"Switching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... led her from the stable she came out with her ears laying back and her short tail switching; and I said to myself, "here will be a job breaking a ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... lifted high up, a troop of eighteen or twenty giraffes, or camelopards. Few of them were under eighteen feet in height, of a delicate colour, and very graceful. They turned their small heads at the noise we made, and perceiving us, switching their long tails with a loud sound, cantered away before us. I could easily have brought one of them down, I fancied, but I had no wish to merit the appellation of the destroyer, and we continued our course as before. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... campus, it had no means of distributing the signal throughout the campus. The solution involved adopting a recent development in wireless communication called packet radio, which combined the basic notion of packet-switching with radio. The project used this technology to get the signal from a point on campus where it came down, an earth station for example, into the libraries, because it found that wiring the libraries, especially the older marble buildings, would ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... her then," he said to himself, switching the dust off his trousers with his cane. "And yet, how kind she was! Never mind! she won't know me now. Valentine promised he wouldn't write, and ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... able, first, to climb the garden railings, in coming and going, without being seen; secondly, to cross the garden and put up a ladder on the flower-border, without leaving the least trace behind; thirdly, to open the shutters and the window, without starting the bells and switching on ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... to the vote of B. By female suffrage is meant the right of a woman to vote as some man tells her to. It is based on female responsibility, which is somewhat limited. The woman most eager to jump out of her petticoat to assert her rights is first to jump back into it when threatened with a switching for misusing them. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... was night. The Barsoomian day had ended, and then the brief period of twilight that renders the transition from daylight to darkness almost as abrupt as the switching off of an electric light, and Tara of Helium had found no sanctuary. But perhaps there were no beasts to fear, or rather to avoid—Tara of Helium liked not the word fear. She would have been glad, however, had there ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... across the room from him, her quirt in her hand switching restlessly at the carpet, her eyes showing a little sympathy for his illness but more anger at ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... who was caught fishing in forbidden waters. He knew that the penalty was a switching (old style), and his contemporaries were pleased to remind him of the fact. Five o'clock was the hour fixed for the interview. The boy was small for his age, but brainy. All day he studied how he might save his skin ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... delicate nature of some of the visual material used, your consent is required. You can attach such consent to this disk by running it for at least ten seconds after the sign-off and then switching from 'Play' to 'Transcribe.' Kindly include your full name, as well as your daughter's, and place your thumbprint on the opposite side of the disk. Very sincerely yours, Literate First Class Ralph C. ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... said Jimmie Dale—and, crossing the reception hall, with its rich, oriental rugs, he ran up the wide staircase, opened the door of his "den," locked it behind him, and, switching on the lights, began to strip off his coat and vest, as he hurried toward the further end of the great, spacious, luxuriously appointed room that ran the entire depth ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... doctor. The trains of ten and fifteen coaches pile up in the railroad yard, and the yardmaster nearly goes out of his mind. People are so anxious to get out of the cars, in which they have been packed and jammed for hours, that they don't mind a little thing like being run over by a switching engine. Every platform is just one solid chunk of summer hats and babies and red shirts and alto horns. They have been nearly five hours coming fifty miles. Stopped at every station and sidetracked for all the regular trains. Such a time! Lots of ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... the anxious mother of the calf that had startled Nan. She knew she could dodge the cow. But above the place where the calf lay, on a great gray rock that gave it a commanding position, the girl saw a huge, cat-like creature with glaring eyes and a switching tail. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... took seemed like some bitter draught he was swallowing for politeness' sake. When it, and all the necessary talk concerning it, were finished, together with other matters belonging to the hour, he got himself out of his big chair, and Mrs. Brown's horses, that had been switching their tails in ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... rather eccentric-looking person who spoke; somewhat ursine in aspect; sporting a shaggy spencer of the cloth called bear's-skin; a high-peaked cap of raccoon-skin, the long bushy tail switching over behind; raw-hide leggings; grim stubble chin; and to end, a double-barreled gun in hand—a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman, of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and sentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in a Spartan way ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... short grass, lying down asleep in charge of a couple of boy herds, and it seemed to me that the mysterious movement in the grass was progressing toward them. Presently one of the oxen suddenly flung up his head, seemed to sniff the air for a few moments, and then, with a low moan, rose to his feet, switching his tail from side to side. The movement aroused the rest of the herd, who in turn scrambled to their feet and stood, switching their tails, and all facing the same way, namely, toward the spot where I had observed the suspicious motion of the grass. But ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... his hand down on a red push-button set into the arm of his chair, and spoke into his mike. "Red Alert. Attack is in progress." Then switching to another channel, he spoke to his assistants: "Take your preassigned sectors. Launch one interceptor at each track identified as hostile." He hadn't enough interceptors to double up on an attack of this size, and a quick glance ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino
... Instead of switching on the lights, Kennedy first looked about carefully until he was assured that there was no one there. It seemed to me to be an unnecessary caution, for we knew Whitney was down-stairs and would probably be there a long time. But he seemed to think it necessary. ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... for the shore, but got in where the surface of the ice was rough and choppy. Ned Allen and Toby reached out to grasp Hen as they neared him. Young Dutcher made a switching-away movement, and the next instant he had fallen flat on his face. He ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... a suspicious movement of Dolly's switching tail, "mebbe that's so; I feel some cooler without a hat. But 'tain't safe to let the sun beat right down, the way it does, without something between. Then, you see, Henry's got a lot o' these horse hats in the store to sell. So of course Dolly, he ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... at her cabin door she heard a little noise and guessed that Jimmy was within. Opening it quickly, without switching on the light, she cried, "Here comes a big bear to eat you all up," as Jimmy often did to her. She grasped someone, and cried out in fear. It was someone grown up, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... among the flowers, and passed the dreary moments picking off the withered leaves. By-and-by a light footstep was audible, and "Impudent Jack the jockey" arrived whistling, with a heavy-jowled bull-dog at his heels, and stamped right across the garden parterres, switching off the carnation-tops with ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... thrill shook the ear, and dropping the fingers that lay cold as marble in his, Mr. Dunbar swung himself to the station platform. The train moved off, but he knew that it would return in switching, and so he stood ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... to the limit of my endurance, and when he jumped up, and, switching his spurs till they jingled, said he must go, I ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... d'heure dialogues that this speech had interrupted were resumed, most of them switching on to the question of punctuality. And then a cab was heard to stop outside and after a minute or so, presumably spent in financial transactions, the bell ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... daintily conferred as any woman's favor. It brought a reward in a lump of sugar. There followed an exhibition of equine delight; the mare's lips twitched, her nose wrinkled ludicrously, she stretched her neck and tossed her head as the sweetness tickled her palate. Even the nervous switching of her tail was eloquent of pleasure. Meanwhile the owner showed his ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... This may be taken when charging or when idle. In the first case it ought to be from 2.4 to 2.6 volts, according to conditions. In the second ease it ought to be just over 2 volts, provided that the observation is not taken too soon after switching in the charging current. For about half an hour after that is done, the E.M.F. has a transient high value, so that, if it be desired to get the proper E.M.F. of the cell, the observation must be taken thirty minutes after the charging ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... vehemently, Jack turned in after exacting a promise that Tom would call him at the end of two hours. The old cowman, however, had no such intention. It was not until eight hours later that he summoned Jack. The lights in the cave still burned brightly, for Tom had refrained from switching them off for the obvious reason that they made it easy to keep an eye on the prisoners. Day-light, however, showed at the mouth of the cave. When Jack noted the time, he ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... came running from every direction, while sounds from within the nearby farmhouse told that Old Peleg must be switching on his ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... stairway, grumbling at the delay to which they had been put. Lermontoff took advantage of the clamping of their heavy boots in the echoing stairway to shove in the bolts once more, and then followed them, himself followed by Drummond, into the Governor's room. Switching on ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... her, but she passed on, lightly switching the crisped brown stalks of last year's thistles with a little wand she had brought. I saw that she did not mean to speak to me, and I turned desperately ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... upon the right side of the anterior end and passes backward and to the left, narrowing at this point. The mouth is very small and difficult to see. It is apt to stay in one locality under zoogloea, switching back and forth with great vivacity, or hanging on by the posterior cilia while the anterior end stretches out in the surrounding medium. Nucleus and contractile vacuole were not observed. ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... the horses drew apart, nibbling here and there, switching their tails, avoiding a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and saw Ted approaching him, he ceased pawing, and stood with watchful eyes. Occasionally he sent forth a challenging bellow. His tail was switching from side to side, like ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... young inventor at length, locking up his desk. "Guess I'd better put the valuable disk back in the vault before I go home," he decided, switching on the ceiling lights and glancing toward the corner where ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... long chair and told about the pain in his shoulder, and opened his shirt to show the wound. Anna leaned against the door-post and heard him. Outside his brown pony was rattling the rings of the bit and switching at flies, and she perceived the faint smell of the sweat- stained saddlery and the horse-odour she knew so well. Before her, the tall grimy man, with bandages looped about him, his pleasant face ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... frequented public room, Daventry proceeded to lock the door, and continue his conversation with Lady Langham in the firelight. Thus, when the lady's husband came knocking at the door, Mrs. Daventry was able to rescue the guilty pair from an apparently hopeless predicament, by calmly switching on the lights and opening the door to Sir John Langham. The situation was undoubtedly a "strong" one; but the tendency of modern technic is to hold "strength" too dearly purchased at such ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... ago. Joanna made no demur, though, a month before, nothing would have induced her to believe that she would be staying with Susie this March at Whitethorn. Mr. Crawfurd walked with his daughters to the great gate, and Joanna, looking back, saw him, on his return, switching the thistle-heads in the hedge, as she had never witnessed him attempt in her experience; she could almost fancy he was whistling, as Harry Jardine went piping along before he fell ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... put me in the middle of a hell of a scrap. It had all started a couple years back, when the final design had been approved for a whole sky-full of communications satellites. Well, eighteen, to be exact. One of the parts in the design had been a solenoid, part No. M1537, which handled a switching operation too potent for a solid-state switch. That solenoid was one of the few moving parts in the Telstars, and it had been designed for skeighty-eight million cycles before it got ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... great chests; and he and Lily, instead of reading the books, spent all their time in hiding them in these chests. Next, my friend John came and nailed covers on the chests. After the first was nailed down, I jumped upon it, and sat watching John while he hammered the others; switching my tail, and winking my eyes at every stroke of his hammer, rather surprised at all that went on, ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... the road slowly and stopped there, switching his legs absently with the stalk of a horseweed. He was in his shirtsleeves—a respectable, snuffy old figure; evidently a man deliberate in words and thoughts and actions. There was something about him suggestive of an old staid sheep that had been engaged in a clandestine transaction ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... no response and the cowpuncher crossed to the door at a bound. The street was deserted, and without an instant's hesitation he dashed into the livery and feed barn next door whose wide aperture yawned deserted save for the switching of tails and the stamping of horses' feet in the stalls. The door of the harness room stood slightly ajar and Tex jerked it open and entered. Harness and saddles littered the floor and depended from long wooden pegs set into the wall while upon racks hung sweatpads and saddle blankets of ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... where your wife shops. And every time that bar of soap goes from one wholesaler or distributor to another, the price roughly doubles. You also buy a brain trust whose full time project is to keep you using their soap and not letting their competitors talk you into switching brands. The brain trust, of course, also works on luring away the competitor's customers to their product. Shucks, Mr. Coty, practically none of that twenty-five cents you spend to buy a cake of soap goes for soap. ...
— Subversive • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage. I remember that during the whole of that memorable day he lost himself in a monograph which he ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shop and Went back to his interrupted problem. From Jackson he learned that Koku and Eradicate had merely happened to stroll into the forbidden place, which had been left open by accident. There, it appeared, Koku had handled some of the machinery, ending by switching on the current of the machine the handles of which he later unsuspectingly picked up. Then he received a shock he long remembered, and for many days he believed Eradicate had been responsible for it, and there was more than the usual hostile feeling between the two. But Eradicate ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... displeased them; for they are as busy as bees, and do not like idleness. Besides, as one bad habit leads to another, Arthur, in his lounging ways, would often do great damage to the fairies' flower-beds, switching off the heads of wild-flowers in the most ruthless fashion, and even pulling them up by the roots when he felt ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... his bag. "Actually, I suppose I am one of the many. Going to the new world to see whether or not it is worth switching ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... that his search of the night before and of the morning following had been to the north and west of the settlement, so that it was hardly worth while to continue the hunt in that direction. The cows sometimes stood in the water, where so much switching of their tails was not needed to keep away the flies, and, though there was quite a growth of succulent grass on the clearing, the animals often crossed the creek and browsed through the woods and ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... was clear, and he could see, across the flats and over the tracks, where tiny signal lanterns were waving and circling, and freight trains were bumping and rumbling, the glow of the arc lamps on the elevator, and its square outline against the sky. Now and then, when the noise of the switching trains let down, he could hear the hoisting engines. Once he stopped and looked eastward at the clouds of illuminated smoke above the factories and at the red blast of the rolling mill. He went nearly to the river and ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... of the horses and patted the nearest animal gently. Then he mounted to his place and drove off. The professor had taken his seat beside the driver, but Yates, putting on his coat and picking up his cane, strode along in front, switching off the heads of Canada thistles with his walking stick as ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... Switching on the ICEG took his mind back to the snug apartment where its receiver stood, the armchair, books, desk of diverting work. It looked awful good, but ... life fought back, and ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... transport aircraft Airports: NA Telecommunications: poorly supplied with telephones; 215,000 unsatisfied applications for telephone installations (31 January 1990); connected to Ukraine by landline and countries beyond the former USSR through the switching center in Moscow ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... pedestrians. Coristine's pipe kept them from attacking him in force, but Wilkinson got all the more in consequence. He struck savagely at them with Wordsworth, anathematized them in choice but not profane language, and, at last, rose to his feet, switching his pocket handkerchief fiercely about his head. Coristine picked up the deserted Wordsworth, and laughed till the smoke of his pipe choked him and the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... huge beasts step majestically into the water, only to huddle together in a yellow-brown mass when they reached midstream. All their dignity fled, and they became merely frightened mountains of flesh amid a chaos of writhing necks and wildly switching tails. ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... that the strata of Everett's enthusiasm lay near the surface and was easily workable, for in the next half-hour there was a great demand of continuous output. Mrs. Butter stood switching her tail and chewing at a wisp of hay with an air of triumphant pride tinged with mild surprise as she turned occasionally to glance at the offspring huddled against her side and found eight wobbly legs instead of the four her former ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Forsyths went to look at it a nice young fellow from the office had gone with them; running ahead and switching on rows of electrics down the corridors, and then, with a wire-basketed electric lamp, which he twirled about and held aloft and alow, showing the dustless, sweet-smelling spaciousness of a perfect five-dollar room. He said it would more than ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... no cathedrals from him; but no one, at present, can design a better finial. That is an exceedingly beautiful one over the western door of St. George's; and there is some spirited impishness and switching of tails in the supporting figures at the imposts. Only do not allow his good designing of finials to be employed as an evidence in matters of divinity, nor thence deduce the incompatibility of Protestantism and art. I should have ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the villages to rebuild their plant for such a purpose, while another was producing the enzyme that would permit switching. But it looked hopeless for more than a few of the ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... on the ground-floor. It is situated on a mound overlooking the Ganges. There is no garden about it, but a grass field, with a few trees here and there. Between the window at which I am writing and the river is an open shed, in which two elephants are switching their tails, and knocking about the hay which has been given them for their breakfast. This is a much more quiet and rural place than any which I have visited since I have been in India; for Barrackpore is a great military station, and the park, &c., there ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... me into the study. He placed a little table beside the chair on which I sat. He set a decanter of whisky, a syphon of soda water and a box of cigars at my elbow. He brought a reading lamp and put it behind me, switching on the electric current so that the light fell brightly over my shoulder. He turned off the other lights in the room. He asked me if there were anything else he could do for me. Then ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... himself. "Surely I locked the door?" He walked to the front of the shop, switching on the cluster of lights that hung from the ceiling. The door was ajar, but everything else seemed as usual. Bock, hearing his footsteps, came trotting out from the kitchen, his claws rattling on the ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... master-at-arms and his corporals are continually prowling about on all three decks, eager to spy out iniquities. At one time, for example, you see Leggs switching his magisterial rattan, and lurking round the fore-mast on the spar-deck; the next moment, perhaps, he is three decks down, out of sight, prowling among the cable-tiers. Just so with his master, and Pounce ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... ship's side, one on the port and one on the starboard side, near the bows, and as far down below the water level as is possible. The direction of sounds coming to the microphones hanging in these tanks can be estimated by switching alternately to the port and starboard tanks. If the sound is of greater intensity on the port side, then the bell signalling is off the port bows; and similarly ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... was a man who had made a record career for himself and who was going farther. In the day-time he took them as a matter of course, but now he regarded them rather solemnly. He went from one to another, handling them, testing them, switching the lights of special electrical devices on and off, like a boy with a new and serious plaything. There was no one to laugh at him, and he did not laugh at himself. He stood in the midst of his possessions, a little insolently, with his head up, as though he were ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... to the scratched window-panes and the crude prospect, blurred now by the gathering shadows of the early evening. In the yards below, a long freight-train was pulling in from the west, with a switching-engine chasing it to begin the cutting out of the Copah locals. Over in the Red Butte yard a road-locomotive, turning on the table, swept a wide arc with the beam of its electric headlight in the graying dusk. Through the half-opened door in the despatcher's room came the diminished chattering ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... second base; Dahlen and Parrott, third base; Dahlen and Cooney, shortstop; Ryan, Dugan, Wilmot and Decker in the outfield. The majority of these were green players, as compared with the seasoned material of which some of the other League clubs boasted, and it was only by switching them about from one position to another that it was possible to tell ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... look serious and it must be confessed that Dick's heart beat fast, for he had no desire to undergo a switching at the hands of such a cold-hearted crowd, who would be sure to ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... and the scent of the cooked breadfruit fills the air, and perhaps the lamp glints already between the pillars and the house, you shall behold them silently assemble to this meal, men, women, and children; and the dogs and pigs frisk together up the terrace stairway, switching rival tails. The strangers from the ship were soon equally welcome: welcome to dip their fingers in the wooden dish, to drink cocoanuts, to share the circulating pipe, and to hear and hold high debate about the misdeeds of the French, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of GDP, 60% of exports, and 80% of total employment. The agricultural sector suffers from frequent drought and poor cultivation practices. Coffee is critical to the Ethiopian economy with exports of some $350 million in 2006, but historically low prices have seen many farmers switching to qat to supplement income. The war with Eritrea in 1998-2000 and recurrent drought have buffeted the economy, in particular coffee production. In November 2001, Ethiopia qualified for debt relief from the Highly ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... sullenness of temper appeared to grow upon him. He was fond of drawing apart from the little herd, and taking up his solitary post on the knoll, where he would stand for an hour at a time motionless except for the switching of his long tail, and staring steadily westward as if he knew where the great past of his race had lain. In that direction a dense grove of chestnuts, maples, and oaks bounded the range, cutting off the view of the city ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... down here quietly and open the envelope," he said, switching on the electric lamp. "That is what he told you to do, isn't it? There may be ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... would not budge. Switching was of no avail. Saterlee brought down the whip upon her with a sound like that of small cannon. She sighed and ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Good Indian started for the little pasture, where Keno was feeding and switching methodically at the flies. "You fellows can do more by doing nothing to-day than if you ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... all very confusing to Phil, and he was in constant fear of being run down by switching engines that were shunting cars back and forth as fast as they were loaded, rapidly making up the circus train. The Circus Boy wondered if he ever could get used to ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... near a bush forty yards away, and was switching his tail. I had heard that this was a sure premonition of an instant charge, but I had not before realized exactly what "switching the tail" meant. I had thought of it as a slow sweeping from side to side, after the manner of the domestic cat. This ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... the scant shelter of the eaves, switching at flies and trying to doze. Johnny led him down to the creek and gave him about half as much water as he wanted, then took him to the corral and unsaddled him under the brush shed that sheltered his own horse from the worst of the heat. Whatever her mood and whatever ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... her hat and her fierce eyes holding back the tears, telling him haughtily that a great cause made one indifferent to discomfort; and he nearly laughed aloud. He looked across the hall at her and just caught her switching her gaze from him to the platform. He felt a curious swaggering triumph at the flight of ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... was time for her to go. And, with a glance at her hair in a little glass and a touch to her hat, she went out into the garden back of Notre-Dame, where she knew her lover would be waiting. There he was, strolling along the graveled walk near the fountain, switching his cane impatiently. He had not seen her yet, and she stood still, looking at him fondly, dreading what was to come, yet longing to hear the sound of his voice. How handsome he was! What a nice ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... flimsy wooden buildings that seem to mark a railroad town. We were amazed at the amount of traffic that occurs in the night. Three big overland trains passed through in either direction, the interim being filled in with the switching of cars, accompanied apparently with a most unnecessary ringing of bells and piercing shrieks from whistles. Since our hotel was not more than a hundred and fifty feet from the main line, with no intervening buildings to temper the noises, sleep of any consequence was ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... looking young and rather ashamed. Clayton had a flash of those earlier days when he had come in to bid the boy good night, and there had always been that last request for water which was to postpone the final switching ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... bargain, I would force him to keep it, at least in so far as I was interested. A very few steps brought me to the first floor ... I had not a doubt that Madame de Gorne was there and had heard the sound of our discussion. Switching on the light of my pocket-torch, I looked into three bedrooms. The fourth was locked. I knocked at the door. There was no reply. But this was one of the moments in which a man allows no obstacle to stand in his way. I had seen a hammer in one of the rooms. I picked it up and smashed in the ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... was frozen hard. A couple of tom-cats—it is possible one might have been of the opposite sex—were assembled on the chimney in the middle of this ell, and they were growling at a fearful rate, and switching their tails about and going on, and we couldn't sleep ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... minute until we can size you up," cried Jack, stepping into the pilot house and switching on the searchlight, which he trained upon the man standing on the wharf. "We're not unprepared for callers and we want to make sure, you know. What do ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... destination in safety. The June sunlight would have made any place attractive, but the brow of the swelling hill with its wide outlook, its background of grove and intervening vistas, left nothing to be desired. The horses were soon contentedly munching their oats, and yet their stamping feet and switching tails indicated that even for the brute creation there is ever some alloy. Graham, however, thought that fortune had at last given him one perfect day. There was no perceptible cloud. The present was so eminently satisfactory that it banished the past, or, if remembered, it served as ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... car was shunted to the sidetrack at Logwood and the western-bound train went hooting away through the forest. It was still snowing heavily, there were not many trains passing through the Logwood yard, and no switching during the early part of the day. The snow ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... you," said Nero, switching his tail from side to side. Then Blackie said goodbye to him, and the cat walked on through the woods, back toward ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... humanity—especially humanity in nankeens—to endure without kicking; "Ugh, you beast!" he exclaimed, shaking his cane at the donkey, who, at the interposition of the Parson, had respectfully recoiled a few paces, and now stood switching his thin tail, and trying vainly to lift one of its fore legs—for ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... now, Rad; but you did more than I've been able to do. I never, in a hundred years, would have thought of switching on that current. It never occurred to me. But you, doing it by accident, brought out the truth. It's often that way in discoveries. And Koku was standing in the other telephone booth, near the plate there, when you switched in this ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... across the palm, and sometimes doubling on the back of the hand, if the cane was young and flexible. Speug, though a man of war and able to endure anything, used to warm his hands at the fire, if the weather was cold, before going in to the inquisition, and after he had received a switching of the first order he would go down to the lade and cool his hands in the running water. It was an interesting spectacle to see four able-bodied sinners, who yesterday had given themselves to the study of Nature, now kneeling together, to efface their penalty in our ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... in the walled garden switching a limber trout-rod when Miss Erith came upon him next morning,—a tall straight young man in his kilts, supple and elegant as the lancewood ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... such sudden and enormous enrichment to the aesthetics of sight and hearing—apart from such considerations—the influence of one philosopher, one thinker, one writer, can modify the whole literature of an epoch, switching the mind on to a new road in psychological, moral, aesthetic, or social research. If any one wish to be isolated, isolated let him be! But the republic of the mind tends to enlarge its frontiers day by day. The greatest men are those who know how to embrace and fuse ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... would be rather a splash when we arrived at our destination, but at eight hundred feet Providence came to the rescue. I heard the welcome cessation of the wild screaming hum of the strained wires. After switching on, the engine informed me with much spluttering that it was sorry that I should have to land on the wrong side, but it really had done its best. I had just managed to turn towards our trenches, when the scout pilot, seeing I did not land, at once followed me down and with its machine gun impressed ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... smiled when they saw him raise his hand to his brow, stroke it sentimentally, and glance upward with a look of poetic anguish. In the shivering light, which gave to the park an effect like a great vaulted hall, the throng swarmed, with a gentle murmur of dresses switching the turf, and with a steady hum ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... sudden prick too sharp for humanity—especially humanity in nankeens—to endure without kicking. "Ugh, you beast!" he exclaimed, shaking his cane at the donkey, which, at the interposition of the parson, had respectfully recoiled a few paces, and now stood switching its thin tail, and trying vainly to lift one of its fore-legs—for the flies ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Switching on a lamp near by, she examined her find. It carried no address. How it could have got there she could not imagine ... unless Chou Nu had dropped it by inadvertence, which seemed as far-fetched as to suppose she had left it ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... that had been held came in a shout together. Everyone who saw the pause yelled to the bull to go on and prove his courage. And the bull, when the first shock of surprise and distaste had passed, backed ominously, head lowered, tail switching in spasmodic jerks from side to side. The bear stood a little straighter in her defiance; her head went forward an inch; beyond that she did not move, for her tactics were not to rush but to wait, and to put every ounce of her terrible ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... lie! She says, 'John I must punish you, I want you to be a good man; don't try to be a great man, be a good man then you will be a great man! She got a switch off a peach tree and she gave me a good switching. I never forgot being caught with the berries and the way she talked bout my two sins. That hurt me worse than the switching. I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Myers' message was in the very act of transmission from my astral to my normal consciousness when this man Gifford must have come, switching off the telephone for Mr Myers, and getting on to it himself. Probably his great distress of mind would have made him the stronger force of the ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... snake, miles long, lying there basking in the sunshine. At the point of the stream nearest to me an old man was seated on the ground, apparently washing himself, for he was stooping over a little pool of water, while behind him stood his horse with patient, drooping head, occasionally switching off the flies with its tail. A mile farther on stood a dwelling, which looked to me like an old estancia house, surrounded by large shade trees growing singly or in irregular clumps. It was the only house near, but after gazing at it for some time I concluded that it was uninhabited. ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... gone, in the first darkness of the night, a freight train rumbled into the station. When the engine was switching cars on to the side-track, Johnny crept along the side of the train. He pulled open the side-door of an empty box-car and awkwardly and laboriously climbed in. He closed the door. The engine whistled. Johnny was lying down, and in ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... and rend of a cultivator being played across the fields, but Northern Illinois as a whole was one inky, apparently uninhabited, waste of high, forced woods. Only our illuminated map, with its little pointer switching from county to county as we wheeled and twisted, gave us any idea of our position. Our calls, urgent, pleading, coaxing or commanding, through the General Communicator brought no answer.' Illinois strictly ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... switching off in his own style to a new subject, "isn't our Tommy the most lovable creature in ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... of fuel can be avoided by close attention on the part of the fireman when switching as well as ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... had no sooner left the ranch out of sight behind her than she pretended that she was lost. Yellowjacket had thereupon walked a few rods farther and stopped, patiently indifferent to the location of his oats box. Lorraine had waited until his head began to droop lower and lower, and his switching at flies had become purely automatic. Yellowjacket was going to sleep without making any effort to find the way home. But since Lorraine had not told her father anything about it, his injunction could not have anything to do with the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... little station where he lives; or he seems just about to pass away into it again. The shooting-howdahs are lying in the verandah, the elephant of a neighbouring landowner is swinging his hind foot to and fro under a tree, or switching up straw and leaves on to his back, a dozen camels are lying down in a circle making bubbling noises, and tents are pitched here and there to dry, like so many white wings on which the whole establishment is about to rise and fly away—fly away into "the district," which ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... the switching of the curtains of fire I had learned that this time Contalmaison was definitely held; and though they say that I don't know anything about news, I beat the communique on the fact as the result of my observation, which ought at least to classify ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... or more above the sea. It was half ebb-tide; there was little or no drift out of the cove. Under the shadow of those dark cliffs detection seemed almost impossible, unless the submarine went to the risky expedient of switching on her search-light. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... I beg your pardon, Master Edward, for the good switching you so kindly gave me; I beg your pardon for the damage you did to the garden; you will oblige me by continuing to tumble everything topsy-turvy, and break ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... I said, walking to the electric lights and switching them on; "and if I had, I would leave it all ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... you, Belinda Mary," said he, and tucking her arm in his he led her out of the room switching off the light and racing her ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... the case that these investigators overlook, probably because of their lack of the occult principles involved in the phenomena. I mean this: that their most brilliant successes have been obtained by reason of their unconscious "switching on" of the astral telepathic sense, the clairvoyant sense. While in this condition, they obtained startling results; but the next time they tried, they failed to awaken the astral sense, and, therefore, had to depend entirely upon ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... than two-thirds of the lines are residential; telephone service is available in most villages; a fairly modern digital cable trunk line now connects switching centers in most of the regions, the others are connected ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... francais? Si je m'addresse a vous dans une langue que je ne parle pas, et que personne ici ne comprends, j'en impute la faute entierement a l'example malheureux de Monsieur Coudert. Ce que je veux dire est que—this is the fault of Coudert. He has been switching the languages round in every direction, and has done all he could to ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... eminence on which I used to behold him: every year that falls on my head seems to take one off his: if we both live long enough, we shall feel like contemporaries by-and-by," said Gerald: "just now the advantage of years is all on my side; and you are my junior, sir." He was switching down the weeds among the grass with his cane as he spoke, like any schoolboy; the air, and perhaps a little excitement, had roused the blood to his cheek. He did not look the same man as the pale martyr in ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... I noticed that Brindle turned on me a vicious look. No doubt I was awkward and hurt her a little, also; for the first thing I knew the pail was in the air, I on my back, and Brindle bellowing around the yard, switching her tail, Junior and Merton meanwhile roaring with laughter. I got up in no amiable mood and said, roughly, to the ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... was disclosed in all his grim proportions. He stood there with his stubby tail switching back and forth, and contentedly munching great mouthfuls of oats which he had managed to secure from the gaping sack, opening which had doubtless given him all the trouble and caused those ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... the guts of one of the catalogue machines. He didn't stop until Jason had tapped him on the shoulder. Switching on his hearing aid, the Pyrran stood quietly, crippled and bent, waiting for Jason ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... quarrels, the coarseness of their manners, and the choice of weapons and places in their mode of butchering each other, we must confess that they rarely partake of the spirit of chivalry. One gentleman biting the ear of a Templar, or switching a poltroon lord; another sending a challenge to fight in a saw-pit; or to strip to their shirts, to mangle each other, were sanguinary duels, which could only have fermented in the disorders of the times, amid that wanton pampered ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... not really sleepy, but only dazed a little by the adventure. I fixed some things on the floor by one of the windows and lay down, switching out the light. Through a top window the sunlight slanted down to fall around Garth, at his instrument board, in a bright glory. From my window I could see the Earth and the ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson
... climbing three immense flights of stairs! Let any woman undertake this with her arms full of books, her hands tied in holding them, so that she cannot clear her feet from her long, heavy skirt, with its manifold flounces switching about them, while she is laboring to lift them with a movement of her hips and pinioned arms, and yet feels herself liable every instant to be thrown from her balance by all this encumbrance—let her undertake this, and she will learn that there ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... the door of the flat with a latch-key and almost pushed me in, as if fearing that I might be seen and perhaps recognized by some passing occupant of the house. Switching on the electricity, the vestibule was lit by a red-shaded light, cheerfully welcoming. Off it opened two or three rooms, and Eagle ushered me into a large oak-panelled study, lined with bookshelves and having ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... gabbling away, turned to greet new arrivals, merely switching to another subject without interrupting her steady stream of outrageous talk. She was celebrated for ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... still, and this seemed to suit the animal, for it remained quiet. But it never took its eyes off Tom, and the switching tail, and the low growls now and then, plainly indicated that the beast was but waiting its time to leap and give ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... bring forward his complaints. He had only two. One was against a boy of ten for stealing a gill of goat's milk. The charge was disproved. The other was against a boy of twelve for neglecting the cattle, and permitting them to trespass on the lands of a neighbor. He was sentenced to receive a good switching—that is, to be beaten with a small stick by the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... was a sharp metallic "snick," an electric bulb hanging from the ceiling flamed out luminously, a cupboard door flashed open, a voice cried out in joyous, perfect English: "Thank God for a man!" And, switching round with a cry of amazement, he found himself looking into the face and eyes ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... where he describes pre-emancipation conditions as better than "he used to hear they was on the other places." Campbell himself is described as moderate, if not actually kindly. He did not permit his slaves to be beaten to any great extent. "The most he would give us was a 'switching', and most of the time we could pray out ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... The main engines, combined with their alternators, lie in a single row along the center line of the operating room with the steam or operating end of each engine facing the boiler house and the opposite end toward the electrical switching and controlling apparatus arranged along the outside wall. Within the area between the boiler house and operating room there is placed, for each engine, its respective complement of pumping apparatus, all controlled by and under the operating jurisdiction of the engineer for that engine. Each ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... drawing the ramshackle carryall in which Flint sat, toiled on with sweating haunches, switching his tail, impatient of the flies, and now and then shaking his head deprecatingly, as if in remonstrance against the fate which destined him to work so hard for the benefit of a lazy human being ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... or rather minute, when the huntsmen stood on the green lawn round the moving, tail-switching, dapple mass of hounds; and the red coats trotted one by one from behind the screens of bare trees, delicate lilac against the slowly moving grey sky. A delightful moment, followed, as the hunt swished past, by the sudden sense that these men and ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... a hot night, and the punkah-wallah outside kept the punkah, or mechanical fan, switching back and forth over our heads with a rapidity that made us fear its ropes would break, as ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... spurs and quirt. The visiting cowmen shrilled their delight. The pony was broncho from the end of her long, switching tail to the tip of her ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the evil switching of her tail ceased, she half rose; she began to purr, a purr that sounded to me as loud as the roar of a water-fall in a gorge; she took a few steps towards me, then, suddenly, she made a peculiar movement hard to describe, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... her dark, inchoate eyes full upon him. He remained silent, thinking. Then, switching off and becoming cold, he asked, in a voice ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... advanced, shuffling slowly forward as though feeling their way through the candle-lit dusk across the stone floor. Their accoutrements clattered and clinked in the intense stillness. A slovenly officer, switching a thin, naked sword in his ungloved fist, led them. Another officer, carrying a sabre and marching in the rear, halted to slam and lock the heavy chapel door; then he ran forward to rejoin his men, while the chapel still reverberated with the echoes ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... sauntered about the immense room into which they had come from the state banqueting hall, switching on more and more of the electric candle-lights set high on the green brocade walls. This was known as the "green drawing room" by the family, and the "Room of the Miniatures" by the public, who ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... memory of it made him shiver. He never would forget that great, gray, skulking form that slipped like a shadow through the trees, that fierce, bearded face, those cruel, pale yellow-green eyes, or that switching ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess |
