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Four-in-hand   Listen
noun
four-in-hand  n.  
1.
A long necktie that is tied in a slipknot with one end hanging in front of the other.
2.
A coach pulled by four horses with one driver.
Synonyms: coach, coach-and-four.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Four-in-hand" Quotes from Famous Books



... Just read "leader" in D. T. on subject, and letter from "MACLISE" saying that he did it with twelve friends, and total cost only one pound a head per day! Lucky to have secured such a good amateur whip as BOB to drive our four-in-hand. Don't mind a pound a day—for one week. Original, and rather swell way of taking a holiday. Lovely warm day when we start. Should say, when we're off, only ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various

... wanted to break through the shell in which he chose to hide that self which her instinct told her was so different to his outward seeming. What had become of the gay Londoner, who drove the smartest four-in-hand in the park, and rode the fastest horse to hounds? She longed to write home and ask her people of his story, but bitter things had been said when she elected to go into exile with her husband, and there had been almost no correspondence ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... have demanded from me a dashing sketch of the fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal thinly veiled, and if lusciously painted, so much the better? a heroine from Grosvenor Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or the Four-in-hand, with a set of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne Street East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow Street Office? I could proceed in proving the importance of a title-page, and displaying at the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... is sure to have a good time with Ethel and Lou; they're not a team, but a four-in-hand. Now, come and have a dance with me, and then we'll go off all by ourselves and have the cosiest time you ever dreamed of. I feel so proud to have you all to myself," she added, as they glided away to the soft strains ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... omnibuses running from here every 24 hours.— There has been a kind of modern revival of the good old coaching days, but it has not become popular in this part of the country, though quite a summer feature on the Brighton Road. A four-in-hand, driven by the Earl of Aylesford, was put on the road from here to Coventry, at latter end of April, 1878; and another ran for part of the summer, in 1880, to Leamington. The introduction of railways set many persons to work on the making of "steam coaches" to travel on the highways. Captain ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... to deny this, but he laughed at her dramatic accent. "Sure, he does! And about how to tie a four-in-hand, and what's the best stud to wear at the back of a collar, and where to buy socks. What's that ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... "The Empire of Business," "Gospel of Wealth," "Triumphant Democracy," "American Four-in-Hand in ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... which the stones used for building in the village were ordinarily quarried, and in which he now attempted to turn his team. Passing itself was a task of difficulty, and frequently of danger, in that narrow road; but Richard had to meet the additional risk of turning his four-in-hand. The black civilly volunteered his services to take off the leaders, and the Judge very earnestly seconded the measure with his advice. Richard treated both proposals ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... whose palace of ice was on the north shore of the Polar Sea. He had ordered Rain, Hail, and Snow, his slaves, to accompany Lord Boreas Bluster on an invasion of the temperate zone, and when they had done his bidding he harnessed up his four-in-hand team of polar bears and went as far south as he dared, just to see how well they had obeyed him. How he roared with laughter when he found nearly all vegetation killed, and the earth wrapped in a white mantle as thick as his own bear-skins piled six feet ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... her roughly by the arm. "Show him to me. Which is he? Point him out. I must see him!" he exclaimed; but at that moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when it had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... was about to reply when a well-appointed four-in-hand drove up, and a courteous gentleman who handled the ribbons, offered ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various

... young man with a flushed face and distressed appearance. He was dressed in a plaid suit, and wore a red four-in-hand necktie, in which blazed a huge diamond. There were two large solitaire rings on his left hand, and he wore a heavy gold chain ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)

... was learning—I shall not say to tool a four-in-hand—but just simply to drive four horses. Now it is all right enough to begin with four work-horses pulling a load of several tons. But to begin with four light horses, all running, and a light rig ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London

... let down for the purpose, the people drove in from the high road. They came in top buggies and in lumber wagons, in democrats and in "three seated rigs," while from the city came a "four-in-hand" with McGee, Cahill, and their backers, as well as other carriages filled with good citizens of London drawn thither by the promise of a day's sport of more than usual excellence or by the lure of a day in the woods and fields of God's open country. A specially fine carriage and pair, owned ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... opus" The preparatory piano rehearsals are going on; celebrated artists are growing thick on the ground, like the suitors at Penelope's court. Joseph Rubinstein suspends his commercial occupations, and returns from Cracow to drive the four-in-hand accompaniment of Rheingold. The architects, painters, decorators, machinists, costumiers and their people are continuing their work; therefore, in spite of difficulties and obstacles, the great work of Art ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... TRAIN has been driving four-in-hand, too, for years past, and the names of his horses-are Fenianism, Buncombe, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various

... and can drive four-in-hand. I've an automobile drag, and the biggest private yacht in the world building. I'm going to have the most expensive house in Long Island, where the oysters come from, and I've bought a lot in Newport twice as big as the swellest fellow's ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch

... said Beaumont, 'has little resemblance to M. Jourdain. He talks of his horses and his carriages, builds a great hotel, and buys pictures. I have a neighbour of this kind; he drives four-in-hand over the bad roads of La Sarthe, visits with one carriage one day, and another the next. His jockey stands behind his cabriolet in top-boots, and his coachman wears a grand fur coat in summer. His own clothes are always new, sometimes in the most accurate type of a groom, sometimes ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... months' absence from England; but the only thing I heard of was that Mr. Eastcliff had married his dancing-girl, that she had retired from the stage, and that her public appearances were now confined to the box-seat of a four-in-hand coach, which he drove from London ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... eighty thousand horses, with military training, coming suddenly on to the market, four-in-hand Hansoms at a penny an hour, become common in all the great European capitals, and the Derby, for which there are 1371 entries, is won by a Cossack ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various

... cannon, and were endeavoring to exchange visiting-cards on the way. But in September, when the great hotels are closed, and the bronze dogs that guarded the portals of the Ocean House are collected sadly in the music pavilion, nose to nose; when the last four-in-hand has departed, and a man may drive a solitary horse on the avenue without a pang,—then we know that "the season" is over. Winter is yet several months away,—months of the most delicious autumn weather that the ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... back of a horse of less value than a thousand pounds; and if you want to know really what horses are, you must go down to his villa at Wimbledon, if you are not lucky enough to catch a sight of him proceeding to a levee, or driving his four-in-hand to Ascot or Epsom. All Piccadilly has been seen to stand, lost in silent admiration, as he has driven his splendid britchzka along it, with his perfection of a little tiger by his side; and such cattle as never besides were seen in even harness ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... corn-field, Stephen Council was still at work "finishing a land." He rode on his sulky plough when going with the wind, but walked when facing it. Sitting bent and cold but cheery under his slouch hat, he talked encouragingly to his four-in-hand. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... has passed within I replace my uplifted hat and seek an egress through the crowd, past the restive four-in-hand and down the street which leads to Wooded Island, in pursuit of the little brunette, who had vanished in that direction. And now there seemed a breaking up of the crowd, strains of music could be heard in the distance, and rumours of an approaching parade are rife. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... and ambulances in the army, and on one occasion drove the general with four-in-hand over four hundred miles of the worst ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham

... luxury; just as much as a four-in-hand coach or a yacht. Men go into Parliament because it gives them fashion, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... stood Mr. Lehmann, with the most shining shirt-front ever beheld, receiving his guests as they arrived. Here, too, was Lord Denysfort, a feeble-looking young man, with huge ears and no chin to speak of, who, however, had shown some sense in engaging a professional whip to drive the four-in-hand down through the fog. Of course there was a good deal of bustle and hurry and confusion—friends anxious about the non-arrival of other friends and so forth—in the midst of which Lionel said to ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... music. His interest in the languages and literatures of the East was as keen as ever, but though he had already collected material for several books he does not seem to have published anything prior to 1881. He took his friends out everywhere in his four-in-hand, and they saw to advantage some of the sights of Burton's younger days. With the bungalow Mrs. Burton was in raptures. On the eve of the Tabut feast, she tells us, the Duke of Sutherland (formerly Lord Stafford) joined ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... "Gladstone is the great triumph, but as he owns that he has to drive a four-in-hand, consisting of English Liberals, English Dissenters, Scotch Presbyterians, and Irish Catholics, he requires all his courage to look the difficulties in the face and trust to ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... homage of intelligent silence and sweet smiles to her wit, leaning his white-gloved hand upon her chair, and looking in her eyes with his most bewitching softness. The extent of this flirtation no one could anticipate; but the sudden appearance of Lady Di' Johnson effected a total change. She drove four-in-hand, and was a dead shot—the very antipodes of sentiment. We said her laugh would drive Edward Layton distracted, and her cigarette be his death. But, no! the magnificence of her tomboyism caught his fancy. He enshrined her at once as Diana, bayed the moon with ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... general will make himself a simple Director with four colleagues. Just imagine it—five kings of France! It wouldn't be a Directory any longer, but a four-in-hand." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... vehicular traffic is concerned, seemed to have sent out to-day all it possessed in that kind. The weather was too beautiful for closed coupes, and hence the comfortable family landau was most in evidence. Only now and then did an elegant victoria glide along, or an aristocratic four-in-hand demand the respectful ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... been in the possession of his ancestors since the reign of Henry the Eighth—there is a hairy, high-nosed, broken-down nondescript, in appearance something between a horse-dealer and a pugilist. He is an old Etonian. Five years ago he drove his four-in-hand; he is now waiting to beg a sovereign, having been just discharged from the Insolvent Court, for the second time. Among the women, a pretty actress, who, a few years since, looked forward to a supper of steak and ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... the amateur of the beauties of nature, who, in the train of his four-in-hand, now rolls through the scenes we have attempted to describe, in quest of information, health, or pleasure, or floats steadily toward his object on those artificial waters which have sprung up under the administration of a statesman* who has dared ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... and out except some of the women. Miss Bines just drove off a four-in-hand with the two Angsteads—held the reins like an old whip, too, by Jove; but they'll be back for luncheon;—and directly after luncheon she's promised to ride with me. I fancy we'll have a little ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... really managed them admirably. For what with whistling, and coaxing, and swearing, and swinging his "riatta" over their heads, he had them as much under his command as ever a crack dragsman had his four-in-hand in the good old coaching times of my own dear England. We followed after, riding, when the road would admit of it, all abreast, and presenting a bold front to any gang of desperadoes who might be daring enough to attack us. There was little fear of this, however, for ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks

... from the side of the heathery, stony hill under which they stood, so that Robert turned wondering, as if the chariot of his desires had been coming over the top of Drumsnaig, to carry him into a heaven where all labour was delight. But round the corner in front came the four-in-hand red mail instead. She pulled up gallantly; the wheelers lay on their hind quarters, and the leaders parted theirs from the pole; the boxes were hoisted up; Mr. Lammie climbed, and Robert scrambled to his seat; the horn blew; the coachman spake oracularly; the horses obeyed; and away ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... them in her stays; sometimes attiring herself as a boy, and secreting them in the lining of her hat. In the latter character she always rode as a boy would, which was nothing to her, for she could govern any horse that any man could ride, and could drive four-in-hand with the best whip in those parts. Setting forth on one of her patriotic missions, she appropriated to herself the first horse she could lay her hands on; and this offence had brought her where I saw her. She had quite a lovely face, though, as the reader may suppose from this sketch of ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... four-in-hand coach, and we drove everywhere in and around Paris, once to Versailles and on to Fontainebleau, where we dined, a merry party. What a strange world is this, what a stage it is, ever crowded with tragedies, too! How absolutely ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... work it is! So that Theagenes and Proxenides Might flourish and gasconade and prance away Quite at their ease, both of them four-in-hand, Driving abreast upon the breadth of wall, Each in his own ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... up you'd been worried out of all your interest in it! Yes, my lads, although I would not wish to see the return of those stirring days, I'm free to assert that the world lost something good, and that it was not all clear gain when the old four-in-hand Royal Mail coaches drove out of the present into the past, and left the Iron Horse in possession ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... indulge him, or because it gave him an opportunity to study a type of man entirely new to him, the result was always the same,—the colonel had his way. Had the Virginian insisted upon waiting on the offending broker in a palanquin or upon the top of a four-in-hand, Fitz would have found the vehicle somehow, and have crawled in or on top beside him with as much complacency as if he had spent his whole life with palanquins and coaches, and had had no other interests. ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... like the god Ganesa, the Hindoo god of wisdom, and that my ponies were shown as no larger than poodles, rats, or mice. It is also true that I could readily enough have carried my pair one under each arm, and taken the carriage on my back. I did for a moment think of having a pony four-in-hand, but such a Liliputian equipage would have merely attracted greater attention. So to my great regret, for I had already become fond of them, I replaced my Shetlands with two dapple-gray cobs of larger size, with powerful necks, broad chests, stout and well set up, ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier

... child! I never said he was. All anarchists are shoemakers or miners, or something like that. I only said that I always longed to meet one. People who do not value their lives are generally amusing. When I was a girl, I was desperately in love with a cousin of mine who drove a four-in-hand down a flight of steps, and won a bet by jumping on a wild bear's back. He was always doing those things. I loved him dearly." The ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... perplexity about his son. Paul entered the faculty room suave and smiling. His clothes were a trifle out-grown, and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his button-hole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... retrograde movement, he gave a gentle pull to the wooden handle of an old-fashioned wire bell-pull in the midst of buggy, four-in-hand, and other whips, hanging in the entrance, a touch that was acknowledged by a single tinkle of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... man for Amelia's "At Homes"! Sir Charles snapped at him instantly. "I've brought my four-in-hand down here with me," he said, in his best friendly manner, "and we think of tooling over to-morrow to Lewes. If you'd care to take a seat I'm sure Lady Vandrift would be ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... through the valley lands of the Dry Belt? Ever spend days and days in a swinging, swaying coach, behind a four-in-hand, when "Curly" or "Nicola Ned" held the ribbons, and tooled his knowing little leaders and wheelers down those horrifying mountain trails that wind like russet skeins of cobweb through the heights and depths ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... had offered his coach for the journey, and early one September morning he brought Patsy out on his arm, and threw in after her his own driving-coat, made after the fashion of the Four-in-Hand Club—the very "Johnny Onslow" model, with fifteen capes, silk-lined and finished,—lest she should ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... die with great suddenness. The Native States have a wholesome horror of English newspapers, which may throw light on their peculiar methods of government, and do their best to choke correspondents with champagne, or drive them out of their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do not understand that nobody cares a straw for the internal administration of Native States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decent limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... effect our concession to apparent necessity turned out to be a mere display of superfluous luxury, for the two white leaders did little more than show their feeble paces, leaving the gray wheelers to do the work. We had the elevating sense of traveling four-in-hand, however—a satisfaction to which I do not believe any ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... point of revealing itself? Alas! poor Brewster's secret was one that many have striven after before and since, who did not call themselves alchemists,—the secret of getting gold without earning it,—a chase that brings some men to a four-in-hand on Shoddy Avenue, and some to the penitentiary, in both cases advertising its utter vanity. Brewster is a capital specimen of his class, who are better than the average, because they do mix a little imagination with their sordidness, and who have also their ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... to visitors—here comes a gay four-in-hand heavily loaded sweeping by on its road to that summer town. There is much ironstone in the soil round about. At the edge of the park stands an old farmhouse of timber and red tile, with red oast-house beside it, built with those gables which our ancestors seemed to think made such ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... his hair should show the nervous plowing of five fingers, and how sensitive his profile and ready to flare at the nostrils. His tie, too, burnt orange, from a soft collar and badly knotted! She wanted to jerk up his chin and putter at remaking the four-in-hand. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... and wrote a letter, obviously meant to be shown, expressing boundless gratification at a favourable notice: "If he thinks well of my poetry, I shall know it is no mere one-horse concern, but a real four-in-hand." "Caesar tells me he never read better Greek. But why does he write [Greek: rhathumotera] ['rather careless'] against one passage? He really does. Do find ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... 120 miles before twelve next day. Those two browns are Mr. White's famous buggy horses. He thought no man could get the better of him. But your old father was too clever. I believe he could shake the devil's own four-in-hand—(coal black, with manes and tails touching the ground, and eyes of fire, some German fellow says they are)—and the Prince of Darkness never be the wiser. The pull of it is that once they're in here they're never heard of again ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... famous hostelry at a breakneck speed that said to the small boys, Get out of the way! and caused the stock loafers, who always assembled on the piazza at the first blast of the horn, to envy the skill that could thus handle a whip, and guide, with apparent ease, the most mettlesome four-in-hand. ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... After awhile a towering four-in-hand coach rose out of the hollow where it had been hidden, and came bowling along the level. The rapid hoofs beat the dust, which sprang up and followed behind in a cloud, stretching far in the rear, for in so still an atmosphere the particles were long before they settled again. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... through open windows, was cooler than it had been during the day, but still held enough of the noontide caloric to make fans a comfort, and Mr. Stuyvesant, dining at a "four-in-hand" table well to the front, and attempting to hold his own in a somewhat desultory talk with his fellow-men, found himself paying far more attention to the lovely face of the girl across the aisle than to the viands ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... Baton Rouge, were hidden beneath layers of overcoats. Through the wool cap pulled down to his collar, two wide holes gave him outlook; a third, and smaller aperture, was filled by the stem of a corn-cob pipe. He was headed for the cattle-camp, the lines over a four-in-hand hitched to three empty wagons, a third team tied to the tailboard of the ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... cried Speug, who was winding up the dinner-hour with Nestie Molyneux, on the upper step of the club-house, "if there isn't the 'Bumbees' driving in a four-in-hand!" and the brake of the Muirtown Arms passed, with a dozen smart and well-set-up lads rejoicing openly, and, wheeling round by the corner of the Cathedral, disappeared up the road which ran to Drumtochty. "And where think ye have ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... rose in June and Fanny. Then come both together, as in a chorus—roses and Fannies, Fannies and roses, without end, thick as blossoms in paradise. Then comes a venerable crocodile, in a royal livery of scarlet and gold, with sixteen capes; and the crocodile is driving four-in-hand from the box of the Bath mail. And suddenly we upon the mail are pulled up by a mighty dial, sculptured with the hours, that mingle with the heavens and the heavenly host. Then all at once we are arrived at Marlborough forest, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... Butterfly Book"—an author who knows every butterfly by its Christian name. Then Andrew Carnegie's "Triumphant Democracy" presents masses of statistics with such lightness of touch as to make them seem a stirring narrative. His other books, "An American Four-in-Hand in Britain" and "Round the World" present the vivid impressions of a keen traveler. His "Life of James Watt" conveys a sympathetic portraiture of the inventor of the steam engine. His "Gospel of Wealth" is a piece of deep-thinking discursiveness, although it really seems a superfluous ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church

... Mr. Pisgah on the road to glory, Mr. Simp on the smooth sea, Mr. Freckle in the debtor's jail, Mr. Risque behind his four-in-hand, and Mr. Lees in the charity grave, let us sit with the two remaining colonists in the cabriolet at Bellinzona; for it is the month of April, and they are to cross the great St. Gothard en route for Paris. Here is the scene: ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... countries are well known. Like most young men of his class, Lord Selbie was rather wild at Oxford, and displayed a certain amount of diablerie in London during his quite early manhood. He is a splendid whip, and his four-in-hand was eclipsed by none other in the club. Lord Selbie is also an admirable horseman, and has won several ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... yellow-white eyes closely scanned the two young men. At the end of his scrutiny he was conscious of but one difference between them. One wore a narrow black tie with a white pearl stickpin. The other's "four-in-hand" was a narrow blue one ...
— Options • O. Henry

... his whole anxiety was to fit me for the part of a country gentleman, as he regarded that character—viz., I rode boldly with the fox-hounds; I was about the best shot within twenty miles; I could swim the Shannon at Holy Island; I drove four-in-hand better than the coachman himself; and from finding a hare to hooking a salmon my equal could not be found from Killaloe to Banagher. These were the staple of my endowments; besides which, the parish priest had taught me a little Latin, a little ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... Santa Claus that had any bowels of compassion would rush down the narrowest and sootiest chimney in the world to give me my simple wishes. It isn't as if I were petitioning nightly for a grand house, a yacht, a four-in-hand, a diamond necklace, and a particular man for a husband; but I don't see that modesty finds any special favour with St. Nick. Now and then I harbour a rascally suspicion that he is an indolent, time-serving ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... correspondence on these and similar subjects with Eustace Lyle. Finally, however, they all fell into a very fair, regular, routine life. They all read a little, but not with the enthusiasm which they had once projected. Buckhurst drove four-in-hand, and they all of them sometimes assisted him; but not immoderately. Their suppers were sometimes gay, but never outrageous; and, among all of them, the school friendship was maintained unbroken, and ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... shriven rascal of us simply must honor and revere as giants of courage, cunning and controlled, conscience, Stevenson turned from singles and pairs, and in "The Ebb Tide," drove, by turns, tandem and abreast, a four-in-hand of scoundrels so buoyant, natural, strong, and yet each so totally unlike the others, that every honest novel reader may well be excused for shedding tears when he reflects that the marvelous hand and heart that created ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... sailor's usual manner; "that has been seen to already, as I have expected as much. Admiral Bluewater keeps his ships in most beautiful order, sir! I do not think the Caesar, which leads, is two cable's-length from the Dublin, the sternmost vessel. He is driving four-in-hand, with a tight rein, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... heart I think she cares for me a little bit. But I'm nothing but a plain, ordinary business man. I never did anything devilish in my life. There's nothing romantic about me. Look at this necktie! Did you ever see a hero wearing a plain black four-in-hand? Never! Did you ever see a hero wearing nice tan oxfords without a spot of mud on them? If I can somehow manage to make her think for a few minutes that I've got heroic stuff in me, she may listen to a little sense. She tells me—rather she threw it ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... upon them, broken only by the twanging of the strips of cane in Soolsby's hands. At last, however, even this sound ceased; and the two scarce moved as the sun drew towards the middle afternoon. At last they were roused by the sound of a horn, and, looking down, they saw a four-in-hand drawing smartly down the road to the village over the gorse-spread common, till it stopped at the Cloistered House. As Faith looked, her face slightly flushed. She bent forward till she saw one figure get down and, waving a hand to the party on the coach as it moved on, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... had spoken besides a defiant response to Carroll's polite "Good-evening," when they had entered. They sat and watched and listened. Occasionally one raised a hand, and an enormous diamond glowed with a red light like a ruby. In the four-in-hand tie of the other a scarf-pin in the shape of a horse's head with diamond eyes caught the light with infinitesimal sparks of fire. Above it his clean-shaven, keen, blue-eyed face kept watch, sharply ready to strike anger as the diamonds ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... The Four-in-hand Club is extinct, or, with those ancient charioteers at Troy, courses in Hades over meadows ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... than small, and swine with long bodies and short heads. The third consideration under this head is to make sure of the breeding. On this account the asses of Arcadia are celebrated in Greece, as are those of Reate in Italy, so that I remember an ass that brought sixty thousand sesterces, and a four-in-hand team at Rome that was held at four hundred thousand. The fourth consideration is of the legal precautions to be observed in buying live stock, for in order that title may pass from one to another certain formalities must intervene, ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... dressed in a neat suit of dark blue serge, a neat, white straw hat, neat low-cut tan shoes, of the well-known "immaculate" trade mark, a neat, narrow four-in-hand tie, and carried a slender, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... oh! The coachman takes his stand, And when he meets a pretty girl He takes her by the hand; Whip away forever, oh! Drive away so clever, oh! All the way to Bristol, oh! He drives her four-in-hand. ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)

... wholly repel the "city boarder." After the leaves changed color, nobody went to and fro save those who "belonged," as the storekeeper, the milliner, and Squire Pettijohn, the lawyer; and it had been ten years, at least, since Reuben's four-in-hand was brought to a halt before Miss Eunice Maitland's gate. Now, on a windy day of late September, the two white horses and their two black companions were reined up there, while the trumpet gave a blast which startled ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... munchil^, palki^; roller skates, skate; runabout; ski; tonjon^; vettura^. post chaise, diligence, stage; stage coach, mail coach, hackney coach, glass coach; stage wagon, car, omnibus, fly, cabriolet^, cab, hansom, shofle^, four-wheeler, growler, droshki^, drosky^. dogcart, trap, whitechapel, buggy, four-in-hand, unicorn, random, tandem; shandredhan^, char-a-bancs [Fr.]. motor car, automobile, limousine, car, auto, jalopy, clunker, lemon, flivver, coupe, sedan, two-door sedan, four-door sedan, luxury sedan; wheels [Coll.], sports car, roadster, gran turismo [It], jeep, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... by the clothes and manner of Jimmy. He, himself, was something of a pattern of fashion to the thinly gilded youth of Elmore, but he now perceived his shortcomings. While trying to figure out Jimmy's manner of tying his four-in-hand ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... Washington was in places good, and often turned in among the pines. At Riverdale they saw the deer of Mr. George Calvert, a descendant of one of the Lords Baltimore, browsing in his park, and his great four-in-hand carriage was going in the lodge-gates from a state visit to the Custises. Passing direct to Georgetown from Bladensburg, they encountered General Jackson, taking his evening ride on horseback, and saw the chasm of the new canal being dug along the Potomac, and then, crossing Mason's ferry, they ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... to be seen and the doctor is worried, Abe, he sends down word by the nurse that everything is proceeding satisfactorily, and the visitor goes away trying to remember did he or did he not throw away that fifty-cent black four-in-hand tie he wore to the last funeral he ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass

... with interest his evolution from the business man into the full-blown existence of a man of fashion. The process is perfectly charted. Success in business, membership in a good club, tandem in the Park, introduction to a good house, marriage to a pretty girl of family and not much money, a yacht, a four-in-hand, a Newport villa. His name had undergone a like evolution. It used to be written on his business card, Jacob B. Glow. It was entered at the club as J. Bartlett Glow. On the wedding invitations it was Mr. Bartlett Glow, and the dashing pair were always ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... amusement was sufficiently expressive. "One old mare in a hired trap, when I've driven a four-in-hand over some of the wickedest roads in America! If we are smashed, Aunt Soph, you can lay it to providence, and not to my driving. Don't get to worrying if we are late. If we're killed you'll hear all about it soon enough. You can only die once, and a carriage spill is a good slick ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... morning an expedition was planned, and Uxmoor proffered his "four-in-hand." It was accepted. All young ladies like to sit behind four spanking trotters; and few object to be driven by a viscount with a glorious ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... are very gentle, and are much more easily driven than horses. To drive horses four-in-hand is very difficult, but to drive four reindeer is not. The four deer are harnessed to the sledge all in a row, and a rein is fastened to the head of one; when he turns all the rest turn with him. Usually they trot, ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer

... be fust vip to the Queen herself; and I'm proud to call him my poople. Why, sir, - if his honour here will pardon me for makin' so free, - this 'ere gent is Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, of which ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... had better go to Versailles by Cook's four-in-hand. There were other ways of going, but he thought we might as well take the most distinguished. He was careful to explain that the mere grandeur of this method of transportation had no weight with him; he was ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... of that sport. But the fashion of rapid driving deserted England; and, I believe, trotted over to America. Where are the amusements of our youth? I hear of no gambling now but amongst obscure ruffians; of no boxing but amongst the lowest rabble. One solitary four-in-hand still drove round the parks in London last year; but that charioteer must soon disappear. He was very old; he was attired after the fashion of the year 1825. He must drive to the banks of Styx ere long,—where the ferry-boat waits to carry him over to the defunct ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and elegant man came by and said: "I was the reviver of the running turf. My stomach was tough as my four-in-hand. 'Twas Angostura nipped my bud. It was, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... ruin yourself, and you will ruin me," Da Souza moaned. "How am I to have a quarter share if Monty is to come in for half, and how are you to repay him all that you would owe on a partnership account? You couldn't do it, Trent. I've heard of your four-in-hand, and your yacht, and your racers, and that beautiful house in Park Lane. I tell you that to part with half your fortune would ruin you, and the Bekwando ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the Clowns, the Fine Ladies (who should wear a little Rouge even by Daylight), the 'performing' Elephants, the helmeted Cavaliers, and last, the Owner (I suppose) as 'the modern Gentleman' driving four-in-hand. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... on a brave air, as does one at the dentist's. "I hope that you're not afraid I shall run you into a ditch?" I asked, laughing. "I don't believe, after all, it can be any worse than steering a toboggan down a good run, or driving a four-in-hand with one's eyes shut, as I did once for a wager on a road I knew as ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... David, died in 1850 in Spain, and my father's elder brother, Pedro Carlos (1806-1857), became the laird and took up his residence in the old home. He broke the record in driving the mail coach from London to York without leaving the box seat. And later on, in Aberdeen, he drove his four-in-hand at full gallop into Castlehill Barracks. Anyone who knows the old gateway will ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... mentioned, as she remembered in one or two instances, the names of the same streets, and professed a similar anxiety as regarded driving her to the station and catching the train. "That's a thing which makes a man feel his strength's nothing," he said. "You can't stop it. I fancy I could stop a four-in-hand at full gallop. Mind, I only fancy I could; but when you come to do with iron and steam, I feel like a baby. You can't ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... at this moment was rather mournful. He was regretting the thirty shillings the week he had for several years drawn regularly in this shop. Inside there he had introduced the Raglan shirt, the Duke of Westminster four-in-hand, and the Churchill batwing collar. He longed to enter and plead for reinstatement, but his new-found pride refused to budge his legs door-ward. Thirty shillings, twelve for his "third floor back," and the rest for clothes and books and ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... where she had led the fashion until she was as near forty-five as a single lady can be. A stiff commissariat officer of sixty, famous as a martinet, had then become enamoured of the gravity with which she drove the proprieties four-in-hand through the cathedral town society, and had solicited to be taken beside her on the box of the cool coach of ceremony to which that team was harnessed. His proposal of marriage being accepted by the lady, the commissary took his seat behind the proprieties ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... Joseph who used to drive my grandmother. Why! he it was who let me hold the reins for the first time in my life and allowed me to play with the great four-in-hand whip outside the ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... to drive four horses in their carriages are the Governor and the Archbishop: this regulation is frequently grumbled at by the Spanish Jehus, and one gentleman, the colonel of a regiment, having applied to the government for permission to indulge his taste in this respect by driving a four-in-hand, was refused it, so he had to content himself with turning out with only three in his drag. With that number of quadrupeds, however, he did a good deal to frighten and amuse the world, apparently wishing to break his neck, in which he very nearly succeeded on more than one occasion; ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... asked the bartender hurrying forward, a magnificent creature in a check waistcoat, shirt-sleeves, four-in-hand tie, and ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... only twenty miles from town, and Lord St. Jerome drove Lothair down; the last ten miles through a pretty land, which, at the right season, would have been bright with orchards, oak-woods, and hop-gardens. Lord St. Jerome loved horses, and was an eminent whip. He had driven four-in-hand when a boy, and he went on driving four-in-hand; not because it was the fashion, but because he loved it. Toward the close of Lent, Lady St. Jerome and Clare Arundel had been at a convent in retreat, but they always passed Holy Week at home, and they were to welcome Lord ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... yes,—if you saw us out driving Each day in the Park, four-in-hand, If you saw poor dear mamma contriving To look supernaturally grand,— If you saw papa's picture, as taken By Brady, and tinted at that, You'd never suspect he sold bacon And flour ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... close-clipped gray mustache and gray hair; his eyes are quick and shrewd; his face shows some slight traces of high living; he carries himself well and his general air is distinguished and high-bred. He wears a suit of thinly striped white flannel and white shoes, a four-in-hand tie of pale old-rose crape, a Panama hat with broad ribbon striped with white and old-rose of the same shade as his tie. His accent is that of a man of the world, and quite without affectation. He comes at once upon his entrance to a chair ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson

... lounged forward with an air of languor that puzzled the reporter. His dress was not wholly conclusive as to his position in the silent house; the overalls still showed their pristine folds, the shirt was of good quality and well-cut. The ends of a narrow red-silk four-in-hand swung free. He was clean-shaven save for an absurd little mustache so fair as to be almost indistinguishable. His blond hair was brushed back unparted from his forehead. Another swift survey of the slight figure disclosed a pair of patent-leather ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... cheek of modesty, and never raised a laugh at the expense of decency, we will only say that we can produce at least a score of instances to the contrary. To go no further than "The Scourge," we will refer them to three: his Dinner of the Four-in-Hand Club at Salthill, in vol. i.; his Return to Office (1st July, 1811), in vol. ii.; and his Coronation of the Empress of the Nares (1st ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... city-children, blistered wholesomely as to their legs, from knee to ankle, by the sun and the salt air, harnessed themselves to little heaps of fish, and were driven about the upper deck in various fashionable styles, including four-in-hand and tandem, by other slim city-children, whose lower extremities had been treated in the same beneficial manner by the same eminent physicians. The musicians had laid away their cornopeans and other cunningly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... proper to mention that Kara Johnson crocheted a white silk four-in-hand necktie for Carl Carlsen, the ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... gaited saddle race of one mile, steeple chase, hurdle race, polo pony dash, relay race of one mile, cowboy's relay race of same length, cowgirl's relay race, six furlongs, saddle tandem. Exposition jumping contest and five-mile Marathon four-in-hand. On the closing day of the Exposition there will be a grand parade of all first and second winners, not only in the horse display, but in all other displays in ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... and the figure of Lillian Russell somehow became confused with a new apparition. Something that was and was not Miss Virginia Dabtree, but most certainly wore silver stockings, which it would be his duty and privilege to protect. "Well, anyhow, she'll drive a four-in-hand and wear pearls for breakfast," he concluded, and, whistling, he went down to dream out the night in ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... necessaries of life; yet all the while he believed devoutly in medicine, and with his family indulged with freedom in the use of calomel and such agents. Presently he abandoned Ireland for the Continent. He took his horses with him, and astonished Europe with a four-in-hand of his own. Carlsruhe knew him well, as Belgium and the Rhine had known him. He only left the Reider Schloss at Bregenz to conquer Italy; and at Florence, Spezzia, and finally ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... toe caps—rather old-fashioned footgear, Florry thought; but they were polished brightly. A tailor-made, double-breasted blue serge suit, close-hauled and demoded; a soft white silk shirt, with non-detachable collar; a plain black silk four-in-hand tie, and a uniform cap, set a little back and to one side on thick, black, glossy, wavy hair, completed his attire. He had his right hand in his trousers pocket; his left was on the doorknob. He glanced ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... explained Blanche LeHaye. "That's me, in the center of the bunch, with the pink reins in my hands, drivin' that four-in-hand of johnnies. Hot stuff! Just let Dacre try to get it away from me, that's ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... in hot haste, one to the farm and one to town, while Jimmy Reed was detailed to canvass the guests and see if a white four-in-hand might be procured. ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... got into his seat with the quiet grandeur of a celebrity in the four-in-hand club. Ida and Bessie were handed to their places by Horatio, the chubby Eva scrambled into her seat, with a liberal display of Oxford blue stocking, under the shortest of striped petticoats; and off they drove to the cottage, Dr. Rylance's miniature dwelling, where the plate-glass windows were ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... four-in-hand," he added. "For once in my life that talent will have been of some use to me. Pray ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... luck to be in a great many accidents," said the other. "But that one was remarkable. As far as I can recollect, we drove into the Grand Duke's four-in-hand on one side and drove out of it on the other. I never drove through a Grand Duke's equipage on any other occasion. It was lucky that his Serenity did not happen to be in it just at the time. There you have my history ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... empty stomach, he chants the praises of a bountiful table and rare old wine. That is what I am doing—I, Robert Dalbou, Marquis de Valorsay! At the races at Vincennes, about a fortnight ago, I was bowling along the boulevard behind my four-in-hand, when I heard a laborer say, 'How happy those rich people must be!' Happy, indeed! Why, I envied him his lot. He was sure that the morrow would be like the day that preceded it. On that occasion my entire fortune consisted of a single louis, which I had won at baccarat the evening ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... the arrangement of the layers. People interested in the same things will naturally come together. The youthful heirs of fortunes who keep splendid yachts have little to talk about with the oarsman who pulls about on the lake or the river. What does young Dives, who drives his four-in-hand and keeps a stable full of horses, care about Lazarus, who feels rich in the possession of a horse-railroad ticket? You know how we live at our house, plainly, but with a certain degree of cultivated propriety. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... meagre than the ordinary accessories of an American race-course: here is no assemblage of the beau-monde, no populace, no four-in-hand drags, no costermongers, no donkeys, no dukes, no thimble-rig, no gipsies; in short, "no nothin'," except a few quiet-looking hacks ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... morning a suit of flannel, tweed or cheviot, a straw hat and tan shoes. His shirt may be of striped madras or linen, with a white collar. The cutaway coat is correct for ordinary afternoon wear, with a white waistcoat, white shirt and four-in-hand tie. This takes the place in summer of the frock coat, which is the formal day wear. He will seldom, if ever, have occasion for a dress suit at a week-end visit in summer. Of course, the size of the party and the gayeties ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... and moving forward and being pushed back; and that is going to make the Archangel ponies very unhappy. But if a ball is struck to the boundary, you go after it, and let the people get out of your way. I went over the pole of a four-in-hand once, and picked a game out of the dust by it. Back me up when I ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... lads who go out of it. With whiskers well oiled, and with boots that "hold up "The mirror to nature"—so bright you could sup Off the leather like china; with coat, too, that draws On the tailor, who suffers, a martyr's applause!— With head bridled up, like a four-in-hand leader, And stays—devil's in them—too tight for a feeder, I strut to the old Cafe Hardy, which yet Beats the field at a dejeuner a la fourchette. There, DICK, what a breakfast!—oh! not like your ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... live in a world of amusing oneself and of amusing oneself in vulgar fashions—as a born clown would do if he came suddenly into a large fortune. The women are just as bad as the men, only in a different way—not always even that; for most of them think only of the Four-in-hand Club and the pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham—things to sicken one. Now, I've known selfish people before, but not selfish people utterly without any tincture of culture. I come away from Dunbude, and come down here to Calcombe: and the difference ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... carriage by a long array of bareheaded and bowing menials, and that his official dress was a cocked hat and knee-breeches. We furthermore make affidavit that we supposed all the nobility of Europe to be in the habit of driving four-in-hand over wooden-legged beggars. And we also depose and say, that we had no other idea of royalty than as continually clad in coronation-robes, with six peers in the same, with huge wigs, as attendants. All this upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... probably have put a snaffle into the mouth of the forest king, and have trained him for hunting, unless his lordship had been devoured in the experiment. But his most notorious attempt of this order, was a four-in-hand of stags. Having obtained four red deer of strong make, he harnessed them, and by dint of the infinite diligence which he exerted on all such occasions; was at length enabled to drive his four antlered coursers along the high-road. But on one unfortunate day, as he was ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... the large towns by stony banks and painted signs upon the rocks of the islands. Sometimes the channels are so dangerous that the little steamers have to proceed at half-speed, carefully threading their way in and out of the posts, as a drag at Hurlingham winds its course between barrels at the four-in-hand competitions. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... on the bank of the Spree across the square from the Royal Schloss in Berlin. There are kept the carriages of state, those sent to bring Ambassadors to the Palace when they first present their letters, two hundred splendid saddle and driving horses, with modern carriages, four-in-hand coaches, dog carts, etc. Most of the Foreign Ambassadors use state carriages for great occasions, with bewigged coachmen and standing footmen. I think Ambassador White was the last American who indulged in the luxury of a ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... any man ought to be proud of; they reverence a fellow who has a good seat in his saddle, and delight in horsemanship, because horsemanship requires no brains; driving a "buggy" in good style is respectable, but "shoving along" a four-in-hand the highest exercise of human intellect, as for Milton and Shakspeare, and such inky-fingered old prigs, who never had a good horse in their lives, they despise such low fellows thoroughly. Their chief companions, or rather, their most intimate friends, are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... through Nat Boody, with the stage-driver; and one day the old ladies are horrified at seeing the parson's son mounted on the box of the coach beside the driver, and putting his boyish fingers to the test of four-in-hand. Of course he is a truant that day from school, and toiling back footsore and weary, after tea, he can give but a lame account of himself. He brings, another time, a horrid fighting cur, (as Miss Eliza terms it in her disgust,) ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... turnpike gates, and cutting round corners on one wheel, and getting his horses into every possible figure but a straight line, which made every mile got over without an accident almost a miracle. At last, after taking a four-in-hand over a narrow bridge, at the bottom of a hill, pretty much in the Olympic fashion—all four abreast—men got rather shy of any expeditions of the kind in his company. There was little credit in it, and a good deal of danger. First, he was reduced to soliciting the company ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... class trade, Mr. Smith set himself to dress the part. He wore wide cut coats of filmy serge, light as gossamer; chequered waistcoats with a pattern for every day in the week; fedora hats light as autumn leaves; four-in-hand ties of saffron and myrtle green with a diamond pin the size of a hazel nut. On his fingers there were as many gems as would grace a native prince of India; across his waistcoat lay a gold watch-chain in huge square links and in his pocket a gold watch that ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... occupied by people dressed with a certain cheap smartness. Here and there a girl, probably of the people, cantered half defiantly down the line, a sailor-hat on her head, her jacket open over a shirt and "four-in-hand." Once a yoke of oxen, driven by a bareheaded maid, straggled into ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... a beaming man of forty, with gold-rimmed eyeglasses and a somewhat grizzled beard which has been, a week or so ago, a neatly trimmed Vandyke. He wears a "cutaway suit," not much pressed, not new; a derby hat, a standing collar, and a "four-in-hand" dark tie; hard, round cuffs, not link cuffs. He carries a folded umbrella, not a fashionable one; wears no gloves; and has two or three old magazines and a newspaper under ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington

... open. The sun is still shining outside and the studio is brightly lighted. The side doors are open. A serving table is seen out in the orchard; on it are glasses and bottles, et cetera. Axel wears cutaway, but without the decoration, and is wearing a standing collar with four-in-hand scarf. His hair is brushed straight back. Bertha wears a dark gown, cut square, with frilled fichu. She has a flower on the left shoulder. The Misses Hall are extravagantly and expensively dressed. Bertha enters from orchard. She is pale and has dark shadows under her eyes. Abel enters ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg

... whites, As ruthless as a baby with a worm, As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows To Pity—more from ignorance than will, But put your best foot forward, or I fear That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand As you shall see—three pyebalds and ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... disconnected whistling, sometimes high and clear, sometimes under the breath, sometimes interspersed with song, and sometimes ceasing altogether at critical moments, say, during shaving, or while bringing the four-in-hand up tight and snug under the collar. It was one of those comfortable little noises that indicate a masculine presence; one of those pleasant, reassuring, man-in-the-house noises that every ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... of her four-in-hand through the loop and drew up the knot with a single pull; then she approached the bed and leaned over the face upon ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... were his pretexts for coming: a rare bit of dried seaweed for bookmark; a religious journal with a turned-down page; a nosegay. And though Zara would not nowadays go the length of walking out with a dissenter—she preferred on her airings to occupy the box-seat of Mr. Urquhart's four-in-hand—she had no objection to Hempel keeping her company during the empty hours of the forenoon when Polly was lost in domestic cares. She accepted his offerings, mimicked his faulty speech, and was continually hauling ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... dreamed also of natural coitus. I fell in love with the handsome, 12-year-old son of the aged headmaster. The boy, O., sat next me at the table, and I never tired of gazing at him. It gave me a special sense of pleasure to look at him when he wore a certain flowing, scarlet, four-in-hand necktie. But O. was not attracted to me—for one thing I was in a disagreeably pimpled condition—and I could not induce him to linger in my room nor to sleep with me. My passion for O. did not diminish, and it rose to its supremacy on the evening when he appeared ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... breadth expand The splendors of the four-in-hand; On faultless ties and glossy tiles The lovely bonnets beam their smiles; (The style's the man, so books avow; The style's the woman, anyhow;) From flounces frothed with creamy lace Peeps out the pug-dog's ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... old lady was gone, Mr. Hobson had no need of any more humbugging, but took his pleasure freely. Fighting, tandems, four-in-hand, anything. He and his brother—his elder brother by a quarter of an hour—were always very good friends; but after Mr. Brian married, and there was only court-cards at his table, Mr. Hobson couldn't stand it. They weren't of his suit, he said; and for some time he said ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... country round about for miles the planters had come into Lexington upon their blooded mounts, their wives, daughters, sweethearts, riding in great carriages. Now and then a vehicle, coming from some far-away plantation, was drawn by a gay four-in-hand, and the drivers of such equipages, negroes always, showed a haughty scorn of their black fellow-men who travelled humbly on the backs of mules, or trudged the long and dusty way on foot. Gorgeous were the costumes of the ladies whom the carriages ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... chastened. Seriously, now, his prominent, yellow-white eyes closely scanned the two young men. At the end of his scrutiny he was conscious of but one difference between them. One wore a narrow black tie with a white pearl stickpin. The other's "four-in-hand" was a narrow blue one pinned with ...
— Options • O. Henry

... past eight o'clock when the four-in-hand on which the new member had been touring the constituency drove up to the Tallyn door. Forbes hurried to the steps to greet ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... thread-paper of a man, and a very bad actor. He was exceedingly noisy, and pushed vivacity to its extreme limits. I remember well his appearance in some play—I fancy it was in The Road to Ruin, in which I represented some character, I entirely forget what—where he comes on with a four-in-hand whip in his hand; and I remember, too, that for the other performers in that piece, their appearance on the stage was a service of danger, from which the occupants of the stage boxes were not entirely free. But he was inexhaustibly good-natured and good-humoured, ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... the clothes and manner of Jimmy. He, himself, was something of a pattern of fashion to the thinly gilded youth of Elmore, but he now perceived his shortcomings. While trying to figure out Jimmy's manner of tying his four-in-hand he cordially gave information. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry



Words linked to "Four-in-hand" :   necktie, stage, box seat, equipage, stagecoach, tie, rig, coach-and-four



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