"Switch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the first clump of trees Luc le Ganidec would cut a switch, a hazel switch, and begin gently to peel off the bark, thinking meanwhile of the folk at home. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... cart. I led him out into the public road, along which he proceeded without difficulty. He was an opinionated little beast, and sometimes stopped, not liking the peculiar manner in which he was harnessed; but a touch of the switch made him move on, and I soon turned him and brought the wagon back into the yard. This determined the success of my invention in one of its most important uses, and with a satisfied heart I put the donkey into the stable ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... there about eight inches ahead of me, which pleased her mightily. "It takes men so long to get started," was the way she explained her victory. Then she walked me beyond the end of the boarding to explain the workings of a switch to her. That it was only a pretext she proved to me the moment I had ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... but shortly lost sight of the burly figure in the crowd of curious passengers pouring from the hastily opened vestibules. Seen at closer range, the accident appeared to be disastrous only in a material sense. The heavy "Pacific-type" locomotive had stumbled over the tongue of a split switch, leaving the rails and making a blockading barrier of itself across the tracks. Nobody was hurt; but there would be a delay of some hours before the track could ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... at once what the cause of it is, and, as discretion is always the better part of valor, and certainly is counted so among the denizens of the underworld, there were at least a dozen men in that room at the time who leaped for the switch to turn off the lights the instant that Madge ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... has its back to the door, and faces the window. Very right. You have electric light, I see, near the fireplace, and above your bed. Then it is possible to switch on a bright light at any time.... ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... got near the top of the hill, for the ground of the wood goes up in this place steep as a ladder, the wind began to sound straight on, and the leaves to toss and switch open and let in the sun. This suited me better; it was the same noise all the time, and nothing to startle. Well, I had got to a place where there was an underwood of what they call wild cocoanut—mighty pretty with its ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the servant came, chatting and patting the horse; but as soon as Bold had disappeared through the front door, he stuck a switch under the animal's tail to make him ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... was the usual and most solemn expression for asking in marriage; and, by the laws of the land, was binding on the proposer until as formally declined by the other party. But, unluckily, the word "we-switch-it-me-cum" means "Madam, I love you from the crown of my head to the tip of my tail; and, if I did not love another better, it would make me the happiest monikin on earth, if you would consent to become my wife, that we might be models of domestic ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... she was dressing. Prudence went to the door, preternaturally ceremonious, and ushered Mr. Babler into the front room. She turned on the electric switch as she opened the door. She was too much impressed with the solemnity of the occasion to take much note of her surroundings, and she did not observe that the young man sniffed in a peculiar manner ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... thet she'd appear befo' me. She'd seem to come an' hang over my bed-canopy same ez a chandelier, with them side curls all a-jinglin' like cut-glass dangles. It's true, she used mostly to appear with a long peach-switch in her hand, but that was nachel enough, that bein' the way she most gen'ally approached ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... the entrance to the labyrinth. Another five minutes. He was deceived, undoubtedly. She and her sisters were probably waiting for him and laughing at him on the lawn. He ground his heel into the clover, and threw his switch into the thicket. Yet he would give her ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... nothing to this. At last, throwing away the switch he held in his hand, he said, as if speaking to himself, "I don't know whether I have the power." . . . "You don't know! And you wanted me just now to give up my arms! That's good, too," cried Brown; "Suppose ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... and couplers and located one set of these with the Great organ stops, another set with the Swell organ stops and a third with the Choir. He placed in the key slip below each manual what he called a "Pedal Help." When playing on the Great organ, he would, by touching the "Pedal Help," switch into action the group of Pedal stops and coupler knobs located in the Great department, switching out of action all the other groups of Pedal stops and couplers. Upon touching the "Pedal Help" under the Swell organ ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... to me to make a quick play; for he was just ripe to go buttin' around those tracks and run afoul of a switch-engine. And I hated to collar him. Just ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... selling, serving and being served—women. On every floor, in every aisle, at every counter, women. In the vast restaurant, which covers several acres, women. Waiting their turn at the long line of telephone booths, women. Capably busy at the switch boards, women. Down in the basement buying and selling bargains in marked-down summer frocks, women. Up under the roof, posting ledgers, auditing accounts, attending to all the complex bookkeeping of a great ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... but at the entry of the drawing-room, where the talk was buzzing like bees in a lime-tree, he put his hand on the switch, and showed the whites of his eyes. "Shall I dare you to switch it off?" he said to Urquhart, who replied, "Don't, or I shall do it." Lancelot and he entered the room; but before the Judge followed there was a momentary flicker of the lights. Lancelot nudged Urquhart. "He's all right," ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... importantly at the head of a string of round, fluffy, yellow goslings, whilst driving the brood were two little girls—the one a child but little larger than the goose itself, dressed in a red frock, and armed with a switch; and the other one a youngster absolutely of a size with the bird, pale of feature, plump of body, bowed of leg, and ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... back into the radio-telephone cubby, which was a division of the control car. The operator was sprawled there, limp in his seat before the shining, switch-studded panel. Chris removed the head-gear of ear-phones: then he hauled one of the cubby's port-holes open, letting in a rush of cleansing air. His fingers sped quickly over the panel; a row of tubes glowed; the machinery hummed. Chris ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... went along, I turned the case over in my mind, and the case grew stronger and stronger all the time. Before I reached Jack's door I had, satisfied myself that his mother would be shocked at the news and would at once cut a big switch to give ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... antagonism to the man she herself had such cause to dislike was agreeable to her, but the topic was not. She had had enough of the Vivians of this world for one night. She led the way through the dark drawing-room, and at the switch beyond the door turned the light into two soft-tinted dome-lamps. The library was massive rather than "livable"; it had books, which is more than can be said for some libraries; but they were chiefly books in stately sets, yards and yards of them just alike: a depressing matter to the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... more of quiet, then the engine and one car, which went down the mountain each morning to bring back the mail, was derailed at the second switchback and crashed into a forest of big oaks. The car was empty, and the train, being on the second switch, was moving backward. The rear end of the coach was crushed but the engine and engineer ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... not mean to let him escape. In a twinkling I was after him and had him by the collar. He uttered a savage snarl and dropped the lamp on the mat to free his hands; and, as the spring switch was released, the light went out, leaving us in total darkness. Now that he was at bay, he struggled furiously, and I could hear him snorting and cursing as he wriggled in my grasp. I had to drop the concussor that I might hold him with both hands, and it was well that I did, ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... a boy was dull or quite adverse to knowledge, he Was set an imposition or corrected with a switch: Far different our practice is, who reign by Methodology And guide the dunce by precepts learnt from Landon or from Fitch: 'Twas difficult by rule of thumb to check unseemly merriment, To make your class their pastor treat with proper due regard— 'Tis easy ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... door behind him, he went downstairs. There were no signs of life in the house. Everything was still. He found the staircase leading to the gallery without having to switch on the lights. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... always wear galoshes that say "Swish, swish," like lashes through the air—[Christine puts hand against his heart.] Do you hear how my heart beats? It sounds like an ocean steamer. Now, thank Heaven, he's taking his leave with his squeaking galoshes! "Swish, swish," like a switch! Oh, but he wears a watch charm! So he can't be utterly poverty-stricken. They always have watch charms of carnelian, like dried flesh that they have cut out of their neighbors' backs. Listen to the galoshes. "Angry, angrier, angriest, swish, swish." Watch ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... hers do stand, An' never overzet her pail; Nor try to kick her nimble hand, Nor switch her wi' her ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... and not a moment longer than, you are exercising the Christian act of trust, will you be experiencing the Christian blessedness of 'joy and peace.' Unscrew the pipe, and in an instant the water ceases to flow. Touch the button and switch off, and out goes the light. Some Christian people fancy they can live upon past faith. You will get no present joy and peace out of past faith. The rain of this day twelve months will not moisten the parched ground of to-day. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... the fellows said, "Paulus, let me give you a switching with the birch twigs. It is fine; it brings the blood into circulation." One of the boys began to switch my back, and soon I cried, "Enough, enough, enough!" Soon all were switching one another, and the one who had switched me said, "Paulus, give me a good switching—harder than the one I gave you." I thought mine ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... adventure the wanderers conducted their perambulations much more circumspectly, and Ned lost no time in providing his companion and himself with a stout pliant switch, which he had heard or read somewhere is a most effective ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... a little anxious. A snub-nosed, freckle-faced boy came along whistling, and beating the dust of the road with a long switch. ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... Ned Newton's cry, Tom's finger pressed the switch-trigger of the electric rifle, for previous experience had taught him that it was sometimes the best thing to awe the natives in out-of-the-way corners of the earth. But the young inventor quickly elevated the muzzle, and the deadly missile went hissing through the air over the head of a native ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... justice, and turn the hull thing over to the authorities. Old Fussbudget Tom Redmond is jest achin' to make an arrest in this case. He wants to throw the hull Injun reservation in jail, but he'd jest as soon switch to a white person, if confronted with the proper evidence. Now this here letter"—and here Bill took the missive from his pocket—"looks to me like air-tight, iron-bound, copper-riveted sort of testimony that says ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... in the Lord,' therefore only in the measure in which we are 'in the Lord,' shall we be light. Keep near to Him and you will shine; break the connection with Him, and you are darkness, darkness for yourselves, and darkness for the world. Switch off, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... shrouded in darkness, saved only from a cavelike black by diffused street light through the upper windows. A blown fuse. A mis-pulled switch. One of those minor accidents common to electric lighting systems. The orchestra hesitated, went on. From a momentary silence the dancers broke into chuckles, amused laughter, a buzz of exclamatory conversation. But no one moved, lest they ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... medicinal properties. Snuffling children are not loath to swallow sugar pills moistened with the homeopathic tincture of Sambucus. The common European species (S. nigra), a mystic plant, was once employed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to; not only that, but, when used as a switch, it was believed to check a lad's growth. Very likely! Every whittling schoolboy knows how easy it is to remove the white pith from an elder stem. An ancient musical instrument, the sambuca, was doubtless made from many such hollow reed-like ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... tell you, Zonia Rogers was my boss en he wasn' so bad. He whip me a few times when I did things dat I oughtened to do. Sometimes I was pesty en he whip me wid a switch, but he never whip so hard. I tell de truth, Zonia Rogers was a good man. Give his slaves good pole houses to live in up in de quarter. Never had but five slaves to start wid en dat de reason he ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... at the table, turned a switch, and clicked off a message. After a moment the line on the moving tape zigzagged again. Ralph glanced at the zigzags ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... no gravity. He had felt nothing, but he knew that the bombs had exploded. He punched the LAUNCH switch on the control board of the lifeboat, and the little ship leaped out from the side ...
— The Man Who Hated Mars • Gordon Randall Garrett
... The one side of his trough was filled with clean barley and sessems, and the other with rose water; I took him by the bridle, and led him forth to view him by the light; I got on his back, and would have had him move; but he not stirring, I whipped him with a switch I had taken up in his magnificent stable; and he had no sooner felt the stroke, than he began to neigh with a horrible noise, and extending his wings, which I had not seen before, he flew up with me into the air quite out of sight. I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... I could jest git a glimp o' the trees on the fur side o' the parairy. Thur wur a big clump o' cypress, that I could see plain enough; I knew this wur clost to my neighbour's shanty; so I gin my critter the switch, an' struck right ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... "The wire is cut. It wouldn't help matters if it weren't. I thought when I saw your train we might risk sending the engine on alone. But your engine is behind all these loaded cars. No switch. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... the sill, followed by Jimmy. The latter struck a match, and found the electric light switch. They were in a parlor, furnished and decorated with surprising taste. Jimmy had expected the usual hideousness, but here everything from the wall-paper to the smallest ornaments was wonderfully ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... was crackling merrily by the time the servants were seated and Diggs had turned out the ceiling and wall lights from the switch, leaving the big room in semi-darkness. The blazing logs sent a bright, nickering glow into the faces of Mr. Bingle's auditors. He bowed gravely and took up the cherished ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... "We'll switch over and strike San Fernando Road," said Linda, "and I'll scout around Sunland a bit and see if I can find anything that will furnish material for ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the blizzard the foreman had ordered his crew out and upon their hand car driven at a lively rate by the power of the wind they had inspected every switch and car standing on sidings upon their section, to assure themselves that everything was properly safeguarded. While they were slowly "pumping" the hand car homeward, fighting against the force of the ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... He peered through his little glass window and saw that it was Nina. She passed quickly through the dining-room, beyond, towards her bedroom, without stopping to switch on the light. ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... Georgina respected and admired so deeply, Peggy wanted to respect and admire in the same way, but it was puzzling to understand just what it was that Georgina saw in that wooden figure to make her feel so. Accustomed to thinking of it in Bailey's way, as a sea-cook with a doughnut, it was hard to switch around to a point of view that showed it as Hope with a wreath, or to understand how it could help one to be brave ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... so intently about the matter that he began to dawdle. And if there was one thing that the Muley Cow didn't like it was to have to stand still while a slow milker puttered at his work. So she suddenly gave her tail a switch and brought the end of it ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey
... I saw her and noted the look of horror in her eyes, the next I had touched the switch of the electric light, and, save for the faint blue glimmer of the ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... reached the station where we were to pass what we believed to be the last train. Here the switch was not properly adjusted, and Andrews entered the station-house, without asking leave of anybody, took down the keys, and adjusted the switch. This raised some disturbance on the part of those around the station, but it was quieted by telling them the same powder story. After waiting ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... tell you," said David, as he and his cashier were sitting in the rear room of the bank, "how Lawyer Staples come to switch round in that there ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... pipe. When it ceased Mr. Schultz stepped to the marine telegraph; a bell jingled in the bowels of the Narcissus; an instant later all the lights aboard her went out as the first assistant engineer threw off the switch, and silently in the heavy velvet gloom the great vessel slipped out of ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... feel things poking into my back before I landed; I always get the creeps when there's death around, and that last sound had been just that—somebody's last sound. I knew somebody was going to kill me before I could find the switch. Then I stumbled over something, and my hair stood on end. I guess my own yell was pretty horrible. It scared me worse than I was already. But my fingers found the switch somehow, and the light ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... set my face once more for the south. Missing my staff, which I had thrown away in my haste, I cut myself a large hazel switch from a copse by the roadside, promising myself a stouter weapon when I should arrive ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... down and could not make out what it meant. I understood no more about telegraphing than Kaiser, but in visiting Tom Carr during the fall I had learned to know the call for Track's End, which always sounded to me like clicket-ty-click-click, clicket-ty, over and over again till Tom opened the switch and answered. Well, as I stood listening I heard this call for Track's End, clicket-ty-click-click, clicket-ty. Then I saw that the line must have been repaired; but if this were so a train must have come nearly through; otherwise ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... modernization; teledensity of 8.6 main lines per 100 persons is very low domestic: the majority of telephones are in Baku and other industrial centers - about 700 villages still without public telephone service; satellite service connects Baku to a modern switch in its exclave of Naxcivan international: the old Soviet system of cable and microwave is still serviceable; a satellite connection to Turkey enables Baku to reach about 200 additional countries, some of which are directly connected ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... people, that I dare say there was never a one of them could forbear to do as I do-and, it please your fatherhoods, they be tears of joy. Aye, my Lord Archon shall walk the streets (if it be for his ease I mean) with a switch, while the people run after him and pray for him; he shall not wet his foot; they will strew flowers in his way; he shall sit higher in their hearts, and in the judgment of all good men, than the kings that ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... resumed his tinkering on the motorcycle. After a while, with the switch on, he bestrode the thing and started to pump it down the ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... a daring determination, he glanced at his note book for Dede's telephone number, and called for the switch. ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... not turn on the electric switch when she closed her door; the primrose walls reflected the light from the great plate-glass window, with the effect of candle glow. She put the box on a table near the casement and laid the letter aside to lift the lid. The perfume of violets rose in her face like liberated incense. The box was ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... he tuned an instrument and threw on a switch; "Weightman there?" he inquired. "Asleep? Wake him up. This is Curlie Carson. Yes, it's important. No, I'll tell you. Don't bother to wake him now—have him over at the Coffee Shop at five bells. The Coffee Shop. He'll know. Don't ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... cut some switches, and make them behave," he replied. At the first tree he cut himself a long, slender switch from one of the branches, and ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the switch that ignited the powerful steering rockets, and the whine grew louder, unbearably loud. It sang to him, his bitch sang, I had a true wife, but I left her ... ...
— Sound of Terror • Don Berry
... much in his own stall now, and stayed there for some time after Rolf went to resume his place at the peephole. But encouraged by a few minutes of silence, he again reached out, and hastily gulped down a mouthful of the mixture before Rolf shouted and rushed in armed with a switch to punish the thief. Poor Bright, by his efforts to reach the tempting mash, was unwittingly playing the game, for this was proof ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... up all of the morning and half the afternoon of the first day. A dozen or so corporation executives were next on the docket with complaints that their vast facilities were being hamstrung by Baker's sudden switch of R & D funds to less qualified agents. Baker observed that the ones complaining were some of those who had never spent a nickel on genuine research until the Government began buying it. He knew that Landrus had not observed ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... The 'live thing' in the tree was a captive balloon. The box on the ground was a battery. The wire from the battery was connected with a firework bomb, which, when Tuxall pressed the switch, exploded, releasing a flaming 'dropper.' About the time the 'dropper' reached the earth Tuxall lighted up his well-oiled barn. All Harwick, having had its attention attracted by the explosion, and seen the portent ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hallway, walking on a soft green carpet, and turned, obeying the guiding pressure of his arm, into a big square room which sprang into brilliant illumination as he found the switch. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... watch tower at the outer gate were plainly visible, and the twinkling of them reminded Barney of the danger of detection from that quarter. Quickly he recrossed the apartment to the wall-switch that operated the recently installed electric lights, and an instant later the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Winifred reached up and turned the switch of the light hanging above her dressing-table. He appeared just on the rim of the light's circumference, emblazoned from the absence of his watch-chain down to boots neat and sooty brown, but—yes!—split at the toecap. His chest and face were shadowy. Surely he was thin—or was it a trick ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... into my mind," he went on glancing nervously about the room. "Actually tapping my thought-stream so as to switch off the usual current and inject her own. How mad that sounds! I know it, but it's true. It's the only way I can express it. Moreover, while the operation terrified me, the skill with which it was accomplished ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... proved to be engaged in spraying the last of the chemical on the expiring embers of the blaze, and in stamping and beating out the last of the fire. As the light died out, Bob fumbled for and found the switch in the hangar and the electric ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... he gave up the chase. He came panting back to me with his dripping tongue hanging out, and with as innocent a look on his face as one could imagine. I felt that he needed a gentle chastising, but there was nothing lying around wherewith to administer it, and I did not search for the necessary switch. But I wasted no more sympathy on that ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... said he, as he saw her chasing her children with a white birch switch; but at that moment he saw something else that made his heart stand still. The Proudfit baby was scrambling down the bank, just above ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... fraction the revolutions of each screw per minute; here the altimeter, to indicate height; here the air-speed indicator, the compass with reflector, the inclinometer, the motometers—to show the heat in each engine—and there, the switch to throw on the gigantic searchlight, with the little electric wheel to control its direction, as accurately as you would point ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... if you could tell me where my hotel is, officer?" Oliver began. "What hotel?" said the policeman uninterestedly. Oliver noticed with an inane distinctness that he had started to swirl his nightstick as a large blue cat might switch its tail. He wondered if it would be tactful to ask him if he had ever been a drum major. Then he realized that the policeman had asked him a question—courtesy demanded ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... or walk among the fir-woods like one who is beside himself with remorse. To equable, steady-minded Will, this state of matters was intolerable; and he determined, at whatever cost, to bring it to an end. So, one warm summer afternoon, he put on his best clothes, took a thorn switch in his hand, and set out down the valley by the river. As soon as he had taken his determination, he had regained at a bound his customary peace of heart, and he enjoyed the bright weather and the variety of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... earth of the trail. He was drawing a rude map showing direction and locality. At length, when Belllounds nodded as if convinced or now informed, this third member of the party remounted, and seemed to have no more to say. Belllounds pondered sullenly. He snatched a switch from off a bough overhead and flicked his boot and stirrup with it, an action that made his horse restive. Smith leered and spoke derisively, of which speech Columbine heard, "Aw hell!" and "yellow streak," and "no one'd ever," and "son of Bill ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... night the centinel detected an old indian man in attempting to creep into camp in order to pilfer; he allarmed the indian very much by presenting his gun at him; he gave the fellow a few stripes with a switch and sent him off. this fellow is one of a party of six who layed incamped a few hundred yards below us, they departed soon after ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... a window. Bud felt his way to the side of the car, groped to the robe rail, found a heavy, fringed robe, and curtained the window until he could see no thread of light anywhere; after which he ventured to use his flashlight until he had found the switch and turned ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... glance its dizzy din; Beneath that stern regard the chewing-gum Which writhed and squeaked between the teeth is dumb; Obedient to his will the dunce-cap flies To perch upon the brows of the unwise; The supple switch forsakes the parent wood To settle where 'twill do the greatest good, Puissant still, as when of old it strove With Solomon for spitting on the stove Learned Professor, variously great, Guide, guardian, instructor ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... disperse, and the mayor made no serious effort to enforce his authority effectually. There was no collision, however, until a man who had refused to join the strikers attempted to couple some cars, when he was assaulted. An officer of the road who undertook to turn a switch, was also assaulted by one of the mob, who was arrested by the police. His comrades began throwing stones, but the police maintained their hold of their prisoner, and conveyed him to the jail. A crowd then ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... could look directly on the track. Burroughs sat on one side and I on the other. He kept on commenting aloud by way of dictating to his stenographer, who sat behind him, and praise and criticism followed rapidly. I heard him utter in his monotonous way: "Switch misplaced, we will all be in hell in a minute," and then a second afterwards continue: "We jumped the switch and are on the track again. ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... are wearing officers' white cork helmets, but the doctor's is not a success, being ever so much too large for his small head, consequently it had tilted back and found a resting place on his shoulders, covering his ears and the upper part of his already hot face. For a whip he carried a little switch not much longer than his gauntlets, and which would have puzzled the big horse, if struck by it. With it all the little man could not ride, and as his government saddle was evidently intended for a big person, he seemed uncertain as to which was ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... barley and sesame, and the other with rose water. I led the animal into the open air, and then jumped on his back, shaking the reins as I did so, but as he never stirred, I touched him lightly with a switch I had picked up in his stable. No sooner did he feel the stroke, than he spread his wings (which I had not perceived before), and flew up with me straight into the sky. When he had reached a prodigious height, he next darted back to earth, and alighted on the terrace ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... you praise him. His habit of falling under the table is middling old-fashioned; but she may like him the better, or she may cure him. Whatever she is as a woman, she was a very nice girl to enliven the atmosphere of the switch. I sometimes look at a portrait I have of J. R., which, I fancy, Mrs. William Bulsted has no right to demand of me; but supposing her husband thinks he has, why then I must consult my brother officers. We want a war, old Richie, and I wish you were sitting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... flush that told she had heard the cheer for "his red rose," she waved her handkerchief to him. With eager hands he tore the fastening of a fantastically-shaped little nugget that hung on his watch-chain and flung it towards her. He saw her stoop to pick it up. Then the train swept on past a switch-house and he saw her no more, save in the picture gallery of his memory stored with priceless paintings of the face he loved; and in the little photo that he conned till his ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... of disease, every one of which advertised itself by the stopping of her milk, When she had none, she never once gave down the milk without grudging it. With three of us to hold her legs and tail lest she step in the pail or switch our ears, she would reach back and eat the vest off my back where I sat milking her. But she does not belong in this story, thank goodness! If she had never belonged to me or mine, I should be a better man to-day; she provoked me so. However, I cannot reasonably lay the blame ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... briefly upon a sheet of paper. Then, getting up stiffly, he took the portrait and moved woodenly across the room to a furnace. As though enshrining it he placed the plastic block upon a refractory between the electrodes and threw a switch. After the flaming arc had done its work he turned and handed the paper to a tall man, dressed in plain gray leather, who had been watching him with quiet, understanding eyes. Significant enough to the initiated of the importance ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... saw Calhoun make certain gestures which presaged discomfort. He popped back into his cubbyhole. Calhoun threw the overdrive switch and the Med Ship flicked back into that questionable state of being in which velocities of hundreds of times that of light are possible. The sensation of going into overdrive was unpleasant. A moment later, the sensation of coming out was no less so. Calhoun had experienced ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... intervals to Dodd, who, with stoical imperturbability, was riding quietly in advance: "Dodd! oh, Dodd! haven't we got most to that con-found-ed Malqua yet?" Dodd would strike his horse a sharp blow with a willow switch, turn half round in his saddle, and reply, with a quizzical smile, that we were "not most there yet, but would be soon!"—an equivocal sort of consolation which did not inspire us with much enthusiasm. At last, when it had ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... magnet now, drawing everything to its mouth. Gangs of men swarmed up the side of the hill; stumbling, falling; picking themselves up only to stumble and fall again. Down the railroad tracks swept a repair squad who had been straightening a switch, their foreman in the lead. From out of the cabins bareheaded ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a good-looking child, and so spirited, that I decided to take him; but he turns out to be too spirited. Nothing that I can do will tame him,—oh, that won't do it," said Yoosoof, observing that Marizano raised the switch he carried in his hand with a significant action; "I have beaten him till there is scarcely a sound inch of skin on his whole body, but it's of no use. Ho! stand up," called Yoosoof, letting the lash of his whip fall ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... know, Mr. Thrasher, with a vengeance, that people's bones are not to be broken for nothing! Though I am but a servant, yet I am a man of honour. After having been in your service for four years you shall not pay me with a switch, nor affront me in so sensible a part as my shoulders! I tell you once more, I shall find a way to be revenged! You are in love with a certain slave, you would fain induce me to get her for you, but I will manage matters so that somebody else shall ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... switch himself from one subject to another as easily as a monkey leaps from tree to tree, and when once he had made the leap no persuasion could ever induce him to return. Olga knew this, and abandoned ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... gave, my dear! "A snake! a snake! oh, a snake!" And everybody began talking at once, and some of the gentlemen swearing, and the porter came running with the poker to kill it; and all the while it was that ridiculous switch of mine, that had worked out of my pocket. And glad enough I was to grab it up before anybody saw it, and say I must ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... arrived at this conclusion just as he turned the switch of the electric light inside his door, and in the first flash of the carbon film he saw her sitting beside the window in such a chair as she had taken and in the very pose which she had kept in the parlor. Her half-averted face was lit as from ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... wis nought of the inwards thereof," said Esdras, pulling a switch from the hedge. "Some saith one thing, and some another. But they saith she'll go to ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... evidently as great as her fear of ridicule seemed small. When the brute stopped, she began striking him in the flank with her bare heel, without looking around, and as he paid no attention to such painless goading, she turned with sudden impatience and lifted a switch above his shoulders. The stick was arrested in mid-air when she saw Clayton, and then dropped harmlessly. The quick fire in her eyes died suddenly away, and for a moment the two looked at each other with mutual curiosity, but only for a moment. There ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... should jess accidentally happen to happen, which I hope it won't, to be sho', that I should happen to sort o' absent-mindedly yell out 'Go!' like as if a hornet had stabbed me, you jess come down with that switch, and make the critter under you run like a scared dog, as ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... thou poor old wither'd witch, Or dread the scourge's echoing blow!" Then loud he sung and wav'd his switch, "Hark forward, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... his pocket, and followed his luggage up to his room, which was a perfect example of its kind, containing the irreducible minimum of furniture an hotel guest could require, and having, as its sole wall decoration, a notice imploring you to switch out the electric light when you did not actually require it. He was disappointed, though not annoyed. The excuses appeared genuine, if rather inadequate and he never suspected that May had spent the afternoon in a distressing state of anxiety lest he should change his ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... common which they might stray over in search of grass. While the cattle of the inhabitants of the commune might wander hither and thither in search of the sweetest herbage, the deepest shade, or the coolest pool in which to stand on the hot days, and lazily switch their dappled sides, the Cagot sheep and pig had to learn imaginary bounds, beyond which if they strayed, any one might snap them up, and kill them, reserving a part of the flesh for his own use, but graciously restoring the inferior parts to their original owner. Any damage done by the ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell
... discovered by the inmates of the hacienda, Bill Conway proceeded boldly to the barn. Just inside the main building which, in more prosperous times on El Palomar, had been used for storing hay, the touring car stood. Conway fumbled along the instrument board and discovered the switch key still in the lock, so he turned on the headlights and discovered the limousine thirty feet away in the rear of the barn. Ten minutes later, with the spark plugs from both cars carefully secreted under a pile of ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... crops here, a little like potatoes, which suggest partridges. I am told there are quail; some day I must come back to see for myself.[28] There are deer about, for two heads came on board, like our red deer, but with only a brow antler, and a well-curved single switch above that—some fellow sending them to be set up for home? I begin to feel awfully sorry I did not bring up gun and rifles and fishing tackle, especially as there's any amount of space ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... twenty-four hours later the open switch left unguarded by a drunken laborer had sent a thundering special crashing into Hugh ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... Very soon she suspected that there was foul play: all modes of doctoring dice had been made familiar to her by the experience of camps. She watched; and, by the time she had lost her final coin, she was satisfied that she had been plundered. In her first anger she would have been glad to switch the whole dozen across the eyes; but, as twelve to one were too great odds, she determined on limiting her vengeance to the immediate culprit. Him she followed into the street; and coming near enough ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... gliding angle naturally. Anyway, I didn't know this, and in April (I think) in some trepidation I got over that step in my progress. I confess that I went four times round Brooklands with my hand on the switch before I could make up my mind to do the deed, and of course when I did so, I found there was nothing in it, and realized the delight of coming down without the noise of the engine in my ears. So much for learning ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... "knobkerries," the knobbed sticks which they alone are permitted to carry officially in their hands. The native loves a stick, and as he is forbidden to carry either an assegai—which is a very formidable weapon indeed—or even a knobkerry, only one degree less dangerous, he consoles himself with a wand or switch in case of coming across a snake. You never see a Kafir without something of the sort in his hand: if he is not twirling a light stick, then he has a sort of rude reed pipe from which he extracts sharp and tuneless sounds. As a race, the Kafirs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... seed Massa Tom whoop nobody. I seen Miss Liza Jane turn up the little children's dresses and whoop 'em with a little switch, and straws, and her hand. She 'most blister you wid her bare hand. Plenty things we done to get whoopin's. We leave the gates open; we'd run the calves and try to ride 'em; we'd chunk at the geese. One thing that ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... more elderberry wine. "When I think what that man has done just out of water, it makes me gasp. I switch on the light and don't trim any more lamp wicks, and the well's gone dry and I don't care, and Mr. Filmer told me last night there are eight thousand more people in St. Mary's. ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... throwing its slender beam in widening arcs over the ground. The light revealed a stubble field. Surely there must be a path which would lead to the road, thought the boy. Backward and forward over the field he waved the light. His hands trembled so that he could not hold the switch steady, and the lamp blinked on ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... point of view," shrilly returned Mr. Follet, "and that's the point of view of man's rights. Why, it won't be long till a man can't milk his own cow without the government standing round to watch her switch her tail and tell him how to do it,—all ready to grab the money if he sells a ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... hurled the service record at the gray metal wall across from him; then he got up, brought the record back to his desk, smoothing the pages. There were tears in his eyes. He flipped a switch on his desk, dictated the notification to Central Secretarial, ordered it sent out priority. Then he went groundside and got drunk on Hochar Brandy, ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... switch for record ... in the park last Wednesday ... and perhaps a different set of ... poor kid never makes any sense in ... trees and leaves all sunny with the ... electronic components of the reducing stage might be ... not as predictable ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... time we had completed a thorough inspection of the vessel and its machinery, and overhauled the stores to make sure that everything requisite was on board, it had become nearly dark, so, moving a switch, M'Allister swung open the great doors at the end of the shed. The vessel was standing upon a low trolley having many wheels running on rails, with a small electric motor beneath it, and, upon M'Allister ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... separate drum, was connected from the engine switch to the copper thread that curled through the glass wall to my telegraphic key. We strapped the mouthpieces of the breathing tubes over our heads, and Browne started the slow turning of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... to switch off all lights before attempting to open or close a window, if this necessitates drawing ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... judgment with him, and if you set an expert rider on his back, you shall see how sensible they will talk together, as master and scholar. When he shall be no sooner mounted and planted in the seat, with the reins in one hand, a switch in the other, and speaking with his spurs in the horse's flanks, a language he well understands, but he shall prance, curvet, and dance the canaries half an hour together in compass of a bushel, and yet still, as he thinks, get some ground, shaking the goodly plume ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... before he strikes. Walk with an eye in the back of your head. Sleep with it open, Don't sit at windows after lamps are lit—not without curtains all down. Play all your cards close." The red-coat spoke casually, slapping his boot with a small riding-switch. He was smiling. None the less Tom knew he ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... mess of chickens that eat all day long and don't lay an egg as far as I could see, besides a sow and a litter of six pigs that squeal worse than the the switch-engine down yonder in the ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... at those peaks down there! Like great knives. I don't seem to be falling as fast as I expected though. Almost seem to be floating. Let's switch on the radio and tell the world hello. Hello, earth ... hello, again ... and ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... reflexively. His trembling hand darted up to an overhead switch, pulled it. He grasped the control bars and dropped the heels of his hands heavily on the firing studs. From somewhere came a muted roar, a whispering; a subjective suggestion of the ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... on it this afternoon, and I had to switch him off, for I didn't care to own that it ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... and said, "I've been in this team for three or four years, I'm too lazy to switch now Besides, I've always wanted to be a corrupt politician. Can I be treasurer in this El ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... called to, pulled out the switch, thus stopping the motor, and the boat drifted about on the slowly ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... belonging to this head were sheathed in a pair of monstrous boots, technically called 'field-pieces,' which, descending rather too low, were well plaistered with flesh-coloured mud. More, perhaps, in compliance with the established rule, than for any visible use, a switch was in the rider's hand; for to attribute to such a horse, under such a load, any power to have quitted a pace that must have satisfied the most rigorous police in Poland, was obviously too romantic. Depending from his side, and almost touching the ground, rattled an enormous back-sword, which suggested ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Lorraine, the President of the Mignons, but the exaggerated protuberances he met so unexpectedly on all sides, appealed to his sense of humor, or some other sense which I would hate to name. Anyhow, he ran into the garden and cut himself a switch. And ever since then his chief amusement is to switch scrubbing percherons. If he succeeds in dealing one a blow unforeseen by lying in wait for her, or coming upon her all of a sudden, he is particularly satisfied with his day's work and ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... the door of his cabin and felt for the switch of the electric light. But he did not press it when he found it. Something made him change his mind. The faint light of stars upon rippling water came to him through the open porthole, and he shut himself in and stepped forward to the couch ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... the simple life next to Nature's heart," said Bill, unexpectedly. "You hitch a big hollow needle onto an electric light current. When she gets hot enough you punch a hole with her in the bottom of the bottle. Then you throw the switch and let the needle cool off. When she's cool you pour out the real thing for your own use—mebbe. Then you stick in your forty-cent-a-gallon squirrel poison. Heat up your needle again. Draw her out very ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... reactions that were the strangest. He had his switch blade out, and was tossing it expertly against a wall two-by-four, in which it stuck quivering each time. This seemed his one skill, his pride, his proof of manhood. And he wanted to get into space like nobody else around, except maybe Gimp Hines. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... filling her life in Agra, how it had all been, for these two, a dream and a vision. There is a place below the bridge there, where the cattle come down from the waste pastures across the yellow sands to drink and stand in the low water of the Jumna, to stand and switch their tails while their herdsmen on the bank coax them back with 'Ari!' 'Ari!' 'Ari!' long and high, faint and musical; and the minarets of Akbar's fort rise beyond against the throbbing sky and the sun fills it all. This place ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... came in for the tray and he asked her to switch off the light. He lay for hours, open-eyed, in the gloom, while wraithlike memories materialized and vanished as mysteriously. Somehow the incidents of his life nearest in point of time seemed the remotest. Only his youth lay within easy reach, and his childhood nearest of all. He was ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... not thinking about them, than you can expect the most succulent or most nutritive food to nourish you if you do not eat it. As long as Christ and His grace are present in our hearts and minds by thought, so long, and not one moment longer, do they minister to us the joy of the Lord. You switch off from the main current, and out go all the lights, and when you switch off from Christ out goes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... houses." The captain said: "First, carry a bag to mine." So they took the rabbit to load it, and after they had put the bags on it, the rabbit could not move and one of the thieves struck it on the haunch with a switch. Then the rabbit ran away instantly. The thieves went in great anger to Uncle Capriano and said: "Did you have the boldness to play such a trick on us, to sell us a rabbit that could not stir when we put a few bags of money on it?" "But, gentlemen," said the old man, "did ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane |
