"Billet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... notice. First, one can't attend to everything, and his hands were full. Secondly, one gets used to anything. Thirdly, experience soon teaches one, in spite of proverbs, how very few bullets find their billet. Far more unnerving is the mere suspicion of fear or even of anxiety in the human mass around you. The Boy was beginning to wonder if there were any dark reason for the increasing pressure, and whether ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... and with a noise that was half hiss and half moan, thousands of arrows leapt forward. Forward they leapt, and swift and terrible they fell among the ranks of the advancing Genoese. Yes, and ere ever one had found its billet, its quiver-mate was hastening on its path. Then—oh! the sunlight showed it all—the Genoese rolled over by scores, their frail armour bitten through and through by the grey English arrows. By scores that grew to hundreds, ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Chevalier me connoit assez pour etre persuade qu'il ne me verra plus. Adieu, Monsieur: je vais ecrire mon billet, tenez le votre pret: ne perdons ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... stranger to the circle in which he was placed. He excused himself from receiving it, assuring us that he could never read writing by day-light: we laughed a little at the disappointment which the benevolent coquetry of our beautiful friend had met with, and thought that a billet from her hand would not have always had the same fate. Our life passed in this manner, without any of us, if I may judge from myself, finding the time ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... blessed and useful life, but very wearying; and we can fancy how trying it must have been for Mrs. Booth after her marriage not to have any home of her own, but to billet first in one stranger's house, and ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... blankety blank "skunk," and a "hound of hell." He said he hoped I wound pardon him for the apparent egotism, but he felt as though the Tribune was attracting attention almost everyday. Some of these little billet-doux invited him to call at a trysting place on Tribune avenue and get his alleged brains scattered over a vacant lot. Most all of them threatened him with a rectangular head, a tin ear, or a watch pocket under the eye He didn't seem to ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Spain. Napoleon's strategy had laughed at the military formation of Frederick the Great's system; the guerrillas of Spain laughed at the formations of regular warfare in any shape. They rose to fight, and dispersed for safety, leaving their smarting foe unable to strike for lack of a billet. The occasional successes of the Spanish regulars showed, moreover, that the generals were not entirely ignorant of Napoleon's own system. When Joseph entered Madrid the whole land was already in open rebellion, except where French force compelled a sullen acquiescence in ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... place for, put, lay, set, seat, station, lodge, quarter, post, install; house, stow; establish, fix, pin, root; graft; plant &c (insert) 300; shelve, pitch, camp, lay down, deposit, reposit^; cradle; moor, tether, picket; pack, tuck in; embed, imbed; vest, invest in. billet on, quarter upon, saddle with; load, lade, freight; pocket, put up, bag. inhabit &c (be present) 186; domesticate, colonize; take root, strike root; anchor; cast anchor, come to an anchor; sit down, settle down; settle; take up one's abode, take up one's quarters; plant oneself, establish ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was an apprehension to disturb the tenor of his thoughts, and fall heavily upon his official capacity. He had—yes, he certainly had seen Annie Hinton receive a billet from Charles Lane; and Charles Lane was a bright youth—a fine scholar—ready to enter college the next term—and just her age. It was wrong, decidedly wrong, to have any silly flirtations between mere boys and girls—he had always considered ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... is with a disgusting repetition of low expressions: but I could not but, in justice to myself, point out to him the passages in my case which he had overlooked. Accordingly, having marked them with letters, I sent it back, with the following billet. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... carving is true of that in the Romanesque buildings in Germany, Scandinavia (Fig. 182), France, and to a certain extent in Great Britain, though in our own country a large proportion of the ornamental carving consists simply of decorative patterns, such as the chevron, billet, and zig-zag; and sculpture containing figures and animals is ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... deal; repartition, partition; administration. dividend, portion, contingent, share, allotment, fair share, allocation, lot, measure, dose; dole, meed, pittance; quantum, ration; ratio, proportion, quota, modicum, mess, allowance; suerte^. V. apportion, divide; distribute, administer, dispense; billet, allot, detail, cast, share, mete; portion out, parcel out, dole out; deal, carve. allocate, ration, ration out; assign; separate &c 44. partition, assign, appropriate, appoint. come in for one's share &c (participate) 778. Adj. apportioning ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a shilling a day, and grubs and berths you accordingly, and you earn your 'bacca money by bumming around the galley and helping the cook peel spuds. Or else, if you don't like that, you can do the sensible thing, and step into the billet I offer you." ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... of an opinion, an' please your honour, quoth Trim, that every thing was predestined for us in this world; insomuch, that he would often say to his soldiers, that 'every ball had its billet.' He was a great man, said my uncle Toby—And I believe, continued Trim, to this day, that the shot which disabled me at the battle of Landen, was pointed at my knee for no other purpose, but to take me out of his service, and place me in your honour's, where I should be taken so much better ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... billet of wood, and drove the cork in flush with the neck. Then, placing upright on the cork the helve of the hammer, he drove the cork down a quarter of an ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... dream. I got into our wagon-lines last night after midnight, having had a cold ride along frozen roads through white wintry country. I was only half-expected, so my sleeping-bag hadn't been unpacked. I had to wake my batman and tramp about a mile to the billet; by the time I got there every one was asleep, so I spread out my sleeping-sack and crept in very quietly. For the few minutes before my eyes closed I pictured London, the taxis, the gay parties, the mystery of lights. I was roused this morning with the news that ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... connections. I voted in practically every division for four years, and I made the rottenest speeches you ever heard of at Primrose League meetings in small places, and after all that the best thing the whips could offer me was a billet in India at four hundred a year, and even that you took in depreciated rupees. When I tried to talk about something at home, they practically laughed in my face. I had no leverage upon them whatever. They ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Fry had got it, like a billet under his apron, going away in the gray of the morning, as if to kindle his fireplace. "Why, John," I said, "what a heavy log! Let me have one end of it." "Thank'e, Jan, no need of thiccy," he answered, turning his back to me; "waife wanteth a log as will last ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... has added to our indebtedness by his new budget of refreshing absurdities.... In shooting folly as it flies, he launches darts that find their billet on both sides of ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... 'ead. "That wouldn't do," he ses; "besides, I don't know where they keep it. No; I've got a better plan than that. Come round to the Crooked Billet, so as we can talk it ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... never carried out. As the messenger hastened with the King's billet-doux, and the Brethren on the northern frontier were setting out for Poland, Augusta and Bilek were on their way to the famous old castle of Prglitz. For ages that castle, built on a rock, and hidden away in darkling woods, had been renowned ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... of dismissal, always on the verge of engagement, serving Chinamen, Arabs, half-castes—would have served the devil himself had he made it easy enough. They talked everlastingly of turns of luck: how So-and-so got charge of a boat on the coast of China—a soft thing; how this one had an easy billet in Japan somewhere, and that one was doing well in the Siamese navy; and in all they said—in their actions, in their looks, in their persons—could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay, the determination to lounge safely ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... aroused by a step on the shingle. I turned, and saw the gallant guardsman, who had so much interested our party on the night before. But he received my salutation with a gravity which instantly put an end to my good-humour; and I waited for the denouement, at his pleasure. He produced a small billet from his pocket, which I opened, and which, on glancing my eye over it, appeared to me a complete rhapsody. I begged of him to read it, and indulge me with an explanation. He read it, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... believed that the old fellow could make poisons too, as well as antidotes; and said I to myself, 'Maybe that little dagger in the cathedral was specially prepared, eh?' Which would account for Carmona hurrying off to Granada after it had found the wrong billet. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... better to be lucky than wise," he declared. "And yet who shall not call you very wise indeed? That was a great ruse—to fall as though dead when the bullet had missed its billet." ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... unknown fair, to frame immediately some idea of her person, which being suited to the opinion we have of our own merit, is commonly as beautiful and perfect as the most lavish imagination can furnish out. Strongly possessed with these notions, I have read over Sylvia's billet; and notwithstanding the reserve I have had upon this matter, am resolved to go a much greater length, than I yet ever did, in making my self known to the world, and, in particular, to my charming correspondent. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... was always cuddled close against her shoulder, and how she loved him! But she died some months ago, and I gave up my outpost work for a time, with a year's leave, and have come to England until my next billet is fixed. We named the boy "Paul" after myself, and have given him the surname which was with difficulty made out on the brass collar of a dog which came with him—the name of "Fife," presumably that of its former master. I seemed to gather from the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... up a bad billet to anchor in, and to find a more secure one she steamed out to the entrance of the harbour and made a wide sweep before returning. Some of our jocular shipmates had quite a different view of this proceeding, for, if ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... December 9th we effected a peaceful passage into brigade reserve at Gorre Chateau. In a noisy sector this chateau and all the village in the vicinity would have been reduced to ruins, but here the civilians had not been interrupted in their daily work, and the chateau itself was a wonderful billet for troops, accommodating the whole battalion comfortably. In fact, nearly twelve months later orderly room received bills for the use of the electric light in the ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... only a slight pain, on the second it increased, and on the third, the fever seized him. He was then three leagues from Poitiers, near a very little village: exhausted with fatigue, and weakened by the fever, he resolved to go to the mayor, and ask him for a billet; this functionary was from home, but his wife said, that at all events, it would be necessary first to obtain the consent of Monsieur the Marquis de ——— Colonel of the National Guard. The weary traveller thought ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... was divided into districts, about thirty or thirty-five in number, over each of which an officer presided as police magistrate, with a clerk and staff of constables, one of whom was official flogger, always a convict promoted to the billet for merit ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... Great.—Frederick the Great rang the bell one day, and nobody answered. He opened the door, and found the page sleeping on a sofa. About to wake him, he perceived the end of a billet out of his pocket, and had the curiosity to know the contents: Frederick carefully drew it out, and read it; it was a letter from the mother of the young man, who thanked him for having sent her part of his wages, to assist her in her distress; and it concluded by beseeching ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... was wrong. I tried to enlist the blighter's sympathy. Showed him round camp, the view, the bathing—everything. When Simmonds came up from the river with a string of roach Chaucer admitted it was a truly bon billet. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... came from the Cherokees in the woods with a deeper roar of musketry at closer quarters; and a hollow groan within the blockhouse, where there was a sudden commotion in the dim light, told that some bullet had found its billet. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... back. But as Antony will probably punish your misdeeds by sentencing you to stay on here and keep the peace between the rival Regents, it's just as well you didn't make yourself impossible by accepting. Can't say I envy you the billet." ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... the schooner's crew, Tunis could have filled every billet four times over had he so desired. But he had already picked his crew with some care. Mason Chapin was mate, a perfectly capable navigator who might have used his ticket to get a berth on a much larger ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Queen Isabeau in old days. How he came to suspect me I cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledge; and this morning, as we came from mass, he took my hand into his, forced it open, and read my little billet, walking by my side all ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... At buckle and billet their fingers wrought, Till the sheets were home and the bowlines taut. As he knotted the reins and took his stand The horse's soul came into his hand And up from the mouth that held the steel Came an innermost word, half thought, ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... smell, and has probably been left open to be aired; for the wind comes through the unbarred casement, and a billet barns on the Hearth. The place has that attractive, fascinating air which belongs to a lumber-room,—than which I know nothing that so captivates the interest and fancy of young people. What treasures, to them, often lie hid in those quaint odds and ends which the elder generations ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for? A sordid wretch who would stoop to make money by such means? They ought to be ashamed of themselves. He could never respect an Englishman again." "And yet," adds the writer, "this gentleman (had an officer been billeted there) would have sold him a bottle of wine out of his cellar, or a billet of wood from his stack, or an egg from his hen-house, at a profit of fifty per cent., not only without scruple, but upon no other terms. It was as common as ordering wine at a tavern, to call the servant of any man's establishment where we happened ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... gave ground, but stretched out his foot and Charnock, tripping over it, plunged forward and fell among the legs of the nearest men. They crowded back, and as he got up awkwardly the foreman seized a heavy billet of cordwood and flung it at his head. The billet struck his shoulder, but he was on his feet, his face set and white, and his eyes vindictively hard. It was a foul blow, but there are few rules to hamper men who fight in a Western construction camp, and Charnock thought his antagonist ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... all the Howards might succeed. He would go abroad; he would solemnly promise never again to set foot on English ground, and never to draw sword against the government. Or would it be possible to bribe a juryman or two to starve out the rest? "That," he wrote, "or nothing can save me." This billet was intercepted in its way to the post, and sent up to Whitehall. Fenwick was soon carried to London and brought before the Lords Justices. At first he held high language and bade defiance to his accusers. He was told that he had not always been so confident; and his letter to his wife ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... her lord as dear as possible, and she promised herself that this party of pleasure should become a party of pain. She and her lord were to travel in the same carriage with Mr. and Mrs. Granby. Griselda had only time, before she set off, to write a hasty billet to Mrs. Nettleby, to inform her of these intentions, and to bid her adieu till better times. Mrs. Nettleby sincerely regretted this interruption of their hourly correspondence; for she was deprived not only of the pleasure of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... the wife of the chief magistrate, who was likewise banker of Priorton, to her spouse, "your cousin, Bourhope, has asked his billet with us: I must have my sister Corrie in to ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... anxiously forward to peer through the ticket window whenever the door of the waiting room opened, and how he started whenever the snow outside creaked under the tread of a heavy step; and he would have been convulsed with mirth if he had caught sight of the formidable billet of wood which Lew kept beside his chair all that day, and had guessed its purpose, and that it was a mute witness to the reputation which one Ford Campbell bore among his fellows. Lew was too wise to consider for a moment the revolver meant to protect the contents of ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... all very well," ventured X-Ray Tyson, who had also managed to arm himself with a billet of wood, "but somebody tell me what the end's going to be. Do we have to camp outside in the cold, cold world; or will we invite Mr. Bear to skip? That's what I want to know. ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... bruises, that I could not stir, nor help myself to get upon my feet. And I said, with a low voice, (for I could hardly speak,) Mrs. Ann! Mrs. Ann!—The creature was sadly frightened, but was taking up a billet to knock me on the head, believing I was some thief, as she said; but I cried out, O Mrs. Ann, Mrs. Ann, help me, for pity's sake, to Mrs. Jewkes! for I cannot get up!—Bless me, said she, what! you, madam!—Why, our hearts are ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... disposition, on the part of the younger officers to indulge in mirth, was interrupted by the General, desiring a young aid-de-camp to procure the necessary billet and accomodation ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... placed the kettle on the fire—"strange to be hungry after a five miles' walk and a night in the snow? I would rather say it was strange if you were not hungry. Throw on that billet, like a good fellow, and spit those grouse, while I cut some ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the brush. "Look here," he said, "confess. Have you kissed another girl for months? Have you had a single billet-doux?" ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... those big untidy fellows, very nice for purposes of war and all that, whom not the cleverest adjutant could manage to conceal on a ceremonial parade. His service equipment alone was notorious in the division. While we were still in England he and I used to share a billet. Every night the last thing I saw before going to sleep was the Anarchist trying on a new piece of personal furniture. He had at least a hundred aunts, and each of them had at least a hundred bright ideas; besides which few days went by but he paid a generous ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... obstinate beings were still defending the town. A better idea then occurred to him. Diard came out of the convent, but Montefiore said not a word of his discovery; on the contrary, he accompanied him on a series of rambles about the streets. But the next day, the Italian had obtained his military billet in the house of the draper,—an appropriate ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... new sanctions to this law, by declaring that a simoniacal election could not be rendered valid, even by a posterior consent of the cardinals. But unfortunately Clement had given to Cardinal Colonna a billet, containing promises of advancing that cardinal, in case he himself should attain the papal dignity by his concurrence; and this billet Colonna, who was in entire dependence on the emperor, threatened every moment ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... outside, from one fosse to the next, for we were now in the Lens coal district with mines dotted about here and there. On the other hand, we soon learnt to refrain from sleeping or showing lights in the second storey of our billet which was evidently under direct observation by the enemy, who did not take long to acquaint us ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... friend of my father's was driving his car on the road one day, and he saw Raftery, but he didn't let on to see him. But when he was passing, Raftery said: "There was never a soldier marching but would get his billet. But the rabbit has an enemy in the ferret;" so then the man said in a hurry, "Oh, Mr. Raftery, I never knew it was you: won't you get up and take a seat in the car?"' A girl in whose praise he had made a song, ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... till he would start away from her, and enclose himself in his tower, in an agony of agitation, vowing to renounce her, and her whole sex, for ever; and returning to her presence at the summons of the billet, which she never failed to send with many expressions of penitence and promises of amendment. Scythrop's schemes for regenerating the world, and detecting his seven golden candle-sticks, went on very slowly in this ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... to engage in her service any person of either sex who cannot produce, not a certificate of civism from the municipality as was formerly the case, but a certificate of Christianity, and a billet of confession signed by the curate of the parish, she had often been robbed, and the robbers had made particularly free with those relics which were set in gold or in diamonds. She accused her daughter, the Princesse ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... billet-doux (love letter) conversazione (conversation) ad nauseam (to disgust) distingue (distinguished) ad infinitum (infinitely) entre ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... resplendent in red-tabbed coats and well-creased slacks, seemed to be showing the populace what fine soldiers they were, while the M.M. Police stood at the corners directing traffic as only the members of that unit can. Into the Rue d'Arras we turned, and outside an Ecole de Filles we halted. There was our billet, the best we ever had. In the playground stood our cooker. Upstairs we were packed into the classrooms, with just enough room allowed to stretch one's legs and to turn over should one wish. We had our stew, and quickly rushed off to ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... at the twitching eyebrows of old Stroud; he saw at once how it must annoy a man who had a billet in the "Woods and Forests," and plenty of time for "bridge" and gossip at his club, to see these people with untidy lives. A minute later the man with the "game leg" passed close behind his chair, and Shelton perceived at once ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "I will dry your tears, for I may do so, and in this hour of most sacred confidence not the shadow of an untruth shall lie between us. When you wrote that billet to the count three years ago he did not come to ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... into the kitchen, sirs," went on Farmer Menhennick, "because 'tis cosier. We keep a fire banked up here all night." He bent to revive it, but desisted as his wife entered with one of the house-wenches, and gave them orders to light a lamp, fetch a billet or two of wood, and ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wherever he appeared he should be given free board and lodging, but that he should never be allowed to stop more than twenty-four hours in any one place." These orders are obeyed, and wherever Luckless goes, "nobody ever asks him for his billet or his passport, but they give him food to eat, and liquor to drink, and a place to spend the night in; and next morning they take him by the scruff of the neck and ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... [378] In a billet written by Mr. Pope in the following year, this school is said to have been in Shropshire; but as it appears from a letter from Earl Gower, that the trustees of it were 'some worthy gentlemen in Johnson's neighbourhood,' I in my first edition ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... divided into messes, each man being assigned to a certain mess at the same time his billet number or ship's number is given to him. There are from fifteen to thirty men in a mess. Each has its own "berth-deck cook," who prepares the food for the galley; each, too, has a mess caterer, or striker, whose business it is to help the mess cook and see that all ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... Bute's and Grenville's administrations the public money was sown broadcast. If votes were wanted, they were purchased. It was not unusual for a member of the Commons to find four hundred pounds in his napkin at dinner, or in a billet-doux left by the postman. Of course he understood the meaning of it. The ministers helped themselves to sugar-plums worth five thousand pounds. When the Duke of Grafton was at the head of the ministry, that parasite, Tom Bradshaw, who had done some nasty ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... hours of the Sabbath, they had the ball on Fourth-of-July eve, instead of the night of the Fourth. I could not realize the risk of such an encroachment when I read the following sentence printed on my billet of invitation:— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... they reach not the mind, whatever impressions are made on the outward parts, if they are not taken notice of within, there is no perception. Fire may burn our bodies, with no other effect than it does a billet, unless the motion be continued to the brain, and there the sense of heat or idea of pain be produced in the mind, wherein consists actual perception. How often may a man observe in himself, that ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... of rhyming, yes. There's Bruce, and Virginia Spring, and Sedgwick. They do very nicely. But poetry—do you know how Vaughn Marlow makes his living?—teaching in a boys' cramming-joint down in Pennsylvania, and of all private little hells such a billet is the limit. I wouldn't trade places with him if he had fifty years of life before him. And yet his work stands out from the ruck of the contemporary versifiers as a balas ruby among carrots. And the reviews he gets! Damn them, all of them, the ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... langue et ecrire seulement le langage de la Republique de France—langage des Dieux et des Anges—langage, en un mot, des Francais! Hier au soir je rencontrai a l'Athenaeum Monsieur Mack Leese, qui me dit que MM. les Commissionnaires des Beaux Arts lui avaient ecrit, par leur secretaire, un billet de remerciements a propos de son tableau dans la Chambre des Deputes, et qu'ils lui avaient prie de faire l'autre tableau en fresque, dont on y a besoin. Ce qu'il a promis. Voici des nouvelles pour les champs de Lincoln's Inn! Vive la gloire de France! Vive la Republique! ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if it understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram's horn. Sad however because it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping and papa's pants will soon fit Willy and fuller's earth for ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... not expected much of a billet in a defeated and starving country; that was probably why everybody was enthusiastic over it—at first. I, as billeting officer, was especially proud of having discovered it. The very thing for Brigade Headquarters—secluded, dignified, commanding ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... Embark for the Peninsula. Arrival in the Tagus. The City of Lisbon, with its Contents. Sail for Figuera. Landing extraordinary. Billet ditto. The City of Coimbra. A hard Case. A cold Case, in which a favourite Scotch Dance is introduced. Climate. ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... thin wreath of smoke betokening the approach of the steamer. In joy at this welcome sight we dined and bought tickets for the passage, ours of the first class being printed in gold, while Evan's billet for the deck was in Democratic black. It cost fifteen roubles for the transport of each tarantass, but our baggage was taken free, and we were not even required ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... This curious billet was the production of the hunter's eldest son, and is meant to intimate that if I would buy the mocassins the price was one dollar, or an order on one of the stores for four yards of calico; for so the squaw interpreted its meaning. ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... entertainers such as I, out over any sort of road toward the front line. His glimpses of the great war were from an angle of vision that makes what he has to say in this book well worth reading. His duties took him into every sort of billet, and brought him into close touch with many branches of the army, as well as with all sorts of welfare work and workers. I find that he refers, in passing, to that dramatic moment when we stood on a hilltop and watched the bombing ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... was to billet the warriors. The captain of the troop, by this, was pesky cross-tempered, and flounced off to the "Jolly Pilchards" in a huff. "Sergeant," says he, "here's an inn, though a damned bad 'un, an' here I means to stop. Somewheres about there's a farm called ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... donkey was hampered by a rope to its fore feet, to the which was attached a billet of wood called technically "a clog," so that it had no fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had justly provoked. But, the ass turned round with unusual nimbleness at the first stroke of the cane, the Squire caught his foot in the rope, and went head over heels among ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... they are more mannerly than those who invaded Mrs. Wray's, for one of them, a very good-looking officer, asked to see you with an air of seeking a favor. But we have hardly chambers enough to accommodate even a company, so heaven send they do not billet a whole ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... days the Battalion moved by a short railway journey to Estaires, where it occupied billets in the town, all the officers—except the Commanding Officer, Adjutant, Transport Officer and Capt. Cardew—being in one billet, the Convent. At this time Estaires, though a very short distance behind the line, was ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown
... is the most prudent line of conduct for us both, at least till better days, which, I think myself now entitled to suppose, she, as well as I myself, will look forward to with pleasure. If you were surprised at reading the {p.214} important billet, you may guess how agreeably I was so at receiving it; for I had, to anticipate disappointment, struggled to suppress every rising gleam of hope; and it would be very difficult to describe the mixed feelings her ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... building their house opposite to Mrs. Frederick Langford's window, and whom she watched so much that she was said to be in a fair way of solving the problem of how many sticks go to a crow's nest; criticisms of the books read by each party, and very often a reference to that celebrated billet, unfortunately delivered over night to Prince Talleyrand, informing him that his devoted friend had scarcely closed her eyes all night, and then only to ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... far, and was about to give the signal for retiring from the lists, when a small billet was put ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... we knew at Paris, told me several delightful anecdotes of Josephine: he was attached to her household, and high in her confidence. Napoleon sent him on the very morning of his second nuptials, with a message and billet to the ex-empress. On hearing that the ceremony was performed which had passed her sceptre into the hands of the proud, cold-hearted Austrian, the feelings of the woman overcame every other. She burst into tears, and wringing ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... and the officer fired, but without effect. At that moment, Somers stepped forward with a billet of wood he found on the floor. At the same time, De Banyan raised the pistol; but the rebel fired a second time before he could discharge it. Somers instantly dropped his stick, and his left arm fell to his side; the ball had passed through it. De Banyan fired; the officer ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... hastened to resume their work, and I discovered that they dug up the roots for the sake of drinking the sap. It appeared that they first cut these roots into billets, and then stripped off the bark or rind, which they sometimes chew, after which, holding up the billet and applying one end to the mouth, they let the juice drop into it. We now understood for what purpose the short clubs which we had seen the day before had been cut. The youths resumed their work the moment they had received the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... acccompanying billet from my daughter, short at any rate under the pressure of instant engagements, has been cut shorter by a sudden and very distressing headache; I, therefore, who (from a peculiar nervousness connected with the act of writing) so rarely attempt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... himself the handsomest boy in the crowd. Besides, he had more than once looked at Missy with soft eyes—the girls "teased" Missy about Raymond. It was fitting that Raymond should receive the first billet doux. So, at the corner of Maple and Silver, Tess pulled the rein which should have turned Ben into the shady street which led to Raymond's domicile. Ben moved his head impatiently, and turkey-trotted straight ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... different direction by a local insurrection, followed by severe reprisals, and the bombardment of Palermo by the Italian Fleet. His sick wife was for some time under rifle as well as shell fire; but cheerfully remarking that "every bullet has its billet," she remained perfectly serene and undisturbed. It was the year of the last war with Austria, and also of the suppression of the Monastic Orders in Sicily; two events which probably helped to produce the outbreak, of which Yule contributed an account to The Times, and subsequently a more detailed ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... numbed fingers gripped for the revolver at his hip. The hidden marksman shot twice, evidently discerning only dim outlines at which to aim; the red flame of discharge cut the gloom like a knife. One ball hurtled past Hamlin's head; the other found billet in Wade's horse, and the stricken creature toppled over, bearing its dead burden with him. The Sergeant ripped off his glove, found the trigger with his half-frozen fingers, and fired twice. Then, with an oath, he leaped madly ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... tigerish blood flushed up in a moment. I picked up a billet of wood from beside the fireplace. "Go," I said, in a low voice; "go quick, or I may do you an injury." He looked at me irresolutely for a moment, and then he left the house. He came back again in a moment, however, and stood in the doorway ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... gauze; the nautch-girl on the bicycle; six times a day, in the open air, to the sound of tomtoms. Play the negress; that's what he offered her! She could not help laughing, in spite of her anger. But she became quite intractable and snubbed another agent who suggested a one day's billet in a tiny music-hall at ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... and finishing off the nice work upon the stern, where sat Neptune in his car, holding his trident, drawn by sea horses; and retouched the gilding and coloring of the cornucopia which ornamented her billet-head. The inside was then painted, from the skysail truck to the waterways,— the yards, black; mast-heads and tops, white; monkey-rail, black, white, and yellow; bulwarks, green; plank-shear, white; ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... split out boards after the manner shown by Fig. 128. In making either the boards or the shakes, if it is found that the wood splinters down into the body of the log too far or into the board or shake too far, you must commence at the other end of the billet or log and split it up to meet the first split, or take hold of the split or board with your hands and deftly tear it from the log, an art which only experience can teach. I have seen two-story houses composed of nothing but a framework with sides and roof shingled over with these ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... the coin in the air, listened to its ring on the desk with a satisfied look, slipped the whole twenty-franc piece into his pocket—regular fare, fifteen francs, irregular swindle, five francs—and handed me the billet. Then he added, with a trace ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a knock at the room door, which introduced a letter for Mr. Lovel. The servant waited, Mrs. Hadoway said, for an answer. "You are concerned in this matter, Mr. Oldbuck," said Lovel, after glancing over the billet, and handing it to the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... learned from the waiter in what manner he had come to the inn—and the night-scene which had followed, was apologizing to the owner of No. 5,—when, to his great alarm the church clock struck eleven. 'Nine,' he remembered, was the hour fixed by the billet: and the more offence he might have given to the princess by his absurdities over-night, of which he had some obscure recollection, so much the more necessary was it that he should keep the appointment. The botanic ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... that a "flitting" had taken place that very day, and that he—the good man—was then betaking himself, with the residue of the chattels, to their new home, about five miles back on the Frostburgh road, whither his family had already gone. The next chance of a billet was at Grantsville, two leagues farther on. Now that sounds too absurdly short a distance to disquiet any traveler; but neither is the fatal straw in the camel's load a ponderous thing, per se. Both Falcon and I had reckoned that our day's work ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... their ranks, this success was not acquired without infinite labour, and a considerable expense of blood. After a furious contest of six hours, fortune seemed to declare so much in favour of the Prussians, that the king despatched the following billet to the queen at Berlin:—"Madam, we have driven the Russians from their intrenchments. In two hours expect to hear of a glorious victory." This intimation was premature, and subjected the writer to the ridicule of his enemies. The Russians were ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... before we are twelve hours older," was the solemn answer. "Officers are wanted, and we are giving every good man from India on whom we can lay our hands. They won't put you on the Staff, because you have everything to learn about European work, but I expect they will find you a billet in one of the expeditionary regiments. And now good-bye and good luck to you, for I have lots of men to see. By the way, I take it for granted that you ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... "You'll billet the men in your Court House," said the Colonel, "and you'll search every motor that goes through that village to cross ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... aloft, until the giddy height of the main royal did not appall them, and they could lay out on the yards without thinking of the empty space beneath them. By the first of June, all the petty officers had been appointed, and every student had his station billet. When the order was given to unmoor ship, to make sail, or to furl the sails, every one knew where to go and what to do. The station billets were cards on which the various evolutions of the ship had been printed in a column on the left, while the ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... this experience Cook would not run further risks, so made for a small uninhabited island where some vegetables were obtained and branches of trees, which, cut into short lengths, were eagerly eaten by the cattle, and Cook says: "It might be said, without impropriety, that we fed our cattle on billet wood." Payment for what had been taken was left in a ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... funds should warrant the opening of the long-surveyed Luni Protective Canal System. And Scott spoke openly of his great desire to be put on one particular section of the work where he knew the land and the people; and Martyn sighed for a billet in the Himalayan foot-hills, and said his mind of his superiors, and William rolled cigarettes and said nothing, but smiled gravely on her brother because he ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... however, Mr. Howe made up his mind to return home, and the evening before he took this step, sent her an anonymous note requesting her to meet him the following day in Birdcage Walk, St. James's Square. At the time this billet arrived, Mrs. Howe was entertaining some friends and relatives at supper—one of her guests being a Dr. Rose, who had ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... the editor knows. And the spring offensive! I have seen that kind of vernal gladness. What an advent! When you find the first blue egg in the shrubbery behind your billet in Artois; when the G. S. O. 2 comes into the mess with a violet in his fingers, and shows it to every doubter, then you know the time has come for the testing of the gas cylinders, and you wonder whether this is the last ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... would have made more if you had stuck to your husband." She seemed to be a sort of termagant, and she said nobody said that about her unless you told them. He made some insulting remark, and she made something in return to him, and he took a billet of wood and struck her on the shoulder, and he pulled a pistol and beat her with it, and she went for him to kill him. They found the man not guilty and they found her guilty, but Judge Avery set the verdict aside and ordered the case ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... despatched it without delay. The next morning I received a few lines, simply expressive of the writer's thanks; but without a single jest, or the least invitation to continue the correspondence. Such a billet displeased me; nevertheless I determined to persevere. Six long letters were the result, for each of which I received a few laconic lines of thanks, with some declamation against his enemies, followed by a ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... his stooping posture, the release of the cords had caused the aide to fall forward out of the chair; but he instantly scrambled to his feet, and without so much as a glance behind him, seized the billet from the hands of the cook and sprang toward the doorway, reaching it at the moment the dragoon turned about to learn the cause of the sudden commotion. Bringing the log down with crushing force on the man's head, Jack stooped as the man plunged' forward, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him. Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into the wilderness, the only ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... mullion remains on the sill, which is of gritstone. West of this is the principal entrance, a Norman arch, beneath which a pointed arch has been inserted, the original imposts, however, remaining. The upper arch is enriched with the chevron, and its dripstone with two rows of the round billet arranged chequerwise and with a moulding composed of a series of little crosses, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... of our Sunday hats; only you don't seem easy in it. Oh, oh! my tongue's a yard too long. It's the poor head aching, and me to forget it. It's because you never will act invalidy; and I remember how handsome you were one day in the field behind our house, when you boxed a wager with Simon Billet, the waterman; and you was made a bet of then, for my husband betted on you; and that's what made me think of comparisons of you out of your ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ornament. We read in Shakespeare:— "Full fathom five thy father lies: Of his bones are corals made.'' In Pope:— "Here files of pins extend their shining rows, Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.', In Gray:— "Weave the warp and weave the woof, The winding-sheet of Edward's race.'' In Coleridge:- "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free: We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.'' Churchill describes himself, in his Prophecy ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... informed of the pains Mr. Fillet had taken for his recovery, insisted upon that gentleman's accepting a handsome gratuity. Then, in consideration of the cold bath he had undergone, he was prevailed upon to take the post of honour; namely, the great chair fronting the fire, which was reinforced with a billet of wood for his ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... and led the way into the kitchen. The fire that had been used to prepare the evening meal was nearly out; Mathews raked the ashes together and threw a fresh billet into the grate; then reaching from a small cupboard a bottle and a glass, he drew a small table between them, and stretching his legs towards the cheering blaze he handed a glass ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... proof of being a great man in little things, while he is really small in great ones. I must add General Dearborn's declaration, that he never wrote a letter to Burr in his life, except that when here, once in a winter, he usually wrote him a billet of invitation to dine. The only object of sending you the enclosed letters is to possess you of the fact, that you may know how to pursue it, if any of your witnesses should know any thing of it. My intention ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a camp fire in the centre of a forest clearing in mid-Africa. They did not speak, but sat propped against logs, smoking. One of the five knocked out the ashes of his pipe upon the ground; a second, roused by the movement, picked up a fresh billet of wood with a shiver and threw it on to the fire, and the light for a moment flung a steady glow upon faces which were set with anxiety. The man who had picked up the billet looked from one to the other of the faces, then he turned and gazed behind him ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... Letter claim a full share of literary homage. Boasting a distinguished signature, it possessed the first essential of a superior autograph; for, although a rose under any other name may smell as sweet, yet it is clear that with regard to every thing coming from the pen, whether folio or billet doux, imaginative poem, or matter-of-fact note of hand, there is a vast deal in this important item, which is often the very life and stamina of the whole production. Then again, the subject of extreme want is one of general interest, while ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... exhibition of students' work; you are come to choose two State pensioners, and pack the rest off to clean the drains of Melbourne. They will be chosen by popular vote—the only fair way of inducting a public entertainer to a snug billet. But, unknown to you, I have placed amongst the exhibits two drawings by Claude and one by Ingres; and at this exhibition there are no names on the catalogue. Do you think my men will get a single vote? Possibly; but dare one of you suggest that in competition with any rubbishy sensation-monger either ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... "Un billet doux" said the patron, playing without design the part of a bewildered chorus, "Why should not madame have given it to him if she wished to write that which she was too ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... able to probe the future, instead of setting Mr. Sands to work that December afternoon, he would have paid his way to London, had a trans-Atlantic trip been made the price of being rid of him. But a Senator is not a soothsayer, and no impression of the kind once touched him. He got Mr. Sands his billet, and said it gave him pleasure to comply with the request of his young friend, Mr. Storms. To Richard, the hereafter was as opaque as it was to Senator Hanway, and, having seen his protege installed, he walked away unconscious of a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of that period insisted upon it that I was so like to a certain old big wig, whose Christian name was Mark, that I most censoriously obtained the appellation from at least a hundred godfathers, to the no small annoyance of the dignitary, take notice. My first occupation, when a child, was carrying billet doux from the students of Christ Church to the tradesmen's daughters of Oxford, or the nuns of St. Clement's, where a less important personage might have excited suspicion and lost his situation. From a college Mercury, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... first term of service has expired. If he re-enlists and has shown aptitude for the service, he is sent to Washington navy yard for a course of six months' instruction in gunnery and special branches, such as electricity and torpedoes. He becomes a seaman gunner, with the billet and pay ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... on earth he finds to do, Mrs. Elliott?" said he one morning, after he had just read the hasty billet and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not so famous as I supposed; and on the eighth day I find myself insulted in twenty-seven places by an angry mosquito, whom in the small hours of the morning I had occasion to rap over the knuckles and turn out of my billet. And I've got a nasty cold, and nobody loves me or cleans my buttons, and if I want to go anywhere there are no more motor cars and they make me pay a penny for the tram, and my wife doesn't think I'm a hero any longer, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... not been brought about in a day. Months had passed; Roswell had seen his last billet of wood put in the camboose; had tried various experiments for producing heat by means of oil, which so far succeeded as to enable the ordinary boiling to be done, thereby saving wood; but, when a cold ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the clerestory much smaller. The main arches, slightly smaller in proportion than those of the nave, are extraordinarily rich and beautiful in detail. Their mouldings are very complex and deep, and are varied with dog-tooth and billet ornament. ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... picturesque old houses remain in the village, among them being one called Stonewall Farm, a structure of the fifteenth century with an original billet-moulded porch and Gothic barge-boards. ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... the bank Tom strode out in undisguised anger, and obtained employment on a collier, discharging coals. Then, by an extraordinary piece of good luck, he got a billet as proof-reader on the North Queensland Trumpet Call, from which, after an exciting three weeks, he was dismissed for "general incompetency and wilful neglect of his duties." So with sorrow in his heart he had turned to the ever-resourceful ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... lark that night, partly with Biggs, his lordship's chauffeur, and partly with a motor expert who came along on a bicycle, and said he'd have my Renault going in twenty minutes. I'm not one that can stand a billet in servants' quarters, and I chose rather to put up at the little inn down by the bay and take my luck there. It was here that Biggs came after supper, and he and the motor expert got going ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... or caravansaries are of royal foundation; others, like the fountains, the monuments of departed piety. But much as we might admire the institution, we could not feel very ambitious of occupying a billet of so very gregarious and inexclusive character. Besides, in these khans you must provide for yourself all that you require in the shape of provisions; and it was too much of a good thing to carry with us tea, and bread and butter. We clung to the hope of finding lodging ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... little millefleurs-scented billet lay, unknown to its writer as to him, the turning-point of his life! God help us! what avail are experience, prescience, prudence, wisdom, in this world, when at every chance step the silliest trifle, the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... her cut-water was fashioned into a scroll, like the volute of an Ionic pillar, forming what is called, by naval architects, a "billet head;" and which, for its neatness and beauty, is very generally adopted, both in national vessels and merchantmen. Nor was the bow without its share of hieroglyphics; on one side were displayed a bee-hive, a bale of cotton, and a crate of crockery; and on the other, a globe, an anchor, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... that of the skilled workman and even of the daily labourer, whose higher wages have generally kept pace with the appreciation of the necessaries of life. This is a cause of great bitterness even amongst those who at the end of their protracted, course of studies get some small billet for their pains. The bitterness is, of course, far greater amongst those who fail altogether. The rapid expansion of an educational system that has developed far in excess of the immediate purpose for which it was originally ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... I departed from Versailles, I determined, cost what it would, to see Agnes once again. So I wrote her a note. Such a blunt and clumsy billet as only a love-sick soldier or a country clown could have written. It craved pardon for the heat and the haste displayed by me when we parted at Sceaux; it implored one last interview before I left the colonies forever. I had not the art to conceal or veil my meaning, but told it ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... the world's history, to the alliance and the active help of Fortune, the punctual goddess stepped down from the machine. One of the Princess's ladies begged to enter; a man, it appeared, had brought a line for the Freiherr von Gondremark. It proved to be a pencil billet, which the crafty Greisengesang had found the means to scribble and despatch under the very guns of Otto; and the daring of the act bore testimony to the terror of the actor. For Greisengesang had but one influential ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is not strictly grammatical. Worse still, she probably even writes little poems of her own. She may keep a tame tutor in philosophy, but she makes no scruple about interrupting his lesson on morals while she writes a little billet-doux. Pomponia is an ambitious woman, whose mania is to interfere in elections by bringing to bear upon the senators what has been called in recent times the "duchesses'" influence. If her husband becomes governor of a province, she will endeavour ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... trench is ever abandoned without the jettison of about a hundred pounds' worth of equipment. Add to this the fact that every shot fired, from the mere rifle bullet to the largest shell, does a proportionate amount of material damage when it finds its billet: the bursting of a six-inch shell will do, I suppose, on an average, as much damage in half a second as an ordinary fire can do in twenty-four hours. Add to this again the fact that the very force which propels every bullet and every shell is released by ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... gotten the billet, Francie?" said she; and when he had handed it over, and she had read and burned it, "Did you see anybody?" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had taken only three steps, and when he sank down to the earth again it was not in the place he had occupied before. He lay down where he had stood when he threw the billet of wood, and there was that in the manner of his lying down which boded ill for his future activity. It was observed most carefully by three of the crows, who had followed him all day; and upon the strength of it, they settled within a dozen paces of his recumbent figure, with an ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... to the garden of Italy; and saw Windsor Castle in no other view than the Capitoli immobile saxum. I wish a committee of the House of Commons may ever seem to be the senate; or a bill appear half so agreeable as a billet-doux. You see how deep you have carried me into old stories; I write of them with pleasure, but shall talk of them with more to you. I can't say I am sorry I was never quite a schoolboy: an expedition against bargemen, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... bein' lapped in luxury in a billet better than me and Jim. Mrs. Dawkins, as I told you, give us the best of everything in the 'ouse and our lives wasn't worth livin' owin' to Mr. Dawkins and the little Dawkinses and a young man lodger takin' ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... not a word, but departed. Now he had in his pocket an unanswered billet-doux, which had been laid upon his table the preceding night: the billet-doux had no name to it; but, from all he had remarked of the lady's manners towards him, he could not doubt that it was the charming Alicia's. He ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... anybody. In fact, he did not seem to realize that others were present. There was a heap of furnace wood in one corner of the basement; he began to heave that wood in all directions. One of the lanterns was smashed by a billet. The men in the place were obliged to dodge the flying sticks. Britt worked as if he were alone in the place. He talked to himself. "Demons are after it. Demons and dead men! The demons sha'n't have it. I told 'em where it was. But I'll take ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... been chosen a more vital part upon which to inflict a wound; for, huge as is the white shark, and strong and vigorous as are all animals of this ferocious family, a single blow upon the nose with a handspike or even a billet of wood, if laid on with a heavy hand, will suffice to put an end to ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... twenty fears, Twenty times assail your door, And if denied, come twenty more, Twenty letters perfumed sweet, Twenty nods in every street, Twenty oaths, and twenty lies, Twenty smiles, and twenty sighs, Twenty times in jealous rage, Twenty beauties to engage, Twenty tales to whisper low, Twenty billet-doux to show, Twenty times a day to pass, Before a flattering looking-glass, Twenty times to stop your coach, With twenty words of fond reproach, Twenty days of keen vexation, Twenty opera assignations, Twenty nights behind the scenes, To dangle after mimic queens, Twenty ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... evince marks of discontent are secured in a different manner. A thick billet of wood is cut about three feet long, and a smooth notch being made upon one side of it, the ankle of the slave is bolted to the smooth part by means of a strong iron staple, one prong of which passes on ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... alone together. She is also in the best French company, where she will not only introduce but PUFF you, if I may use so low a word. And I can assure you that it is no little help, in the 'beau monde', to be puffed there by a fashionable woman. I send you the inclosed billet to carry her, only as a certificate of the identity of your person, which I take it for granted ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the Squire. "I understand your wishes. I will have the steeds ready, and at early dawn we will ride forth, and leave a sweet-scented billet to thank the lady for her courtesy, and to ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... had breakfasted. The lady rose from table, and I had no choice but to follow her example. All the time I was beating my brains for any means by which I should be able to get a word apart with Flora, or find the time to write her a billet. The windows had been opened while I breakfasted, I suppose to ventilate the room from any traces of my passage there; and, Master Ronald appearing on the front lawn, my ogre leaned ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the spot long before the last billet was consumed, and Bennillong appeared during the day more cheerful than we had expected, and spoke about finding a nurse from among the white women to suckle ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... the terms; but were fortunately herded together again before they could strike a blow. It may have been only a slip of the tongue on the guard's part; but the canons of martial law held such "slips" to be unpardonable. The one in question lost a man his liberty for two years, and his billet for ever. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... lady of rank and property forms a clandestine and disgraceful attachment it is time that her father should be on the lookout; so I will just take the liberty of throwing my eye over this little billet-doux.' I told him often that he was at liberty to inspect every line I should write, but that I thought that very few parents would express such want of confidence in their daughters, if, like me, the latter had deserved such confidence at their hands as ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton |
