal attractions, or some secret influence, after the duke's death attained such influence over the duchess, that he governed the state almost at his will. This greatly displeased the ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the writer, being obviously better acquainted with his lordship's personal doings in Europe than in Asia, the work savours strongly of home-manufacture, and has all the appearance of being the joint composition of a discarded valet and a bookseller's hack." The last hypothesis appears very probable. Internal evidence is greatly in its favour. Can any of your readers tell me who was "Charles Caraccioli, Gent.,"—when the atrocity which bears his name was published,—or any thing about the man or his ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.15 • Various
... three years (our two boys intimately), and he always shuddered at hurting anything, and was peculiarly gentle and kind towards children and animals, and if anything rather timid; so that all who knew him said he never could have had a chance in his own country. His valet, who is a very respectable Englishman, and has been with him ever since his twelfth year, says that he never knew a kinder or more amiable disposition. The Queen fears that people who do not know him well have been led away by their present very natural feelings ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... with her mistress against her master; whereas the young men's parts are less prominent, and neither the first lover, nor the virtuous model son who here and there occurs, lays claim to much significance. The servant- world—the crafty valet, the stern house-steward, the old vigilant tutor, the rural slave redolent of garlic, the impertinent page—forms a transition to the very numerous professional parts. A standing figure among these is the jester (-parasitus-) who, in return for permission to feast at the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... July they were in Paris (you go to Paris for tea-gowns to wear grouse-shooting in Scotland), and when his valet, scraping and bowing, informed Fitzhugh Williams, aged nine, that it was time to get up, and tub, and go forth in a white sailor suit, and be of the world worldly, Fitzhugh declined. A greater personage was summoned—Aloys, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... dwelt half way up a tall elevator shaft in Newark, N. J., and, as far as I could gather, had farmed himself out to a number of lawyers, none of whom had much to do except telephone to each other and smoke domestic cigars. They say no man is a hero to his valet. I have never had a valet except on ship-board, and I have no desire to compete with the heroes of the average steward; but I have had a typist, and I suppose it is equally rare for an author to be interesting to his amanuensis. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... closed the door quietly, meanwhile scrutinizing my unconscious visitor from head to foot. He wore no hotel insignia—was neither porter, waiter, nor valet. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... the English army to France and was taken prisoner. Edward III. thought enough of the youth to pay for his ransom a sum equivalent to-day to about $1200. After his return he was made valet of the king's chamber. The duties of that office "consisted in making the royal bed, holding torches, and carrying messages." Later, Chaucer ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... the evening the archbishop visited his majesty for the last time: at half-past ten the king was seized with a fainting fit, on which he was removed into his bed, and from this time his voice was not heard, except to pronounce the name of his valet. In less than an hour death reigned in the palace of the English monarchs. His majesty expired without a struggle, and without a groan, the queen kneeling at the bedside and still affectionately holding his hand, unwilling to believe the reality of the sad event. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... other hand, the picture has its reverse side, exhibiting clearly the weak points of the slaveholding system. The rufescent ant has lost even the very power of feeding itself. So completely dependent is each upon his little black valet for daily bread, that he cannot so much as help himself to the food that is set before him. Hueber put a few slaveholders into a box with some of their own larvae and pupae, and a supply of honey, in order to see what they would do with them. Appalled ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... day; or, when their blue coats were well worn out, they would make rare scarecrows. Here is a fellow, now, comes down the walk; the stoutest raven dared not come within a yard of that copper nose. I tell you, there is more service, as you will soon see, in my valet of the chamber, and such a lither lad as my page Lutin, than there is in a score of these old memorials of the Douglas wars, [Footnote: The cruel civil wars waged by the Scottish barons during the minority of James VI., had ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... those who maintain most of the higher class, who are never in livery, maintain the highest style. To say, he keeps a servant out of livery, means, that he keeps a better sort of domestic. Mere footmen always wear it; the maitre d'hotel, or groom of the chambers, and the valet, never. ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... carryin' a steamer rug; next, another nurse with a tray; and after them a valet and the private physician with the great Marcus T. walkin' ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... ill effect of bad and low company. Can any man doubt whether it is better to be a great statesman or a common thief? I have often heard that the devil used to say, where or to whom I know not, that it was better to reign in Hell than to be a valet-de-chambre in Heaven, and perhaps he was in the right; but sure, if he had had the choice of reigning in either, he would have chosen better. The truth therefore is, that by low conversation we contract a greater awe for high things than they deserve. We decline great pursuits not ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... He spoke rapidly. "But we can find out. Ann can tell us. Ann's a maid in my house; she was practically engaged to him when he was my valet. Now that I look back, I'm sure she's known everything from the start and has seen this coming. We can get Braithwaite's address from her; when we know that, we shall have laid our ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... for a man leaving a house-party where he has been a guest to tip the butler who acted as a valet. ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... them for a moment, wondering vaguely which of them was dead, which only fainting. Then, just as she was kneeling to raise her mother to a better position, the door opened and two men, one of them Giacomo, Carron's valet, entered ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... paler still, and sank into a chair. His hands were trembling, this sign of weakness angered him and he got up and rang the bell and ordered his valet who had come up with him, to ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... multitudine regenda plus poena quam obsequium valet." But compare Annals, III. 55, "Obsequium inde in principem et aemulandi amoi validioi quam poena ex ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... utilized than in merely furnishing covert amusement to the stationers by his pompous duplication of his master's attitude of being too cultured, traveled, and polished for his surroundings. He was a trained valet, however, expert in all the details of dressing hair, powdering, curling, pomatuming, and other intricacies of the toilet of a man of fashion of that day. Caesar had many arts at command touching the burnishing of buckles and buttons, and even in clear-starching steinkirks and the cambric ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... what I told you it would be like! The country's beastly—beastly!" and Mrs. Forest, white with dust and completely exhausted by the journey, followed the Colonel, supported on either side by her maid and her brother's valet. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... have my hair cut." "Mon Dieu," replied Mme. de La Fayette simply, "do not have it done; that is becoming only to young persons." Gourville said she was imperious and over-bearing, scolding those she loved best, as well as those she did not love. But this valet-de-chambre of La Rochefoucauld, who amassed a fortune and became a man of some note, was jealous of her influence over his former master, and his opinions should be taken with reservation. Her delicate satire may have been sometimes a formidable weapon, but it was directed only against ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... I know? That's the funniest part of the business! One morning, there was a ring at my door, and my valet came up to tell me that M. Joseph Bonenthal wanted to speak to me. I said directly: 'And who is this gentleman?' My valet replied: 'I don't know, monsieur; perhaps 'tis someone that wants employment.' And so it was. The man wanted me to take ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... father remained obdurate. One day, when Handel was seven years old, his father announced his intention of paying a visit to the castle of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels to see his son—a step-brother of George Frederick—who acted as valet de chambre to the Duke. Handel was most anxious to be allowed to accompany his father, because he had heard that the Duke kept a great company of musicians to perform in his chapel. But the father refused his consent, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... of the Castle, puffing and grunting, came a gigantic, obese individual, his face bloated with excess, his eyes bleary with the lees of too much wine. He was struggling into his doublet, assisted by a terrified old valet, and was swearing most deplorably. Seeing the crowd at the gate, and half-blindly mistaking them for his own ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... objected. His wife was waiting for him to lunch; he really couldn't. And Jory was obliged to ring the bell, and then push him inside the hall, repeating that his excuse would not do; for they would send the valet to the Rue de Douai to tell his wife. A door opened and they found themselves face to face with Irma Becot, who uttered a cry of surprise as soon as she perceived ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... powerless to act. Tyler, conscious of victory, called for a draught, and when his attendant brought him a mighty tankard of ale, the rebel leader drank good-humouredly to "King Richard and the Commons." A knight in the royal service, a "valet of Kent," was heard to mutter that Wat Tyler was the greatest thief and robber in all the county, and Tyler caught the abusive words, drew his dagger, and made ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... his clothes, laid out on the bed by his valet, seemed to be waiting for him in a domestic and obsequious attitude. He began to dress himself with a somewhat ill-tempered alacrity. He was impatient to leave the house. He opened his round window, listened ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... faithful Italian valet, Lorenzo, a dark-haired, smart man of thirty, who had been six years in my service, and who had, on so many occasions, proved himself entirely trustworthy, I passed away the seasons as they came and went, always living in the best ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... from them the delicious morsels which they cooked. Four men, for another had joined them, greatly enraged, sullenly abandoned their work, and retiring a short distance agreed to avenge themselves by killing Moranget, and also by killing Nika and another man who was the valet of La Salle. Both of these men were ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... gaiters, patent shoes, and a grey, tall hat. His black hair, a little thin at the forehead, was brushed smoothly back. His moustache, also black but streaked with grey, was twisted upwards. He had, as always, the air of having just left the hands of his valet. ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... down again with an astonished laugh. While sipping his morning draught he made up his mind to secure the prize that very day, in pursuance of which determination he made a careful toilet, assuming a suit that was eminently becoming to his blonde beauty. Also his valet slightly darkened the lower lids of his eyes, thereby giving him a larger, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... he loses, his superstitious veneration for his winnings, are drawn from the life. When Fortune smiles, Valere neglects Angelique, his rich fiancee; when he is penniless, his love revives, and he is at her feet until his valet devises some new plan of raising money. He swears, if she will forgive him, never again to touch dice or cards, and five minutes afterward pledges for a thousand crowns a miniature set in diamonds she has just given him to bind their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... countin' de chillun. De young white marsters break de law when they teach daddy to read and write. Marse Dick say: 'To hell wid de law, I got to have somebody dat can read and write 'mong de servants.' My daddy was his valet. He put de boys to bed, put on deir shoes and brush them off, and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... Crayden's confidential servant and valet for the last eight months of his life. During that time he wrote a great deal in a manuscript that he kept always beside him, except when he drowsed or slept, at which times he invariably locked it in a desk drawer close ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... melancholy account of his reverse of fortune. "He had been called 'Your Majesty;' now he can hardly find any one to call him 'Sir.' He had coined money; now he has not a penny of his own. He had had two Secretaries of State; now he has but one valet. He had sat on a throne; but since that time he had laid on straw in a London prison." In fact, his state was so doleful, that the other ex-kings subscribed twenty sequins apiece to buy him some coats and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... when he read the letter, made no difficulty about admitting "les citoyennes Cazin" as he entered them in his book, and their valet. So for that night, at least, we were safe. And as both ladies spoke French fluently, and I tolerably, we passed well enough for what we ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... the best that ever visited this town." Then on August 12 there was "The Beggars Opera and A Comedy of two acts, Barnaby Brittle or a Wife at her Wits End. Also in August Mr. McGrath's Company of Comedians gave The Tragedy of Douglas and Garrick's Comedy of Two Acts called The Lying Valet." ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... the office I thought of my costumes and sent my valet, Martino, back after them. He packed things up and carried the trunks down on his back. I helped him take ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... and was then invited by the Earl of Derby to dine with the commissioners. He was accompanied by a servant in plain livery, who—so soon as his master had made his bow to the English envoys—had set forth for a stroll through the town. The modest-looking valet, however, was a distinguished engineer in disguise, who had been sent by Alexander for the especial purpose of examining the fortifications of Ostend—that town being a point much coveted, and liable to immediate ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... occasion without the least apprehension, notwithstanding the height was considerable. We next lowered Simier into the ditch, who was in such a fright that he had scarcely strength to hold the rope fast; and lastly descended my brother's valet de ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... him with good references. Seventeen of the twenty-one lived in the house. There were also four lady's-maids and five men-servants attached to the guests. Among the men-servants was Sir Jeffrey Trawler's Japanese valet. ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... hardly do to leave out John Cheevers from the list of strange characters on the farm, because, though he did not belong there as member and was as a barnacle on the body politic, he was so quaint and queer. He was Irish and came to America as valet to Sir John Caldwell, who died very suddenly at the Tremont House in Boston. Pity, compassion or the like induced Mr. Ripley to befriend him, and being introduced to the life he became, as may be said, omnipresent. His ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... D'Argenson, the famous minister of Louis XV., said that the Man in the Iron Mask was really a person fort peu de chose, 'of very little account,' and that the Regent d'Orleans was of the same opinion. This corroborates my theory, that the Mask was merely the valet of a Huguenot conspirator, Roux de Marsilly, captured in England, and imprisoned because he was supposed to know some terrible secret—which he knew nothing about. See The ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... of about thirty individuals. After partaking of some light refreshment, this little troop, the last of the court of the deposed king, retired to disperse in the town and its environs, and Murat remained alone with the women, only keeping one valet named Leblanc. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the next six months, that is, if when the term for renting this said lodge expires, I can find a place to which I can bring my sister Emily, Here there is hardly room enough for myself and Philips, who is still my factotum, valet, groom, and I know not what besides; however, he is content, and so am I. Heartily sick of town, and its conventualities, and tired of being courted and feted, not for myself, but my fortune, I care not, if I never see ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... expenses would never have been met, and that young gentleman would not have had a proper start in life. Deborah was the only servant that the little household could afford; but then the Major himself was gardener, butler, valet and page in one. Thus—he cleaned the knives in a machine of his own invention; he brushed his own clothes; he lacquered his own boots, and at a pinch could mend them. He dug and planted his own garden, and grew enough potatoes and greenstuff to serve his little ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... in the compound for a glimpse of the mysterious Meng, or his ravishing bride, Naradia. Unsuccessful, he returned to his room. His Chinese valet was brewing jasmin-tea when Peter opened and shut the bedroom door. His pajamas were neatly laid out upon his couch, and the rugs were neatly furled back. He detected the acrid and pleasing odor of incense ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... appeared he urged the horsemen and drivers to greater haste, and thus the musical caravan, with its unauthorized companions, succeeded in passing through the gate ere it closed. Beyond it the travellers were received by Quijada, the imperial valet, Adrian Dubois, and several quartermasters, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... will be relieved of worry and care. Many worthy poor people and charities will receive help, and Elise will have her heart's desire—fine apparel, jewels, a social position, and no one to bother her. The valet and nurse will look after Mr. Volney, and his simple old heart will bask in the pride of an old man—the possession of ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Thorny and being right-hand man to Miss Celia. He had a little room in the old house, newly papered with hunting scenes, which he was never tired of admiring. In the closet hung several out-grown suits of Thorny's, made over for his valet; and, what Ben valued infinitely more, a pair of boots, well blacked and ready for grand occasions, when he rode abroad, with one old spur, found in the attic, brightened up and merely worn for show, since nothing would have induced him to ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... already told the reader, that every night, when the family were gone to bed, it was my custom to strip, and cover myself with my clothes. It happened, one morning early, that my master sent for me by the sorrel nag, who was his valet. When he came I was fast asleep, my clothes fallen off on one side, and my shirt above my waist. I awaked at the noise he made, and observed him to deliver his message in some disorder; after which he went to my master, and in a great fright gave him ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... His valet, a mournful, silent fellow named Mycroft, led rather a curious life, reporting at his master's room in the morning not before ten, and usually not in bed before two or three o'clock the next morning. About once a fortnight, sometimes oftener, as Susan had known for a ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... tell a man everything for twenty or forty francs. So simple!—so cheap!—Sylvie's maid is my devoted adherent,—and why?- -not only on account of the francs, but because I have been careful to secure her sweetheart as my valet, and he depends upon me to set him up in business. So you see how easy it is for me to be kept aware of all my fair lady's movements. This is how I learned that she is going away to-morrow—and this is why I came here to-day. She has given me the slip—she has avoided me and now I will avoid ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... furbisht and fitted out for the young Wife) he (out of Freedom) makes his Dressing-room; and being a frugal and a jealous Coxcomb, instead of a Valet to uncase his feeble Carcase, he desires you to do that Office— Signs of Favour, I'll assure you, and such as you must not hope for, unless your Woman ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... Mr. Grell's valet, let her in. I saw her pass through the hall. She was tall and slim, but she wore a heavy veil, so I didn't see her face. I don't know when she left, but I went up to the study at one o'clock to ask if anything was needed before ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... give their countenance; and who, consequently, without other merit, grow immediately into the chief business of their courts. The same practice is followed by all others in civil employments, if they have a cousin, a valet, or footman in ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... their wives; nor the two elderly city magnates, or their tall daughters; that disposes of ten out of the fourteen invited guests. The remainder included Lady Belgrade, myself, Salome herself, and—Lord, bless my soul, alive!" burst forth the banker, with such a start, that his valet, who was brushing his hair, begged his pardon, and said that he ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... himself into the deuce of a sweat. What's worse, His Excellency hasn't turned up yet, nor His Excellency's suite: though a boat waited for 'em five solid hours yesterday. All that arrived was His Excellency's valet and about a score of valises, and word that the great man would follow in a shore-boat. ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... boisterous product of the 'brawny' dramatist. Happily, however, for his success, the difference was not instantly clear. His first play links him with Wycherley, not with that rare and faint embryo of the later Congreve, George Etherege. 'You was always a gentleman, Mr. George,' as the valet says in Beau Austin. Happily for his popularity Congreve first followed the more popular man. It is not, indeed, until he wrote his last play that he was a whole Etherege idealised, albeit a greater than Etherege in the ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... heavyweight pugilist. His companion, whose dark and recessed eyes were noticeably bright, too, could not be more than half his weight, and Theydon would not have been surprised if told that this diminutive person was a dancing master. Naturally he classed both as acquaintances of his valet, encountered by chance on the ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... Valet de Chambre. Gilli Valet de Chambre. St Denis Valet de Chambre. Novarra Idem. ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... intended marriage; and when the Earl received that letter he was furiously angry. Bad as his temper was, he had never given way to it in his life as he gave way to it when he read the Captain's letter. His valet, who was in the room when it came, thought his lordship would have a fit of apoplexy, he was so wild with anger. For an hour he raged like a tiger, and then he sat down and wrote to his son, and ordered him never to come near ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... could also relate some curious experiences which they have had to go through, not only at the hands of his washerwoman, but at those of his temporary valet, Jack (I beg his pardon, Umpashongwana) the Zulu, whose zeal exceeds anything one can imagine. For instance, when he sets to work to brush F——'s clothes of a morning he is by no means content to brush the cloth clothes. Oh dear, no! He brushes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... kinsfolk, Willy and Mungo Graham. Still, even in the despised grey suit they thought he made a brave show as he rode away from the door on his white pony, with his tutor, master Forrett, by his side, the pages and a valet following. Bringing up the rear were some strong, broad-backed 'pockmanty naigs,' or baggage-horses, bearing the plate, linen and furniture for the large house lord Montrose had taken for his ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... to Place. He is a noted instance of the advantage of our jury system, which never asks a man's politics, etc. The late King of Hanover, when Duke of Cumberland, being unpopular, was brought under unjust suspicions by the suicide of his valet: he must have seduced the wife and murdered the husband. The charges were as absurd as those brought against the Englishman in the Frenchman's attempt at satirical verses ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... is nothing, massa,' says my black valet 'I kill him in a minute, massa.' Which he does with his naked heel. Only an 'arana peluda;' in plain English, a spider of gigantic proportions, whose lightest touch will draw you like a poultice. I let the 'cucurrachos' pass, for I recognise in them my old familiar ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... more thing in the church which they paused to note; that is, the tomb of Fulke Greville, the first Lord Brooke, who was stabbed by a valet, in 1628. Greville was "servant to Queene Elizabeth, conceller to King James, and frend to Sir Philip Sidney," as the inscription tells us; and it would seem that the greatest emphasis and respect was even ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... Lord. With another glance at his ragged and disreputable garments, Harry smilingly admitted the desirability of the change, and followed Tiahuana into the chamber where Arima, now formally confirmed in his rank and position of chief valet and body servant of the new Inca, awaited his master. Ten minutes later, attired in white skin-tight pantaloons which were also stockings; a shirt of white wool, of so marvellously fine a texture that it was thin, ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... that's your idea of happiness, why not settle down in London and be done with it! That's the place for you! I'd give my ears to go round the world, but I wouldn't thank you to go with a dress suit and a valet; I'd want to rough it, to get right out of the track of civilisation and taste a new life; to live with the Bedouin in their tents as some of those artist fellows have done, or make friends with a tribe ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... prying, yet soft and smooth, like a night-moth or the black bat that haunts ruins, Lebeau, the confidential valet, watched him and silently encouraged him; for they had arrived at the decisive moment that the gang had for months expected, with alternate hopes and fears, with all the trepidation, all the uncertainty attending a business dependent upon such ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Morton had nothing to do but take his pleasure and enjoy himself. He passed for a young heir; Gawtrey for his tutor—a doctor in divinity; Birnie for his valet. The task of maintenance fell on Gawtrey, who hit off his character to a hair; larded his grave jokes with university scraps of Latin; looked big and well-fed; wore knee-breeches and a shovel hat; and played whist with the skill ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... we are both so intensely interested in the problem, we have never before discussed it," remarked Walter. "I am so anxious to hear your views upon one or two points. What, for instance, do you think of Barker, the dead man's valet?" ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... everywhere inspired the respect which riches command. But I carried death in my heart. My strange companion, who gave himself out as the unworthy servant of the richest man in the world, possessed an extraordinary professional readiness, prompt and clever beyond comparison, the very model of a valet for a rich man, but he stirred not from my side, perpetually debating with me and ever manifesting his confidence that, at length, were it only to be rid of him, I would resolve to settle the affair of the shadow. He had become as burdensome to me ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... than "ibn." It is, by the by, the origin of our "valet" in its sense of boy or servant who is popularly addressed Y waled. Hence I have seen in a French book of travels ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... I take it no—still less would you restore the monasteries or take back the lands; a consecrated change becomes a new departure; accept it and turn it to the best advantage. These are things to which the theory of the Church concerning lay baptism is strictly applicable. Fieri non debet, factum valet. If in our narrow and unsympathetic strivings after precision we should remove the hallowed imperfections whereby time has set the glory of his seal upon the gospels as well as upon all other aged things, not for twenty generations will they ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... father's business, and though his clients were not numerous, increased his fortune by judicious investments in houses and lands. Although brought up in Jacobite principles, he transferred his attachment to the Hanoverian dynasty when a relation of his wife married a valet of George II. The wife, Alicia Grove, was daughter of a tradesman who had made a small competence at Andover. Jeremiah Bentham had fallen in love with her at first sight, and wisely gave up for ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... to bed and slept till 8 a.m. During his last two or three years he suffered from rheumatism in his shoulder and it took him a long time to dress, and he called in the aid of his gardener in the last year, who acted as his valet. While dressing he prepared a cup of cocoa on the gas stove, which he carried into the study (next door) at 9 a.m. This was all he had for breakfast, and he took it while reading ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... was to be seen the valet of Colonel Wellmere, who carried in either hand chickens ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... he was seized with a sort of dejection, hypochondria, or by whatever name we may call the evil demon, he withdrew into his room at such hours, which were often lengthened into days, saw no one but his /valet/, and in urgent cases could not even be prevailed upon to receive any one. But, as soon as the evil spirit had left him, he appeared as before, active, mild, and cheerful. It might be inferred from the talk of his /valet/, Saint Jean, a small, thin man of lively good nature, that in his ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... come to murder her!' Quick as lightning, Madame Auguier shut and bolted the door, rushed to the Queen's bedside, and dragged her to the opposite door, with a petticoat just thrown over her. Behold, the door was fastened on the other side! The ladies knocked violently, the King's valet opened it, and in a few minutes the whole family were in safety in the King's apartments. M. de Miomandre, the brave guardsman, who used his musket to guard the Queen's door instead of to defend himself, fell wounded; but his comrade, M. de Repaire, at once took his place, and, according to one ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Francois," "the clothes worn by men of quality were more costly than those worn by women. To-day all men dress with such uniformity that a Huron, transported to Paris or to London, could not distinguish master from valet. This will assuredly be the fate of feminine toilets in a future more or less near. The time must come when the varying costumes now seen at balls, at the races, at the theatre, will all be swept away; and in their place women will wear, ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... handsome. A secret door existed also in this chamber, hidden behind muslin hangings; it led down the same narrow staircase already mentioned to the kitchen, and thence out into the yard. Nanon, Balzac's cook, less discreet than Auguste, the valet-de-chambre, had tales to tell Werdet about certain lady visitors who arrived by means of this private staircase into the daintily ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... thus that I won, by such biblical pills of poetical manna, From two elders—Sir Seth and Lord Isaac—the liking of Lady Susanna. But I left her—a woman to me is no more than a match, sir, at tennis is— When I heard she'd gone off with my valet, and burnt my rhymed version of Genesis. You may see by my shortness of speech that my time's almost up: I perceive That my new-fangled brevity strikes you: but don't—though the public will—grieve. As it's sometimes my whim to be vulgar, it's sometimes my whim to be brief; As when ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... meant about my wishing to leave him was this,—my new friends had put it in my head to ask my parents to consent to my going to Paris with the family in which the two that I told you of were maid and valet. They had spoken of me to their lady; she knew I had not much experience, and had never left home. She did not care for that, she said. She wanted a nice pretty girl to amuse her little boy, and walk out with him. And of course the young man, the valet, ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... o'clock when Romer had come in and sat down by the window. He was still there in precisely the same position at seven, when his valet brought his ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... town: he says, too, that amongst his acquaintances alone he can procure me sufficient employment, which shall be liberally remunerated. 'Tis true,' Beaufort laughingly added,' he has no more taste for paintings than his valet, and perhaps not so much; but that matters not: he thinks that he has, and it is not my place to undeceive him; for, as he is rich and influential, he may be a ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... diplomatic Carlists of the gandin order, who are Carlists because it makes them interesting in the sight of the ladies, but whose campaigning is confined to an occasional three days' incursion on Spanish territory, with a cook and a valet, saddle-bags full of potted lobster and pate de foie gras, and a dressing-case newly packed with au Botot and essence of Jockey Club. There are personages of this class not unknown to society at Biarritz and Bayonne, who have been going to the front for the last three months, and have ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... apologetically. "I hear that Robinson has some rare fowls, and Helen has dogs of all kinds, and a few deer. It will do her good to go about, you know." He broke off suddenly, a spasm crossing his face, and without more words he turned abruptly to his valet, took his arm and walked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... dressing room everything that he needed had been laid out in readiness for him, and he dressed mechanically with a feverish haste that struggled ineffectually with a refractory collar stud, and caused him to execrate heartily the absent valet and his enigmatical errand. Another ten minutes was lost while he hunted for his watch and cigarette case which he suddenly remembered were in the coat that he had left at the little house. Or had he searched genuinely? Had he not rather ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his Servants never care for leaving him; by this means his Domesticks are all in Years, and grown old with their Master. You would take his Valet de Chambre for his Brother, his Butler is grey-headed, his Groom is one of the gravest Men that I have ever seen, and his Coachman has the Looks of a Privy-Counsellor. You see the Goodness of the Master even in the old House-dog, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... German, who is a captain in some service or other, is a restless man, always busy about what the devil I don't know. He is constantly carrying about trunks and boxes, with the aid of a sorrowful valet, dressed in black, who appears to detest his position. The captain must devote the morning to doing gymnastics, for I hear him from my room, which is next to his, jumping and dropping weights on the floor, ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... you are at last!" said Miss Verepoint, querulously. "The valet told us you were expected back this morning, so we waited. Where on earth have you been to, running away like ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... him—no, girl. I'm not worthy to be his valet. He's as much above me as I am above—say a siwash. He has all the virtues; I, all the faults. Sometimes I look at him and I see in him my ideal self. He is all strength, all nobility, while I am but a commonplace mortal, full of human weaknesses. He is the self ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Colt didn't seem as romantic as a sword. Malone pictured himself saying: "Take that, varlet." Was varlet what you called them? he wondered. Maybe it was valet. ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... small bell, and a valet entered, bearing a dish containing a highly nutritious broth, which he had caused to be prepared on account of its invigorating properties. After partaking of this rich and savory mess, and having drank a glass of a certain cordial celebrated for its renovating influence, he arose, and his valet ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... we got a chance to go faster the carriage rocked from side to side, all the fringe on the coachman's box waving about. The coachman was a study in himself, with his white wig and silk stockings, ensconced like a hen on her nest. The valet, with powdered hair, white silk stockings, and plush breeches, stood on his little platform behind the carriage, holding on to the two cords on the side. I felt very fine, but not fine enough to prevent my feeling a little sea-sick, and I could not help ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... (see act i. sc. 1, line 213, sq.) that "A great personage ... is drowned below the ford, with five post-horses, A monkey and a mastiff—and a valet," with the corresponding passage in Kruitzner and in Byron's unfinished fragment; and note that "the monkey, the mastiff, and the valet," which formed part of Byron's retinue in 1821, are conspicuous by their absence from Miss Lee's story and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... not till we come to the reign of Charles V. (1364-80) that Joinville's book occurs in the inventory of the royal library, drawn up in 1373 by the King's valet de chambre, Gilles Mallet. It is entered as "La vie de Saint Loys, et les fais de son voyage d'outre mer;" and in the margin of the catalogue there is a note, "Le Roy l'a par devers soy,"—"The King has it by him." At the time of his death the volume ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... white woman cut the clothes for both men and women, and the colored women did the sewing of the garments. The men did the manual labor on the farm and the women the domestic. Each white woman and girl had a special servant for her own use and care and each white man had his colored man or valet. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... their slaves—men, women, and children—nearly to the death; that one gentleman of an irascible disposition, when irritated by some slight oversight on the part of the unfortunate boy who acted as his valet, could find no relief to his feelings until he had welted him first into a condition of unutterable terror, and then into a state of insensibility. Neither did he inform them that a certain lady in the town, who seemed at most times to be possessed of a reasonably ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... detectives, they at once would guess from where the clew came and that James Blagwin was still alive. So that plan was abandoned. Then he wondered if he might not convey the tip to some one who had access to his bedroom; his valet or a chambermaid who, as though by accident, might stumble upon the will. But, as every one would know the anonymous tipster could be only Blagwin himself, that plan also was rejected. He saw himself in a blind alley. Without ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... rise, I heard the door behind me open. Apprehensively I turned, and sickened to see that that which I had dreaded most was come to pass. A tall, imposing figure in scarlet robes stood erect and scowling on the threshold, and behind him his valet, Bernouin, bearing ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... difficulty arise. Probably the best known is the case of Courvoisier, the Swiss valet, who murdered Lord William Russell in 1840. In the course of the trial Courvoisier informed his advocate, Phillips, that he was guilty of the murder, but at the same time directed Phillips to continue to defend ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... up hastily, grunting a bit—though his headache was no longer so acute; or else he was growing accustomed to it—and ringing for the valet-de-chambre ordered his petit dejeuner. Before this was served he spent several thrilling minutes under an icy shower and emerged feeling more on terms with ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... intimates. I found the world of artificial greatness founded on convention and money so repugnant and contemptible by comparison that I had no sympathetic understanding of it. People are fond of blaming valets because no man is a hero to his valet. But it is equally true that no man is a valet to his hero; and the hero, consequently, is apt to blunder very ludicrously about valets, through judging them from an irrelevant standard of heroism: heroism, remember, having its faults as well as its qualities. I, always on ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... that. He has had his romance or tragedy or something, you may be sure. But he's no ordinary man, whatever he may be doing in Paradise Park. I have heard that he's surrounded with books and pictures in his cottage. He's got a Chinaman for a valet, and an Indian for his man Friday, and their mouths are as tight as his. What's more, he must be all right in the main things, for his foreman and cowboys stick to him through thick and thin, and say nothing. I tell you, Miss Gaylord, I'd like to ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... might give a preference. Incapable of repeating such an effort, and tired, too, of his daughter's conduct, one morning, towards the end of Lent, when the business at the Chamber did not demand his vote, he determined to ask what her views were. While his valet was artistically decorating his bald yellow head with the delta of powder which, with the hanging "ailes de pigeon," completed his venerable style of hairdressing, Emilie's father, not without some secret misgivings, told his old servant to go and desire the haughty ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... it. Here, suddenly, intervening in the midst of a prosaic drudgery, a tepid and meaningless period, was a magnificent relief. By God, would he take advantage of it! Would he! There was a knock at the door, and the hotel valet hung a freshly pressed suit in the closet; the shoes into which he intended to change were in a perfection of readiness; laid out were a heavy blue silk shirt and a dull yellow tie. Lee got these various carefully selected articles of dress slowly, exactly, on. His pearl ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of levity quite inconsistent with true love. It states how, after seeing her for the first time at Rhosyr in Anglesey, and falling in love with her, he sends her a present of wine by the hands of a servant, which present she refuses, casting the wine contemptuously over the head of the valet. This commencement promises little in the way of true passion, so that we are not disappointed when we read a little farther on that the bard is dead and buried, all on account of love, and that Morfudd makes a pilgrimage ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... us as "muy honrado;" not from his last place, but from one before. He was a well-dressed, sad-looking individual; and at the same time we took his wife as washerwoman, and his brother as valet to our attache, thus having the whole family under our roof, wisely taking it for granted that he being recommended as particularly honest, his relations were "all honourable men." An English lady happened to call on me, and a short time ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Yeux-gris answered. "You have an honest face. You came into my house uninvited. Well, I forgive it, and invite you to stay. You shall be my valet." ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... than taking the form of a shadowy hearse-and-four, and driving round and round Castle Puddifant at midnight. And old Lady Wadham's ghost, what a sufferer that woman is! She merely desires to remark that the family diamonds, lost many years ago, were never really taken abroad by the valet and sold. He only had time to conceal them in a secret drawer behind the dining-room chimney-piece. Now she can get no nearer expressing herself than producing a spirited imitation of the music of the bagpipes, which wails up and down ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... to getting some interesting passages of local history. To his surprise he found that the old man had but one idea. That idea was that it was his duty to take care of and preserve his old master's grave. When the war broke out, the old hero was the body-servant or valet of a man, who, from the very first, was in the thick of the fight against the North. The colored man followed his soldier-master from place to place, and when a Northern bullet put an end to the career of the master, the servant reverently conveyed the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... also withdrawn from that compulsory attendance on the ladies at the castle which he had shared with the other pages. He had no longer to wait at table during meals. But fresh duties, much more arduous, devolved upon him. He had to be both valet and groom to the earl, to scour his arms, to groom his horse, to attend his bed chamber, and to sleep outside the door in an anteroom, to do the honours of the household in his lord's absence, gracefully, like a true gentleman; ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... almost confess a God with their mouth, and think they believe in him, but alas! behold their actions and hearts, what testimony they give for a man's walking and conversation is like an eye witness, that one of them deserves more credit than ten ear-witnesses of professions,—Plus valet oculatus testis unus, quam auriti decem. Now, I may ask of you, what would ye do, how would ye walk, if ye believed there were no God? Would ye be more dissolute and profane, and more void of religion? Would not human laws bind you as much in that case as they now ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... movements were the only ones that had escaped him, and the valet-de-chambre who assisted him, was the only person that witnessed his agitation. Duroc, Daru, and Berthier have all said, that they knew nothing of it, that they saw him unshaken; this was very true, humanly speaking, as he retained sufficient command over himself to avoid betraying his anxiety, and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... I went to call on Seaford, and was told He had gone to town. So I, as privileged, Went to his cabinet to write a note; Which finished, I came down, and called his valet. Just as I crossed the hall I heard a voice— "The Countess Lamballa—is she here to-day?" And looking toward the door, I caught a glimpse Of a tall figure, gaunt and stooping, drest In a blue shabby frock down to his knees, And on his left arm sat a little child. The ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... sat men and women, old and young, playing away estate and fortune and honour at tick-tack or ombre or basset. One noble lord was so old that he could not see to game, and must needs have his valet by to tell him how the dice came up. On the walls hung the works of Vandyke and Correggio and Raphael and Rubens; but the pure faces of art's creation looked down on statesmen bending low to the beck of adventuresses, old men pawning a noble name for ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... southward. "I was accompanied," he says in his diary, "by Major Jackson. My equipage and attendants consisted of a chariot and four horses drove in hand, a light baggage-wagon and two horses, four saddle-horses, besides a led one for myself; and five, to wit, my valet-de-chambre, two ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... ready. Quick, Le Catt, make your preparations; call the servants, and show them what they have to do. In the mean time, I will make my toilet; I must not appear before the worthy ambassador in such unworthy guise." The king rang hastily, and his valet, Deesen, entered. "Deesen," said he, gayly, "we will imagine ourselves to be again in Sans-Souci, and about to hold a great court. I must do then, what I have not done for a long time—make grande toilette. I will wear my general's uniform, and adorn myself with the order of the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... night, I caused one of my servants to sleep in the same room with me. I saw and heard nothing, either on that night, or any of the nights following, until the next Friday; when I had again the same vision, with this difference, that my valet seemed to be lying at some distance from me on the pavement of the Strada Stretta. The vision continued to be repeated on every Friday night, the commander always appearing in the same manner, and uttering the same words: 'Take my sword ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... caryatides of the fireplace, under the ancestral portraits, a valet moves noiselessly about, arranging the glistening silver service on the long table and putting in order ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... 15: "Quando peccatum tale est, ut idem sit poena peccati, quantum est quod valet voluntas sub dominante cupiditate, nisi forte, si ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... myself up to the eyes in the bed which was assigned to me, but could not sleep; and I waited for the dawn listening to the throbbing of my heart. I had given orders that my servants were to be summoned to the hotel at daybreak, and my valet de chambre knocked at my door at seven ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... "No valet, no people," he muttered, "this fish then is no noble, and yet, by his mien, no bourgeois. Luggage scanty, dress fine. What is he? Gambler of Paris? Swiss? Italian? No, he speaks French, but without the Court accent. By that he is none of our people—that is one point ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... 36: 'Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.' Hence, St. Augustine says in his book De Spiritu et Litera: Free will without grace can only sin—non nisi ad peccandum valet. And in his second book against Julianus: You call that a free will which in truth is captive, etc." To thesis 16 Luther added: "When man does what he is able to do (dum facit, quod est in se), he sins, seeking altogether ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... given up to the gentlemen I invited him to make his toilet in mine, and, indeed, wanting him to create a favorable impression, became his valet pro tem., tying his cravat, and teasing the divinity-student look out of his side-hair. My little dandy Billy came in for another share of attention, and when I managed to button his jacket for him so that it showed his shirt-studs "like a man's," Count d'Orsay could not have felt a ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... of subfusc coloured trousers creased and looking absolutely new were presented to him in the same manner. He was allowed to put on his own socks, silk and never worn before, but he was not allowed to put on his own boots. The perfect valet did that kneeling before him, shoe horn and ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... shown of honour, worth, or kindly semblance had disappeared beyond all tracing in a blurred distortion. The lids of one eye were discoloured and swollen almost together; other traces of a recent battering were not lacking, nor was cosmetic evidence of a heroic struggle, on the part of some valet of infinite pains, to efface them. The nose lost outline in the discolorations of the puffed cheeks; the chin, tufted with a small imperial, trembled beneath a sagging, gray lip. And that this bruised and dissipated ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... at every other meal—despite the new husband's expressed desire to have his wife to himself—his valet was present as butler, watching over the dyspeptic's diet, and seeing that the wine was right. Neither master nor man trusted anybody else to do this. It was a large crumple in Deb's rose-leaf, Manton's limpet-like attachment to Claud, who seemed unable to do anything without his servant's ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... moment, within a few days of the date appointed for the wedding at Windsor, and after all the trousseau had been purchased and the wedding presents bought, he deliberately jilted his royal fiancee, and married at Nice, an actress named Mlle. Loesinger, an offspring of the valet and the cook of the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... worthy person of both sexes despising her, and she being used to see nobody but servants, at last throws herself upon one of that class: in an evil hour, she finds something that is taking to her low taste in the person of her papa's valet, a wretch so infinitely beneath her (but a gay coxcomb of a servant), that every body attributed to her the scandal of making the first advances; for, otherwise, it was presumed, he durst not have looked up to his master's daughter. So here ended all her ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... were there not old Rachel and Sam, chef and valet? What more could one want? The major's voice, too, had lost none ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... baby's complexion, but whose sharp eye showed his temper, went quietly about the operation of dressing, assisted by a couple of foxes, the second in charge and the Korps servant, who was as expert in preparations for duels as an English valet in dressing his master for following the hounds. In ten minutes everything was ready, the seconds on each side drew on their gloves, settled the long visors of their caps well over their eyes, took ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... of blood ran down his cheek. His appearance was so alarming that all of those who, the instant before, had been staring in astonishment at Inez now turned to the intruder. They recognized him as the personal servant of Vega. Without considering the presence of the others, the valet spoke as he crossed ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... how she knew. "John" was the only man-servant that the Jervaises employed in the house; butler, footman, valet ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... People were sure that, like the mysterious prisoner of Pignerol, Les Exiles, and the Isle Sainte-Marguerite (1669-1703?), Kaspar was some great one, 'kept out of his own.' Now the prisoner of Pignerol was really a valet, and Kaspar was a peasant. Some thought him a son of Napoleon: others averred (as we saw) that he was the infant son of the Grand Duke Karl of Baden, born in 1812, who had not died within a fortnight of his birth, but been spirited away by a lady disguised as the spectral 'White Lady of Baden,' ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... the Tin Woodman, politely including the entire party in a royal wave of his arm. "It will give me great pleasure to entertain you in my castle, where there is room enough and to spare. And if any of you wish to be nickel- plated, my valet will do it ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... de Curia Regis accipiunt necessaria sua iugiter vltra triginta cuman hominum, praeter expensas animalium et volucrum, cum tamen in festis maioribus sint homines prope in duplo tanti. Nec valet hic dominus defectum vllum pati pecuniae, eo quod in terra sua non currit moneta de argento, vel auro, alioue metallo, sed tantum de corio vel papyro: horum enim forma denariorum signo Imperatoris impressorum preciatur minoris aut maioris valoris, secundum diuersitatem impressionis, qui per ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... only two cents a mile, first class, and half that, second class; we left the choice to our guide. A good guide is almost indispensable. Our faithful Takenouchi was proficient in everything; he was valet, courier, guide, instructor, purchasing agent, and maid. I never knew a person so efficient in every way; he could be attentively absent; he never intruded himself upon us in any way. It is impossible to describe the wonderful temples! ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... more than a poor little foundlin' boy in a 'ome I've said to myself, I'm fit for somethink big. Somethink big I always meant to be. When it didn't seem possible for me to aim so 'igh I'd myde up my mind to be a valet and a butler. It comes—your hambition does. What you've first got to do is to form it; and then you've got to stick to ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... longer fit for the profession; such a mistake is inexcusable. I cannot hold up my head among the others. I meant that diamond for our King's tiara or the Queen's necklace—bah! Please, Master Professor, put me among the miners, or take me for your valet. I care not ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... truth I have told you," replied the valet, proud of his own importance, "and if you will meet me in the grove, during dinner, I ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... five years of their lives wandering together about Europe and Asia. They have no children, and have travelled without any of the servants that generally attend wealthy English people abroad (courier, lady's-maid, valet); and have come home so in love with their wild untrammelled life, that the possession of their estate at Ardoch, and their prospect of an income of many thousands a year, seem equally to oppress them as undesirable ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... that no man is, a hero to his valet. It would give wide latitude to a witty remark, which has become proverbial, to make it the epigraph of these memoirs. The valet of a hero by that very fact is something more than ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger
... 'The valet bowed and went out with me. I conducted him to the room where I had left my prisoner. I found her prostrate and praying. The young man approached her with the view of executing his orders. Then she raised her head, looked fixedly at him and said, "Oh, young man, it would ill ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... with me in the Rover, the old seadog, himself a rover, proceeded, went ashore and took up a soft job as gentleman's valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I've on me and he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I'm game for that job, shaving and brushup. I hate roaming about. There's my son now, Danny, run off to sea and his mother got him ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... He was enjoying himself immensely in this baiting of the valet of Gonzague, but he allowed no sign of entertainment to ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to be sure, Major Dignum's black valet Gumbo, and with a note for me. The fellow's disordered dress and quick breathing spoke of urgency, and I broke the seal at once, wondering the while what could have befallen the Major, a retired and gouty West Indian whom I had been visiting daily for three months ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Somehow, I can't say how, a strong feeling of suspicion was aroused in my mind against the old reprobate when he brought me an ornament I had ordered and was so visibly disturbed on giving it to me; and then he inquired particularly for whom I wanted the ornament, and also questioned my valet in the most artful way as to when I was in the habit of visiting a certain lady. I had long before noticed that all the unfortunates who fell victims to this abominable epidemic of murder and robbery bore one and the same wound. I felt sure that the assassin had by practice grown ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... roof of a neighbouring house, from which post he could not be dislodged, till the doctor, having lost patience, had sent home for another wig, and never after could be prevailed on to accept of this, which had been so much disgraced. That, enfin, his valet, to whom the monkey belonged, had, ever since that adventure, obliged the culprit by way of punishment to sit quietly, for an hour every morning, with the periwig on his head.—Et pendant ces moments de tranquillite je suis ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... "Bartholemeus Peytevyn tenet duas Caracutas terrae in Stony-Aston in Com. Somerset de Domino Rege in capite per servitium unius[48:a] Sextarii vini Gariophilati reddendi Domino Regi per annum ad Natale Domini. Et valet ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... Strett, the valet, had been in, drawn the bath in the adjoining dressing-room, placed the crystal and silver cigarette-box at his side, put a match to the fire, and thrown open the windows to the bright morning air. It ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... when that month was up-he would diddle 'em again! A month ought to make the Pillin business safe, with all that hung on it. That poor funkey chap Joe Pillin! A gurgling chuckle escaped his red lips. What a shadow the fellow had looked, trotting in that evening just a month ago, behind his valet's announcement: "Mr. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... young men rode, the mule-litters, wheelbarrows, and jinrikishas were at the door of the hotel early in the morning; and the mandarin, with his valet, were on time. The company reached Tung-chow before noon; and a Chinese lunch was ready for them, ordered by the new passenger. The Blanchita was all ready for them to step on board when they had partaken of roast goose, duck, and chicken at the inn. The passage down the ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... broad daylight. The noise brought my friends hurrying into the apartment, and we found, sprawling over my improvised bed, the dismayed valet, who, while bringing me my morning cup of tea, had tripped over this obstacle in the middle of the floor, and fallen on his stomach, spilling, in spite of himself, my breakfast over ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... bad-looking and not unamiable girl, unfortunately dowered with the silliness of her father and the nullity of her mother combined and intensified. There is some pretty bad stock farce about M. Bringuesingue and his valet, whom he pays to scratch his nose when his master is committing solecisms; and about Edmond's adroitness in saving the situations. The result is that the Bringuesingues throw their not unwilling daughter at Edmond's head. To do him the only justice he ever deserves, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... do. I rather thought of engaging a valet, but decided that this wasn't necessary. On the other hand, I felt a need for three new summer suits, and a new evening suit, and some new white waistcoats. Also a smoking suit. And had any man ever stayed at Keeb without a dressing-case? Hitherto ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
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