"A couple of" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the gloom of the vault, which was lighted only by a couple of candles, was too great to admit of their seeing anything distinctly; but with a further advance Knight discerned, in front of the black masses lining the walls, a young man standing, and writing ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... just goes slowly at the start. Most of the definitions use the same words over and over again. Martha really knows most of these simple words, we've just got to be dead certain that her own definition of them agrees wholly and completely with ours. After a couple of hours of this minute detail, we'll be skipping over everything but new words. After all, she only has to work them over once, and as we find them, we'll mark them out of ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... money end of it; Duncan findin' them calves with my stock has damaged my reputation.' Then he laffed—one of them little short laffs which he gets off sometimes when things don't just suit him—the way he's laffed a couple of times when someone's tried to run a cold lead proposition in on him. He fair freezes my blood when ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... must be thinking about me, and I'd open my official envelopes with an unusual interest, feeling practically sure that one of them must contain immediate orders for me—the one and only me—to proceed forthwith to England and reorganise the War Office, taking over a couple of six-cylinder cars and a furnished flat in St. James's for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... feeds sparrows in the park!" Jones gasped. "How did he get out of jail so quick? I saw a couple of policemen haul him off just a day or ...
— Master of None • Lloyd Neil Goble
... other. "I fetched down an antelope a couple of hours ago, and as I was expectin' you, I cooked ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... man that he is, has departed for his office followed by a kitmutgar carrying some sandwiches and a bottle of soda-water, which is his modest lunch. Really a Government servant's life is no easy one. He is up every morning by six o'clock, and gets a couple of hours' work done before breakfast. His office receives him at ten and keeps him till four, when he comes home and has tea, after which we ride or drive or play tennis somewhere. A look in at the Club for a ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... to the station, rescued our knapsacks under the nose of a new official who looked very much surprised, and boarded the English rest house near by. English people were sitting in deck chairs outside the papier-mache house which stood surrounded by a couple of tents and a wooden kitchen in a field. Austrian prisoners were preparing lunch, and we were introduced to ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... chipped in; "I've got you sized. While in Washington you met a couple of wise voices who talked nothing but sure-things, so you for the Bennings race track to spill your coin, ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... explained. "We both know the ropes so well; what one of us didn't see the other might—in the way of opportunities, I mean. And then we should be a novelty as married people. We're both rather unusually popular—why not be frank!—and it's such a blessing for dinner-givers to be able to count on a couple of whom neither one is a blank. Yes, I really believe we should be more than twice the success we are now; at least," she added with a smile, "if there's that amount of room for improvement. I don't know how you feel; a man's popularity ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... Agnes. It makes me feel like a cad to have you out here—and then not to be able to provide any entertainment for you. And, really, there's no need to worry about me. I'm all right—with the exception of this broken arm. And it'll be all right in a couple of weeks. Besides, there's no telling what may happen. You can see from the burning of this mill that there isn't any love ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... the years dragged on sluggishly, and 'Miah and Dorcas were as happy as ever. They had a couple of bairns to toddle about their cottage, and 'Miah had been fairly fortunate on the fishery, so that their lives were generally sunny and enviable to an extent that made ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... conversant with their true history. They were only smolts in the immediately preceding spring, and are becoming grilse from week to week, and of various sizes, according to the length of their continuance in the sea. But they require at least a couple of months to intervene between their departure from the rivers in April or May, and their return thither;—which return consequently commences, though sparingly, in June, and preponderates in July ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the middle of the walk—not one of the modern mockeries of rusticity—but a real old-fashioned lath-and-plaster concern, such as used to be erected in front of a bowling-green. It was roofed in, was open only on the sunny side, and was supported by a couple of little Ionic pillars, up which clematis and passion- ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... number of us left on the afternoon of August 23 for Waterloo, where it was expected that the great clash between the German and the Anglo-French forces would occur. We had planned to be back the same evening, and went prepared only for an afternoon's drive in a couple of hired street carriages. It was seven weeks before we again ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... A couple of lanterns had been taken from the boat. They had previously been lighted by the colonel with much difficulty, and without them it would have been impossible to follow the stony, grassy pathway by which Ned Crawford made his first invasion of the Mexican territory. He ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... being no tides in the Mediterranean, the ship would have lain perfectly stationary all the morning, but for a very light air from the southward. Before this air, however, she had moved to the westward about a couple of miles, until she had got the government-house nearly abeam. At the same time she had been obliquely drawing nearer, which was the circumstance that produced the alarm. With the sun had risen the wind, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "Our boat's just fast enough we ought to get there a couple of days after the Cerberus sets down. You'd ought to be five-six hours behind us." He considered. "Meet you north pole farthest planet out this side ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... feeling of satisfaction when the ship dropped her anchor in Table Bay. Most of the passengers went on shore at once, to take up their quarters at the hotel till she sailed again. The captain said that it would take at least a couple of days to fill up the water tanks, and take in a supply ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... that got me jugged, are you!" he snarled with a menacing gesture. "I'd like to get my hands on you for a couple of minutes." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... know," replied Mrs. Yu, "what's the matter with her these last few days; but she hasn't been herself for two months and more; and the doctor who was asked to see her declares that it is nothing connected with any happy event. A couple of days back, she felt, as soon as the afternoon came, both to move, and both even to utter a word; while the brightness of her eyes was all dimmed; and I told her, 'You needn't stick to etiquette, for there's no use for you to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... as yet, some of my readers may think. I cannot help it—so it was. When we had gone in silence a couple of hundred yards or so, she glanced round at me with a quick sly half-look, and burst out laughing. I was by her side in an instant: her laugh had dissolved the spell that bound ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... bottom of the chest were some fencing-sticks, a couple of old pistols, a box with some tarnished medals once the pride of a soldier's heart, a bundle of letters, and, last of all, a worn portfolio tied with ribbon; and inside was written, in the handwriting of Alison Hunter, Marjory's grandmother, "Chronicles ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... squirrel which ran across the open to a great beech-tree, up which it scampered until it reached the forked boughs, where it sat with its tail curled up, looking tormentingly down upon his pursuer Dick, who rushed headlong at the tree, scrambled up a couple of feet, and then came down flop upon his back, without the squirrel of course; but he made up for it by running round and round the trunk, barking, baying, and snapping in impotent rage, while little nut-nibbler gave a sort ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... the hallucinatory nature of such phenomena suggests attention to the intellectual acumen displayed by The Times correspondent in saying that "Lord Bute ought to have employed a couple of intelligent detectives" for the purpose of catching subjective hallucinations. On the same principle, he ought to offer to his learned friend, Sir James Crichton-Browne, well known as an alienist, ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... ostentatiously ignored the wisdom of Charles II. He began (1685) with everything in his favour: a Tory parliament, a discredited opposition, which further weakened its case by Argyll's and Monmouth's rebellions, and a great reputation for honesty. Within a couple of years he had thrown away all these advantages by his revival of Charles II's abandoned Roman Catholic policy, and had alienated the Anglican church, by whose support alone he could hope to rule as an English ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... think that the change I saw in young, giddy girls when they became mothers, was owing to suffering and care wearing upon the spirits, but I see now that its true source lies far deeper. My brother H. has been married a couple of months, so I have one sister more. I shall be glad when they are all married. Some sisters seem to feel that their brothers are lost to them on their marriage, but if I may judge by my husband, there is fully as much gain as loss. I am sure no son or brother could be more ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... exceedingly unpleasant. If she had such a distaste for his presence, common decency made it imperative that he should give her a good start on the homeward journey. He could not tramp along a couple of yards in the rear all the way. So he had to remain where he was till she had got well off the mark. And as he was wearing a thin flannel suit, and the sun had gone in, and a chilly breeze had sprung up, his mental troubles were ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... travels he fell in with a couple of old schoolfellows who were on the verge of a sporting expedition; and Owen, who by that time was tired of his loafing method of travel, jumped with alacrity at an ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... I suppose.'—'No, Doctor, we have supped already.'—'Supped already? that's impossible! why, 'tis not eight o'clock yet: that's very strange; but if you had not supped, I must have got something for you. Let me see, what should I have had? A couple of lobsters; ay, that would have done very well; two shillings—tarts, a shilling; but you will drink a glass of wine with me, though you supped so much before your usual time only to spare my pocket?'—'No, we had rather talk with you than drink with you.'—'But if you had supped with me, as in all ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... occult science. There is a genuine fear of popularity. Simplicity of statement is deemed synonymous with hollowness and shallowness. He recalls an old professor saying to him once: 'Yes, we philosophers, whenever we wish, can go so far that in a couple of sentences we can put ourselves where nobody can follow us.' The professor said this with conscious pride, but he ought to have been ashamed of it. Great as technique is, results are greater. To teach philosophy so that the pupils' interest in technique exceeds that in results ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... destroy all the fountains which supplied the besieged town of La Rochelle with water. On this spot, where Protestants and Catholics fought deadly battles, and disputed every inch of ground, the battle of a couple of turkeys, and the splashing and thumping of a group of washerwomen, were all that ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... a couple of cases in which the keeping of a secret seems pretty clearly wrong, inasmuch as it diminishes tension, and deprives the audience of that superior knowledge in which lies the irony of drama. In a play named Her ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... force, keeping fastened the lowest of its three buttons. At every step, it struggled for its liberty. Another characteristic of Peter's, linking him to the past, was his black silk cravat, secured by a couple of gold pins chained together. Watching him as he now sat writing, his long legs encased in tightly strapped grey trousering, crossed beneath the table, the lamplight falling on his fresh-complexioned face, upon the shapely hand that steadied the half-written ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... a mere daub, but to his untrained eye it was like the pictures in the Art Gallery, where he had spent a couple of dull afternoons. Over the piano a framed certificate announced that Clara Grimes had passed the junior grade of Trinity College in 1890. And Jonah, who had an eye for business like a Jew, who moved in an atmosphere of profit and ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... had been thrown together at Oxford for a short time during the last months of their residence, and though they were men quite unlike each other in their pursuits, circumstances had made them intimate. It was well that Gordon should take a stroll for a couple of hours before dinner, and therefore he started off for Little Alresford. Going into the parsonage gate he was overtaken by Blake, and of course introduced himself. "Don't ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... rolled on, and brought no change for the better. Sir Charles continued to brood on his one misfortune. He refused to go out-of-doors, even into the garden, giving as his reason that he was not fit to be seen. "I don't mind a couple of women," said he, gravely, "but no man shall see Charles Bassett in his present state. No. Patience! Patience! I'll wait till Heaven takes pity on me. After all, it would be a shame that such a race as mine should die out, and these fine estates go ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... hard to find a couple of more athletic boys than Hugh and his chum. Their intense love for every type of outdoor sport had kept them in splendid physical condition, so that their muscles were as firm as those of an athlete in training. To make their way up that sloping board and reaching the open window ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... with a weird attempt at gaiety, "a couple of sous for the entertainment, citizen! You have stood here half an hour. You can't have it all for ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... courtiers proposed to the Raja that he should arrange for his son's marriage; the Raja however wished to postpone it for a time. So the courtiers used to laugh and say to the Prince "Wait a little and we will find you a couple of wives;" the young man would answer, "What is that? I can find them for myself. If you offered to find me ten or twelve wives there would be something in it." The Raja heard of his boasting like this and was very angry and said "Well if he is so sure that he can find a wife for himself, let him ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... of consenting to a bill, rendered necessary in consequence of the legislature of Jamaica having refused, under not very creditable circumstances, to enact a law which it had positively promised to pass. Under these circumstances, considering that we are now approaching to within a couple of years of the period when a new state of society is to be established in all the British possessions where slavery has ever existed, I must say, I think parliament ought not to hesitate about adopting some measure of the description now proposed, ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... shots of yours won't stop me from going to market at Pompignat, as I do every Monday. I've a couple of calves under the tilt; and they're just fit for the butcher. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... "tasty" article, and the pride with which Mr. Kantwise glanced back at it was quite delightful. The top of the table was blue, with a red bird of paradise in the middle; and the edges of the table, to the breadth of a couple of inches, were yellow. The pillar also was yellow, as were the three legs. "It's the real Louey catorse," said Mr. Kantwise, stooping down to go on with table number two, which was, as he described it, a "chess," having the ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... descriptions. On one bracket stand an old Italian ewer and plate in wrought brass work; on another, a Nile "Kulleh" or water bottle, and a pair of cups of unbaked clay; on others again, jars and pots of Indian, Morocco, Japanese, Siut, and Algerian ware. Here also, are a couple of funerary tablets in carved limestone, of ancient Egyptian work; a fragment of limestone cornice from the ruins of Naukratis; and various specimens of Majolica, old Wedgewood, and other ware, as well as framed specimens of Rhodian and ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... thought, and then brought out of his chest a casket, from which he took a few engraved gems. He held them carefully up to the light, and asked his daughter: "If I learn from Polybius, to whom I am now going, that they have already caught Alexander, should I venture now, do you think, to offer a couple of choice gems to Titianus, the prefect, to set him free again? He knows what is good, and the captain of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... final. When they met she was only a struggling teacher in Miss Mason's school, the daughter of a small farmer in the Vale of Keswick. Old Fenwick looked much higher for his son. So there was renewed battle at home, till at last a couple of portrait commissions from a big house near Kendal clinched the matter. A hurried marriage had been followed by the usual parental thunders. And now they had five years to look back upon, years of love and struggle and discontent. By turning his hand to many things, Fenwick had just ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... terrible awakening came. Hart had returned to England. A couple of months ago he wrote to her here. Knowing that Nina's father was dead he had gone to Somerset House, paid a shilling and read a copy of the will. From that moment your mother knew no peace. Hart had all the necessary letters to prove Nina's identity. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... run through all of Risch's cases; it is perhaps valuable here to cite a couple of them. His Case I is that of a soldier, who after being released from prison at 23 years had begun his military duty and in a short time attempted suicide. He was then studied for insanity. It was found that he gave long accounts of his experiences ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... a gentleman you have never seen, especially when you are in his own house; so Ashburner gave it up after one or two attempts, and another pause ensued, fortunately broken by Susan's return with a couple of lighted candles, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... saying anything went into the forest; and when the children looked round they saw that where they had slept was close to the edge of a pit, into which they would have certainly fallen had they walked a couple of ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... the hives; in the first place you need a pattern. Purchase of some dealer or manufacturer of apiarian supplies, a good Langstroth hive complete with section boxes. Then get a couple of hundred feet (more or less) of ten inch stock boards, mill dressed on both sides, then with your pattern hive, workshop, and tools, you are master of the situation. After your hives are made, don't forget to paint them; it is economy to paint ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... two or three others held up a boy from the mines to-day, and I happened to see it. I interfered; fact is, I killed a couple of them. So they arrested both of us, went through a farce trial, and were trying to hurry me into Kingdom Come before Bill Wilson got a rescue party together, when you come along. That's all. They let the kid go—which was a good ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... had returned and brought back a couple of guests with her. She frowned impatiently over the discovery, realising that she was a prisoner unless she elected to show herself. For her corner behind the summer-house was bounded by the wall of the compound, and there was no retreat ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... thought well of the boy's work. If he had a real talent for painting, a painter he should be; if not, he must take to some other craft, where he would have the chance of making himself a decent livelihood. So he told Francois to prepare a couple of drawings, which he would submit to the judgment of M. Mouchel, a local painter at Cherbourg, the nearest large town, and capital of the department. Francois duly prepared the drawings, and Millet the elder went with his son to submit them in ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... things are so that the girls can't court us—and I shouldn't even want one that threw herself at my head of her own accord. And what can a lively girl do with a dreamer? Our cousin in Cologne is said to have a couple of pretty daughters. And now, good-by. I will deliver your letter today." With that his brother ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... a peculiar look in Bertha's eyes, Florence did read the short essay. It was couched in plain language and was forcible and to a certain extent clever. It occupied but a couple of pages, and having once begun, Florence read on to the ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... they went together to the river, and found the canoe and the two half-breeds waiting for them. A couple of rugs were spread on the bottom of the canoe rising over the two slanting boards which served as backs to ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... she was startled and a little confused, but the next instant, recovering herself, she answered, gravely, "Yes, I have been rather under the weather for a couple of days," and she added, with her bright smile, "The thing that bothers me most is the thought of what I have missed during ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... general, and pretty ones in particular, on our line of road. He was going up for a class, he supposed, he said; the governor had taken a "second below the line" himself, and insisted upon his emulating the paternal distinction; d——d nonsense, he said, in his opinion; except that the governor had a couple of harriers with Greek names, he did not see that his classics were of any use to him: and no doubt but that Hylax and Phryne would run just as well if they had been called Stormer and Merry Lass. However, he must rub up all his old Eton books this 'long,' and get old Hanmer to lay it on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... "The missus she's in a nice taking, screeching, and yelling as you might hear her two cables' length away, and she turns round on me and will have it as I'd a hand in the matter. Well, just to show my innocence, I offers to get a glass case for 'em and have 'em stuffed, if it cost me a couple of pounds. I wouldn't care if they fell all to pieces a week afterwards, so that it pacified the old woman just at present. If I can't get 'em done I shall ship at once, for the place will be too hot to hold me. So ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... when he couldn't it was handed back to Mr. Brodie for exposition, wherein if he himself failed, as was sometimes the case, he had to write a new Opinion. Inkpen was a character, as a self-taught entomologist, breeding in me then the rabies of collecting moths and beetles, as a couple of boxes full of such can still prove. He lived at Chelsea, near the Botanical Gardens there; and attributed his wonderful finds of strange insects in his own pocket-handkerchief garden to stray caterpillars and flies, &c., that came his ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... more of their social influences than we do. That affair of that Mr Trenchard was a blow. Losing a vote at such a critical time, when if I had had only a remote idea of what was passing through his mind, I would have even asked him to Barrowley for a couple of days." ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... not long after this, Gil Mead rode up to the house, looking very agreeable and pleasant. A couple of strangers, also ranchmen, were with him. They wanted to look at the hides, one of the men being a trader, Gil said. Jack was in Denver, so Yik Kee and I went to the barn with them. They looked the hides over carefully, and conversed ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... unable to recognise my ideas; and words were put into my mouth which I had never uttered. And here I will admit that, when I gave the lectures, I did not think that they would be discussed by the press, but expected that, like others of the same kind, they would at most be mentioned in a couple of words, in futuram oblivionem. Of the controversy which sprang up at once, in separate works and in newspaper articles, in Germany, France, England, Italy, and even in America, I shall not speak. Much of it I have not read. The writers often did not even ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... regular duties of a sea-life. About six bells, that is, three o'clock, P.M., we saw a sail on our larboard bow. I was very anxious, like every new sailor, to speak her. She came down to us, backed her main-top-sail, and the two vessels stood "head on," bowing and curvetting at each other like a couple of war-horses reined in by their riders. It was the first vessel that I had seen near, and I was surprised to find how much she rolled and pitched in so quiet a sea. She lunged her head into the sea, and then, her stern settling gradually down, her huge bows rose up, showing the bright ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... till one o'clock suggests the tender thought of supper, which is served on gold plate and Sevres china in a garden-tent of Gobelins tapestry. "'What a perfect family!' exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from their bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste. How safe you were to ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... stowed in the hold, Sandy McNab and I had to go down and dig out a couple of guns to mount on deck. It required quite a lot of acrobatic stunts to get down in the first place and then to get the guns and ammunition up, but we managed to finish the job just before dark and got the guns mounted, mine on the starboard and Sandy's on the port side, before we steamed out. ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... may greatly inconvenience the vessels, which by these routes attempt to enter the Kara Sea. Matotschkin Sound, again, forms a channel nearly 100 kilometres long, deep and clear, with the exception of a couple of shoals, the position of which is known, which indeed is not usually free from fast ice until the latter half of July, but, on the other hand, in consequence of the configuration of the coast, is less subject to be obstructed by drift ice than the southern straits. There are good harbours at the ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... There is no reason why affairs may not go on for a couple of days as they are—as if ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... look. Not consciously at first, may be. He who has eyes, you know, nothing can stop him from seeing things as long as there are things to see in front of him. What I saw at first was the end of the table and the tray clamped on to it, a patent tray for sea use, fitted with holders for a couple of decanters, water-jug and glasses. The glitter of these things caught my eye first; but what I saw next was the captain down there, alone as far as I could see; and I could see pretty well the whole of that ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... brought assistance. Several Black Mantles, fearful lest the riot should spread, fought with us; a couple of gentlemen, responding to the cry of "Conde!" had dashed in behind me, and presently from the street corner came a shout ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... a dull word now and then, to which his answer was a monosyllable, looking out at him from under her eyes, through the candlelight, to see whether any feeling was moving him; and then having pretended to eat a couple of strawberries she left him to himself. Still, however, this was not the last. There would come some moment for an embrace—for some cold, half-embrace, in which he would be forced to utter ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... whips, manacles, and all sorts of cruel oddities; but in the confessionals visited we beheld nothing of any of them. Number one is a very small apartment, perhaps two yards square, with a seat and a couple of sacred pictures in it. In front there is an aperture filled in with a slender grating and backed by a curtain which can be removed at pleasure by the priest who officiates behind. On one side of the grating there is a small space like a letter-box ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... boys aren't much different than I was, when I was a youngster, and I guess you like sweets about the same. Here are a couple of dollars, Bert Bobbsey. I wish you'd treat all your friends to hot chocolate soda or candy or whatever you like best. It isn't exactly pay for what you did, but it just shows I'm ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... fine red cloth, richly embroidered in yellow worsted, a very large count's coronet and a cipher at the four corners of the covering; and under this might be seen a pair of gorgeous silver stirrups, and above it, a couple of silver-mounted pistols reposing in bearskin holsters; the bit was silver too, and the horse's head was decorated with many smart ribbons. Of the Corporal's steed, suffice it to say, that the ornaments were in brass, as bright, though not perhaps so valuable, as those which decorated ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... didn't ye tell us 'twas going to be a serious kind of thing before? How should I know what folk mean if they don't say? Now, shall we come in, or shall we go home and come back along in a couple of hours?" ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... double about this evening, I fancy," he remarked. "I could have sworn I saw you coming out of a certain little house in Adam Street not a couple of minutes ago. You know the little house ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of if they'd thought of it. It must have been a good banquet, with vintages and song and that sort of thing—I believe they even tried to have food at first—and hearty indoor sports with the china and silver and chairs that had been thoughtlessly provided and a couple of big mirrors that looked as if you could throw a catsup bottle clear through them, only you couldn't, because it would stop there after merely breaking the glass, and ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... region where neither food nor water, nor the materials to construct the apparatus necessary for the capture of the town, were to be found, The opportune arrival at Jaffa of galleys from Genoa furnished the besiegers with supplies, and, in spite of all the difficulties, the place was taken in a couple of months. The crusaders, with their customary barbarity, massacred the inhabitants. Godfrey of Bouillon was chosen ruler of Jerusalem and took the modest title of "Defender of the Holy Sepulcher." He soon died and was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, who ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... room could boast of nothing more than an old-fashioned black-walnut table and two chairs, the latter cushioned, but stiff in the back and generally dilapidated in appearance. The only sign of comfort about me was a tray that stood on the table, containing a couple of bottles of wine and two glasses. The bottles were full and the glasses clean, and to add to this appearance of hospitality a box of cigars rested invitingly near, which I could not fail to perceive, even at the first glance, were of the very ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... and there was an angry look in his eyes, as he jumped up and took a couple of steps toward where Edgar sat back on the garden seat. But his pleasant look came back, and ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... man of about sixty, while Christine must be about twenty. The action of the play lasts from 1524 to 1540, but Strindberg has contracted the general perspective, so to speak, giving us the impression that the entire action takes place within a couple of years. I have tried to work out a complete chronology, and think it fairly safe to date the several parts ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... end of a long passage, opening from the hall. 'Everything goes straight in, on this day of the year. You're not a bit too soon; for the carriage is at the door now, and they have only come to town for a couple of hours, a' purpose.' ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... leant forward, supporting his invisible head on invisible hands. "Kemp," he said, "I've had no sleep for near three days, except a couple of dozes of an hour or so. ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... delights for oneself. There is a quaintness and unworldliness about its old streets and wharves, which is indescribable in print; there is a wonderfully impressive expanse of sea and sky on the Bay of Bidassoa, a couple of kilometres away, and all sorts and conditions of men may find an occupation here for any passing mood they ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... exclaimed Mrs. Gray, drying her eyes and beginning to laugh. "What a couple of sillies we are, to be sure. Now go, Anne, to my dressmaker, Mrs. Harvey, who has orders to make you four dresses, two for evening and two for afternoon. Mrs. Harvey has good taste and will help you select them. But perhaps you will like the ones she ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... & Cherry was an inspiration. Bob Hart had been roaming through the Eastern and Western circuits for four years with a mixed-up act comprising a monologue, three lightning changes with songs, a couple of imitations of celebrated imitators, and a buck-and-wing dance that had drawn a glance of approval from the bass-viol player in more than one house—than which no performer ever received more satisfactory ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... remains at home, hard at work on his book. I will now add what I did not wish you to know," said Horatio. "For some months Pendlam's family subsisted almost entirely upon funds advanced him by that rascal Clodman. They talk of his wonderful generosity! But the villain has a wife of his own, and a couple of young children, who are left to suffer for want of the actual necessaries of life. Pendlam has given up preaching, you know, in order to devote himself entirely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... ladies, go on,' said Daniel. 'Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies to stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... prepared to close the iron grating which barred the way half-way up the ramp. This done, even if the enemy should succeed in forcing an entrance he would only find himself caught in a trap—in a steep, narrow way exposed to a fire from the top of the flanking walls, as well as from the front. We had a couple of culverins, which the Vicomte had got twenty years before, at the time of the battle of St. Quentin. We fixed one of these at the head of the ramp, and placed the other on the terrace, where by moving it a few paces forward we could train it on Bezers' house, ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... principal streets of the city, and had the number of stripes to every one of them appointed, most cruelly laid upon their naked bodies with long whips, by sundry men appointed to be the executioners thereof, and before our men there went a couple of criers, which cried as they went, "Behold these English dogs, Lutherans, enemies to God," and all the way as they went, there were some of the Inquisitors themselves, and of the familiars of that rake-hell ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... week sooner than any one had dared to hope. The letter contained several other things as well, which showed Katy how continually she had been in his thoughts,—a painting on rice paper, a dried flower or two, a couple of little pen-and-ink sketches of the harbor of Santa Lucia and the shipping, and a small cravat of an odd convent lace folded very flat and smooth. Altogether it was a delightful letter, and Katy read it, as it were, in leaps, her eyes catching at the salient points, and ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... a girl should find it necessary to tell that she would not have him disgrace her, and that he must go away. It made me wrathy to think there could be any one she needed to hit out at like that. But we had a queer lot at the mine, including Dunn and Collins, a couple of educated boys who had not been educated enough to pass as mining engineers, and had been kicked out into the world by their families. It might have been either of those two star failures in the bunk house. The only person it could not have been was Dudley Wilbraham; since aside from ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... they appear, but are only pieces about one half inch in length, and do not even go through the board. The piece is fastened on the other side with a couple of bolts that hold it very firmly in place. There is a corresponding opening in the mopboard in the next room, although no attempt is made to so carefully conceal it, as no one is ever admitted to it. Through this trap the "spooks" enter the cabinet by crawling and wiggling. ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... "A couple of 9-pounders, with the half-company of artillery, would be the best; but if they are not to be had, then anything your people are ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... just dismounted from their horses. They were a couple of stout lads who still looked bashful, as became youths recently released from the seminary. Their firm healthy faces were covered with the first down of manhood, down which had, as yet, never known a razor. They were greatly discomfited ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... passed from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters to articulate and walk. All this ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... other's sudden change to gravity. "It's two years and more since I got a letter from Mother. I wrote a couple of times, but she ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... loved the Lyceum, not only the old school, but the young ones, who could have been excused for thinking that Henry Irving and I were a couple of old fogeys! William Nicholson and James Pryde, who began by working together as "The Beggarstaff Brothers," and in this period did a poster of Henry for "Don Quixote" and another for "Becket," were as enthusiastic ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... two gangs didn't join in and rush us. There must have been at least five hundred of 'em. Stalky said they didn't trust each other very well, because they were ancestral enemies when they were at home; and the only time they'd tried a rush he'd hove a couple of blasting-charges among 'em, and that had sickened ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... the horses we need, and three or four men could do the job nicely. This guerrilla's brother was formerly the captain of the band, but he was killed by a party of rebels, just as he was about to hang a couple of Union prisoners he had taken—gun-boat men, I believe. His name is Thorne, and—what's the ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... enclosed, surmounted by two thickets of trees and vines, extended into the distance and was lost, submerged in that milky vapor, in that cloud like cotton down that sometimes floats over valleys at daybreak. And at the extreme end of that heavy, transparent fog one saw, or, rather, surmised, that a couple of human beings were approaching, a human couple, a youth and a maiden, their arms interlaced, embracing each other, their heads inclined toward each other, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... mine. There was some kind of a mix-up away back there that I did n't know much about—fact is, I did n't know anything. The Silver Queen didn't amount to much and when demonetization set in, I quit—you 'll remember, Sheriff—and went away. I 'd worked for Squint before, and when I came back a couple of years ago, I naturally went to him for a job again. Then he put this proposition up to me at ten dollars a day and ten per cent. It looked too good to be ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... go; the dreadful moment was approaching. If Madame de Gramont happened to be there, there was still some hope, for Madame de Gramont abhorred going to bed almost as much as Madame du Deffand. Or there was just a chance that the Duc de Choiseul might come in at the last moment, and stay on for a couple of hours. But at length it was impossible to hesitate any longer; the chariot was at the door. She swept off, but it was still early; it was only half-past three; and the coachman was ordered to drive about the Boulevards for an hour before ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... regard to its measure. She 'laboured much in the Lord.' Now, both these two words, 'laboured' and 'much,' are extremely emphatic. The word rightly translated 'laboured' will appear in its full force if I recall to you a couple of other places in which it is employed in the New Testament. You remember that touching incident about our Lord when, being 'wearied with His journey, He sat thus on the well.' 'Wearied' is the same word ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... his saddle to the curate, who accepted it without much entreaty; but unfortunately as the barber was mounting behind, the mule, being as it happened a hired one, which is the same thing as saying ill-conditioned, lifted its hind hoofs and let fly a couple of kicks in the air, which would have made Master Nicholas wish his expedition in quest of Don Quixote at the devil had they caught him on the breast or head. As it was, they so took him by surprise that he came to the ground, giving so little heed to his beard ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... dreadful delightful impressive streets the night before—to the extent his present companion made it so. She hadn't yet done that so much as when, after their walk had lasted a few minutes and he had had time to wonder if a couple of sidelong glances from her meant that he had best have put on gloves she almost pulled him up with an amused challenge. "But why—fondly as it's so easy to imagine your clinging to it—don't you put it away? Or if it's an inconvenience to you to carry it, one's ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... secrets of families," said Fleda. "Hugh and I have a couple of convenient little fairies in our service that ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... nowhere, under the miraculous auspices of someone and no one—of being yanked from the putrescent banalities of an official non-existence into a high and clear adventure, by a deus ex machina in a grey-blue uniform, and a couple of tin derbies. I whistled and sang and cried to my vis-a-vis: "By the way, who is yonder distinguished gentleman who has been so good as to take my friend and me on this little promenade?"—to which, between lurches of the groaning F.I.A.T., t-d replied awesomely, clutching at the ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... the set, which Charlie won, a couple of spectators who had come up unseen applauded their energy, and Charlie, swinging round in flushed triumph, raced up for a word with his host ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... September he gave an exhibition at Stamford Park before Lord Bray and a select party of friends—this in spite of an unsuitable afternoon of unsteady wind and occasional showers. A long towing line was provided, which, being passed round pulley blocks and dragged by a couple of horses, was capable of being hauled in at high speed. The first trial, though ending in an accident, was eminently satisfactory. The apparatus, running against the wind, had risen some distance, when the line broke, yet the inventor descended slowly ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... suns; small looking-glasses, also of various sizes, some square and others round; little strings of beads; heads of meerschaums that had been much used in former days; pin-cushions, shell-baskets, one or two horse-shoes, and iron-heels of boots; several flat irons belonging to doll's houses, with a couple of dolls, much the worse for wear, mounting guard over them; besides a host of other nick-nacks, for which it were impossible to find names or imagine uses. Everything—from the old woman's cap to the uncarpeted floor, and the little grate in which a little fire was making feeble ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... come true. It was an impossible thing which had in a flash become so easy that he could scarcely believe it. Here, without the use of a battery, with no more electric current than that made by a couple of magnets, all the waves of a sound had been carried along a wire and changed back to sound at the farther end. It was absurd. It was incredible. It was something which neither wire nor electricity had been known to do before. But it ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... he said. "A question! Them people got a reputation among the trade which you wouldn't believe at all. Yes, Noblestone, if I would take it another partner, y'understand, I would as lief get a feller what's got the backing of a couple of them cut-throats up in Sing Sing, so much do I think of Zudrowsky ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... as easy as lying," replied Toto. "Listen a bit, and you shall have the whole bag of tricks. Suppose I saw Polyte steal a couple of pairs of boots from ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... are my little girls; I had almost forgotten them,' said Minerva, carelessly pointing towards a couple of full-grown young ladies, of whom one might be about twenty, and the other a year or two older, and who were dressed in very juvenile costumes—whether to make them look young, or their mamma younger, Mr. Pickwick ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... modest sum of three lire the game exchanged hands, and the sportsman departed, well satisfied with his luck. Next evening we feasted royally in our inn at Salerno upon a succulent woodcock fattened upon the berries of the wood of Persano, and upon a couple of snipe that had grown plump amongst the Neptunian marshes. Nor was this dainty addition to our supper that night altogether undeserved; for having decided in a momentary fit of enthusiasm to forego the usual basket of hotel food at the time of starting from Salerno, in order to follow the advice ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... been settled by nothing apparently more grave than a pretty face on the opposite side of the street and a couple of bad ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I have seen these dim intimations of questioning reflection in the strangest juxtapositions; in Malagasy soldiers resting for a spell among the big shells they were hoisting into trucks for the front, in a couple of khaki-clad Maoris sitting upon the step of a horse-van in Amiens station. It is always the same expression one catches, rather weary, rather sullen, inturned. The shoulders droop. The very outline is a note of interrogation. ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... is no way fit for marriage unless with a herd to the birds of the air, till she has a couple of years schooling. ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... at any large town the train is boarded by what are called express-men. If you deliver to one of these your labels he gives you a receipt for them, and telling him where your baggage is to be sent, you will receive it there, without fail, in a couple of hours. There is no risk whatever in doing so, and the plan is very convenient; but as regards their charges the said express-men are most extortionate. They think nothing of fifty cents for each article, however short the distance may be, but half that amount if the things ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... sprouted oats should be practiced when no other green food is available. Oats may be prepared for this purpose by thoroughly soaking in warm water and being kept in a warm, damp place for a few days. Feed when the sprouts are a couple of inches long. ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... giddy young women looked about them. There were doors at the right and left of the big room which they first entered, and they doubtless led to bedrooms. On the table a lamp was burning and there were a couple of spinning wheels to be seen. As they came in they noticed a bell hung on a pole just outside the door. Not a bit like the palace of Queen Anne! and altogether the lark didn't appear to have the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... for a compress," remarked the miller, dropping again on his knees. "Pick a few of those Jimson weeds by the fence and lend me your handkerchief—or a couple of them would be still better. There, now, that's the best I can do," he added after a moment. "Lead him slowly and be sure ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... drawers, and all covered with ink. He looked round, and what does he see but strange things everywhere; strange to his eyes, and yet he knew them. There was a haircloth sofa and three chairs, and on the walls, in place of his fine prints, was a picture of Elder Weight's father, and a couple of mourning pictures, weeping-willows and urns and the like, and Abraham and Isaac done in worsted-work, that he'd seen all his days in the parsonage parlor. Very ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... are both a couple of old fools; and that she knew when I set off last year to Rodwell Regis, after meeting the two young ladies at a party at General Champion's house in our street, that I was going on a goose's errand. I shall dine there on Christmas-day; and so I ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the village only appeared at odd moments above the tumult of waters, and a couple of timber ships that lay on the north side, partially loaded, were plunging and leaping at their anchor cables like two dogs at the end of their chains. Great oaken logs bobbed up and down like corks, or raced with the current upstream; the product of many weeks' timber-cutting in the forest would ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... o' that day 'anging out of the winder, but it was not till ha'-past four in the after-noon that Isaac, still wearing Peter's clothes and carrying a couple of large green plants under 'is arm, turned into the road, and from the way 'e was smiling they thought it must ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... in the loose rhythms of Walt Whitman, but their smooth suavity and their contents bore no resemblance whatever to the productions of that barbaric bard, whose works were quite unknown in Riseholme. Already a couple of volumes of these prose-poems had been published, not of course in the hard business-like establishment of London, but at "Ye Sign of ye Daffodil," on the village green, where type was set up by hand, and very little, but that of the best, was printed. The press had only been recently started ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... voice was like chilled steel. The others settled back. "I think we're ready. Shall we begin, dear?" She looked at Zeus, who got ready to start. But before he could get a word out, there was a flicker of blue energy in the room, a couple of yards away from Forrester and Venus. The flicker expanded to a Veil, and a ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "All right—then if you're not hiding, I'm going to." As he did not reply, she went on: "If I can keep out of sight for a couple of weeks, this thing will blow over here, and I can get across into Yolo. I could get a fair show there, where the boys know me. Just now the trails are all watched, but no one would ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the kings, O monarch, and said in a voice deep as the roar of the clouds, 'The wise have directed that when an accomplished person has been invited, a maiden may be bestowed on him, decked with ornaments and along with many valuable presents. Others again may bestow their daughters by accepting a couple of kine. Some again bestow their daughters by taking a fixed sum, and some take away maidens by force. Some wed with the consent of the maidens, some by drugging them into consent, and some by going unto the maidens' parents and obtaining their sanction. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... brown leather dressing-case, across which was painted in black letters the name MR. JOHN P. DUNSTER, was standing a few yards away, smoking a long cigar, and, to all appearance absorbed in studying the advertisements which decorated the grimy wall on the other side of the single track. A couple of porters were seated upon a barrow which contained one solitary portmanteau. There were no signs of other passengers, no other luggage. As a matter of fact, according to the time-table, no train was due ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
