"Trap door" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from the rear of the house, and upstairs. Jurgis bounded to a door of the room and flung it open; there was a ladder leading through a trap door to the garret, and he was at the foot of it when suddenly he heard a voice behind him, and saw Marija at his heels. She seized him by the sleeve with her good hand, panting ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... consisted of one large earthen floor room with a loft above. The stairs leading up to this loft had been cut away and a light ladder that could be easily hauled up, substituted. The aperture closed down by a rough trap door made for the purpose. This was done to afford concealment, in case any of the professors should come looking for them, or protection against a rival organization of larger boys, known as the "Wild Hens." When the company assembled, it was customary for Paul, who was their chosen chief, ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the third room, for if he went in there he might just make up his mind at once to lose his life. Then after fourteen days the lad couldn't bear it, but crept into the room, but he saw nothing at all in there but a trap door on the floor; and when he lifted it up and looked down, there stood a great copper cauldron which bubbled and boiled away down there; but he saw no fire ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... of the situation. He had slipped back into his corner, but he couldn't help craning his neck to watch those two leaning over the door of the hansom, while they discussed some point with animation. Several times the man raised his hand as if to give an order through the trap door. Each time Sophia laughingly arrested him. 'He wants to go on,' reported Borrodaile, sympathetically. 'She wants him to wait a minute. Now he's jumped out. What's he—looking for another hansom? No—now she's out. Bless me, she's shaking hands with him. He's back in ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... room for the bay. But as to the ventilation, on that pint my plans are made. I believe a house should be ventilated to the bottom instead of the top. Air goes up instead of down, a house should be ventilated from the mop boards, I think some of havin' em open like a trap door to let the air through. Sime Bentley sez have a row of holes bored right through the sides of the house to let in the air, and when you didn't want to use 'em plug 'em up, when you want a little air take out one stopple, when you want a good deal take out a hull row of plugs. That's a good ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... only by accident, though in sight of two or three houses, and near the road and fields where there has been constant daily passing. The entrance was concealed by a pile of pine straw, representing a hog bed—which being removed, discovered a trap door and steps that led to a room about six feet square, comfortably ceiled with plank, containing a small fire-place the flue of which was ingeniously conducted above ground and concealed by the straw. The inmates took the alarm and made their escape; but Mr. Adams and his excellent ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... be no lonesomer than last year was, nor the year before," and Mrs. Thacher's face quivered a little as she rose and took one of the candles, and opened the trap door that covered the cellar stairs. "Now don't ye go to makin' yourself work," cried the guests. "No, don't! we ain't needin' nothin'; we was late about supper." But their hostess stepped carefully down and disappeared for a few ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... about five feet ten inches high. The barricade was loop-holed here and there, and the planks were in some places wide enough to admit a musket barrel. On the aft side, next the soldiers' berths, was a trap door, like the stoke-hole of a furnace. At first sight this appeared to be contrived for the humane purpose of ventilation, but a second glance dispelled this weak conclusion. The opening was just large enough to ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... a stairs, but there was none. Then, to one side of the kitchen floor, they saw a trap door. It was shut down and bolted by means of a ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... began I witnessed an amusing specimen of the medical scepticism. One of the medical visitors inspected the hall closely, and finding in the back part that a piece of nearly worn out carpet remained on the floor, proceeded to rip it up and tear it away, as if he suspected there might be a trap door concealed. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... Autumn snap set in he had to find shelter. It was Tolman, the undertaker—a good sort—good as they make 'em—who picked him up, asked a few questions and got him the loft of Fred Smith's paintshop. A ladder ascended to a trap door and the garret was full of old truck; but Smokey thought it was a mansion with a marble staircase. He fixed up a couple of boxes for seats, and there was an old two-legged sofa that he propped up for a couch. He scurried around town, got hold of several burlap bags, stuffed them with hay ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... criticism on that particular work, can you imagine a lot of British boys, or boys of any country that one knows of, who would stay contentedly playing children's games in an underground cave when there were wolves and pirates and Red Indians to be had for the asking on the other side of the trap door?" ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... (Looking round.) Well, I see nothing after all. Why should he keep his chamber locked? But, then, there's that chest; let me try—locked fast;—nothing to be gained from that. Still, he comes in by some other way than the door, that's clear; we must have a search for a trap door. (He looks round, and then under the bed. While he is on his knees, feeling the boards, Don Gaspar enters by the secret sliding panel, and observing him, draws his sword, and, as Antonio rises, he ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... would have remonstrated, but Duff ordered him on peremptorily. He led the way therefore to a trap door in the floor of the men's quarters ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... it, hammering at the door and shouting at intervals during the long hours that followed. Once more he lighted matches and began examining his surroundings with more care. Phil discovered a trap door in the ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... mother explained. "You know there is a long passageway between the front rooms of the Fernbloms and their kitchen in the rear. It runs back of the stairs. The next time you go through it, stamp your foot very hard, and you will hear that it sounds hollow in one place. At that spot there used to be a trap door in the floor. Now it is nailed down hard, but in the old days it could be opened any time, and then you found a stairway below. It led into our part of the cellar, where you still can find a couple ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... trap door lead to?" said Almeric, pointing to an arrangement of two folding doors in front of a ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... Tom replied. A second later his eyes widened as he saw a trap door, evidently leading ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... this," he very prudently reasoned, "would I be any better off? That heavy trap door is undoubtedly fastened down, and, so far as I know, that is the only means of exit; but—— What is that?" he suddenly said to himself, as he felt the cold shivers ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... jump, slipping his hand lightly along the rough wooden banister. A few spiral turns brought him to the bell, which hung in an open framework of timber. He gave the huge bronze a familiar tap as he passed, and wound on and upward until he came to a trap door, which Uncle Ith held invitingly open. Then he sprang into the little room at the top of the tower, and Uncle Ith shook him ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... is a trap door in each, like this up here, that drops inward and acts as a chute for sliding down the stuff right onto the track. Simplest thing on earth, and it has been going on for years with devil a ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... his hips, he roared without restraint, while they stood before him lank and straight, as though they had been shot up with a snap through a trap door in the ground. Only four-and-twenty months ago the masters of Europe, they had already the air of antique ghosts, they seemed less substantial in their faded coats than their own narrow shadows falling so black across the white road: the military and grotesque ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... lurked in a hutch artfully concealed between the roof and the rafters at the far end of the dormitory where Killigrew slept. A trap door gave admission to the dim three-cornered place where heads had to be bowed for fear of the beams and voices and footsteps tuned down as low as possible lest someone in authority should overhear. For the badger was contraband, or so its ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... as by a trailing garment. The attic was perfectly bare, affording no hiding-place for man or beast, as there were no closets, presses or means of concealment of any kind. My visitor may have gone out by way of the trap door in the loft which opened upon the roof, but it was securely bolted on the inside, and the bolts, which were caked with rust in their fastenings, had evidently not been pulled out for years. I made a thorough search ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... side of the bed, where she had been sitting, and went cautiously around that gaping trap door to her chamber door, when she missed the key, and suddenly remembered that it had been in Black Donald's pocket when he fell. A shudder thrilled her frame at the thought ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... under the schoolhouse floor until it was immediately beneath his seat. With an auger he made a hole in the floor and brought the end through. He managed to keep this bit of rope concealed, while at the same time he had perfect command of his trap door. ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... "trimmed" in "frame-ups" at cards, and a hunted man was certain to find assistance. Harlan had once boasted that no fugitive had ever been taken from his saloon, and he was behind the bar and standing on the trap door which led to the six-by-six cellar when he made the assertion. It was true, for only those in his confidence knew of the place of refuge under the floor; it had been dug at night and the ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... it; nobody was in it; suspicious circumstance! Aunt Maria put an end to this state of questionable solitude by entering. A dark room; no light except from a trap door; a very proper place for improper doings. At one end rose a large, square block of red sandstone, on which was carved a round face environed by rays, probably representing the sun. Aunt Maria remembered the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... street, and the back part is foreign and faces on another street a square away. The two are connected by a covered walk which passes over a mill race. In the floor of the walk just over the water is a trap door, and look out when I will I can see the Japanese stopping to take a bath in ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... a trap door. Just as soon as she had shown her face, she dropped the veil, and went ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... from ear to ear. "You know they's a trap door in the hall so's to get down in the cellar and it ain't finished yet, so this evening I took the door up and laid heavy paper on it so's if the ghost walked on it he'd go through and he did, and I get the prize, ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... jumped up quickly, took up the emus and made for an opening in the ground at a little distance. This opening was the door of the underground home of the Murgah Muggui spider—the opening was a neat covering, like a sort of trap door. Down though this he went, taking the emus with him, knowing there was another exit at some distance, out of which he could come up quite near his home, for it was the way ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker
... to run on the surface or on the bottom; she was not designed to navigate half-way between. When in search of a wreck or made ready for a cruise along the bottom, the trap door or hatch in her turret-like pilot house was tightly closed; the water was let into her ballast tanks, and two heavy weights to which were attached strong cables that could be wound or unwound from the inside were ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... around. Upon this ledge a substantially made wooden box was placed, just as we place a well fitting tray into our trunks. About three feet of the back of the wooden shell was then taken out, leaving the back of the box exposed. From the center of the back of the box a square was cut out and a trap door fitted in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... nothing was to be seen of the stairway which led to the conning tower. Men were noticed at work, each being stationed at some particular machine or set of machinery. Then, with a bang, something like a trap door swung aside and the stairway was revealed, and a peculiar light streamed in through ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward |
