"Billet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... useful hours: Madame Elizabeth was at prayers meanwhile; the queen was making pleasant parties with her ladies; Monsieur the Count d'Artois was learning to dance on the tightrope; and Monsieur de Provence was cultivating l'eloquence du billet and studying ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... feeling very cold and shivering, owing to my late exposure to the rain, and sleeping in the night air. Collecting, therefore, all the dry sticks and furze I could find, I placed them upon the fireplace, adding certain chips and a billet which I found in the cart, it having apparently been the habit of Slingsby to carry with him a small store of fuel. Having then struck a spark in a tinder-box and lighted a match, I set fire to the combustible heap, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the political prisoners consisted of two small cells, the doors of which opened into the corridor, partitioned off from the rest. As Nekhludoff got beyond the partition he noticed Simonson feeding a billet of pine wood ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... of the kitchen, who vseth (by a tricke taken vp of late) [f] to giue in a brefe rehearsall of such and so manie dishes as are to come in at euerie course throughout the whole seruice in the dinner or supper while: which bill some doo call a [g] memoriall, other a billet, but some a fillet, bicause such are commonlie hanged on the file, and kept by the ladie or gentlewoman vnto some other purpose. But whither am I digressed?" —1577, W. HARRISON, in Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. I. p. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... repartee!' quoth the Prince, and, so saying, he lifted a billet of wood, which chanced to be lying near at hand, and smote the boy on the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... has a damp smell, and has probably been left open to be aired; for the wind comes through the unbarred casement, and a billet barns on the Hearth. The place has that attractive, fascinating air which belongs to a lumber-room,—than which I know nothing that so captivates the interest and fancy of young people. What treasures, to them, often lie hid in ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... our arms ached, for it was over two miles to the billet! A collision of milk-trains could hardly have made more noise than we did as we clashed and clanged down the main street. Of course we met everybody we knew. People we hadn't seen for years, people we didn't like, people who didn't like us—all seemed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... amid our horrid business and bustle, and I shall improve them as well as I can; but let my letter be as stupid as * * * * * * * * *, as miscellaneous as a newspaper, as short as a hungry grace-before-meat, or as long as a law-paper in the Douglas cause; as ill-spelt as country John's billet-doux, or as unsightly a scrawl as Betty Byre-Mucker's answer to it; I hope, considering circumstances, you will forgive it; and as it will put you to no expense of postage, I shall have the less ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... not sitting here to listen to any yarns of yours, Tom Craig. Well, as might have been expected, this old scientific fellow, Colonel Maclean, takes a fancy to the girl and asks her to take the billet of secretary to him. She took it—took it to help the old father who was getting shakier and shakier every day, and wanted all ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... Ranjitgarh and back. But as Antony will probably punish your misdeeds by sentencing you to stay on here and keep the peace between the rival Regents, it's just as well you didn't make yourself impossible by accepting. Can't say I envy you the billet." ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... continued the maid, taking a billet from her bosom, "which I hope will enliven you. When I was ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross, 'neither sickness, nor business, nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your billet.' ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... to sleep," "down to sleep," "down to sleep," till I discovered myself, when I ceased. Then a shell, apparently just in range, dashed toward me, and the words spasmodically leaped up: "Now's your time. This is your billet." With the same insane pertinacity I continued to repeat "Now's your time, now's your time," and "billet, billet, billet," till at last I came up to the nearest battery, where I could look over the crest ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Adjoining this particular rest billet was another of similar character run by the K. of C., which was also well patronized; indeed there seemed to be a friendly rivalry between the organizations to discover which could spread the most ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... assigned. Following standard assignment procedures, the Department of Personnel's Detail Branch selected individual staff noncommissioned officers for specific duty billets. After screening the records of a marine and considering his race, the branch could reject the assignment of a Negro to a billet for any (p. 467) reason "of overriding ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... another billet for old Ranger, and had installed a dour Scotchman in his place. But Sylvia still corresponded with young Guy, still spoke of him as the man she meant to marry. It was true she did not often speak of him, but that might have been ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... interrupted Percival. "It's someone else's wife I've got to find. Ecoutez. Teddy Roker has got permission for his wife to visit him out here. He's expecting her by this afternoon's boat and has got a billet fixed up all right, but he's been suddenly rushed away on a court-martial case, so he's asked me to meet her, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... with a single hand. A second command and every bow was bent. A third and with a noise that was half hiss and half moan, thousands of arrows leapt forward. Forward they leapt, and swift and terrible they fell among the ranks of the advancing Genoese. Yes, and ere ever one had found its billet, its quiver-mate was hastening on its path. Then—oh! the sunlight showed it all—the Genoese rolled over by scores, their frail armour bitten through and through by the grey English arrows. By scores that grew to hundreds, that grew till the poor, helpless men who were yet unhurt among ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Morton took the billet, and crimsoning up to the ears, between joy and surprise, read these words: "If you can serve these poor helpless people, you will oblige ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... with the day of alarms, and the care of our wounded, had not kept better watch. Then knew I that some one had been less faithless than I, and I hoped that poor Henry was at least dying in peace; I had never deemed that he could survive. But when I saw thy billet, and heard Ferrers' tale, I had no further doubt, remembering likewise how strangely familiar was the face of that little one ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "This billet, young sir, would be enough to secure you a welcome from me. Tell me of my good friend Captain Jack. Ah! if he could have but stuck to honest trade, he and I might have made our fortunes together ere now. Never was such a figure for showing off coat ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... strong possibility that they might be rescued by their friends from the other side of the river before assistance could reach him. Lieut.-Col. Dennis, however, was obdurate, and was making arrangements to billet the Welland Canal Battery in the village when the intelligence came that a battle had been fought at Ridgeway, and that the Fenians were on their way back to Fort ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... were forgotten by me, almost as soon as uttered. Angelo supped with me that night, and when he took his leave, he had never seemed gayer or happier. The next day, at noon, I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and a perfumed billet-doux; they were from Angelo. On opening the missive, I found that it contained the most eloquent assurance of his sincere love—but, to my horror, in a postscript of two lines he expressed his intention of destroying himself ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... light into our abode by tapping a live wire which ran outside, from one fosse to the next, for we were now in the Lens coal district with mines dotted about here and there. On the other hand, we soon learnt to refrain from sleeping or showing lights in the second storey of our billet which was evidently under direct observation by the enemy, who did not take long to acquaint ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... noble Alovisa appears a conquest worthy of her powers. To an incoherent expression of her passion sent to him in an anonymous letter he pays no attention, having for diversion commenced an intrigue with the lovely Amena. Though Alovisa in a second billet bids him aim at a higher mark, "he had said too many fine things to be lost," and continues his pursuit until Amena's father takes alarm and locks her up. Through her maid she arranges for a secret meeting, and though touched ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... the very next day our old man's servant went sick, and in spite of my extreme youth and innocence, I was selected from the crowd to fill the vacant billet. And then it was that the Colonel realised that fate had dropped a heaven-sent blessing on his knees in the shape of a—well, in the shape of an ingenious bloke like me. He lifted up his voice in thanksgiving ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... spoke not a word, and continued his position till he left the theatre. Next morning, the lady received a parcel, the contents of which she found to be the tresses which she had so much admired, and which the erratic poet had cut off close to his head. No billet accompanied the gift; but it could not have been more clearly said, "If you like the hair, here it is; but, for Heaven's ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... irksomely, will be Read in like manner. What did I say last In my late canto? Something, I believe Of gratitude. Now this same gratitude Is a fine word to play on. Many a niche It fills in letters, and in billet-doux,— Its adjective a graceful prefix makes To a well-written signature. It gleams A happy mirage in a sunny brain; But as a principle, is oft, I fear, Inoperative. Some satirist hath said That gratitude is only a keen sense Of future favors. As regards myself, Tis my misfortune, and perhaps, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... as the world's history, to the alliance and the active help of Fortune, the punctual goddess stepped down from the machine. One of the Princess's ladies begged to enter; a man, it appeared, had brought a line for the Freiherr von Gondremark. It proved to be a pencil billet, which the crafty Greisengesang had found the means to scribble and despatch under the very guns of Otto; and the daring of the act bore testimony to the terror of the actor. For Greisengesang had but one influential motive: fear. The note ran thus: "At ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... set us about fetching heaps of dry leaves to spread behind the stocks for a couch. A trunk of a small cocoa-nut tree was then placed for a bolster—rather a hard one, but the natives are used to it. For a pillow, they use a little billet of wood, scooped out, and standing on four short legs—a sort ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the wettest and most dismal in France. The Somme battle, which for three months had rumbled in the distance like a huge thunderstorm, was a magnet to attract all divisions in turn. The predictions of the French billet-keepers were realised at the end of October, when the 2/4th Oxfords were relieved in the trenches by a battalion of the Middlesex Regiment and prepared to march southwards ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... savage rush. The foreman gave ground, but stretched out his foot and Charnock, tripping over it, plunged forward and fell among the legs of the nearest men. They crowded back, and as he got up awkwardly the foreman seized a heavy billet of cordwood and flung it at his head. The billet struck his shoulder, but he was on his feet, his face set and white, and his eyes vindictively hard. It was a foul blow, but there are few rules to hamper men who fight in a Western construction camp, and Charnock thought ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... camp fire in the centre of a forest clearing in mid-Africa. They did not speak, but sat propped against logs, smoking. One of the five knocked out the ashes of his pipe upon the ground; a second, roused by the movement, picked up a fresh billet of wood with a shiver and threw it on to the fire, and the light for a moment flung a steady glow upon faces which were set with anxiety. The man who had picked up the billet looked from one to the other of the faces, then he turned and gazed behind him into ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... new—only nine months old! Potele! Some woman has sent you a love-scrawl and some tobacco; I suppose she knew your passions all ended in smoke! Rafle! Here is a little money come for you from France; it has not been stolen, so it will have no spice for you! Racoleur! Here is a love-billet from some simpleton, with a knife as a souvenir; sharpen it on the Arbicos. Poupard, Loup-terrible, Jean Pagnote, Pince-Maille, Louis Magot, Jules Goupil—here! There are your letters, your papers, your commissions. Biribi forgot nothing. As if you deserved ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... among them. Guarding a house is "not their pidgin" as the Chinese say. That is one great reason for the success of the dog at whatever branch of his tribe's work he goes in for—he is so thorough. Dogs who are forced to combine half-a-dozen professions never make a success at anything. One dog one billet is their motto. ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Provincial funds should warrant the opening of the long-surveyed Luni Protective Canal System. And Scott spoke openly of his great desire to be put on one particular section of the work where he knew the land and the people; and Martyn sighed for a billet in the Himalayan foot-hills, and said his mind of his superiors, and William rolled cigarettes and said nothing, but smiled gravely on her brother ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... want of admiration, to take due pains—would inevitably become a clever writer. As it is, her notes and 'jeux d'esprit' struck off 'a trait de plume,' have great point and neatness. Take the following billet, which formed the label to a closed basket, containing the ponderous present alluded to, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... least, of the three found a human billet. There was a shout of surprise and pain, and the next volley spurted from the ground level. This could do no damage owing to the angle, but he endeavored to disconcert the marksmen by keeping up a steady fire in their direction. He did not dream of attaining other than a moral effect, ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... into districts, about thirty or thirty-five in number, over each of which an officer presided as police magistrate, with a clerk and staff of constables, one of whom was official flogger, always a convict promoted to the billet for ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... measure we proceeded for a couple of miles at twenty metres, when, coming up to periscope depth, we surfaced, and finding all clear we proceeded. We were put down by a trawler at dawn, though she never saw us. After half an hour's hanging about she moved off, which was lucky, as she was right on our billet. ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... last night when I received my billet paper. For my life's sake I could not sleep; I lay awake all night long, thinking of home and of Mary. She asked for something from France. I had no money. I drew three months' advance last week to send home to my brother and my cousin. This morning, when I got up to go, I opened my window. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... read the telegram from his aunt, Lady de la Paule, his emotion was so great that he staggered a little, and a friend standing by in the billet took out his flask and gave him some brandy, thinking that he must have ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... far-sighted. In time he became my counsellor, until he knew more of my business than I did myself. He really had my interest at heart more than I did. Mine was the magnificent carelessness of youth, for I preferred romance to dollars, and adventure to a comfortable billet with all night in. So it was well that I had some one to look out for me. I know that if it had not been for Otoo, I should not ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... came to a sudden end, for without warning a billet of wood struck him fairly on top of the head and he ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... honesty a liberal interpretation. But amongst many others he had one conspicuous virtue: he loved the old Squire as a Highlandman loves his chief, and would almost, if not quite, have died to serve him. His billet was no easy one, for Mr. de la Molle's temper was none of the best at times, and when things went wrong, as they pretty frequently did, he was exceedingly apt to visit his wrath on the head of the devoted ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... courage to read it; but having scrupled to present to my readers the Reverend Father Brennan at the tail of a chapter, let me not be less punctilious in the introduction of her ladyship's billet. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... there is a moral somnambulism more frightful than that which leads to midnight promenades on the combs of roofs, and the borders of Goat Island; so I wiped my tears away, and after that day, began to read the billet doux and wear the flowers ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... charter of the liberties of England, known by the name of the Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act, the King bound himself to raise no taxes without the consent of Parliament, to imprison no man except by legal process, to billet no more soldiers on the people, and to leave the cognisance of offences to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... say, and leave them lying—and for what? To dangle at some faded opera, which I have heard a thousand times, behind the chair of some fine lady whose person I could possess (if I wanted it) for the writing of a billet. Is it not incredible? But there is more to come. My future master, the Grand Prince, is more of a fool than I am, because he doesn't know it. Yet I read more consequence out of some petulant freak of his than from all the despair of a nation starving to death; and I know very well which would ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... wheeled after a shot, to yell through the tower door into the courtyard. "Oot o' the way, wimmen! He's putten gunpowder to the gate if I canna stop him." Then, he wheeled into place, and was entranced to see that the next bullet found its billet under the Arab's turban. In the orange light of the bonfires, Angus could see a spout of crimson gush down the bronze forehead and over the glittering eyes. But the wounded Arab did not fall back an inch or drop a burden which he carried carefully. Now he was sheltering behind ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the letter. "Here, at last is the good news we have both been waiting for! I have been offered exactly the kind of billet I wanted—that of estate-agent to a big land-owner. The salary is a really generous one, and there's a jolly little cottage goes with it, so that you'll be able to chuck free-lancing and come and keep house for me as we've always planned. Needless ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... M'Kenrie, whose modesty as he afterwards assured us had been the only reason of his having so long concealed the violence of his affection for Janetta, on receiving this Billet flew on the wings of Love to Macdonald-Hall, and so powerfully pleaded his Attachment to her who inspired it, that after a few more private interveiws, Sophia and I experienced the satisfaction of seeing them depart for Gretna-Green, which they chose for the celebration of their ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... was at home and came instantly on the receipt of my billet. When he saw me, he endeavoured to smile; and not appear in the least surprised, or affected. But his feelings betrayed him; the tears started into his eyes, and he was obliged to turn away his face. He made an ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... as Stuart's column started southward, Mosby took his six men across Bull Run Mountain to Middleburg, where he ordered them to scatter out, billet themselves at outlying farms, and meet him at the Middleburg hotel on the night of January 10. Meanwhile he returned alone to Fairfax County, spending the next week making contacts with the people ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... especially if he is called out of town often, or resides in another city. The inexperienced, very-much-in-love girl is quite likely to write very ardent and affectionate letters. Leave that to the man. If she knows her Thackeray she will remember the rose-colored billet-doux poor Amelia used to write to her George, and which lay unopened day after day, and will model her missives upon the style of Lucy Snowe's to the Professor—"a morsel of ice, flavored with ever so slight a zest of sweetness." Let her make them bright, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... that they were doing something useful once more. For three days Mrs. Britling had to feed her new lodgers—the kitchen motors had as usual gone astray—and she did so in a style that made their boastings about their billet almost insufferable to the rest of their battery. The billeting allowance at that time was ninepence a head, and Mr. Britling, ashamed of making a profit out of his country, supplied not only generous firing ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... importance to a sub in a marching regiment; and therefore I was firm in my determination to avoid the gambling-table. Now my fortunes were altered; and as I looked at the heap of shining louis d'or, which Guy pushed before me in exchange for a billet de banque of large amount, I felt the full importance of my altered position, mingling with the old and long practised prejudices which years had been accumulating to fix. There is besides some wonderful fascination to most men in the very aspect of high play: to pit ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... Raymonde, whose billet was opposite the door of the tent, could see out, and watch the stars shining. She lay awake a long time, with her eyes fixed on a bright planet that moved across the little horizon of sky visible to her, till it passed out ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... soldiers they were, while the M.M. Police stood at the corners directing traffic as only the members of that unit can. Into the Rue d'Arras we turned, and outside an Ecole de Filles we halted. There was our billet, the best we ever had. In the playground stood our cooker. Upstairs we were packed into the classrooms, with just enough room allowed to stretch one's legs and to turn over should one wish. We had our stew, ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... before. I did not sail with Pearson that year, for he was promoted suddenly to a ship ready to sail. It was a piece of luck for him. One of the owners went down to the docks late one afternoon and found the captain blind drunk. So he was sent straight on shore, and Pearson got his billet. I was very sorry that I could not go with him, as after that business we became great friends, and in his report of the affair he gave me more credit than I deserved for my idea of getting those hatchets up, which, he said, alone enabled us to make a successful defence. I had the more cause to ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... Great rang the bell one day, and nobody answered. He opened the door, and found the page sleeping on a sofa. About to wake him, he perceived the end of a billet out of his pocket, and had the curiosity to know the contents: Frederick carefully drew it out, and read it; it was a letter from the mother of the young man, who thanked him for having sent her part of his wages, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... digged for their innocent, unoffending neighbours; and his mercy, in preserving those whom he employed as the Executioners of his vengeance on his Enemies. Not a Soldier or Yeoman was so much as slightly wounded! One Soldier indeed who had not left his billet, they hung with a sheet; but being ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... courtship (for they are both engaged in the wooing), they decide that Todaro, after walking back and forth a sufficient number of times in the street where the Biondina lives, shall write her a tender letter, to demand if she be disposed to correspond his love. This billet must always be conveyed to her by her serving-maid, who must be bribed by Marco for the purpose. At every juncture Marco must be consulted, and acquainted with every step of progress; and no doubt the Biondina has some lively Moretta for her friend, to whom ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... of New Jersey also took an amusing fling at article six. As originally drawn it stipulated that the local unit should be termed a billet. "I object to the word billet," he said. "It has too many unpleasant associations as those men who slept in them in France will testify. A billet meant some place where you lay down and slept as long as certain little animals ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... means of obtaining his object. Making the acquaintance of the lighthearted and cunning barber Figaro, the latter advises him to get entrance into Bartolo's house in the guise of a soldier possessing a billet of quartering for his lodgings. Rosina herself has not failed to hear the sweet love-songs of the Count, known to her only under the simple name of Lindoro; and with southern passion, and the lightheartedness, which characterizes all the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... aptitude for the service, he is sent to Washington navy yard for a course of six months' instruction in gunnery and special branches, such as electricity and torpedoes. He becomes a seaman gunner, with the billet and pay ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... circumstances you can call it resting. The rather stodgy Brigade-Major's leave being due, his wife has come over to Paris to wait for him. The leave being cancelled (and you could see how desperately overworked Headquarters was) there suddenly appears what purports to be a niece of the billet landlady's, a Mdlle. Juliette, of the Paris stage, with a distinctly coming-on disposition (and frock). The uxorious Brigade-Major, weakly consenting to the deception, suffers the tortures of the damned by reason of the gallantries of the precocious Staff-Captain and the old-enough-to-know-better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... that doesn't look like a billet-doux. 'My dear duke, help, I am drowning! The Cour des Comptes has stuck its nose into ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... to brandish. blando soft, smooth. blanquear to whiten, whitewash. blanquecino whitish. blasfemar to blaspheme. blasfemia blasphemy. bobo stupid, silly. boca mouth. bola ball, globe. boleta soldier's billet. bolsillo pocket, purse. bondadoso kindly. Bonifacio Boniface. bonito pretty. boqueron m. anchovy. boquete m. gap, narrow entrance. bordar to embroider. bordo board (of ship). borrar to blot, efface. borrego lamb. borrico donkey. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... deny that the soldiers in our gigantic European armies, who do nothing with their shooting-sticks but allay their helpless fears by shooting innumerable holes in the air, only one out of two hundred of their bullets reaching its billet, could do little with such antagonists. 'But how would you defend yourselves against the artillery ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... to his mother or to his father, or to Miss Clendenning or old Mr. Crocker. Occasionally he would write to Sue—not often—for that volatile young lady had so far forgotten Oliver as to leave his letters unanswered for weeks at a time. She was singing "Dixie," she told him in her last billet-doux, now a month old, and wondering whether Oliver was getting to be a Yankee, and whether he would be coming home with a high collar and his hair cut short and parted ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Shock, who thought she slept too long, Leaped up, and waked his mistress with his tongue. 'Twas then, Belinda, if report say true, Thy eyes first opened on a billet-doux; Wounds, charms, and ardours were no sooner read, But all the vision vanished from ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... two the light of a taper gleamed through the shot-hole, and very shortly after, the preacher, with the assistance of his staff, pushed a billet ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... of a feather bed upon the fire. The dense smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him. Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come; Where the scalper — never troubled by the 'war-whoop of the push' — Has a quiet little billet — breeding rabbits in the bush; Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw, And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law; Where the labour-agitator — when the shearers rise in might — Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right; ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... were never carried out. As the messenger hastened with the King's billet-doux, and the Brethren on the northern frontier were setting out for Poland, Augusta and Bilek were on their way to the famous old castle of Prglitz. For ages that castle, built on a rock, and hidden away in darkling woods, had ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... there," said the captain, pushing him to the window; "on the plain, near the houses of Villafranca, where there is a gleam of bayonets. There stand our troops, motionless. You are to take this billet, tie yourself to the rope, descend from the window, get down that slope in an instant, make your way across the fields, arrive at our men, and give the note to the first officer you see. Throw ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... cabbage, five shillings a hundred! I'm not his father-in-law, and I'm not his friend, so I'll have a dip in here. (Taking some from first box.) It's strange my tastes and the governor's should be so similar—we both like the best of everything! (Lighting cigar.) I'm not in a bad billet here, nothing to do and no end of leisure to do it in, especially when the missus is away; she's gone to her aunt's at Tunbridge Wells, so master and his friend, Mr. Fred Bellamy, are left to do as they like. (Sits in ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun
... Albany. The manuscript has suffered considerably from the tooth of time, and from several marks of antiquity about it, it may be safely inferred, that a century at least has elapsed since it was written. It is hardly necessary to inform the judicious reader, that this piece is no other than a billet doux, or love epistle, sent by some Dutch swain in the country, to the girl of his heart, who, it seems, had gone to reside some time ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... "Un billet doux" said the patron, playing without design the part of a bewildered chorus, "Why should not madame have given it to him if she wished to write that which she was too ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... good billet; but nothing to make a fuss about. Of course for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, it would be a godsend and above their highest hopes or deserts; but I'm the hundredth man—a man of very rare gifts and understanding, and full of accomplishments ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... morceaux d'un papier de forme allongee fabrique avec des filaments de muriers sur lesquels est imprime le nom de l'empereur. Lorsqu'un de ces papiers est use, on le porte aux officiers du prince et, moyennant une perte minime, on recoit un autre billet en echange, ainsi que cela a lieu dans nos hotels des monnaies, pour les matieres d'or et d'argent que l'on y porte pour etre converties en ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Sponge, turning away to give his orders to Leather. 'I'll work him for it,' he added. 'He sha'n't get rid of me in a hurry—at least, not unless I can get a better billet elsewhere.' ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Dravot. ‘It means running the country as easy as a four-wheeled bogy on a down grade. We can’t stop to inquire now, or they’ll turn against us. I’ve forty Chiefs at my heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall be. Billet these men on the villages and see that we run up a Lodge of some kind. The temple of Imbra will do for the Lodge-room. The women must make aprons as you show them. I’ll hold a levee of Chiefs tonight and ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... here?" asked Desiree, who was eminently practical. A billet was a misfortune which Charles Darragon had hitherto succeeded in warding off. He had some small influence as an officer of the ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... you. If you should make for Fortress Monroe, you have all of Magruder's army to get through. You would surely be caught in the act, and then I could do nothing for you. You would be sent to Castle Winder, and that isn't a very comfortable billet." ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Pezay, a French translator, strangely mistakes the meaning of the passage, as if it amounted to this, "I have gorged till I am ready to burst;" and he quotes the remark of "une femme charmante," who said that her only reply to such a billet-doux would have been to send the writer an emetic. But the lady might have prescribed a different remedy if she had been acquainted with ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... bestride the plank and lie prone upon it; which she did with great trouble and timidity; but as she was unable, on account of the fullness of her bust, to lay her neck upon the block, this had to be raised by placing a billet of wood underneath it; all this time the poor woman, suffering even more from shame than from fear, was kept in suspense; at length, when she was properly adjusted, the executioner touched the spring, the knife fell, and the decapitated head, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... some unwillingness, and after much ineffectual entreaty having for its object the immediate settlement of the business, that his quarters would be at the Crooked Billet in Tower Street; where he would be found waking until midnight, and sleeping until breakfast ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... latitude of 42 deg. 39', longitude 137 deg. 58' W. In the evening, the calm was succeeded by a breeze from S.W., which soon after increased to a fresh gale; and fixing at S.S.W, with it we steered N.E. 1/2 E. in the latitude of 41 deg. 25', longitude 135 deg. 58' W., we saw floating in the sea a billet of wood, which seemed to be covered with barnacles; so that there was no judging how long it might have been there, or from whence or how far ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... circuitous passage through the body of the stove. A certain bunch of sergeants nearly asphyxiated themselves before they discovered the secret of the damper in the stove. They were nearly pickled in pine smoke. And a whole company of soldiers nearly lost their billet in Kholmogori when they started up the sisters' stoves without pulling the ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... harried their little tin souls, Seeing he came not from Chatham, jingled no spurs at his heels, Knowing that, nevertheless, was he first on the Government rolls For the billet of "Railway Instructor to Little ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... They ought to be ashamed of themselves. He could never respect an Englishman again." "And yet," adds the writer, "this gentleman (had an officer been billeted there) would have sold him a bottle of wine out of his cellar, or a billet of wood from his stack, or an egg from his hen-house, at a profit of fifty per cent., not only without scruple, but upon no other terms. It was as common as ordering wine at a tavern, to call the servant of any man's establishment where we happened to be quartered, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... at mrs. C—rt-f—r's, flattered my vanity enough to make me think he was no less charmed with me than I too plainly found I was with him. I slept little that night, and pretty early the next morning received a billet ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... been incorrigible, and had insisted on intruding his clumsy person upon Lady Fareham's party, arguing with a dull persistence that his name was on her ladyship's billet of invitation. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... backward course, you see the interminable foliage of the forest of Dean, and the rich valleys of Glo'stershire. A very handsome house, about a mile down the river, attracted our attention. "It's a reg'lar good billet," said Mr Williams, breaking off from some other piece of information with which he was regaling the idle wind, for by this time we had acquired a power of not hearing a word he said; "and it's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... Guernsey," all classes of the community fully manifested the pleasure they enjoyed at this signal honour; he being the first native of that island who had taken his seat in the House of Lords. On the 6th October, 1831, the bailiff officially announced the joyful news in his Billet d'Etat, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... me where a stranger could get lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," says he, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better." He brought me to the Crooked Billet, in Water Street. Here I got a dinner; and, while I was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance that I might be some runaway. After dinner my sleepiness returned, and, being shown to a bed, I lay down without undressing, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... disappeared among the crowd. The incident awakened Morton's curiosity; and when he found himself on board of a vessel bound for Rotterdam, and saw all his companions of the voyage busy making their own arrangements, he took an opportunity to open the billet thus mysteriously thrust upon him. It ran thus:—"Thy courage on the fatal day when Israel fled before his enemies, hath, in some measure, atoned for thy unhappy owning of the Erastian interest. These are not days for ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... divided into messes, each man being assigned to a certain mess at the same time his billet number or ship's number is given to him. There are from fifteen to thirty men in a mess. Each has its own "berth-deck cook," who prepares the food for the galley; each, too, has a mess caterer, or striker, whose business it is to help the mess ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... as liberated convicted witches. As in England so here, a body of men came into existence whose business it was to travel the country and detect witches. Anonymous accusations were invited, the clergy "placing an empty box in church, to receive a billet with the sorcerer's name, and the date and description of his deeds."[194] In 1603 "at the College of Auld Abirdene" every minister was ordered to make "subtill and privie inquisition," concerning the number of witches in his parish, and report the same ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... he finds to do, Mrs. Elliott?" said he one morning, after he had just read the hasty billet and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to engage in her service any person of either sex who cannot produce, not a certificate of civism from the municipality as was formerly the case, but a certificate of Christianity, and a billet of confession signed by the curate of the parish, she had often been robbed, and the robbers had made particularly free with those relics which were set in gold or in diamonds. She accused her daughter, the Princesse Borghese, who often rallies the devotion of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... Mac picked up a billet of wood, and drove the cork in flush with the neck. Then, placing upright on the cork the helve of the hammer, he drove the cork down a ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... withered energies on petty law cases, to one of which the present note refers. The hand is a little tremulous with age, yet small and fastidiously elegant, as became a man who was in the habit of writing billet-doux on scented note-paper, as well as documents of war and state. This is to us a deeply interesting autograph. Remembering what has been said of the power of Burr's personal influence, his art to tempt men, his might to subdue them, and the fascination that enabled him, though ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cavalry, scion of a Philadelphia family well known to the Stuyvesants of Gotham and "trotting in the same class," had come over from department head-quarters, where he had a billet as engineer officer, to call on Stuyvesant and to cheer him up and contribute to his convalescence, and did so after the manner of men, by talking on all manner of topics for nearly an hour and winding up by a dissertation on Billy Ray's pretty daughter and "Wally" Foster's infatuation. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... the means that had been used in bringing Hetty off. Two dead and dry, and consequently buoyant, logs of pine were bound together with pins and withes and a little platform of riven chestnut had been rudely placed on their surfaces. Here Hetty had been seated, on a billet of wood, while the young Iroquois had rowed the primitive and slow-moving, but perfectly safe craft ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... afflicted that they can almost compel the doctor to admit them into the hospital. So whenever they are put into some billet they like they are well, and whenever they are put into one they dislike they send in a sick report, and the medical officer in general must admit them. This was the case with the prisoner I have referred to. Moreover, I question if he was ever a single day in the prison without doing something ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... certainly live it up when he got back, Lance swore. He would have his wedding; import Casey from the Club to spike the punch; and, perhaps after he'd gotten in his required number of scout-missions, he might even settle for a chair-borne exec's billet, himself. ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... baggage of Mr. Edwin Salsbury and Mr. Charles Burnham was sent to the depot at Wikhasset Station, and they presented themselves at the hotel-office with a request for their bill. As Jerry Swayne deposited their key upon its hook, he drew forth a small tri-cornered billet from the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... than ordinarily affectionate and gentle, when, presently, after pacing the walks for a half-hour, the person for whom she was waiting came to her. This was our young Virginian, to whom she had despatched an early billet by one of the Lockwoods. The note was signed B. Bernstein, and informed Mr. Esmond Warrington that his relatives at Castlewood, and among them a dear friend of his grandfather, were most anxious that he should come to "Colonel Esmond's house in England." And now, accordingly, the lad ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her nerves were excited again; and she was consoled or horrified, as the case may be (the reader must settle the point according to his ideas and knowledge of womankind),—she was at any rate dreadfully excited by the receipt of a billet in the well-known clerk-like hand of Mr. Sly. It ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... you ought to be. Your past life is sufficient certificate of manhood; and now has come your time to be a baby, while I am mother. You have been lying here like an engine, under a high pressure of steam, and the safety-value fastened down with a billet of wood, until there has been almost an explosion. Now just take away that stick of wood—your manhood and pride, and let out all the groans and tears you have pent in your heart. Cry all you can! This is ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... sleep in my bed to-night, for I suspect there may be treachery abroad. Thou shalt keep watch, therefore, in case anything may happen in the night; and if thou shalt see me strive with anyone, do not alarm the men. Meanwhile go thou and fetch me a billet of wood, and let it be a ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... flat pilasters which support the round arches of its base are sheeted with a delicately-tinged marble; the flower-work of their capitals and the mask enclosed within it are gilded like the continuous billet moulding which runs round in the hollow of each arch, while the spandrils are filled in with richer and darker marbles, each broken with a central medallion of gold. The use of gold indeed seems a "note" of the colouring of the early Renascence; a broad ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... repetition of low expressions: but I could not but, in justice to myself, point out to him the passages in my case which he had overlooked. Accordingly, having marked them with letters, I sent it back, with the following billet. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... afterwards to dog and keep watch on your new friend. The moment the latter entered I saw at once, from his dress and his address, that he was a 'scamp;' and thought it highly inexpedient to place you in his power by any money transactions. While talking with him, Sharp sent in a billet containing his recognition of our gentleman as ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Drawing—Truly there was nothing in me that should have induced Him to choose me. I was but as the other brands upon whom the fire is already kindled, which shall burn for evermore! And as soon could the billet leap from the hearth and become a green tree, as my soul could have sprung to ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... work was concerned, either a feast or a famine with her, and she longed for just such a position as that held by an older scholar, who was stenographer and typewriter on salary in the office of a great law firm and yet was enabled to take frequent transcribing or copying from outside; but for a billet of this kind she looked in vain. Then came another winter. How it affected Miss Wallen can best be told through this simple fact, that she was no longer able to ride home even in the dark wet evenings. Mart had again ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... gotten the billet, Francie said she; and when he had handed it over, and she had read and burned it, 'Did you ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of bein' lapped in luxury in a billet better than me and Jim. Mrs. Dawkins, as I told you, give us the best of everything in the 'ouse and our lives wasn't worth livin' owin' to Mr. Dawkins and the little Dawkinses and a young man lodger takin' against us in consekence. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... always cuddled close against her shoulder, and how she loved him! But she died some months ago, and I gave up my outpost work for a time, with a year's leave, and have come to England until my next billet is fixed. We named the boy "Paul" after myself, and have given him the surname which was with difficulty made out on the brass collar of a dog which came with him—the name of "Fife," presumably that of its former master. I seemed to gather from the man that the dog had been found with ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... it for him to gratify both, and not very easy to deceive either:—he went back into the garden, ruminating what course he should take in so intricate an affair; at first he thought of writing a little billet, and slipping it into Elgidia's hand, acquainting her that the abbess had commanded him to attend her in the garden at the time she mentioned, and telling her that he thought it necessary to obey, to prevent ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... the while I took her for a Man: But finding me asleep, she softly rose; and, by a Light yet burning in my Chamber, she writ this Billet, and left it on my Table. [Gives it George, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... glad to rest our weary feet—I, especially. I cannot say that my leg hurt me, but my feet! I had never undergone such fatigue. With our billet for lodging we had the right to a corner of the fire, but our hosts also gave us a place at the table. We had nearly always buttermilk and potatoes, and often fresh cheese or a dish of sauerkraut. The children came to look at us, and the old women ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... wife, but no family; and he loves to drill the children of his tenants, or run races with them, or do anything with them, or for them, that is good-natured. He is of a highly convivial temperament, and his hospitality is unbounded. Billet a soldier on him, and he is delighted. Five-and-thirty soldiers had M. Loyal billeted on him this present summer, and they all got fat and red-faced in two days. It became a legend among the troops that whosoever got billeted on M. Loyal rolled in clover; ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... word, but departed. Now he had in his pocket an unanswered billet-doux, which had been laid upon his table the preceding night: the billet-doux had no name to it; but, from all he had remarked of the lady's manners towards him, he could not doubt that it was the charming Alicia's. He was determined to ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... leave a dream. I got into our wagon-lines last night after midnight, having had a cold ride along frozen roads through white wintry country. I was only half-expected, so my sleeping-bag hadn't been unpacked. I had to wake my batman and tramp about a mile to the billet; by the time I got there every one was asleep, so I spread out my sleeping-sack and crept in very quietly. For the few minutes before my eyes closed I pictured London, the taxis, the gay parties, the mystery ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... line at a fair number of places—since writing these words, many miles away in my billet, working in the brick-floored cottage bedroom by the light of an oil lamp, I have stepped to the door, and there I can see it now, always flickering and flashing like faint summer lightning under the clouds on the horizon. When you come to the very limit—to the farthest point which ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... not been quite quick enough to snatch his hands away, after working the trick. The consequence was that when the billet of wood was plucked from his grasp with such swiftness, and drawn instantly aloft, Steve staggered, and might have fallen only that Obed clutched ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... John-the-Divine (now used as a clergy vestry), which is perhaps the oldest part of the fabric. The undoubted Norman remains consist of three arches in the same chapel, where their outline is just discernible among the brickwork; the fragment of a string-course, with billet moulding, on the inner wall of the north transept; a portion of the Prior's entrance to the cloisters; the old Canons' doorway; and an arcaded recess. Of these, it may be briefly remarked that the remains of the Prior's door, showing the mutilated shafts and the zigzag moulding ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... young men reached Andernach the night was dark. Presuming that they would lose much time in looking for their chiefs and obtaining from them a military billet in a town already full of soldiers, they resolved to spend their last night of freedom at an inn standing some two or three hundred feet from Andernach, the rich color of which, embellished by the fires of the setting sun, they had greatly admired from the summit of the hill ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... leaving the Colonel's office together, Gerhardt asked him whether he had got his billet. Claude replied that after the men were in their quarters, he would look out ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... Harry, as he placed the kettle on the fire—"strange to be hungry after a five miles' walk and a night in the snow? I would rather say it was strange if you were not hungry. Throw on that billet, like a good fellow, and spit those grouse, while I cut some pemmican and prepare ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... demander. Elle lui repondit une admonestation, et en l'engageant a etre desormais plus econome, de facon a ne pas se trouver depourvu a la fin du mois. Tres bien. Quelque jours apres, elle recut un second billet de son petit-fils. ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... knees and began crawling towards his countrymen like a poor, stricken dog, in the hope that they would spare him when they saw his condition. But pitilessly once more the rifles crashed out, and this time their bullets found a billet in his vital parts, for the beggar rolled over and remained motionless. There he now lies where he was shot down in the dust and dirt, and his white beard and his rotting rags seem to raise a silent and eloquent protest ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... nothing remained but the breech-cloth. Beaulieu took a rope (selected by himself for the purpose) and first tied and knotted one end about the juggler's ankles; his knees were then securely tied together, next the wrists, after which the arms were passed over the knees and a billet of wood passed through under the knees, thus securing and keeping the arms down motionless. The rope was then passed around the neck, again and again, each time tied and knotted, so as to bring ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... in his avocation, when Benj. S. Rust, with a warrant from United States Commissioner H.K. Smith, went on board the boat. Daniel was called up from below, and as his head appeared above the deck, Rust struck him a heavy blow, upon the head, with a large billet of wood, which knocked him back into the cook-room, where he fell upon the stove and was badly burned. In this state, he was brought before the Commissioner, "bleeding profusely at the back, of the head, and at the nose, and was moreover so stupefied by the assault, ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society
... discourse involved her opinions of her neighbors, friends, and relatives; and, one day, a few weeks after, I was suddenly surprised by a visit from a gentleman—one of the members of the bar—who placed a letter in my hands from Mr. Perkins. I read this billet with no small astonishment. It briefly stated that certain reports had reached his ears, that I had expressed myself contemptuously of his abilities and character, and concluded with an explicit ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... away one evening in the Civil Service band at King's College, as was my custom while my leisure was larger than at present, when the gorgeous porter of the college entered with a huge billet which he placed on my music-stand with a face of awe. It was addressed to me, and in the corner of it was written "Order for Execution." The official waited to see how I bore it, and seemed rather surprised that I went on with my fiddling, and smilingly said, "All right." ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... the skipper can't be seen just now. Just came aboard a little while ago and there was a friend on either side of him. You know how it is," and he winked. "He's below now, sound asleep, and 'twould be as much as my billet's ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... me a bow of recognition,—and of that particular kind of it, which told me she had not yet done with me. She was as good as her look; for, before I had quite finished my supper, her brother's servant came into the room with a billet, in which she said she had taken the liberty to charge me with a letter, which I was to present myself to Madame R- the first morning I had nothing to do at Paris. There was only added, she was sorry, ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... officer has a change when he leaves the trench for his billet, there is none for the naval officer, who, unlike the army officer, is Spartan-bred to confinement. The army pays its daily toll of casualties; it lies cramped in dug-outs, not knowing what minute extinction may come. The Grand Fleet has its usual comforts; ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... down and wanted to give Jim a cheque for a hundred; but he wouldn't hear of so much as a note. Then he said he'd give him a billet on the run—make him under overseer; after a bit buy a farm for him and stock it. No! Jim wouldn't touch nothing or take a billet on the place. He wouldn't leave his family, he said. And as for taking money or anything else for saving Miss Falkland's life, it was ridiculous ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... expectations. I was left at home, with no other company than my books: my books I found were not now such companions as they used to be; I was restless, melancholy, unsatisfied with myself. But judge my situation when I received a billet from Mr. Winbrooke informing me, that he had sounded Sir George on the subject we had talked of, and found him so averse to any match so unequal to his own rank and fortune, that he was obliged, with whatever reluctance, to bid adieu to a place, the remembrance of ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... he would start away from her, and enclose himself in his tower, in an agony of agitation, vowing to renounce her, and her whole sex, for ever; and returning to her presence at the summons of the billet, which she never failed to send with many expressions of penitence and promises of amendment. Scythrop's schemes for regenerating the world, and detecting his seven golden candle-sticks, went on very slowly in this fever ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... favourable idea of his intellects than his conversation could possibly inspire, resolved to dictate a letter, which her brother should transcribe and transmit to his mistress as the produce of his own understanding, and had actually composed a very tender billet for this purpose; yet her intention was entirely frustrated by the misapprehension of the lover himself, who, in consequence of his sister's repeated admonitions, anticipated her scheme, by writing, for himself, and despatching the letter one afternoon, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... rooms, one of which was a sleeping apartment, and the other the dining-room. It was papered with a gay-coloured paper, and photographs of friends were stuck up against the wall. We were asked to be seated. To accommodate the strangers, an empty box and a billet of wood were introduced from the outside. I could not say the table was laid, for it was guiltless of a table-cloth; indeed all the appointments were rather rough. When we were seated, one of the mates, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... on foot. On the first day he felt only a slight pain, on the second it increased, and on the third, the fever seized him. He was then three leagues from Poitiers, near a very little village: exhausted with fatigue, and weakened by the fever, he resolved to go to the mayor, and ask him for a billet; this functionary was from home, but his wife said, that at all events, it would be necessary first to obtain the consent of Monsieur the Marquis de ——— Colonel of the National Guard. The weary traveller thought there could be no impropriety in waiting on the Marquis: ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... bachelor indeed, fell desperately in love with a dashing girl of twenty, the orphan daughter of a bankrupt ship chandler. Miss Maria Manners was highly educated; that is, she could write short notes on perfumed billet paper, without making any orthographical or grammatical mistakes, had taken three quarters' lessons of a French barber, could work worsted lapdogs and embroider slippers, danced like a sylph, and played on the piano indifferently well. She had visited the Catskills on a matrimonial speculation, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... which was carefully despatched to Stevenlaw's Land, Middlemas, with a suitable letter. Menie knew the hand-writing and watched her father's looks as he read it, thinking, perhaps, that it had turned on a different topic. Her father pshawed and poohed a good deal when he had finished the billet, and ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott |
