"Silk hat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... noticed that his shoulders were crouched, like those of some shambling tramp. The frowsy shadows of a stubble beard lay on his jaw and throat. His clothes were crumpled and hung awry; his boots were stained with mud. The silk hat on the piano told its ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... a dark suit, and carried a silk hat in his hand. The conventional dress made a great difference in his appearance; it always does when one is accustomed to see a man in the easy, becoming garb of the country. He looked older, more imposing; in the dim ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... conductor, to sing—this being the opening night—the National Anthem. Frederick takes what he calls seconds; neighbours misunderstand it for an expression of disloyalty. Then the programme starts. Frederick Bulpert, new silk hat at back of head, and arms folded, listens to the "William Tell" overture, Handel's "Largo," and the suite from "Peer Gynt" with the frown of a man not to be taken in and unwilling to be influenced by the approbation exhibited by people round him. A song follows, and he remarks to Gertie ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... down behind, it justifies its greater acceptance with youth; age and middle-age wear its weave and the tuscan braid in the fedora form; and now and then one saw the venerable convention of the cockaded footman's and coachman's silk hat mocked in straw. No concession more extreme could be made to the heat, and these strange cylinders, together with the linen liveries which accompanied them, accented the excesses in which the English are apt ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... fashion of the moment. His black coat was cut after the mode of a past generation, his collar was of the type affected by Gladstone and his fellow-statesmen, his black bow was arranged with studied negligence and he showed more frilled white shirt-front than is usual in the daytime. His silk hat was glossy but broad-brimmed; his masses of gray hair, brushed back from a high, broad forehead, gave him almost a patriarchal aspect. His features were large and fairly well-shaped, but his mouth was weak and his cheeks lacked the color of a healthy ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the malachite bench, a silk hat was waiting. When that hat again appeared in Dunwoodie's office, the Paliser Case was over. It had ended before ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest - I too awaited the expected guest. 230 He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence; ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... black is altogether spoilt by civilization. He learns to wear clothes, but he does not learn that clothes need to be changed and washed occasionally, and are not intended for use by day and night. He has an insane veneration for the tall silk hat which is the badge of modern gentility, and, given an old silk hat, he will never allow it off his head. He quickly learns to smoke and to drink, and, when he comes into contact with the Chinese, to eat opium. He cannot be broken ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... its nose against the window watching his approach. They had rather hoped for a flannel shirt and boots and spurs, and, in any case, for a sombrero. But the horrible truth must be told. He wore a frock coat of the most unimpeachable cut, with a silk hat and a stick, and a white gardenia in his buttonhole. To look at him, one would swear that he had never seen a pistol or a lariat. He was born to pass the ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... this change. Students in the School of Fine Arts pointed him out from the gallery of the Opera-house or stopped on the sidewalk when they saw him at night, with a shining silk hat on his carefully trimmed hair and the expanse of shirt-front showing in his unbuttoned overcoat. The boys in their simple admiration imagined the great master thundering before his easel, as savage, fierce and intractable as Michael Angelo in his studio. And so when ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... silk hat, that he might go to Washington with head- gear equal to the occasion. A farmer's wife knit him a pair of yarn stockings. Hundreds of such attentions, kind in intent, grotesque in appearance, he received with that kindness which is the soul of courtesy. There was a woman ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... the door a singular young man stood at the threshold. He was short, wiry, and very dark. His nose was long and complacently tilted at the end. His eyes were small and very black. His mouth was a wide, uncertain slit. In his hand he carried a light cane and a silk hat of the flat-brimmed French type. And he wore a gray sack suit, pressed and creased with ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... out—only a small oblong deck shouldering deep in the water and supporting a slightly higher platform, from which rose what seemed to be a squatty funnel. A moment later we saw that the funnel was provided with a cap somewhat resembling a tall silk hat, the crown of which was represented by a brass binnacle. This cap was tilted back, and as we ran alongside, a man stuck his head up over the rim ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... desired to read the remainder from his expression. "There is one of them," continued the investigator, "whom perhaps you have noticed. He's rather a small man, and wears thick glasses. He also dresses very carefully, and he wears a silk hat." ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... about eight o'clock, he ordered Graindorge to be yoked to the tilbury, and set forth at the quick trotting pace of the heavy Norman horse, along the highroad from Ainville to Rouen. He wore his black frock-coat, a tall silk hat on his head, and breeches with straps; and he did not, on account of the occasion, dispense with the handsome costume, the blue overalls which swelled in the wind, protecting the cloth from dust and from stains, and which was to be removed quickly the moment ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... gaze. Peter, of course, being in the secret, kept aloof, awaiting the result of Mrs. Bergen's disclosures. But when Beth came back into the plush-covered parlor, he revealed his share in the conspiracy by producing, with the skill of a conjurer taking a rabbit from a silk hat, a minister and a marriage license, the former having been hidden in the house of a neighbor. And Jonathan K. McGuire, with something of an air, fully justified by the difficulties he had been at to secure it, produced a pasteboard box, which contained another box of ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... Fourth of July President Lincoln came to us and we were reviewed by him and the commander of the army. Mr. Lincoln was dressed in black clothes and wore a silk hat. That hat on the top of his six feet four made him a very tall man. Recently the newspapers have published a story purporting to have been told by Gen. Lew Wallace, to this effect: He was one day at the White House. It was just ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... black—dress-coat and silk hat—and looked rather democratic in the midst of the showy uniforms about him. On his breast he wore a large gold star, which was half hidden by the lapel of his coat. He remained at the door a half hour, and occasionally ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a man, with rather long black hair, upon which perched, rather than fitted, a tall silk hat that had lost its first sheen. If ever "actor" was written in a man's make-up it was in the case of this personage. Beside him stood, attired much the same, but in garments that fitted him better, another who was obviously of the theater, as were the two girls who were so aware ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... out, he leads her away from the scene of labour and language, disappearing amidst the hovels of the adjacent village. Often I never see him or obtain news of him till next morning, when he produces Sapphira polished like a silk hat and every scrap of metal about her sparkling. Occasionally I have tracked him to the shelter where he secretes and waits upon Sapphira, always to find that he has discovered and occupied the best stable in the village. The grooms of my brother-officers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... clothing was of extreme elegance in both material and fashioning, he wore no jewellery of any description, unless one excepts a plain gold ring on the fourth finger of the left hand, his feet were shod in patent-leather boots, in the rack overhead rested a shining silk hat of the newest fashion, an orange-wood walking-stick, and a pair of gray suede gloves. An evening paper lay between his feet, open, as though it had been read, and in his buttonhole there was a single mauve orchid of exquisite beauty and delicacy. The body was quite alone in the ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Norgate declared. "If this weren't really a serious affair, Hardy, I should be inclined to make a little humorous use of you. That isn't what I want now, though. Listen. Put on one of my black overcoats and a silk hat, get the man to call you a taxi up to the door, and drive to Smith's Hotel. You will enquire for the suite of the Baroness von Haase. The Baroness will allow you to remain in her rooms for half an hour. At the end of that time you will return here, change ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... humoured; moreover, a little eccentricity, a lightheartedness, verging at times on the clownish, is useful, for, if duly reported, it procures the Stock Exchange a free advertisement in the Press. Even Mr. Marlow had been known to play football with a silk hat and wave a little Union Jack, when the news of a British victory, which meant an improvement in the Market, was recorded in a special edition. But his brother-in-law, Walter Grierson, had never done ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... grand lady at first. When she went with William to chapel, he in his frock-coat and silk hat, she in her furs and London-made costume, Paul and Arthur and Annie expected everybody to bow to the ground in admiration. And Morel, standing in his Sunday suit at the end of the road, watching the gallant pair go, felt he was the father of ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... rotundity flattened by timber, stuck about with cow's hair—for a milker leans his head against the animal—sodden with rain, and still the same old hat. The same old hat, that Teniers might have introduced, a regular daub of a hat: pity it is that it will never be painted. On Sundays the high silk hat, the glossy black coat of the elder, but there are no gloves to be got on such hands as those; they are too big and too real ever to be got into the artificiality of kid. Everything grew under those ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... display. His shirt-front was decorated with a diamond, and his cuff-buttons were of onyx with diamond settings. His clothes were expensive and perceptibly new, and he often changed his costumes, but with a noticeable disregard for propriety. He was very conscious of his silk hat, and frequently wiped it with a handkerchief on which his monogram was ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... had entered, to whom every death was nearer than his own, and to whom the suffering of others was as a crucifixion, removed the silk hat from his head, and wiped his forehead ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... was naturally bent on falling over his high white forehead. His large black eyes were deeply set under heavy dark brows, more square than arched. His straight nose and smoothly shaven chin were set in line with his high square forehead. While both face and figure suggested the student, a tall silk hat and a square cut, closely buttoned black frock coat, stamped him at once as ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... there was a knock at my door. In response to my invitation to enter a short, dark, Jewish-looking person, with olive complexion, shiny black hair and black mustache, presented himself. He carried a very immaculate silk hat and was dressed with great neatness. He had the air, however, of a man who is ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... everybody turned to watch it as it came pushing around the bluff like a huge hound on a trail, its nose close to the ground. Among the first to alight was Sanford, in a shining new silk hat and a new suit of clothes. He was smiling gaily as he fought his way through the crowd to his wife's side. "Hello!" he shouted. "I thought I'd ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... farther back on his high forehead, his hazel eyes were a little bleared; and his full lips were less resolute than of old. He had evidently seen bad times since he was the facile agent of the Wickersham interests. He wore a black suit and a gay necktie which had once been gayer, a shabby silk hat, and ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... a voice was heard shouting, "Where's my boy? I'm looking for my boy!" Soon the owner of the voice appeared, tall, slim, aged, with silver gray hair, dressed in a full suit of broadcloth. A tall silk hat and a clerical collar and cravat completed his attire. His voice, familiar to the people of Virginia, was deep and powerful. As he continued to shout, the men replied, "Go back, old gentleman; you'll get hurt here. Go back; ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... puffed up as they 'll reflect on their folly 'n' think a little on how the rest of us as did n't care rhyme or reason for folly is got no choice but to puff up, too. Mrs. Jilkins is awful mad; she says Mr. Jilkins wanted to wear his straw hat anyhow, 'n' she says she always has hated his silk hat 'cause it reminds her o' when she was young 'n' foolish enough to be willin' to go 'n' marry into a family as was foolish enough to marry into Deacon White. Mrs. Jilkins is extra hot because she got one in the neck, but my own idea is as Polly Allen's weddin' was the silliest doin's ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... be the chief of the band, raised his clenched fist to strike Mr. Fogg, whom he would have given a crushing blow, had not Fix rushed in and received it in his stead. An enormous bruise immediately made its appearance under the detective's silk hat, which was completely ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... you were in your cubicle," remarked Carrados casually. "The first took the lift. I imagine that he was a middle-aged, rather portly man. He carried a stick, wore a silk hat, and used spectacles for close sight. The other came by the stairway. I infer that he arrived at the top immediately after the lift had gone. He ran down the steps, so that the two were admitted at the same time, but the second man, though the more active of the pair, hung back for a ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... immense pair of green baize shoes, without which Aunt Patsy could not be persuaded to go into the outer air. It was Saturday morning when she began to dress for the trip, and although Isham, wearing a high silk hat, and a long black coat which had once belonged to a clergyman, arrived with the ox cart about noon, the old woman was not ready to start till two or three hours afterward. Her assistants, who had increased in number, were active and assiduous. Aunt Patsy was very ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... automobiling, the gloves saturated with oil—these are comparatively unfamiliar sights; hence men are seen starting off for a hard run in ducks and serges, sacks, cutaways, even frocks, and hats of all styles; give a farmer a silk hat and patent leather boots to wear while threshing, and he would ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... voice at me through his sobs, and said: "I'm yelping, mister, because I'm only a little 'un, and can't see me mates come home from the war." Then I laughed, and tossing him up on my shoulder let him jamb his dirty fist on the only silk hat I possess, whilst he looked at his "mates" march home; for they were his mates—he was a child of London, and some day—who knows?—he may ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... first, wrapped in furs—the black-bearded Russian at his side in overcoat, silk hat and white gloves. The Ambassador and the others had bidden them good-night at the top ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... wore a silk hat, a suit of black West-of-England broadcloth, a watch-chain made out of his dead wife's hair, and two large seals that clashed together when he moved. His face was wide and round, with a sanguine complexion, grey side-whiskers, and a cicatrix across ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Good day, Miss Janice! Happy to see you! Fine Spring weather—yes, yes," he said, with great cordiality, removing his silk hat. "Charming weather, indeed. It has tempted me out for a walk—yes, yes!" and he rolled by, swinging his cane and bobbing ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... next, smilingly listened to my tale and heartily approved of my action, but Burroughs regarded it as a weak surrender. "A silk hat and steel-pen coat on a Whitman Democrat," he said, "seems like a make-believe," which, in a sense, ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... public will turn upon the poet, and throw into his face, on his own authority, that he is but as they are, that his airs of inspiration and divine right are humbug. And in that day the poet will block his silk hat, will shave away the silken moustache, will get him a bottle of Mrs. Allen's Hair Restorer, and betake himself to the sombrero of his ancestors—but it will be all too late. The cat will have been irrecoverably let out of the bag, the mystery ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... never been known to contribute a cent to surportin our grate ralerode mo-noperlists, altho he has travilled all over the United States by rale. Beside that, he wouldn't axcept any accommodashuns short of a green-line sleeper. Wen I arst him y he didn't ware his gold watch-chain and silk hat, like all other pollytishuns, he sed his partie was endevourin to freeze out the big clothin monopolies by wearin their does till they fell off. I notissed his bus-sum swellin with pride, as he spoke of the fruits there labor had brot forth in the failyure of so menney ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... philosopher, and had no intention of missing a meet so long as Miss Easton was willing to see that he was well mounted. His single-breasted pink frock-coat was of the latest cut, and his white moleskin breeches and black pink-top boots were the best that London makers could turn out. His silk hat and gloves lay upon the ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... an urgent affair called him to London, and he breakfasted early in order to catch the 8.30 train. On account of his asthma he had to allow himself plenty of time for the walk to the station; and all would have been well, but that, just as he was polishing his silk hat and giving final directions to his assistant, in stepped a customer, who came to grumble about the fit of a new coat. Ten good minutes were thus consumed, and with a painful glance at his watch the breathless tailor at length started. The walk was uphill; the sun was ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... books and document files, the floor already had been forced into use to bear up little piles of transcripts of evidence, tin document boxes and piles of books, open at reference pages, occupying obscure corners. The Judge's black silk hat was in its familiar place, resting with the opening upward, on the old black walnut desk which its owner had affectionately brought with him, and which made a strange and cynical contrast with the mahogany ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Glover was swinging along the Old Bailey, his hands in his pockets, his silk hat on the back of ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... him very handsome, with his sweeping white mustache, his bright blue eyes, so like his son's, and she was much impressed with his frock-coat, fitting snugly around his well-knit, erect figure, and with the silk hat which she noticed on the table in the hall as she went in. Frock-coats and silk hats were objects seldom encountered in La Chance, except in illustrations to magazine-stories, or in photographs of life in New York or Washington. But of course, she reflected, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... section WAS the largest single mass—in early Victorian times. She had dreams, I suspect, of going to church with him side by side; she in a little poke bonnet and a large flounced crinoline, all mauve and magenta and starched under a little lace-trimmed parasol, and he in a tall silk hat and peg-top trousers and a roll-collar coat, and looking rather like the Prince Consort,—white angels almost visibly raining benedictions on their amiable progress. Perhaps she dreamt gently of much-belaced ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... low over his desk in the writing-room of the Congress, went on with his last letter, adding one more envelope to the heap of correspondence piled up at the end of the table, near his cane and his silk hat. ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... dog never wears country clothes. It always looks as if it had its silk hat and spats on. If I were a country dog, who had never even smelt a Piccadilly smell, I should certainly bite all dogs of the ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... the long, drooping white mustache and imperial; the old-fashioned stock and open collar; the black and white checked trousers; the gaiters; and, last of all, the flat brimmed, carefully brushed, old-fashioned silk hat. Mr. Blount gasped. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... what pious communion, if any, that brooding forehead and disillusioned eyes were wont to drift on days of devotion. But I cannot resist a secret fancy that it was to some old-fashioned and not too ritualistic Anglican church that he sometimes may have been met proceeding, in silk hat and well-polished shoes, at the close of a long Autumn afternoon, across the fallen leaves ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... was a little troubled this afternoon, and, singularly enough, about a most happy purchase that he had just made, at ninety per cent below value. There the articles lay upon the counter,—a silk hat, a long surtout, a gold-headed cane and a pair of large rubbers; a young man's Derby hat and overcoat and rattan cane, and a pair of arctics; a lady's bonnet and dolman and arctics; a young girl's hat with a soft bird's-breast, and her seal-skin sack and arctics; besides four small ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... He was looking exceedingly well that morning, the very prototype of a man contented with life and his part in it. He was wearing a morning coat and silk hat, his patent boots were faultlessly polished, his trousers pressed to perfection, his grey silk tie neat and fashionable. Notwithstanding his waxenlike pallor, his slim figure and lithe, athletic walk seemed ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the window and looked over her shoulder. A little man in a huge silk hat was toiling up the hill, aided by a cane. He was bent and old, yet he moved with a certain briskness, and, as Dorothy had said, he ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... front of Continental Hotel at Long Branch. Enter JENKINS, disguised in a second-hand silk hat, and a claw-hammer coat, with a hand-organ on his back. He stops before one of the windows, grinds the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... letters and placed them in pigeon-holes. He was clad in the latest fashion as laid down by the London Tailors who, at the first sound of the Boom, had hastened on the wings of the wind to the Magic City. His frock coat radiated newness, his patent leathers shone, and a portion of the brim of a tall silk hat rested daintily between thumb and ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... his handsome wife, was barely on a level with hers. Wherefore, his shoes, ever since his wedding day, had been noticeably high of heel, and rarely was he known to wear other head covering than a silk hat. He had cast aside the look of abstraction which commonly possessed his thin, pale countenance and his manner and speech of modest geniality soon won for him the favor of all the heterogeneous company to whom ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... to the races wearing a sun-helmet, and, as the fashion is amongst the Europeans in Calcutta, his syce carried a silk hat for Shere Ali to take in exchange for his helmet when the sun went down. Shere Ali, like most of the Europeanised Indians, was more scrupulous than any Englishman in adhering to the European custom. But to-day, with an angry gesture, ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... ignorant, moreover, from sheer laziness; to him were permitted things forbidden to all the others: he was the heir of a large feudal barony. He always came late to school, and even at that rode in followed by a groom on a second horse. He wore a silk hat and, when he came into the schoolroom, did not hang it up on the peg that belonged to him, where he was afraid it might be interfered with, but in the school cupboard, in which only the master was supposed to keep his things; and the ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... cursory acquaintance with his work, not recently renewed. Of the presence of the man I have a vivider remembrance: a slight, short, ecclesiasticized figure in black; with a white neckcloth and a silk hat of strict decorum, and between the two a square face with square features, intensified in their regard by a pair of very large glasses, and the prominent, myopic eyes staring through them. He was a type of out-dated New ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the train—a tall, sinewy, soldierly-built youngish man, who wore an overcoat of black, falling away in front, so as to reveal a black frock coat tightly buttoned up and a snowy shirt-front with a glittering gem sparkling from the center of it. On his head was a shining silk hat—a thing so rare in that community as to be noticeable, and to stamp the wearer as an outsider. His beard was clipped close, and at the chin ran out into a pronounced Vandyke point. His mustaches were black, heavy, and waxed. His whole external appearance betokened wealth, and he exuded ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... coat over his breast (it was the only frock coat in Kilo), and drew on his driving gloves, holding his hands on a level with his chin. It was a habit, an aristocratic touch, which, like his side-whiskers, detached him from the rest of Kilo. He had once worn a silk hat, but he soon abandoned it for gray felt; for even he saw that a silk hat emphasized his individuality too strongly for comfort. It was a tempting mark ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... at his mind, and the funeral tugging at his mind, too, and the sense of himself as Chief Mourner in a brand new silk hat with a broad mourning band. He watched the ceremony and missed his responses, and strange feelings twisted at ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... an admiring gallery at the head of the stairs, Master Shelton was performing jugglers' tricks with their visitor's best silk hat. Twice it had turned a somersault in the air, and twice safely alighted well down over Dicky's ears, but a third time it might miss even such a conspicuous mark and be smashed out of symmetry on the hard floor. French beat a hasty retreat, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... Tony, and repressed himself at a glare from his mother. "I wonder if it's possible——" He stopped, and began carefully to smooth his silk hat which ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... we were in a lofty room with skylight, easels, dressing-cupboard, platform, and every other adjunct save the signs of actual labor. The first thing I saw, as Raffles lit the gas, was its reflection in his silk hat on the pegs beside the ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... years old, dressed in black, long, white beard, his aquiline nose tinged with red, suggesting fondness for wine, gold ringed spectacles, frock coat and silk hat, carries the score of an opera under his arm, enters ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... and after closing the door the widow led the way into the parlor. She placed the lamp down, and offered the squire the easiest chair in the room. He threw himself into it with a loud ahem, and dropped his silk hat ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... over the Church lobby. As he passed me, with his head down, preoccupied, I said: "Good morning, President Smith." He jumped as if I had been a Deputy Marshal with such a sudden start of fear that his silk hat rolled on the pavement and his umbrella dropped from his hand. He drew back from me as if he were about to take to his heels. Then he recognized me, of course, and was quickly reassured; but his embarrassment ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... with a striped pattern on a dark gray, drab, or blue background; boots of patent leather, buttoned, not tied; a white or colored shirt with straight standing white collar; a four-in-hand, puffed Ascot, or small club tie; silk hat and undressed gray, tan, or brown kid gloves. The colored shirt is an innovation, and it should be used sparingly, white linen on any semiformal function being in better form. When spats are used they should be of brown, ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... satisfaction Haldane saw the doctor's immaculate silk hat fly into the mud, his wig, blown comically awry, fall over his eyes, and his spectacles joggle down until they sat astride the tip of a ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... went out of my head." He smoothed his silk hat energetically, and at once affected an air of hurry. "I'll send a note round from the office.... I'm late this morning, and I've any amount of ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... and the conductor neglected to send back a flagman. An express came along and, before it could be stopped, bumped the rear end of the first train. The drummer was lifted from his seat and pitched head first into the seat ahead. His silk hat was jammed clear down over his ears. He picked himself up and settled back in his seat. No bones had been broken. He drew a long breath, straightened up, and said: "Well, they didn't get by ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... certainly is a peach. Pa has been letting his chin whiskers grow for about six weeks, and today he had them colored black, and he looks as though he had swallowed the blacking brush, and left the bunch of bristles outside, on his chin. He looks fierce. Then, he has got a new brand of silk hat, with a wide, curling brim, and he has had a vest made of black and blue check goods, the checks as big as the checks on a checker board, and a pair of pants that look like a diamond-back rattlesnake, and he has got ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... smaller children dragging their sleds and following them, Russ and Rose and Laddie and Vi went back to where they had left Mr. White standing. There he was, very fine and brave-looking with his tall silk hat on his head, his coal-black eyes glistening in the sun, and his row of black buttons ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... when they had band concerts and Sunday school picnics at Jackson Park the visitor saw about four kinds of masculine headwear. One was the gray helmet of the park policeman resting under the tree. Another was the tall and shining silk hat of the elderly parent. In addition to these were some straw hats with rims not so wide as those of 1893, and derbys which were a trifle higher in the crown than the new ones. In the general description ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... standing in his office in the law courts at Paris, meditatively smoothing the nap of his silk hat. His mind was busy with the enquiries he had been prosecuting during the day, and although he had no reason to be dissatisfied with his day's work he had no clear idea as to what his next ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... Doctor and several others were in the office, and while I was behind the counter, one of the young men came in from up town, having just visited the barber shop; and with his silk hat slightly tipped to one side of his head, and one kid glove on, stepped over near me, and after telling the latest story in his blandest and most fascinating manner, turned to me ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... not a little to see the way in which the baronet conducted his devotions,—his preliminary prayer in his silk hat, from which streamed a halo of side-whiskers, the heartiness with which he joined in the service, especially the way in which, avoiding all the compromises the male American practises in prayer-time (such as bending forward a little, or leaning back pensively with the hand shading ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... admirable stoicism, of which the world has too little. A similar instance is that of a visit paid to the laboratory by some one bringing a gold medal from a foreign society. It was a very hot day in summer, the visitor was in full social regalia of silk hat and frock-coat, and insisted that he could deliver the medal only into Edison's hands. At that moment Edison, stripped pretty nearly down to the buff, was at the very crisis of an important experiment, and refused absolutely to be interrupted. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... accordin' to the constitution, but we can shed ours right off, while the Grand Sachem is required to wear his hat all through the celebration. Have you any idea what that means? Four hours under a big silk hat in a hall where the heat registers 110 and the smoke 250! And the Grand Sachem is expected to look pleasant all the time and say nice things when introducin' the speakers! Often his hand goes to his ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... lower floor was so low that, had the captain stood erect with an ordinary silk hat on his head, it would have touched it. The stairs consisted of a short, sloping ladder, over which a trap-door could be shut, so as to ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... wear patent leather shoes on their naked feet, tight-fitting trousers of some material striped with black and white or with some other glaringly-contrasted colors, a starched plaited shirt of European make, a chimney-pot silk hat, and carry a cane in their hands. [The servants.] The servants waiting at dinner in their white starched shirts and trousers are by no means an agreeable spectacle, and I never realised the full ludicrousness of European male costume till my eye fell upon its caricature, exemplified in ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... their chairs tilted back against the props of the wooden awning that projected over the sidewalk. Their faces were turned toward the court-house, and even those lost in meditative whittling had looked up to laugh. Martin, his hands in the pockets of his alpaca coat, his rusty silk hat tilted forward till the wide brim rested almost on the bridge of his nose, was addressing them in his one-keyed voice, the melancholy whine of which, though not the words, penetrated to ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... hue; leggings yellow as marigolds, corduroys immaculate as new flax, and a neckerchief like a flower-garden. Now he wore the remains of an old blue cloth suit of his gentlemanly times, a rusty silk hat, and a once black satin stock, soiled and shabby. Clad thus he went to and fro, still comparatively an active man—for he was not much over forty—and saw with the other men in the yard Donald Farfrae going in and out the green door that led to the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... looking personage before mentioned; he was a corpulent man, very short, and his legs particularly so. His dress consisted of a greasy snuff-coloured coat, dirty white trousers, and dirtier stockings. On his head he wore a rusty silk hat, the eaves of which had a tendency to turn up before and behind. I had observed that, during my conversation with the hamalos, he had several times uplifted his eyes from the newspaper, and on the production of the shekel had grinned very significantly, and had inspected it when in the hand ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... person who could have taken them was the cashier, a hoary-headed old boy who resides at Epping, and has not changed his method of living since he first wore a silk hat and caught the eight-forty to the City one morning fifty years ago. I followed him home on a Saturday afternoon. The bookstall clerk at Liverpool Street handed him The Amateur Gardener, and the old boy read it in the train. Five minutes after ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... an ancient industry," thought Mike. "The wig is representative of the seventeenth as the silk hat is of the nineteenth century. I wonder why I am so strongly fascinated with the seventeenth century?—I, a peasant; atavism, I suppose; my family ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... it.' He turned around and looked queer, and then he grinned. 'So you went over?' he said. 'I reckon I did,' said I. 'What kind of a hat did you lose?' he asked, and he grinned again. 'I guess it was a silk one, wasn't it?' 'Yes,' said I, 'a silk hat—something ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... John Kenyon could say what he had resolved to do, the door opened, and there entered unto them Mr. William Longworth, with his silk hat as glossy as a mirror, a general trim and prosperous appearance about him, a flower in his buttonhole and his eyeglass ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... to a more pretentious locality, where I procured a silk hat draped with mourning crape, put the Glengarry in my pocket, and became a Frenchman. At this moment I discovered that I had left in my room at the hotel a large silk neck-wrapper on which were embroidered my initials. I immediately stepped into ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... faith was evident in his constant inclination to play hooky. One thing he rebelled against openly, and with such firmness that the women did not press him too strongly for fear of a general revolt. On no occasion, however impressive, would he wear a silk hat. Christmas and birthdays invariably called forth the gift of a silk hat, for the women trusted that they could overcome resistance by persistence. He never said anything, but it was noticed that the hotel porter, or the gardener, or whatever ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... enough to enter into the spirit of the occasion and taking a chance that in such a remote neighborhood no one would recognize him—acted as best man. The bride looked pretty and self-composed, while Jimmie was a picture of masculine magnificence in a new frock coat, patent-leather shoes, white tie, silk hat and a collar so high that he could not turn his head round. After the ceremony, they all dined gaily at Claremont at Stafford's expense and then the newly married couple left for Atlantic City, where the brief honeymoon was to be spent—on slender savings ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... screamed and sprang to the scramble; with one voice the Puyallup tribe roared in glee; with one motion the tribal hats went into the air, and the president of the Elliott Bay National yelled in his enthusiasm, pounded a red man on the back, waved a silk hat on high, and became as one of these ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. He was like all the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly opposite to them in all manner. He wore a high shiny hat and a long frock coat, but he wore them as such solemn things were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if it were a mitre, and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high priest. He not only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed (such was his stateliness) almost to ask permission of the hat for doing so, and to apologise ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... the truth. On testing the man's story I discovered that at three-eighteen he was in the Leicester Lounge, in Leicester Square, with an ill-dressed old man, who was described as being short and wearing a rusty, old silk hat. They sat at a table near the window drinking ginger-ale, so that the barmaid could not overhear, and held ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... the step. The gas had not been turned out in the hall, and it gave a feeble but sufficient illumination to the porch and the nearest parts of the garden. Darius stood silent and apparently irresolute, with a mournful and even despairing face. He wore his best black suit, and a new silk hat and new black gloves, and in one hand he carried a copy of "The Signal" that was very crumpled. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... deceived, named Tirauclair, and another still more clever, named chance. Between them, they have got the better of you. Moreover, you were foolish to wear such small boots, and to keep on your lavender kid gloves, besides embarrassing yourself with a silk hat and an umbrella. Now confess your guilt, for it is the only thing left you to do, and I will give you permission to smoke in your dungeon some of those excellent trabucos you are so fond of, and which you always ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... down there," said one, a gentleman whose face was a slight improvement over gross ignorance and sensuality. He always wore a silk hat of most imposing proportions. "We can have a good time." His left eye moved with just the semblance of a wink. "You want to ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... table. The Colonel's dress was completed by drab overgaiters and poorly draped trousers of the same once-delicate hue. Upon his bald head, which was high and peaked, like Sir Walter Scott's, he carried a silk hat in an inferior state of preservation. When he began to drink it was his custom to repair at once to a barber and submit to having his side-whiskers trimmed fastidiously. Sober, he seemed to feel little pride of person, and his whiskers at such a time merely called attention ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... of one, a little duffer with a white goatee and thick lensed spectacles, wearing boots, chaps and a silk hat. ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... going to say something, when Corny threw herself into his arms, and his wife, squeezing by, took him around his neck so suddenly that his hat flew off and bumped on the floor, like an empty tin can. He always wore a high silk hat. He made a grab for his hat, and the ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... big swinging doors from the street were thrown open and there entered a tall, thin man, gray-headed, and with a slight stoop, but keen eyed and alert. He was carefully dressed in a well-fitting frock coat, white waistcoat, black tie and silk hat. ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... quite disregarded him. Their eyes were wandering calmly about the place, and now they rested on the pride of McGuire's store. The figure of a man in evening clothes, complete from shoes to gloves and silk hat, stood beside a girl of wax loveliness. She wore a low-cut gown of dark green, and over her shoulders was draped a scarf of dull gold. Above, a sign said: "You only get married once; why don't you do it ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... wears over his full dress suit a light unlined coat, preferably black in color. If the lapels of the suit are satin-faced, the coat lapels may correspond. White kid gloves are worn, and a conventional silk hat. In winter, the coat may be a heavy, dark-colored raglan, although the Chesterfield overcoat more suits his dignified dress. With it he wears white kid gloves and a high silk hat or felt ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... mustache and listened. At first his silk hat stuck up rigidly, but soon it began ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... village terminus he was too excited to go home at once, so he passed his own gate and went on toward Thor's. It was not yet late. He could hear Thor's voice reading aloud as the maid admitted him, and could follow the words while he took off his overcoat and silk hat and laid them carefully on one of the tapestried chairs. He still followed them as he straightened his cravat before the glass, pulled down his white waistcoat, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... her husband, very tall and uncommonly thin, so that his coat hangs loosely on his body; a short goatee, long, smooth hair, as if wet, reaching to his shoulders; eye-glasses; has a frightened; yet pedantic expression; a low black silk hat in his hand. A young girl, their daughter, with naively upturned nose, blinking eyes, and open mouth. A weazened woman, with contracted features and a sour expression, in her hand a handkerchief, with which she frequently wipes her mouth; Two young men, looking absolutely alike, with extremely ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... more ado, in less than forty minutes, the distinguished Mr. Wilfred Edgerton, of Edgerton & Edgerton, attorneys for Cuban Crucible and hence alert to obey the behests of the wives of the officers thereof, had deposited his tall silk hat on the marble Renaissance table in the front hall and was entering Mrs. Pumpelly's Louis Quinze drawing-room with the air of a Sir Walter Raleigh ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... lean jaw and looked questioningly at the fixer. "I'm from the Ozarks, but as the silk hat said to the ash can, 'Where in hell does the ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... the grave of Jack Smith, but over the grave that local character intends some day to occupy. Mr. Smith is reputed to be rich. He built the downtown office building known as "The House that Jack Built." As befits the owner of an office building, he wears a silk hat, but a certain democratic simplicity may be observed in the rest of his attire, especially about the region of the neck, for though he apparently believes in the convention concerning the wearing of collars, he has a prejudice ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... us. He was plainly dressed, but he had a noticeable air of neatness about him. He wore a high silk hat which was a little old, but had been carefully brushed. He wore second-hand kid gloves, in good repair, and carried a small rattan cane with a curved handle—a female leg—of ivory. He stepped as gently and as daintily as a cat crossing a muddy street; and oh, he was urbanity; he was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pickpocket, a loving father even in a burglar, and a kind neighbour even in a murderer. Faith, sympathy, friendship, love, loyalty, and generosity dwell not merely in palaces and churches, but also in brothels and gaols. On the other hand, abhorrent vices and bloody crimes often find shelter under the silk hat, or the robe, or the coronet, or the crown. Life may fitly be compared with a rope made of white and black straw, and to separate one from the other is to destroy the rope itself; so also life entirely independent of the duality of ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... the orchestra played crashingly, and a small fat man burst out upon the stage. He began to roar a song and stamp back and forth before the foot-lights, wildly waving a glossy silk hat and throwing leers, or smiles, broadcast. He made his face into fantastic grimaces until he looked like a pictured devil on a Japanese kite. The crowd laughed gleefully. His short, fat legs were never still a moment. He shouted and roared and bobbed his shock of red wig until the audience broke ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... hotel office that Monday evening: Jared Parker, the proprietor; Seth Wilber, town authority on all things past and present; and John Fletcher, known in Collingsville as "The Squire"—possibly because of his smattering of Blackstone; probably because of his silk hat and five-thousand-dollar bank account. Each of the three men eyed with unabashed curiosity the stranger in ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... able to block your hat out and repair it," suggested Hudson, though without any real intention of offering aid. "Our coachman had that sort of trick done to played-out old silk hat ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... from man to man. Across the walk and back; across and back; across and back; until it seemed to him it was a thousand miles all in a minute of time. He had no opportunity to prepare for the onslaught. He jammed his high silk hat, wherewith he had thought to overawe the community, upon his sleek head, and grasped his precious sermon-case to his breast; the sermon, as it well deserved, was flung to the four winds of heaven and fortunately was no more—that is, existing as a whole. The time came ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... the pavement and resumed his study of the advertisement board, but a close observer might have seen that his eyes wandered past it now and again to the persons inside the office. Half an hour went by. Then the frock-coated man inside took a silk hat from a peg and placed it on his head. Simultaneously a woman went out. A dozen paces behind her went the workman, and a dozen paces behind him the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest |
