"A couple of" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... definite shape. He had engaged passage on a steamer sailing for Halifax early the next morning; and there was nothing for him to do before going on board but to pack his clothes and tear up a few letters. He threw his clothes into a couple of portmanteaux, and when these had been called for by an expressman he emptied his pockets and counted up his ready money. He found that he possessed just fifty dollars and seventy-five cents; but his passage to Halifax was paid, and once there ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... hostess did not know it) who, she whispered to me, had come over, from wherever it was (she did not seem to be very sure) principally to make my acquaintance. Half through the evening, and by accident, I discovered my mistake, but judged it too late to say anything then. I met a couple of people I knew, had a little supper with them, and came away. The next afternoon I met my right hostess—the lady who should have been my hostess. She thanked me effusively for having sacrificed the previous evening to her and her friends; ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... Facing the Maidan for a couple of miles is the Chowringhee, one of the famous streets of the world, once a row of palatial residences, but now given up almost entirely to hotels, clubs and shops. Upon this street lived Warren Hastings in a stone palace, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... the room. Here the flood was dammed, very appropriately, by two large, pink-tinted seashells. In one corner stood a high, old-fashioned chest of drawers, covered with a white cloth worked in red to match the "Sweet Dreams" on the pillows. It held a small looking-glass flanked by a couple of china figures; a gay Red Riding-Hood, with a pink wolf, set primly opposite a striped Bo-peep and a sky-blue lamb. There were pebbles and shells and pieces of coral, and baskets of beadwork, and many other ornaments dear to Miss Arabella's heart. She closed the ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... soon returned, bearing the same in a fresh cabbage-leaf, where it coyly embraced a rasher of ham. Melodious sounds were not long in rising from the frying-pan on the fire, or in seeming, as the firelight danced in the mellow halls of a couple of full bottles on the table, to play ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... whit,' the Baronet answered quietly, and, bending forward, he whispered a few words into the man's ear, which caused him to spring from his seat and take a couple of quick strides forward, as though to escape from ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... certainly! During the first days after my wife had gone, I lay helpless on a sofa and did nothing but long for her. It was as if she had taken away my crutches with her, so that I couldn't move from the spot. When I had slept a couple of days, I seemed to come to, and began to pull myself together. My head calmed down after having been working feverishly. Old thoughts from days gone by bobbed up again. The desire to work and the instinct for creation came back. My eyes recovered their faculty of ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... My lecture grew—first into a couple of magazine articles, and then into a little book called The Warfare of Science, for which, when republished in England, Prof. John Tyndall wrote ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... a couple of compositions treated in a graver manner, as characteristic too as the other. We call attention to the comical look of poor Teague, who has been pursued and beaten by the witch's stick, in order to point out also the singular neatness ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... through, just as with a thoroughbred Yorkshire suckling pig. It was precisely he with whom Jennka during the past winter had played either at maternal relations, or at dolls; and thrust upon him a little apple or a couple of bon-bons on his way, when he would be going away from the house of ill repute, squirming ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... After a couple of hours they went back to lunch, and found their father had just come back from the mills. He greeted George in a friendly ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... fitted to strengthen that expectation. Thus in crystallizations the effect is transmitted from particle to particle; and in this manner, in acetic acid or freezing water a crystal a few inches or even a couple of feet in length will form in less than a second, but progressively and by a transmission of power from particle to particle. And, as far as I remember, no case of polar action, or partaking of polar action, except the ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... those stretches of brown earth, those half-finished walks and straggling pigmy shrubs, give the place a crude and embryonic appearance. One thinks that the designers might have done more in the way of variety; there are no conifers excepting a few cryptomerias and yews which will all be dead in a couple of years, and as for those yuccas, beloved of Italian municipalities, they will have grown more dyspeptic-looking than ever. None the less, the garden will be a pleasant spot when the ilex shall have grown higher; even now it is the favourite evening ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... seated throng Lorne could pick out the fine head of his father, and his mother's face, bright with anticipation, beside. Advena was there, too, and Stella; and the boys would have a perch, not too conspicuous, somewhere in the gallery. Dr Drummond was in the second row, and a couple of strange ladies with him: he was chuckling with uncommon humour at some remark of the younger one when Lorne noted him. Old Sandy MacQuhot was in a good place; had been since six o'clock, and Peter Macfarlane, too, for that matter, though ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... be satisfied by a History of Portugal? If you refuse to take the business at once, they will sell me up, and quite right too. Understand your choice. There's Mr. Goren has promised to have you in London a couple of months, and teach you what he can. He is a kind friend. Would any of your gentlemen acquaintance do the like for you? Understand your choice. You will be a beggar—the son of a rogue—or an honest man who has cleared his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stored in this manner. The land also escapes being poached, as the turnips are carted in frost, and at a time when the other operations of the farm are not pressing. A foot of earth will keep them safe, and they are easily covered by taking a couple of furrows with a pair of horses on each side of ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... And now, Grumbkow, tell him, for the account of the Prince of Wales—that I'm planning to build a couple of new gates in Berlin, but for the present he'll have to put up with the old ones through which to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... changed, the sun shone out hot, but the mistral tore over the country cold and sharp as a double-edged sword. Poor Calpurnia could not stand it. She shivered and coughed, lost appetite and spirits. Next came the tidings of the battle at Les Milles, and a couple of days later of the extermination of the enemy at Pourrieres. Now the refugees might in safety descend from their rocky refuges, and return to ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... them showed the least compassion, but I saw the tears run down plentifully on the cheeks of a Frenchman who sat behind." The tortures were continued until the evening of what Gyles might well call "a very tedious day." Finally a couple of Indians threw the two wretched men out of the big wigwam, where they had been tormented; they crawled away on their hands and knees and were scarcely able to walk for ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... up a couple of chairs to one of the tables of a wine-shop close by, and shouted to the waiter with the vigour of persons going to the dogs. Here, behind the horizontal-headed trees that dotted this part of the quay, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... really to reflect the purity of Euphemia's pious opinion. There had been nothing especially to admire in the state of mind in which he left Paris—a settled resolve to marry a young person whose charms might or might not justify his sister's account of them, but who was mistress, at the worst, of a couple of hundred thousand francs a year. He had not counted out sentiment—if she pleased him so much the better; but he had left a meagre margin for it and would hardly have admitted that so excellent a match could be improved by it. He was a robust and ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... a little incredulous exclamation, she hastened on. "Really she does, her whole chin, with a razor, every morning. I found it out a couple of days ago. I guess she'd have a regular beard if she didn't. You've noticed how kind of hairy her chin is, haven't you? I found a little safety razor ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... he, however, that though he tried once and yet again, he found it impossible to settle himself down to work till he had taken a couple of glasses of sherry from the decanter in the cupboard. Even as he did so he wondered if the shadow of the sword disturbed him so much, how he would be affected if it ever was his lot to face the ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... of freedom, except for the fact that all had to do work on the land of the chief manse. There is no need to trouble with the different classes, for in practice there was very little difference between them, and in a couple of centuries they were all merged into one common class of medieval villeins. The most important people were those called coloni, who were personally free (that is to say, counted as free men by the ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... A couple of hours rest, and having taken the ship in tow, we again proceeded, and at about seven o'clock on the morning of the 2d of July passed the "Sophia," and shortly afterwards, the "Lady Franklin." Alas! poor Penny, he had a light contrary wind to ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... his blood, for he was curiously lighthearted. He let himself in with a latchkey and entered his study for a moment or two, intending to dress early and dine at his club. On his writing-table were several letters, a couple of cards, and an orange-coloured envelope. He took the latter into his fingers, hesitated for a moment, and ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... labour they took me, tied my leg-ropes to a tree, undid my arms, and put the hateful flint in my left hand. Then they lay down and pelted me with fallen fruit and stones, but seldom hit me. If I could have freed my legs, and got hold of a stick I spied a couple of yards from me, I would have fallen upon all six of them! "But the Little Ones will come at night!" I said to ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... London. It is true that it was impossible to know what was actually said and done; but that there was something doing concerning which Leicester was not to be informed was certain. Grafigni, during one of his visits to the obedient provinces, brought a brace of greyhounds and a couple of horses from England, as a present to Alexander, and he perpetually went about, bragging to every one of important negotiations which he was conducting, and of his intimacy with great personages in both countries. Leicester, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... at him. "We're giving you this job, Fred, because you're more up on it than anyone else. You're in at the beginning, so to speak. Now, do you want me to assign you a couple of assistants?" ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... soon got better," the little man broke in, "and the pain gradually eased off. In a couple of days he went on working again, but of course he couldn't write. He joked about it. He seemed to like thinking he was in a sort of way in the firing line, as though ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... I kicked it out straight upon my floor, it was a strange and not unhandsome article of furniture—it would do nicely for the mess-room on the Carolina, and if any representatives of yonder poor old fellow turned up tomorrow, why, I would give them a couple of dollars for it. Little did I guess how dear it would be at ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... above the rattle of the train. "There was a lot of talk in the papers about Jellicoe and Beatty and the Grand Fleet and the Battle Cruisers, but they didn't come our way and we didn't trouble them. We had a couple of score of trawlers and drifters and four hundred simple fishermen to cram the fear of the Lord ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... Hendrick and Katruen are seen engaged in the exhilarating sport of attempting the capture of a couple of hogs. ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... some vision, while the rest of us—! He's got a lot of us working now, Lily. We are on the right trail, too, although we lost some records last night that put us back a couple of months. We'll get them, all right. We'll smash their little revolution into a cocked hat." It occurred to him, then, that this house was a poor place for such a confidence. "I'll tell you about it later. Get your things now, and ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... close to the village of Bakwini. It is built on a ridge of loose red soil, which produces great crops of mapira and ground-nuts; many magnificent mosibe-trees stand near the village. Machimisi, the headman of the village, possesses a herd of cattle and a large heart; he kept us company for a couple of days to ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... to which I belonged soldiered alongside a couple of troops of the 9th Cavalry, a black regiment, up in the Sioux country eight or nine years ago. We were performing chain guard, hemming-in duty, and it was our chief business to prevent the savages from straying from the reservation. We weren't under instructions ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... and said he was partly paralyzed from an accident. Just then, the eastern train blew for T——. He said he wanted some cigars or a pipe, as he had lost his own on the way, and wondered if he would have time to go out and buy some. I told him no; but that he could have a couple of cigars from my box. He thanked me, and took two, laying down a silver dime on top of the box. He put his hand in the inside pocket of his coat, and pulled out an empty envelope, twisted it, lit it by the coal fire in the grate, and lighted his ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... II. A couple of artillery founders are very much needed here, because of the artillery cast in the islands—sometimes by Indians, and sometimes by Chinese—besides the great cost and delay, not even one piece out of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... increased secretion of perspirable matter, or other evacuations. And hence it occurs in hot fits of fever, and after taking much wine, opium, spice, salt, or other drugs of the Art. incitantia or secernentia. The thirst, which occurs about three hours after eating a couple of red herrings, to a person unaccustomed to salted meat, is of this kind; the increased action of the cutaneous vessels dissipates so much of our fluids by insensible perspiration, as to require above two quarts of water to restore the fluidity of the blood, and to wash the salt out of the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the far side of the first break of Deception Pass. There's a great round valley over there, an' no ridges or piles of rocks to aid these stampeders. The rains are due. We'll hev plenty of water fer a while. An' we can hold thet herd from anybody except Oldrin'. I come in fer supplies. I'll pack a couple of burros an' ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... returned Bessie, and she went quickly through the little waiting-room. A young man in knickerbockers, with a couple of large sporting dogs, was talking to the station-master, and looked after her as she passed; but Bessie did not notice him particularly; her eyes were fixed on the road, and on a pony-carriage drawn ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... limited to narcotising the nerves. The disease continues, the damage goes on, but the faithful sentinels are put to sleep. These headache powders so increased the deaths from heart failure in New York City a couple of years ago that it became necessary to warn ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... in asking, your Honour," returned the seaman, crushing the hat he held between two hands that had a gripe like a couple of vices, "and so I hope there is none in answering. I pulled an oar in the boat after the old man this morning, and I cannot say I like the manner in which he got from the chase. Then, there is something in the ship to leeward that comes athwart my fancy like a drag, and I confess, your Honour, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... a little scratch, old man," said Will soberly. "If it had hit you more directly, you'd have been in for a pretty long siege. As it is, I'm afraid you'll have to lie low for a week or so. Here we are. Now, just a couple of steps, old fellow—" ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... into his head that Manderson had been receiving threatening letters, and that the murder was the outcome of that. But there's no trace of any such thing; and we looked at every blessed paper. The only unusual things we found were some packets of bank-notes to a very considerable amount, and a couple of little bags of unset diamonds. I asked Mr. Bunner to put them in a safer place. It appears that Manderson had begun buying diamonds lately as a speculation—it was a new game to him, the secretary said, and it seemed ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... Wahoo couldn't make the trip with the new fuel; she'd been one of the early survey ships before they turned her into a freighter. But she was meant for a crew of maybe six, on trips of a couple of months. There were no game rooms, no lounges, no bar or library—nothing but what had to be. The only thing left for most of us aboard was to develop our hatreds of the petty faults of the others. Even with ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... ten million sterling, which was amply sufficient to allow him to wreak his will on his fellow-countrymen. Exasperated to the pitch of despair by this new development, the Central and Southern provinces, after a couple of months' vain argument, began openly to arm. On the 10th July in Kiangse province on the river Yangtsze the Northern garrisons were fired upon from the Hukow forts by the provincial troops under General Li Lieh-chun and ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... her acquaintance, gave me the drover's account of the matter, which will be better in his words than mine. It seems he brought quite a herd of milch cows down to Avondale, which is twenty miles from Hanerford, and hearing that Grandfather wanted a couple of cows, he came to "trade with him," as he expressed it. He had two beautiful Ayrshires in the lot,—clean heads, shining skins, and good milkers,—that mightily pleased the old gentleman's fancy; for he had long brooded over his favorite scheme of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... scale is obliged to speak English. So is the Creole in Louisiana; so earlier were the Knickerbocker Dutch in New York. Once let English get in, and it beats all competing languages fairly out of the field in a couple of generations. ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... been in the Yukon. One could not fish from the opposite shore—there was no room for a back cast, and the current was too deep and swift for wading—and on the shore where the salmon were there was no place to stand. If I had had a couple of good Indians, I might have dropped down to the head of the swift water and fished, while they held the canoe with poles braced on the bottom; but I had no two good Indians, and the one I did have was unwilling to take the risk. So we went hungry, almost within sight ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... five people at him - Lafaele and Savea, very strong men, Lloyd, I and Arrick, and the struggle lasted until 1 A.M. before we had him bound. One detail for a specimen: Lloyd and I had charge of one leg, we were both sitting on it, and lo! we were both tossed into the air - I, I daresay, a couple of feet. At last we had him spread-eagled to the iron bedstead, by his wrists and ankles, with matted rope; a most inhumane business, but what could we do? it was all we could do to manage it even so. ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is claimed, to memorise it. In this poem we find there are four stanzas, each occupied with a different kind of bell. To help remember that the order of the bells is silver, gold, brass and iron, the old Mnemonics advises us to invent a story—the following will answer: A couple of lovers once took a sleigh-ride, the horses carrying silver bells. After a time they marry, when wedding or golden bells are used. Later on their house is on fire, when alarm or brazen bells are brought into ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... that the keen Frenchwoman, who had in her long life exhausted every adroitness, was in a manner helpless and coerced, obliging all in spite of herself. Her young friend had taken but a few days and a couple of visits to become a successful force; she had imposed herself, and Madame Carre, while she laughed—yet looked terrible too, with such high artifices of eye and gesture—was reduced to the last line of defence; that of pronouncing her coarse and clumsy, saying she might knock ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... late to avert the punishment. Dan had taken his whipping and was sitting on a footstool in the library, facing the Major and a couple of the Major's cronies. His face wore an expression in which there was more resentment than resignation; for, though he took blows doggedly, he bore the memory of them long after the smart had ceased—long, indeed, after light-handed ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... me towards her by both hands, 'you haven't been long about this affair, child! You did not know such a person was in existence a couple of months ago. And it isn't ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... A couple of miles from our house there, where loose earth lies on the hill, and a few scattered trees give a shelter, stood the little church; a silver lamp hung in ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... friend," wrote Orlowski to Kosciuszko during the winter of 1790, chaffing him on the untiring activity that he displayed at his post: "I hear from everybody that you don't sit still in any place for a couple of hours, and that you only roam about like a Tartar, not settling anywhere. However, I approve of that. It is evident that you mean to maintain your regiment in the discipline and regularity of military service. ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... have a couple of horses down here. Bring half a dozen more if you like, and we'll find room for 'em. There's stabling in this place for a dozen horses; and unless Nickits is belied, he kept the full number. A round dozen of ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Lord's Prayer. Greatly agitated, and groping about for a way out of his plight, he said finally that everything was as he had first related, only the tobacco-dealer had paid him not with a gold-piece but a couple of silver coins. He repeated his confession before the magistrate, who had been summoned despite ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... a hurry. I am going to take my time. Well, I've been there this six weeks, doing all sorts of things, you know taking your place, Ellen don't you wish you was back in it? Well, a couple of weeks since, Mrs. Van took it into her head she would have up the waggon, and go to Thirlwall, to get herself some things a queer start for her; but, at any rate, Van Brunt brought up the waggon, and in she got, and off they went. Now, she meant, you must know, that I should be fast in ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... out of patience to have his eyes bothering him just when he was so anxious to work. What in the world was the matter with them, he wondered, as he directed a couple of students on some work they were helping him with. It seemed that yesterday afternoon he had taken a new start; now he was eager to work things out while he felt like this. This was a very inopportune time for a cold, or whatever it was, to settle in ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... that a wind, having a velocity of forty feet per second, is strong enough to raise particles of sand as high as the face and eyes of a man, but that, in general, it rolls along the ground, and is scarcely ever thrown more than to the height of a couple of yards from the surface. Even in these cases, it is carried forward by a hopping, not a continuous, motion; for a very narrow sheet or channel of water stops the drift entirely, all the sand dropping into it ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... could get an agreement signed for a couple of years—although we always had misgivings that the war waged with the last occupant would probably have to be renewed ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... heder that I could not have done—if I had not been a girl. For a girl it was enough if she could read her prayers in Hebrew, and follow the meaning by the Yiddish translation at the bottom of the page. It did not take long to learn this much,—a couple of terms with a rebbetzin (female teacher),—and after that ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... winked. "That's all right," he observed. "You want to keep her, I don't doubt: but one of these days somebody else'll be wanting her more than you do. Mr. Right'll be coming along here some time and then—good night! She's young yet, but in a couple of years she'll be a queen and then—well, then maybe I'll stand a better chance of unloading those last summer caps the house has got in stock. Girls like her don't stay single and keep store; there's too much demand and not enough competition. Gad! If I wasn't an antique and married already I don't ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... perchance neuer find one to make vp rime with him vnlesse it be badly and by abuse, and therefore in all such long polisillables ye doe commonly giue two sharpe accents, and thereby reduce him into two feete as in this word [re-mu'nera'ti'on] which makes a couple of good Dactils, and in this word [contribu-ti'o'n] which makes a good spo-ndeus & a good dactill, and in this word [reca-pi'tu'la-tio'n] it makes two dactills and a sillable ouerplus to annexe to the word precedent to helpe peece vp another foote. But for wordes ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... the tsetse district, which was not more than a couple of miles wide, and, as our animals showed no appearance of suffering, we hoped that they ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... Gubb, "I can see the sense of that. But you don't need to move right away. I don't aim to start in deteckating in earnest for a couple of months yet. I got a couple of jobs of paper-hanging and decorating to finish up, and I can't start in sleuthing until I get my star, anyway. And I don't get my star until I get one more lesson, and learn it, and send in the examination paper, and five dollars extra ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... in Bond Street, and bought a couple of boxes of cigars, and then made several calls at shops, also visiting two jewellers to obtain, he remarked, a silver photograph ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... put into the box, press the red button on the mechanism. Go back a few hours later and it will have been attended to. So now, when you get into the bank, put a note there listing your hotel room number and also your new deposit key number. Come back in a couple of hours and you'll find a key that will have your box number stamped on it, but which will open both boxes. Then leave your old key and one of these in 1044, and carry the other and the ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... two miles and a half from thence, was purchased by Judge Patteson, much to the delight of his children. It was a roomy, cheerful, pleasantly-situated house, with a piece of water in the grounds, the right of shooting over a couple of farms, and all that could ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... how we were to escape from the corsair, should the stranger really be her. A couple of hours passed away, and although we were going at a good rate through the water, there could be no doubt that she was coming up with us. It was now blowing a stiffish breeze, and I saw the captain ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... very liberal mess, I will refer myself to the stomach of any moderate guest. And a rare mess it is, far excelling any Westminster white-broth. It is a kind of giblet porridge, made of the giblets of a couple of young geese, stodged full of meteors, orbs, spheres, track, hideous draughts, dark characters, white forms, and radiant lights; designed not only to please appetite, and indulge luxury, but it is also physical, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... that music any more to my liking," exclaimed Peter Bligh, at this point, meaning that we should listen to a couple of gunshots fired, not in the woods far down below us, but somewhere, as it seemed, on the sea-beach ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... minutes after, he began speaking of his affairs, of which Agatha was in a state of entire ignorance. She said, jestingly—for they had fallen into quite familiar jesting now, and were laughing together like a couple of children—that she had not the least idea whether she were about to marry a prince ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... with this dinner party, and you can stay overnight at my house and sleep in the cook's room. If I like your work, I'll give you a recommendation as waitress. You can't get a good place anywhere without it, not from the offices, I'm sure. A recommendation ought to be worth a couple of days' work to you. I'd pay you something besides, but I really can't afford it, for the washerwoman charges a dollar and a half a day when she goes out to cook; but if you get your board and lodging and a reference, that ought to ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... you? Course I've thought—and 'phoned, too. But it didn't do me any good. Sylvester's house is shut up and the old man's gone to Boston, so the postmaster told me when I 'phoned and asked him. Won't be back for a couple of days, anyhow. I remember he told me he ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... comparatively rich in the country, and she cheered the girls by telling them that if they would study economical habits, and try to do with very little dress for the present, she would save some money year by year, so that by the time Catherine was twenty they might have the advantage of a couple of seasons in town. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... I can't see him," said Royce, his own voice eager, "I know! An' I can prove it for my part by a couple of little questions—if you boys will take my word ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... the master of the mansion promptly opens the door, and it is then perceptible that his basement, parlor, spare-bedroom and attic are all on one floor, and that a couple of pigs are spending the season with him. Showing his visitor into this ingeniously condensed establishment, he induces the pigs to retire to a corner, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... you call them, put traction beams on us and started tugging us toward the asteroid. We tried a couple of atomic shots but when they just glanced ...
— Acid Bath • Vaseleos Garson
... himself spent much of his time at Hamilton, where he had a woodyard with a couple of rooms attached to it. It was his custom to remain here three nights of the week, during which Anastasia was left alone at the cottage; and it happened by no means seldom that she was altogether alone, for the negro whom they called the gardener would go to her father's ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... from his knees, he saluted me in a friendly manner, as if we were merely going for a morning walk together; afterwards he opened a closet, took out of it a case with a pair of English pistols, and a couple of excellent swords, which I put under my arm; and thus provided, we proceeded along the quay towards the port. The boatmen seemed all to know him. 'Peter, your boat!' He seated ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... sorry to say, it was on none of your ladyship's that I saw such good methods adopted. I hoped it was, I stopped my horse to inquire. A queer-looking man, sitting on his horse like a tailor, watching his men with a couple of the sharpest eyes I ever saw, and dropping his h's at every word, answered my question, and told me it was his. I could not go on asking him who he was; but I fell into conversation with him, and I gathered that he had earned some money in trade in Birmingham, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... so—how can one tell?" she sighed. "But I'm very sure my impulses will never plunge me into anything headlong, as you would have me plunge. Don't you see," she made an impatient gesture, "we're just like a couple of fledgling birds trying our wings. And you want to proceed on the assumption that we're equal to anything, sure of everything. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... with thee a couple of years, and had nothing but temper! Now I'm no more to 'ee; I'll try my luck elsewhere. 'Twill be better for me and ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... 'These are very delightful functions, no doubt; but they are a little long, and somehow they always make me very hot and tired and headachy. What do you ladies say to taking a run out into the country for a couple of hours, and getting home just in time for dinner? You can't dress to-night, thank goodness, and so you ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... Mrs. William goes and finds, this very night, when she was coming home (why it's not above a couple of hours ago), a creature more like a young wild beast than a young child, shivering upon a door-step. What does Mrs. William do, but brings it home to dry it, and feed it, and keep it till our old Bounty of food and flannel is given away, ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... trifle incoherent if you don't sit up and hold its hands all the time. Since China didn't sign the peace treaty things have quite settled down here, however, and the lack of excitement after living on aerated news for a couple of months is quite a letdown. However, we live in hopes of revolution or a coup d'etat or some other little incident to liven ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... envelope which Colonel Gilbert had handed to the peasant a couple of hours earlier in the Lancone Defile. He fixed his eye-glasses upon his nose, clumsily, with one hand, and then unfolded the letter. It was merely a sheet of blank paper, with a cross ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... village hummed with excitement. The word had gone round that the new white man who had shot the crocodile would give a feast, and the people squatted in rows on the bank watching a couple of their stalwart fellows preparing a canoe for an expedition after the river-horse. When Mr. Hume appeared with his Express in company with the Belgian officers, who were indifferent sportsmen, the people saluted him with a feeling of gratitude for favours to come ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... can now be fastened to the back with screws as shown in the top view. The bench is now complete, except for a couple of coats of oil which should be applied to give it a finish and preserve the wood. The amateur workman, as well as the pattern maker, will find this a very handy and serviceable bench ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Castle gates for twenty years. And—here they are!" he cried out suddenly, pulling up his horse just in time to avoid driving him up against a pair of iron gates inhospitably closed. It was by this time pitch dark. Not a light could we see within the enclosure. But presently a couple of shadowy forms appeared behind the iron gates; the iron gates creaked on their hinges, a masculine voice bade us drive in, and a policeman with a lantern advanced from a thicket of trees. All this had a fine martial and adventurous aspect, and my jarvey seemed ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... hour of midnight approached the men were mustered on deck, the cable was cut, and the muffled sweeps got out. These sweeps were immensely large oars, each requiring a couple of men to work it. In a few minutes we entered the mouth of the creek, which was indeed the mouth of a small river, and took about half-an-hour to ascend it, although the spot where we intended to land was not more than six hundred yards from the mouth, because ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... appeared now determined to come to close quarters; and I therefore approached her until I was about a couple of feet from her flank, all ready for a spring, in case she should see me, and turn round. But she was too busy with the parties in front of her, and at last she made a run. The stout young man pushed the little man towards the cow, and then ran for it. The little one, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... loaded to kill," Henry remarked at bed-time, indicating the gleaming circle that hemmed them in. "If we could put a couple of shots into 'em, they'd be more respectful. They come closer every night. Get the firelight out of your eyes an' look hard—there! Did ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... as if this were my fault," cried Algitha, on one still, ominous night, after she had resigned her post at the bedside to the nurse, who was to fill it for a couple of hours, after which Hadria took ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... merchantmen, and by the seamanship of her crew and the skill and vigilance of her commander, escaping the pursuit of frigate and ship of the line. Before she had been long on the ground, one June morning, while in chase of a couple of merchant ships, she spied a sloop of war, the British brig Reindeer, of eighteen guns and a hundred and twenty men. The Reindeer was a weaker ship than the Wasp, her guns were lighter, and her men fewer; but her commander, Captain Manners, was one of the most gallant men in the splendid British navy, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... railroad accident on his way home; and that if it were not for his family, for his daughter who's been in and out here so much with Louise, I would like to see him handcuffed, and going down the street with a couple of constables." ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... unofficially decided. We, with the rest of Raven's Group, five Batteries in all, were to stay in Italy, the other two Groups were to go away. It was not till the 3rd of October that we received definite orders on the subject. The other Groups went to Egypt and a couple of Batteries, after three months of doing nothing in Cairo, came back to Italy again. They had at any rate found a little employment for some of our surplus shipping and they had missed some queer experiences ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... that comes from being laid hold of by Jesus Christ is the burning off of the old coat of paint. But that is only the preliminary to the laying on of the new. A man away in the backwoods will spend a couple of years after he has got his bit of land in felling and burning the trees, and rooting out and destroying the weeds. But is that what he got the clearing for? That is only a preliminary to sowing the seed. My friend! If Jesus Christ has laid hold of you, and you ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Mademoiselle Remanjou thought that Gervaise had words with Lantier over this because one afternoon she heard the sound of a slap. There was certainly a quarrel because Lantier stopped speaking to Gervaise for a couple of weeks, but then he was the first one to make up and things seemed to go along ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... flashed away before her swift approach, their manes and tails flying, and scarcely realised that she had disturbed them. Off to her left, at the upper end of the valley where were a number of grazing cattle, she thought she could distinguish the figures of a couple of her father's cowboys riding herd. But she did not ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... looking now a very different object from the battered and way-worn traveller who had rescued Joan from the robbers. A couple of weeks' rest and good feeding had given a healthy glow to his cheek, had brightened his eye, and brought back the native boyishness and brightness to his face. He was stronger, gayer, blither than he had been since the never-to-be-forgotten day ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... burning fever and asked me to keep away for fear his breath might affect me, and it pained him to talk. He pulled through three acts of "De Mauprat" the night before, and sent for his wife that night. His death was very peaceful, with no sign of pain. A couple of weeks ago he and I were to meet General Sherman at dinner: death came instead. To-night Barrett had invited about twenty distinguished men to meet me at Delmonico's, and again the grim ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... was in the prime of his vigorous manhood, having as yet only attained his thirty-seventh year, read this narrative and pondered these statements with enthusiasm. A couple of years of inaction in his luxurious saloons had inspired him with new zeal for romantic adventure; and to this there was added the powerful motive of the necessity of retrieving his fortunes. He believed that gold could be gathered in Florida, even more abundantly ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... prepare a pit for a forward gun had collected wood and corrugated iron for it by pulling to pieces a near-by dummy gun, placed specially to draw enemy fire. "Bad as some Pioneers I noticed yesterday," said the colonel tersely. "They shifted a couple of trees to a place where there had been no trees before and thought that that ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... contemporaries in the observation of the features of Mars that those contemporaries received much of his early discoveries with scepticism. Light and dark outlines and patches on the planet's surface had indeed been mapped by others, and even a couple of the canals sighted; but at the opposition of 1877 Schiaparelli first ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... most delight in is bloody Spectacles. There are poor Cacklogallinians, who fight on Stages for Money; if they cut one another to Pieces, the Spectators go away highly satisfied; but if their Art prevents their shedding much Blood, the Combatants are poorly rewarded, and look'd upon as a Couple of Cheats ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... a couple of letters to Uncle Jeb from the camp office, and the rest were to scouts in camp whom Tom did not know, for he had made no acquaintances. There was one letter for Tom, bearing the postmark of Dansburg, Ohio, which he opened with curiosity and read ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... was past eleven before I had anything like done, and my men had long been sound asleep, but the chief had conscientiously sat up and seen the thing through. He then went and fetched some rolls of bark cloth to put on my plank, and I gave him a handsome cloth I happened to have with me, a couple of knives, and some heads of tobacco and wished him goodnight; blockading my bark door, and picking my way over my sleeping Ajumba into an inner apartment which I also blockaded, hoping I had done with Egaja for some hours. No such thing. At 1.45 the whole town was roused by the frantic yells of a ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... we to know, when watching a play in Sicilian dialect and provided with a printed "argument" comprised in about a couple of hundred words, whether the players are doing anything like their duty to the author? By-the-by the poor Censor had to admit that he passed their plays on the strength of these inadequate synopses! Yet there was absolute conviction in most of us that their work was sincere and at times ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... are omitted by Miss Mayor's method, which is all for the swift movement and against the temptations to delay which obstruct those whose eyes are not upon life; she condenses her opportunities for psychology and platitude into a couple of shrewd lines and goes on with her story, keeping her freshness and the reader's interest unabated. The method is to draw the central figure rapidly past a succession of bright lights, keeping the lights various and of many colours and ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... march of two miles brought me to the handsome villa occupied by the foreign military attaches, where Major Langhorne, the American expert, was again found in good health and spirits, and particularly happy because in a couple of days he was again to see some real fighting. The Great General Staff continues to give our military attache every possible opportunity to see things for himself and give Uncle Sam the benefit of the military lessons to be learned from the big ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various |
