"Janitor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ideas which I have quoted, if they were carried to logical lengths, would make heaven a farcical kill-joy, a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable morgue of disappointed hopes, with Ennui for janitor. I admit that the old heaven of the Semitic poets was constructed somewhat along these lines. But that was no real heaven. The real heaven is a quiet, harpless, beautiful place where every one is a heaven-born creator ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... of the area steps, to the basement of the establishment, where his business would probably rather lie with the lower menials of the mansion than with such an august personage as he, one who acted solely as the janitor to the great ones of the earth possessing the ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... an inscription just within the threshold, such as "Greeting" or "Beware the Dog." In one Pompeian house the floor bears the well-known mosaic likeness of a dog held upon its chain. At the side of the passage there is often a smaller room for the janitor. When there is none, he must be supposed to have used a ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... and all his entourage in black Prince-Albert coats. He had a white shirt and collar and tie, but others masked a pareu under the wool, and were barelegged. All wore solemn faces of a jury bringing in a death-verdict. Paiere nodded to a volunteer janitor, who insisted upon my occupying a chair ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... three brighter, prettier girls it would be hard to find—were on their way to the grammar school which had just closed the week before. Laura had forgotten a book which she prized highly and was in hope that the janitor, a good-natured old fellow, would let her in long enough to get it. At the last minute she had asked the other girls to ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... considering such questions as the minimum length of sheets on hotel beds, the limitation in inches and fractions, of the heels of women's shoes, the amount of flesh that could be legally exposed by a bathing suit, or the pensioning of a Swedish Assistant Janitor,—all of which are the substance of actual bills introduced in various State legislatures during the ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... moral support, afforded by a well-fitting corset was inconceivable to the mind of a mere man. She said that a corset is to a woman what a hat is to a man— it prepares for any emergency, enables one to meet life on equal terms, and even to face a rebellious cook or janitor with 'that repose which marks the caste of ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... there could be no doubt about that. Investigations proved that he had left the building at precisely sixteen minutes of seven, the janitor declaring that he had looked at his watch the instant the old man appeared on the sidewalk where he was shovelling away the snow. He admitted that nothing short of a miracle could have caused him to go to the trouble of getting out his watch on a morning as cold as this one happened ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... consulted the clock so often that I tried to soothe her by remarking that it was not an easy task he had set himself, at which she laughed in a mysterious way, but failed to grow less anxious till our suspense was cut short by the appearance of the janitor with a message ...
— The Gray Madam - 1899 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... book, for Freddie went shopping one day with his mamma, and wandered off a little bit. Presently he found himself in the basement of the store; there he had so much trouble in getting out he fell asleep in the meantime. Then, when he awoke and it was all dark, and the great big janitor came to rescue him—oh!—Freddie thought the man might even be a giant when he first heard the janitor's voice ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... When the janitor and the taxicab operator between them had worried all his luggage upstairs, Staff paid and tipped them and thankfully saw the hall-door close on their backs. He was tired, over-heated and glad ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... slowly. "I signed an agreement to teach the village school in Walden. It's a brick building with a janitor to sweep and watch fires, only a few blocks to walk, and it pays twenty dollars a month more than the home school where you can wade snow three miles, build your own fires, and freeze all day in a little frame building at that. I teach ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... features that we can add. Suppose we fix it for the latter part of this week, handbill it in the town also and make it a gala occasion. It is another way of calling attention to the school and the kind of work we do here. You will all help Professor Grant and the janitor with the mechanical details, which should not take long. And if Sabaste will communicate with Marconi so as to make sure we can get a message from him, that will ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... when Presley reached Bonneville. The business part of the town was as yet hardly astir; he despatched his manuscript, and then hurried to the office of the "Mercury." Genslinger, as he feared, had not yet put in appearance, but the janitor of the building gave Presley the address of the editor's residence, and it was there he found him in the act of sitting down to breakfast. Presley was hardly courteous to the little man, and abruptly refused his offer of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... to the empty suite and rang a bell which summoned the janitor. Following a brief interval came a sound resembling that of a drinking horse and there entered a red-whiskered old man with a neatly pimpled nose, introducing an odour of rum. He was a small man, but he wore a large green apron, and he touched the brim of his bowler ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... can get anybody sent where he wants them. If he was your orderly he would stay with you, of course, but he isn't; he is working as janitor." ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... From 1818 to 1845 he was tailor-janitor in a house in rue de Normandie, belonging to Claude-Joseph Pillerault, where dwelt Pons and Schmucke, the two musicians, time of Louis Philippe. Poisoned by the pawn-broker Remonencq, Cibot died at his post in April, 1845, on the same day of ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... o'clock in the afternoon—as the janitor of the building later reported to the police—when a Postal-Union lineman, carrying a well-worn case of tools, made his way up through the halls and stairways of one of those many Italian apartment houses just south of Washington Square ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... have to move-you're raising the price of living!" said Magsie. "She's the janitor's wife, and they're ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... the right sort of moral social conduct we ought to expect that children would grow in their power to accept responsibility for each other. The writer knows of a fourth grade in which during the past year a boy was absent from the room after recess. The teacher, instead of sending the janitor, or she herself going to find the boy, asked the class what they were going to do about it, and suggested to them their responsibility for maintaining the good name which they had always borne as a group. Two of the more mature boys volunteered to go and find ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... that was all alight with scarlet creepers, where three or four ecclesiastics saluted him, up a staircase or two, and found himself at last at a tall door bearing the number he wanted. As he hesitated to knock, the door opened, and a janitor ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... in little groups watched us closely. The one who escorted us asked several questions, and discovered, by our accent, that we were foreigners, a sufficient excuse for the novelty of our proceeding. The professor received us most graciously, and ordered the janitor to bring us ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... side-bell before any person appeared to answer my summons; and then, sad be it to relate, the portal of the mansion was opened by a dirty, down-at-heels, draggle-tailed old woman instead of the staid, respectable man-servant who should have officiated as janitor to be in proper keeping with the ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... with two friends went Shay. It was a very simple lodging. These men habitually avoid display. The janitor knew all too well ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... methods of curing men's maladies, as being in very deed the fruit of sin, should have something strange and unlooked-for about them, like some of those Old Testament healings and purifications which the Prior's biblical lore suggested to him? Yet Brother Apollyon, if their surly Janitor, in his less kindly moments, spoke truly, himself greatly needed purification, being not only a thief, but a homicide in hiding from the law. Nay, once, on his annual return from southern or eastern lands, he had been observed on his way along the streets of the great ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... The man was burly and of stout build, while his fat, bearded face, red as the gaol walls themselves, attracted Blanchard by its pleasant expression. Will's eyes brightened at the aspect of this janitor; he touched his hat very civilly, wished the man "good afternoon," and was about to step in ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... means, and so compelled to exercise the strictest economy. Luke worked where he could, helping the farmers in hay-time, and ready to do odd jobs for any one in the village who desired his services. He filled the position of janitor at the school which he attended, sweeping out twice a week and making the fires. He had a pleasant expression, and a bright, resolute look, a warm heart, and a clear intellect, and was probably, in spite of his poverty, the most popular boy in Groveton. In this respect ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... rare in the sense that she, like the Psalmist in Mr. James Guthrie's psalm, was a wonder unto many, and most of all unto herself. But a gate out, and especially such a gate as the Lady Robertland so often came out at, needs a key, needs many keys, and many keys of no common kind, and it needs a janitor also, or rather a redeemer and a deliverer of a kind corresponding to the kind of gate and the kind of confinement on which the gate shuts and opens. And when Lady Robertland thought of her rare outgates—and she thought more about them than about anything else ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... they heard Job Haskers murmur. "Is it time to get up, Swingly?" He mentioned the name of the school janitor, who had orders to rouse ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... long-continued agony; and when the piteous cries of these poor brutes would interrupt his remarks, with a look of suppressed indignation he would artistically slit their windpipes, and thus prevent their howling! Curiousity prompted me to inquire of the janitor whether, after this period of torment, these creatures were mercifully put out of misery; and I ascertained that such animals as did not succumb to the immediate effects of their mutilations were consigned to a cellar, to be ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... when the Janitor came out to read the names of the nine successful ones. Every one sat perfectly still while the names were pronounced. First a boy's name. She expected that and was resigned. Then another boy's name ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... a tiny cell situated on the roof of the side aisle, beneath the flying buttresses, precisely at the spot where the wife of the present janitor of the towers has made for herself a garden, which is to the hanging gardens of Babylon what a lettuce is to a palm-tree, what a porter's wife ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... but not like Paris. There we had a door that opened into a garden, and the birds sang there, and I was allowed to go and play. Here we have only a fire-escape, and the concierge is only a janitor and will not allow us to keep milk bottles on it. I do not like a janitor. Concierges have so much more politesse. Now, no one takes care of me when father goes out, or brings me soup or gateaux when ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... key and the information that the way to the roof ran through the janitor's tool-room at the far end of the hall, I found my young people already out there. Worth was ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... past, and so he could hardly know the importance attached to his name in the ears of those assembled. The click of the typewriters ceased, the executive clerk looked quickly up from his papers, the messenger assumed a triumphant pose, and the janitor peered curiously in from ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... do not take part in any of them because I am afraid they will ask me to take part in the order. It would make me feel cheap. I have often felt like committing suicide, but I would pull my nerves together and make the best of it again. I am now a janitor at a school." ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... the look that she gave me took all the majesty out of me, and left me feeling more like the palace janitor—if ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and recklesslike, I decided to go and see the manager, or janitor, or whatever he is. And go I did. I says to him: "Could I rent your cute little ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes
... out riding, and even though her mother has told the teachers to let the child go if she cared to, the little girl would not go and he was mean to the principal and insolent, though Heaven knows it is not the principal's fault, and if the janitor hadn't been standing right there—but it really makes little difference what would have happened; for the janitor in every school building, as every one knows, is a fierce and awesome creature who keeps more dreadful things from happening that ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... edifices reminding me of our college dormitories. One, however, was a most extraordinary exception,—the wonderful Temple church, or rather the ancient part of it which is left, the round temple. We had some trouble to get into it, but at last succeeded in finding a slip of a girl, the daughter of the janitor, who unlocked the door for us. It affected my imagination strangely to see this girl of a dozen years old, or thereabouts, moving round among the monuments which had kept their place there for some six or seven hundred years; for the church was built ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... that the bulk of the expense of education is borne by the State in general. (2) The departements erect the normal school and furnish the apparatus and supplies for the same. (3) The communes pay for the needed supplies, for the janitor, and for other local necessities of the elementary schools. They may also tax themselves to increase the salaries of teachers beyond the State allowance. Each community thus has the power to decide whether it will be content ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... seized with a desire for an education. Finding no opportunity for mental improvement, he went to Richmond, Va., in 1889, where he found employment in a stone quarry. He took his books with him and studied at meal-time. In the fall he became janitor of a business college. Finding that he could do his janitor work mornings and evenings, he entered the public school of Richmond and afterward graduated from the Richmond Normal School as valedictorian ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... school, I was a little hurt at the injustice done to our school. I know there is something else but cake,—fruit, milk, soup, sandwiches, etc., being among the other things that are spread on the lunch-table, provided by the janitor, and sold to the girls at very low rates. So you see I had reason to be a little indignant at the discredit done to our school, and set about repairing it as far as possible; and you, too, can help repair the harm done to this fine ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... the school building he waved his hand to old Soggy, the janitor and custodian, who was busily ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... hands trembling; but at last she entered the door, and walking along a passage, saw the janitor's quarters. She said, as she held out a piece of money: "Would you go up and tell M. Paul de Lamare that an old lady, a friend of his mother's, is downstairs, and ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... The janitor is a disobliging old person who has been there since the house was started and holds his job, in spite of incessant complaints. When asked to hurry, he fairly crawls and, when people want him most to ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford
... locksmith. Her eyes were full of this picture, which was new to her. Pigeons flew above her head; she heard chickens cackle. A servant with a military look opened the door. She found herself in a yard covered with sand, shaded by a tree, where, at the left, was the janitor's box with bird-cages at the windows. On that side rose, under a green trellis, the mansard of the neighboring house. A sculptor's studio backed on it its glass-covered roof, which showed plaster figures asleep in the dust. At the right, the wall that closed the yard bore debris of monuments, ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... and the teams of horses which cultivated their fields, and the cattle and sheep on which they fed on feast days. A fine square tower (still remaining) arose over the bridge, and alone gave access by its stately portals to the hallowed precincts; it was three stories high, the janitor lived and slept therein; a winding stair conducted to the turreted ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... loved it. He loved his blue cap and its orange button; he loved the upper-classmen who called him freshman and ordered him around; he loved the very trunks that he lugged so painfully up-stairs. He was being recognized, merely as a janitor, it is true, but recognized; at last he was a part of Sanford College. Further, one of the men who had ordered him around the most fiercely wore a Nu Delta pin, the emblem of his father's fraternity. He ran that man's ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... less than the combined rental of their four old rooms. Heat and janitor service were provided without charge, but they were obliged to meet the expense of gas for the ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... fine there," said Meg, catching Mr. Wright's enthusiasm. "It hasn't been touched since the first storm, only where the janitor dug out the walks. I'd love to ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... from the Sunrise chapel down the south turret to Dean Fenneben's study, intended originally as a sort of fire escape. Some enterprising janitor later fixed a spring lock on the upper door to this stairway (surprises had been sprung through this door upon the chapel stage by prankish students at inopportune moments), so that now it was only an exit, and was called by the students "the road ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... we sacrifice lawns, gardens, natural places for children to play; we lose birds and flowers and the charm of evening hours on porches, or galleries, but think of what we gain in bricks and mortar, in labor saved from splitting wood and shoveling coal, in janitor service! The transition is now complete; the home is simply that item in the economic machinery which will best furnish us storage for our ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... open at nine o'clock. It was some three minutes before that hour so I was an intruder. The man looked so respectable and so commanding in his appearance that I wondered if he could be Professor Henry, yet sincerely hoped he was not. I afterward found that he was only "Old Peake," the janitor. [4] When I found the real Professor Henry he received me with characteristic urbanity, told me something of his own studies, and suggested that I might find something to do in the Coast Survey, but took no further steps ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... treads and iron rails, and cheap wooden doorways which had begun to warp the minute the structure was finished—and sold. The bright-green burlap wall-covering in the hallways had faded in less than a year to the color of dry grass. The janitor grew tired every now and then. He had been markedly diligent at first, but he was already giving up the task of keeping the building clean. It was one of, and typical of, a mile of yellow brick tenements; it was named after an African orchid of great loveliness, and it was filled ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... that the delivery of letters to each floor of apartment houses is limited chiefly to Austria and Germany. In France and England, the letters are delivered to the janitor or else thrown into the letter box placed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... Scotland Yard several good turns which at least demanded an outward show of gratitude. He had influence in the right quarter, too, and, altogether, was not a person to be lightly affronted. The consideration of these factors impelled Merrington to inform the waiting janitor that he would see Mr. Colwyn at once, and even caused him to crease his fat red features into a smile of welcome as he awaited ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... janitor. He merely thought us stupid and regarded us with pitying disgust as he indicated a rusty little range, and disheartening water arrangements in one corner. There may have been stationary tubs, too, bells, and a dumb waiter, but without the knowledge of these things ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... reached down the big schoolhouse chimney and drew up a spark of fire from the furnace in the basement. They lodged it where it would do the most harm, and, in a short time, the janitor was running with a white face to the principal's office. As quietly as possible each teacher was called out into the hall and warned. And, in a few moments more, the pupils in every room were standing in marching order waiting for the word to file ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... drugs he needed at a well-known pharmacy in the city. He had an idea that matters would improve when people returned from the country or the seashore. But these people did not take long vacations. He had had but one case, the wife of a Swedish janitor in a flat-building, and he had reason to believe that his services had not pleased. Every morning, as Alves hurried to reach the Everglade School, his self-reproach increased. He hated to think that she was in the same treadmill in which he had found her. His failure was a matter of pride, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... is sent to the janitor or the elevator boy we have no cavil, for these gentlemen do actually see a fire and hear bells ring; but the apartment tenant hears naught but the hissing of the steam in the radiator, and counts himself lucky to hear that. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... was very bright, and the janitor had left the hornet's window slightly open. At noon he was lying on the window sill, drunk as usual. I was in a hurry to take a train, and neglected to close the window. Late at night, when I came back to my room, he was gone. He was not ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... does not come to be so great as it would be if it could be utilized by the two hundred and fifty who pay their matriculation fees, buy their books, memorize them, and waste a year to know nothing afterwards. As a result, with the exception of some rare usher or janitor who has had charge of the museum for years, no one has ever been known to get any advantage from the lessons memorized ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... the office and there found every intimation of a hasty departure on the part of the janitor. The front door of the building stood wide open. I rushed in, threw open my desk and hastily gathered an armful of what I deemed were the more important books and papers. Glancing around to see if there was any way of saving anything else I again received a jolt ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... we may say that literature speaks in a manner the voice of solitude. As soon as the spoken word comes in, you have companionship. There can be no speech without at least one person present, if it is only the janitor of the church. Dean Swift in reading the Church of England service to his manservant only, adapted the service as follows: "Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth thee and me in sundry places," etc.; but in that ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... that you went straight from his shop to the pawnbroker's, and pledged a watch and chain which he had just sold you. It is a police matter. They said all that in presence of my superior officer—in presence of M. de Thaller. I had to get the janitor to put them out. But, after they had left, M. de Thaller gave me to understand that he wished me very much to settle everything. And he is right. My consideration could not resist another such scene. What confidence can be placed in a cashier ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... train. Charlie Sands had agreed to see us off and to keep an eye on Tufik during our absence. Aggie was in a palpitating travel ecstasy, clutching a patent seasick remedy and a map of the Canal Zone; Tish was seeing that the janitor shut off the gas and water in the apartment; and Charlie Sands was jumping on top of a steamer trunk to close it. The taxicab was at the door and we had just time to make the night train. The steamer sailed early ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... In 1897 two men were still alive who saw it burn, and all the gargoyles vomiting molten lead; they were M. Noel the Librarian, and le pere Pepin, janitor of ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... at the clock and saw it was after midnight, but on a venture he called up the committee room at the State House. A night janitor answered and informed him that the committee had been gone for over ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... established acquaintance with John Donald, the head of this family. On the evening of the third, I made acquaintance with his wife in a visit to them. Before three Sundays more he had recommended me to the surviving trustees as his successor as janitor to the buildings. He himself had accepted promotion, and gone, with his household, to keep a store for Haliburton in North Ovid. I sent for Polly and the children, to establish them in the janitor's rooms; and, after writing to her, with trembling eye I waited for the Brick ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... By dint of good generalship on the part of the House Mistress and her staff, St. Elgiva's completed its arrangements twenty minutes before the other hostels, and had therefore the credit of being visited first by the janitor and the gardener, whose duty it was to carry down the luggage. The large boxes were taken away that evening in carts to the station, and duly dispatched, each girl keeping her necessaries for the night, which she would take home with her ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... hours in line waiting his turn in the crowd, and after all they had been told that there would be no distribution that day. As he came near the house where he lived he heard his name, and a young man who was talking to the janitor turned and held out a letter, looking rather embarrassed as Clerambault came forward. The right sleeve of his coat was pinned up to the shoulder, and there was a patch over his right eye; he was pale, and evidently had been laid up for months. Clerambault spoke pleasantly to him ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... were published. Perhaps the most promising was George Horton's The Hope of Liberty, which appeared in 1829. Unfortunately, Horton could not get the encouragement that he needed and in course of time settled down to the life of a janitor at the University of North Carolina.[1] Six years before the war Frances Ellen Watkins (later Mrs. Harper) struck the popular note by readings from her Miscellaneous Poems, which ran through several editions. About the same time William ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... assigned for job next day advanced shine five hundred on account work on wellington serral matter repairs black machine fifty party apartment same night champagne one hundred fifty caterer one hundred tips fifty five to janitor taxis twelve must stir phil up on work for grimsby matter memorandum arrange for yacht mooring on east river instead of north after wednesday eighth job finis memorandum settle telephone exchange proceeds ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... no figure with this matter. You know what I mean. What's the decision?" Luck scowled at the pretty girl on his wall calendar, and began to rub his right foot with the left and to curse the janitor with that part of his brain not occupied with ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... run in," Eastman remarked curtly, turning away from the window. "That door shouldn't be left unlocked. Any crook could come in. I'll speak to the janitor about it, if you don't mind," ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... only a steward placed by the Powers over the Congo. He is a janitor. And he has no more authority to give even a foot of territory to Belgians, Americans, or Chinamen than the janitor of an apartment house has authority to fill the rooms with his wife's relations or sell the coal ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... father lived with Judge Job Johnstone as his extra man or servant. He lived in the house with him, slept in his room and waited on him when he became old; and, too, was the driver of his carriage. He drove him to other courthouses to hold court. After the war, my father was janitor at Newberry College, and he was liked by professors, students, and everybody who knew him as 'Uncle Billy'. At commencement, he always made a speech at night on the campus, which the students enjoyed. He told ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... how she painted for him a bright picture out of things not many of which were bright. The teacher of the portrait class, to begin, had been very considerate. He had arranged that she should leave her things with the janitor's wife down-stairs, and not go up-stairs and take them off behind some screens in a corner of the room where the class was assembled. That would have been dreadful, to have to go behind the screens to take off her hat and gloves. Then instead of sending word for ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... if I can get any trace of the rascals. Maybe I could learn something from the janitor of the Arcade about them. The janitor is ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... delivered his message. "May be I am doing more hurt than good," I said; "may be I'm mistaken, and God hasn't shown me the right way." That was the time I was sleeping and living in the Young Men's Christian Association rooms, where I was then President, Secretary, janitor, and everything else. Well one night, after midnight I heard a knock at the door. And there on the step leading into the street stood this stranger I had made so mad at the lamp-post, and said he wanted to talk to me about his soul's salvation. He said: "Do you remember the man you ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... an institution. He was half janitor, half handy-man about the office, and half watchman—thus becoming the peer of thirteen and one-half tailors. Sent for, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... The present tower and chime of the University of Michigan did not then exist; between the two main buildings on the university grounds there was simply a wooden column, bearing a bell of moderate size, which was rung at every lecture-hour by the principal janitor. One cold winter night those of us living in the immediate neighborhood heard the sound of axe-strokes. Presently there came a crash, and all was still. Next morning, at the hour for chapel, no bell was ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... beginning life in the average city flat, at a rent of twenty to thirty dollars a month, with its shams, its makeshifts, its depressing, unsanitary, morally unsafe quarters for the maid, its friction with janitor and landlord—the whole sordid round necessitated by the mere manner of ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... hunted the key in the debris at the bottom of the shaft, I quieted his prisoners with the assurance that the lock had slipped, and that they would be free as lords as soon as we could find the janitor with a pass-key. Stuart went down finally and discovered Blobs, with the key in his pocket, telling the engineer how he had tried to save me from arrest and failed. When Stuart came up he was almost cheerful, but Blobs did ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... interested in woman's suffrage, and the debate on this question in the students' society at Edinburgh, when he spoke for an hour and five minutes, is still remembered by the janitor who had to keep the ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... Burris shrugged. "A janitor doesn't work in the office with the men," he said. "He can drink out of a faucet in the broom closet—or wherever the faucets might be. Nobody would notice. ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... from every man in the office, and was in the habit of drinking brandy and soda during hours, and of smoking upon the big leather sofa until the janitor, at dark, shook him to his senses. After this he spent all his time at the Turf and Jockey, for he still kept his name at this unsavory institution; he led much the same life there as at the government office, save that the ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... favorable notice, and that I should do my possible to make you know each other better. If,' he continued, 'the case you have supposed be the fact, I think I can manage this matter, her old janitor to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... standing in front of the janitor's lodge, debating with himself whether it would be best to send in his card and try to interview one of the aides-de-camp, when he heard a girlish voice calling ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... of our churches is a combination of preacher, business manager, and salesman. He is the service department, the finance department and everything but the janitor. The Church is being operated to-day as a college would be operated with one professor, who would be president, treasurer, general manager, and everything else. The Church is being operated to-day as a factory with simply a production man and no ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... public job was the humble position of janitor in the United Brethren Church, and even now his favorite reminiscence is the difficulty he had in making the old wood stove function properly. The thrifty farmers in those days were accustomed to commute part of their dues in cord wood for the ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris
... that during the previous month his janitor, to whom he had delivered a rather muddled lecture on the "brother-hoove man," had come up next day and, on the basis of what had happened the night before, seated himself in the window seat for a cordial and chatty half-hour. Anthony ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... offence and defence. When I got into a passion I was as wild as a fighting cock, and even quiet Ludo could deal hard blows; and I can say the same of most of the "Geheimrathsjoren" and "Knoten." It was not often that any decided success attended the fight, for the janitor or some inhabitant of the house usually interfered and brought it all to an untimely end. I remember still how a fat woman, probably a cook, seized me by the collar and pushed me out into the street, crying: "Fie! fie! such young gentlemen ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman. The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... man, with growing excitement, "he ordered me from his office, and had me put out of the building by the janitor! What do you think of such treatment as that from the 'best papa in ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... toward the crowd. "The smokes are on me tonight. Sorry I can't be here to assist, for they're a distinct advance on your husky old Chancellors. Also, there's a case of fairly good booze downstairs that the janitor is taking care of until you call for it. So long, fellows!" And with a wave of his hat the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... there a principle is involved. If the railroads once got into the way of paying damages for every careless employee, they would soon be bankrupt through blackmail. But here you have a child whose father is a poor janitor and can't afford sickness. And your coachman, I imagine, will be more particular ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... counted currency in the Treasury Department for nine hundred dollars a year; the young student from Wisconsin, who received twelve hundred dollars per annum for his services as a copyist in the General Land Office; the janitor of the Circumlocution Bureau, and the energetic correspondent of the Cranberry Centre Gazette, each and all thought that they should dine at the foreign legations, sup with the members of the Cabinet, and ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... in the midst of my preparations for Easter service. One young man, then Private Thomas C. Butler, who was practicing a difficult solo for the occasion, before the year closed became a Second Lieutenant, having distinguished himself in battle; the janitor, who cared for my singing books, and who was my chief school teacher, Private French Payne, always polite and everywhere efficient, met his death from a Spanish bullet while on the reserve before ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... Sam, who appeared to be a sort of janitor around the place, came back to inform Larry that Sullivan ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... McCarthy. "There isn't a phone in order in this building two floors either way. I've tried 'em—and there hasn't been for twenty minutes. And I can't get a messenger to answer a call; and that ring-tailed, star-spangled ornament of a janitor won't answer his private bell. I'll get him bounced so high the blackbirds will build nests in his ear before he ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... Ludlow, who persisted in her thoughts after several definitive dismissals; and Monday morning she presented herself with some drawings she had chosen as less ridiculous than some of the others, and hovered with a haughty humility at the door of the little office till the janitor asked her if she would not come in and sit down. He had apparently had official experience of cases like hers; he refused without surprise the drawings which she offered him as her credentials, and said the secretary would be in directly. He did not go so far as to declare his own quality, but he ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... some trouble in getting this craft. Charon, through his constant association with life on both sides of the dark river, had gained a knowledge, more or less intimate, of modern business methods, and while as janitor of the club he was subject to the will of the House Committee, and sympathized deeply with the members of the association in their trouble, as president of the Styx Navigation Company he was bound up in certain newly attained commercial ideas which were embarrassing to those members of the association ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... seven o'clock, no fellow could imagine. That the girls were the cause of their being deprived of their regular place for holding business meetings never occurred to them, and the only reason they could assign for this remarkable delay on the part of the janitor was that Deacon Littlefield was ill. They did not really hope that their teacher was sick; but they would have been willing he should be slightly indisposed, if, in such case, they would have ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... teacher said again. "I think I had better call the janitor and have him take care of your monkey for you," and she started ...
— The Story of a Monkey on a Stick • Laura Lee Hope
... boy, with a contemptuous emphasis on the mut. "Dat's the janitor's dog an' he's nottin' but a tramp. I wisht he'd fall in de river an' get et by ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... unhappily. Anyone at all. He could be the janitor that swept out the buildings, one of the guards at the gate, one of the minor technicians on another project, or even some old prospector wandering around the desert with a ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... floors. The cheaper sort, or those which have departed less from the tenement-house original, have no elevators, but the street door in all is kept shut and locked, and is opened only by the tenant's latch-key or by the janitor having charge of the whole building. In the finer houses there is a page whose sole duty it is to open and shut this door, and who is usually brass-buttoned to one blinding effect of livery with the elevator-boy. Where ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... maintain discipline with the other. Dear old man; boys and girls with grandchildren love him to-day, and think of him among their blessings. He was superintendent of public instruction, board of education, school trustee, county superintendent, principal of the high school and janitor. He had a pleasant smile, a genius for mathematics, and a West Point idea of obedience and discipline. He carried upon his person a grip that would make the imported malady which mocks that name in these degenerate ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... your cigar on the ebony janitor of the apartment-house across the way. He has access to the trash-boxes, and could no doubt secure you a ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... chair in my room," continued Bert, as he seated himself. "That's one reason I want to see the janitor, or steward, or whoever the fellow is. I'm going to tell him to put in a decent allowance ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... declare, in a boastful fashion, that his name was not Evans at all. However, he never went farther than this, and since none of us were particularly interested, we were satisfied to call him Evans, or, more often, Bum, for short. He was the second assistant janitor; and whereas, in some establishments, a janitor is a man of power and place, it is not so in a newspaper office. In such institutions, where great men are spoken of irreverently and by their first names, a janitor is a man of no importance. How much less, then, his second assistant. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... noineteen,'" he read slowly. "And is it possible 'tis only th' sivin hundred an' noineteenth of thim I have been gettin'? I w'u'd have said 't was th' forty-sivinth thousand gineral order I have had t' learn and memorize. Wheniver th' prisidint, or th' vice-prisidint, or th' manager, or th' janitor, or th' office-boy at th' head office has nawthin' else t' do they be thinkin' up a new gineral order t' sind t' Flannery. 'What's th' news of th' day?' says th' prisidint. 'Nawthin' doin',' says th' janitor. ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... and sank on the last lines of the old song, and the girls broke into hearty applause, which was startlingly reinforced from the doorway of the lumber cellar. The janitor's sallow face appeared from the gloom and his deep voice ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... was empty, and into it we were ushered by the aged janitor, who regarded us with looks of mute reproach. He was evidently subdued to what he worked in. His world consisted of two classes—criminals and police; and without any further ceremony of trial and sentence, the ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... married now. We couldn't git along somehow. Yes suh, I been right here workin' stiddy for a long time. Been janitor at two or three places same time; was janitor of de senior high school here for twenty-two years, and at de Bank of ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... husband, and nursed him through the fever caused by the tattooing. Happier than Orpheus and Eurydice, the pair returned to earth and taught men to copy the patterns punctured on Mata-ora's face. But, alas! in their joy they forgot to pay to Ku Whata Whata, the mysterious janitor of Hades, Niwa Reka's cloak as fee. So a message was sent up to them that henceforth no man should be permitted to return to earth from the place of darkness. In the age of the heroes not only the realms below ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... vous raconter mon histoire du commencement jusqu'ici: —my father was a native of Sceira in Greece, from whence at an early age he repaired to Pera, where he served as janitor in the hotels of various ambassadors, by whom he was much respected for his fidelity. Amongst others of these gentlemen, he served him of your own nation: this occurred at the time that there was war between England and the Porte. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... seem to be very much interested in the rent. A glance out of the window sufficed to show him that he could see the back of the Montmartre and some of the houses. It took only a minute to hire it, at least conditionally, and a bill to the janitor ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... It's nothing to me, but I've always been sorry for that other Massey kid, though he doesn't know what he missed and is probably a jail-bird or a janitor by this time, not knowing he is heir to one of the ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... a mental note of what I've got to avoid, but I expect they'll slip out sometimes. But about that pan, please! Might the janitor go out and buy it for me? I can't make any Fudge till I get it, and I reck—that is to say, I mean to teach those girls to make Fudge. They've not ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Calhoun Breckenridge," he announced the morning that he began his new duties as janitor of the Adelaide apartments, and he at once gave the tenants to understand that no liberties were to be taken with it. He preferred it all when he was addressed in ordinary conversation, he explained to them, but he had no objections to the title, "Mistah Breckenridge," ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... been trained to follow. That made changes in our staff and a few dismissals. Such action is sure to stir up the wrath of someone, but even with that as a basis, and with all the detective skill I have been able to operate, I must confess I am baffled. This very minute our janitor would be found in his quarters over the stables, for I have phoned him there. And for the past week I have gone over the ground with him personally, he and his wife when they lock up. She is one of the day workers here," ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... merely returning to tell you, Madam," says Steele, "that I had discovered you to be an impostor. Those five children you claimed as yours did not belong to you at all. The janitor of ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... Hayes reflected that the bit about keeping it confidential was on the corny side. Within fifteen minutes he'd start spreading it all over E.H.Q., himself. Every scientist, every lab assistant would know it. Every clerk, every janitor would know it. E.H.Q. would have to work full blast all night long, and some of the lesser personnel had homes down in Yellow Sands at the ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... I should say—finished his front feet, I took him out and let him look at the elevated railroad. Then he came back and hunted up the janitor of the building. He spent the evening in the basement with the engineer. Oh, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... second floor—the one next above. Mrs. Darcy has her rooms in front. Then come those of her maid, Jane Metson. Sallie Page sleeps on the top floor where the janitor's family lives, and he, of course, sleeps ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... money has been placed in their mouths, and their bodies have been duly buried in the world above. Otherwise they are left to gibber on the hither bank. Pluto's house, wide-gated, thronged with guests, has a janitor Kerberos, sometimes friendly, sometimes snarling when new guests arrive, but always hostile to those who would depart. Honey cakes are provided for them that are about to go to Hades—the sop to Cerberus. This dog, nameless and undescribed, Homer mentions simply as the dog of Hades, whom ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
... of his mother's reformed drunkards, who as janitor lived on the top floor of a tall building. He and his wife offered Wayne the hospitality of their balcony, and now and then, in moments like this, he availed himself of it. Not, indeed, that there had ever been a moment quite like this; for he knew ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... grass-hopper was not to be sneezed at; positively no toads, however. How we played in the garden, chasing the elusive sunbeams, rolling over and over, and learning to box and jump! It all came to an end too soon, however, for one day a very neat little girl came in and said that her father, who was janitor in a grammar school, wanted a kitten, because the mice were getting the best ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... clothing and boots immaculate required a sacrifice of breakfast and luncheon—besides, he had various small pensioners to feed, white rabbits with foolish pink eyes, canary birds, cats, albino mice, goldfish, and other collaborateurs in his profession. He was obliged to bribe the janitor, too, because the laws of the house permitted neither animals nor babies within its precincts. This extra honorarium deprived him of tobacco, and ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... boy has dropped a package of eggs on his way up stairs. No he hasn't either, for my ice-box door is open and someone has been stealing my things!" he heard her say, and she hurried down stairs to look for the janitor to tell him that sneak thieves had been ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... with C—'s prolific hum[5], Or rapt amidst the transports of a drum;[6] 30 While the grim porter watches every door, Stern foe to tradesmen, poets, and the poor, The Hesperian dragon not more fierce and fell, Nor the gaunt growling janitor of Hell? Even Atticus (so wills the voice of Fate) Enshrines in clouded majesty his state; Nor to the adoring crowd vouchsafes regard, Though priests adore, and every priest a bard. Shall I then follow with the venal ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... thirty years of age. When he landed at Brockton some twelve years ago he had, according to his own story, a capital of just twelve cents. He found work at first as a coachman. After a time he obtained what he thought was a better position as janitor in the Young Men's Christian Association Building. Some of the members of the association succeeded in getting him a ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... Randy had not yet come upstairs. Neither could resist the temptation to have a little fun, and after supper they had gone outside and begun to snowball Shout Plunger, the school janitor, and Bob Nixon, ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... "swiped" potatoes and other vegetables from hucksters' carts, which they had cooked and eaten in true brigand fashion; they had decorated the interior of the excavation with stolen junk, representing swords and firearms, to their romantic imaginations. The father of the ringleader was a janitor living in a building five miles away in a prosperous portion of the city. The landlord did not want an active boy in the building, and his mother was dead; the janitor paid for the boy's board and lodging to a needy woman living near the viaduct. She conscientiously gave ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... spike, spill, stopcock, tap; rammer[obs3]; ram, ramrod; piston; stop-gap; wadding, stuffing, padding, stopping, dossil[obs3], pledget[obs3], tompion[obs3], tourniquet. cover &c. 223; valve, vent peg, spigot, slide valve. janitor, doorkeeper, porter, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... suddenly whisked away by a singing chorus, but a small dish happened to fall to the floor, in the scurry, and a slave picked it up. Seeing this, Trimalchio ordered that the boy be punished by a box on the ear, and made him throw it down again; a janitor followed with his broom and swept the silver dish away among the litter. Next followed two long-haired Ethiopians, carrying small leather bottles, such as are commonly seen in the hands of those who sprinkle sand in the arena, and poured wine upon our hands, for ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... very paradise of birds) deemed that this happy asylum of the feathered fowls was somewhere at the back of the North Pole. He cannot have known of Kashmir, or he would assuredly have sent the persecuted birds thither, and placed the "Roc's Egg" as janitor, somewhere by the portals of the Jhelum Valley. Kashmir is truly and indeed the paradise of birds, for there no man molests them, and no schoolboy collects eggs, and the result is a fascinating fearlessness, the result of perpetual peace ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... blue spectacles and pale complexion, she appears like a professor of mathematics. C—— and I will also make ourselves unrecognisable and, at eight o'clock, go to the club, and tell the coachman to give the package to the janitor from M. E——. We laughed as we used to do. What amuses me is to see a serious ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... perform through their spontoon, and then marshal the dignitary to the hall of meeting. This ceremony had been performed before the great economist perhaps five hundred times. Nevertheless one day, as he was about to enter the Custom House, the motions of this janitor seem to have attracted his eye without their character or purpose reaching his apprehension, and on a sudden he began to imitate his gestures as a recruit does those of his drill serjeant. The porter having drawn up in front of the door, presented his staff ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... I'd like the little thing here as much as you, Kate, dear," Larry said soothingly, and in her heart Mrs. Donovan knew that he meant it. "But it isn't every day that a man picks up a job like this, janitor of a swell apartmen' buildin', an' if we take in a kid when the lease says plain as can be, no childern, no dogs an' no cats, I'll lose the job an' then how'll I put a roof over your heads an' bread in your stomachs? That's why ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... went home with him—a long half-hour on the trolley, then up three flights into "light housekeeping" rooms in the back. There was cold meat on the table, and bread. The janitor's wife, good soul, had made a pot of coffee. "Light housekeeping" is a literal expression, let me tell you, and doctor's bills make it lighter. I followed him into the last room of the three. It looked different from the way I remembered it the afternoon ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... annoyance left his face, however, and a stare of surprise took its place, when, following upon the footsteps of the janitor, came Constance Wardour, not closely veiled and drooping, after the manner of prison-visiting females in orthodox novels, but with her fair face unconcealed, and her graceful ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... board the Jasper B. was sadly in need of sleep, but Cleggett felt that the earthworks could not wait. He divided his force into two shifts. Cleggett, the three detectives, Jefferson the genial coachman, and Washington Artillery Lamb, the janitor and butler of the house boat Annabel Lee, a negro as large and black as Jefferson himself, took a two-hour trick with the spades and then lay down and slept while Abernethy, Kuroki, Elmer, Calthrop, George the Greek, and Farnsworth dug for an equal length of time. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... saying frequently that the chemism of his nature demanded such fare. Perhaps his most astonishing failing was cats. He had an ineradicable aversion to that domestic animal. It will be remembered that he fainted dead away with sudden fright, while speaking in Brotherhood Palace, when the janitor's cat walked out upon the stage and brushed against ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... don't. You are getting old, and ought not to work so hard. My wife and I have been making inquiries, and we know all about you and your sick wife. How would you like to be janitor in the building ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett
... mammas and little children would have dreamed of confluent smallpox for weeks to come. But we did none of these things in the Philippines. We merely requested the authorities to remove the smallpox patient, and ordered the janitor to scrub the room with soap and water. Nobody quitted school; nobody got the smallpox; and the whole ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... with youth, exuberant spirits, and a New England setness of purpose; one schoolmaster—strong on facing facts and callous to camouflage, and one temperamental cheese man. (It turned out afterward, however, that the janitor could make the best cheese of them all.) Developing a cheese business is a good deal like conducting a love affair—it blows hot and cold in a nerve-racking way. It is "the Public." You never can tell about the Public! Sometimes ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... the population lived on the street. It reminded him of Naples. He was forced to admit, too, that it had a certain charm of its own,—a charm which deepened as he reached "The Chancellor," the bachelor apartment-house which did duty for a home to a score of unmarried men. He was met by the janitor with a cordiality born of the remembrance of many past gratuities. Yes, his telegram ("wire," the man in uniform called it) had been received, and his rooms were in order. He pulled out his latch-key and turned it in the lock. The ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... being logical, made no effort to decorate his domestic poverty. All his belongings were of a simple sort and his room was as bare as a Jesuit's. Moreover, his affairs, being at times highly particular, did not admit of the presence of a janitor in his quarters, and he was of necessity his own janitor. His iron bed was spread with a pair of Pullman blankets, his toilet arrangements included nothing more elaborate than a shaving outfit, and the mirror above his washstand was only large enough ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... at first; but, ultimately finding him a harmless giant, they more than once hurled their sarcasms at his head. Of the many men and women employed there, only one person had the distinction of getting fellowship from old Zelig. That person was the Gentile watchman or janitor of the shop, a little blond Pole with an open mouth and frightened eyes. And many were the witticisms aimed at this uncouth pair. "The big one looks like an elephant," the joker of the shop would say; "only he likes to be fed on pennies ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 'for rent' sign on it. I found out the next day she'd moved a couple of weeks before and had gone to some hotel for the winter because it was impossible to keep any servants while this crime wave is goin' on. The janitor told me she'd had three full sets of servants stole right out from under her nose by female bandits over on Park Avenue. I don't suppose I'll ever have another chance to get even with her. Everything all set to bind and gag her, and maybe rap her over the ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... watched the first of the carts go in, and noticed that the policeman was busily engaged in talking to the leading wagoner, while the second began to pass through the gate. In a moment I jumped alongside it on the side opposite to the janitor, and so passed in and continued to walk with the vehicle as it turned to the right and wound its way round the new building in course ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... printed in the name of Anatole Labergerie, and addressed letters to yourself under that same name at Morris Siegelman's restaurant. I do not know yet where you obtained the car, but I shall know to-morrow—the fact is immaterial now. What is of real importance is the method whereby you humbugged the janitor at Mr. Hunter's office by pretending that you had been sent there by Mr. Labergerie because the car was at liberty somewhat earlier than was expected, and the unfortunate journalist took it as a compliment, drove to his rooms, changed his clothes, and returned to ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... shut her window with a bang of indignation. The color rose to her pale cheeks. She thought that she would go down to see the janitor at once. Then she remembered the seven flights of stairs; and she resolved to see the janitor in the morning. Then she went to bed, and saw the mug drawn back just as it had been drawn back the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the free colored man, who was janitor of the academy, brought in the morning mail, a dozen letters and three or four newspapers, gave it to Dr. Russell and withdrew ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for 4 books, vid., the English laws, Polidorus Virgilius, Zosimus and aliorum Historiae, and Vimesius Theses, etc., 16 shil. st. Given to my wife for sundry uses, 3 dollars. For wine and seck in the Janitor's, 50 shil. To my father's skild nurse by myselfe and my wife given, 2 dollars. For 2 elle and a quarter scarlet ribban fra James Dick, 24 shil. For this paper book wheiron I write thir compts., 6 pence. Given to my wife, 6 pence. For wine in Pentherers, 16 pence. Given to the ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... learns to think for them, as well as for himself. In the city the boy has no chance to give orders—he's under orders, all the time; the traffic cop, the truant officer, the boss in the shop or the office, the street car conductor, the janitor—everybody bosses him and he bosses nothing, except his kid brothers and sisters. So he may come to be half cringer and half bully. The country boy is not likely to be much afraid, and he soon learns that if he tries to boss even the boys without good reason it doesn't pay. Maybe that's ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... boys they are, too. You see," she continued, not averse to prolonging the conversation, "our business is mostly outside. Hear about the sky-scraper we're building in Elwood? Three stories! One of the best little towns in Indiana, all right. Say, the janitor service in this old ark is something I couldn't describe to a gentleman. If there's anything in these microbe fairy stories we'll all die early. You might as well know the worst:—they do light housekeeping on the third floor ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... said I had none which held me. Peninnah cried a good deal when we parted, and this, I think, as I was still young, had a very good effect in strengthening my resolution to do nothing which could get me into trouble. The janitor of the college to which I went directed me to a boarding-house, where I engaged a small third-story room, which I afterwards shared with Mr. Chaucer of Georgia. He pronounced it, as I ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... which made it a misdemeanor for a lessor, or his agent or janitor, intentionally to fail to furnish such water, heat, light, elevator, telephone, or other service as may be required by the terms of the lease and necessary to the proper and customary use of the building, did ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... me to a public school on Greenwich Avenue. The janitor wanted an assistant. I was so weary with my inactivity, that any kind of a job at any kind of pay would have been acceptable. The janitor showed me over the school, told me what his work was. Finally, he took me to the cellar where he had piled up in a corner about ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... shape of a sharp dig in the ribs from the index finger of a young man who demanded to know why Mr. McGraw didn't wake up and pay for his lodging. Bob turned his startled sleepy eyes up at the stranger. He had expected to confront a janitor, but his first glance informed him that he was mistaken. The individual before him evidently was a state employee; but for all that Bob could advance no excuse for his free and easy action in assaulting him with his index finger. No one except the janitor or the night watchman ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... gang of negro stevedores attended to loading and unloading boxes, storing them, counting out articles for issue or receipt, and such other duties as they were called on to perform. There was an old janitor named McGee, a veteran of the Civil War, whose business it was to look after the sweeping and keep ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... was, by the penury of his parents, compelled to be janitor of the high school at Edinburgh; a mean office, of which he did not afterwards delight to hear. But he surmounted the disadvantages of his birth and fortune; for, when the duke of Montrose applied to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... you!" she replied, rising briskly to her feet. "I'm not that sort that sits about and smokes cigarettes with strange young men. If you'll let me know when that work's going to be ready, I'll send the janitor up ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
