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More "Billet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good billet; but nothing to make a fuss about. Of course for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, it would be a godsend and above their highest hopes or deserts; but I'm the hundredth man—a man of very rare gifts and understanding, and full of accomplishments gathered from the ends of the world. I'm ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... rather! And then some! You have my permission to stay as long as you please! Come on, boys!" and he led his war-weary men back to a rest billet. ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... one seemed a boy hardly fourteen years old; he held under his arm a packet sealed with black for the King, and gave to the Cardinal only a small letter, of which a stolen glance from Joseph could collect but four words. The Cardinal started, tore the billet into a thousand pieces, and, bending down to the ear of the boy, spoke to him for a long time; all that Joseph heard was, as ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... prostrate, the captain beneath and Jonathan above him, though still encircled in his iron embrace. Our hero felt the back of his head strike violently upon the flat face of the other, and he heard the captain's skull sound with a terrific crack like that of a breaking egg upon some post or billet of wood, against which he must have struck. In their frantic struggles they had approached extremely near the edge of the wharf, so that the next instant, with an enormous and thunderous splash, Jonathan found himself plunged into the waters ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... minute ornaments of the door-ways, which deserve to be exhibited in detail. The architrave is composed of several bands of the simplest moulding, inclosed within three of a different style; the two outermost being formed of the chevron ornament, with its angles unusually acute; the inner, of the billet moulding. The capitals of the pillars are studded with small heads, placed under the Ionic volute, exhibiting a mixture of classical and barbarous taste, which is likewise to be found at Cerisy, and upon one of the capitals in the abbey church of ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... the towers of hair built by the modish coiffeur—children trooping in, in hoops and uniforms, to kiss their mother's hand, the fine gentleman choosing a waistcoat and ogling the pretty embroideress, the pert young maidservant slipping a billet-doux into a beauty's hand under her husband's nose, the old beau toying with a fan, or the discreet abbe taking snuff over the morning gazette. The grand ladies of Longhi's day pay visits in hoop and farthingale, the beaux make "a leg," and the lacqueys ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... lie prone upon it; which she did with great trouble and timidity; but as she was unable, on account of the fullness of her bust, to lay her neck upon the block, this had to be raised by placing a billet of wood underneath it; all this time the poor woman, suffering even more from shame than from fear, was kept in suspense; at length, when she was properly adjusted, the executioner touched the spring, the knife fell, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he had meant also a little to explain. His father had been, in strange countries, in twenty settlements of the English, British chaplain, resident or occasional, and had had for years the unusual luck of never wanting a billet. His career abroad had therefore been unbroken, and, as his stipend had never been great, he had educated his children at the smallest cost, in the schools nearest; which was also a saving of railway fares. Densher's mother, it further appeared, had practised on her side a distinguished ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... remaining German positions in the forest. Such was the character of the fighting in Belleau Wood; fighting which continued until July 6, when after a short relief the invincible Americans finally were taken back to the rest billet for recuperation. ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... also, that he made a very precious discovery. While browsing in the rubbish in Squire Bean's garret to see if he could find the missing sound-post of the old violin, he came upon a billet of wood wrapped in cloth and paper. When unwrapped, it was plainly labelled "Wood from the Bean Maple at Pleasant Point; the biggest maple in York County, and believed to be one of the biggest in the State of Maine." Anthony found ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... she made me send for him. They took him in, and loaded him with bonbons and admiration, and would have loaded him with caresses to boot, but the little wretch resisted that part of the entertainment. Upon their return from Windsor, you will not suppose me made very unhappy to receive the following billet:— ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... till he would start away from her, and enclose himself in his tower, in an agony of agitation, vowing to renounce her, and her whole sex, for ever; and returning to her presence at the summons of the billet, which she never failed to send with many expressions of penitence and promises of amendment. Scythrop's schemes for regenerating the world, and detecting his seven golden candle-sticks, went on very slowly in this fever ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... word, but departed. Now he had in his pocket an unanswered billet-doux, which had been laid upon his table the preceding night: the billet-doux had no name to it; but, from all he had remarked of the lady's manners towards him, he could not doubt that it was the charming Alicia's. He was determined to have positive ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... biting off a chew from a plug of tobacco, "but the skipper can't be seen just now. Just came aboard a little while ago and there was a friend on either side of him. You know how it is," and he winked. "He's below now, sound asleep, and 'twould be as much as my billet's worth to ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... wood near it, probably the fuel used by these people. He took the ax, split up some of the wood, then repeated the hunger-signs. The man and the woman both nodded, laughing; he was shown a pile of tree-limbs, and the man picked up a short billet of wood and used it like a measuring-rule, to indicate that all the wood was to be ...
— Flight From Tomorrow • Henry Beam Piper
... day, amid our horrid business and bustle, and I shall improve them as well as I can; but let my letter be as stupid as * * * * * * * * *, as miscellaneous as a newspaper, as short as a hungry grace-before-meat, or as long as a law-paper in the Douglas cause; as ill-spelt as country John's billet-doux, or as unsightly a scrawl as Betty Byre-Mucker's answer to it; I hope, considering circumstances, you will forgive it; and as it will put you to no expense of postage, I shall have the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... buildings in Germany, Scandinavia (Fig. 182), France, and to a certain extent in Great Britain, though in our own country a large proportion of the ornamental carving consists simply of decorative patterns, such as the chevron, billet, and zig-zag; and sculpture containing figures ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... for they made me fancy, that no man ever spoke but to deceive, or looked but to allure; that the girl who suffered him that had once squeezed her hand, to approach her a second time, was on the brink of ruin; and that she who answered a billet, without consulting her relations, gave love such power over her, that she would certainly become either ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Crack! crack! And down tumbled three sheep, two of which rolled over the slope, leaving one to bar the way in the path. The others took the downward plunge. Crack! crack! crack! The rifle spoke rapidly and surely, as each bullet found a billet in a ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... in that?" he asked. Then he gave a passionate shake of his head. "The risk for me is too great. I shall seek an engineering billet altogether out of the country, in South America, in Asia, wherever one is open. A job without responsibility, preferably. No, no; I can't remain and play with ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... fellows. Hundreds of those Canadian boys stood up to say, "God helping me, I am going to lead a better life!"—hundreds of them. And then I put another test to them. "I want you all to promise," I said, "that you'll kneel down and say your prayers to-night in the billet, and those of you who will promise to do that come up and shake hands with me as you go out." I was kept one half-hour ...
— Your Boys • Gipsy Smith
... Cantrelle, who accosted him, put his gun in the young man's face ready to blow his brains out if he moved. The other colored man, Charles, was made the victim of a savage attack by Officer Mora, who used a billet and then drew a gun and tried to kill Charles. Charles drew his gun nearly as quickly as the policeman, and began a duel in the street, in which both participants were shot. The policeman got the worst of the duel, and fell helpless to the sidewalk. Charles made his escape. Cantrelle took ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... a missive so thickly interlarded with quotations from the Song of Solomon, from Goethe, Petofi, Heine, and Chateaubriand, that when Kalimann read the billet-doux to the blushing girl ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... nasty mean boy, he is. Look here, not a cent, not a stiver have I got to bless myself with, and I daren't ask him for any more not till January. And how am I going to live till January? I got the sack from the music hall last week because I was a bit jolly. And now I can't get another billet any way, and there's a bill of sale over the furniture, and I've sold all my jewels down to my ticker, or at least most of them, and there's that brute," and her voice rose to a subdued scream, "living like a fighting-cock while his poor wife ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... short billet from her dear hand, entreating me to make up a quarrel between Bell Fermor and her lover: your friend has been indiscreet; her spirit of coquetry is eternally carrying her wrong; but in my opinion Fitzgerald has been at ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... instrument, the second great charter of the liberties of England, known by the name of the Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act, the King bound himself to raise no taxes without the consent of Parliament, to imprison no man except by legal process, to billet no more soldiers on the people, and to leave the cognisance of offences to the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the nullah, clearing all before them. The Arabs defended every bush, every rock, every boulder; but there was no wild firing now, at thirty, twenty, ten paces, and even closer; every bullet had its billet, and the valley was cleared of the living, though every point which afforded cover, and had been tenaciously held by Osman Digna's soldiers, had its ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... morceaux d'un papier de forme allongee fabrique avec des filaments de muriers sur lesquels est imprime le nom de l'empereur. Lorsqu'un de ces papiers est use, on le porte aux officiers du prince et, moyennant une perte minime, on recoit un autre billet en echange, ainsi que cela a lieu dans nos hotels des monnaies, pour les matieres d'or et d'argent que l'on y porte pour etre converties en ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... also to the interior of the church; and here, in good preservation, he will see excellent specimens of their mode of ornamenting the moldings by the cable, the lozenge, the cheveron, the nail-head, the billet, &c. &c., ornaments peculiar to the round style. The circular-headed windows, with their slender columns, also show, that in the restoration the style has not been tampered with; but substantial authorities have been quoted to perfect this praiseworthy attempt of the architect. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... a billet in some pirate breast sooner or later, one of the villainous desperadoes falling over his oar here and another dropping down on the bamboo deck of a junk there; while, occasionally, some wretch would tumble overboard with a wild yell, in answer to the ping of the rifle, shot ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... replied young Seyton, "as when he carried the billet enclosed in the sword-sheath to Lochleven—marry, the good youth knew no more than a pack-horse ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... of one of the horses made him presently look up. His eye in the moment caught the gleam of something white attached to a part of the harness. Examined by the light of the lantern this proved to be a folded paper—a billet. It bore no address without; within ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... sometimes jerks a small parcel or newspaper to the door of a public-house; and sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly import, hands to some half-blushing, half-laughing housemaid an odd-shaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. As the coach rattles through the village, every one runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of fresh country faces, and blooming giggling girls. At the corners are assembled juntas of village idlers ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... fine specimen of Norman work. The arch is of four orders supported by nook-shafts with plain cushion-capitals. The innermost order has a very uncommon moulding—large chevrons with a fleur-de-lis in the angles. The outermost order has a double zigzag moulding, and a double-billet hood moulding surrounds the whole arch. The other archway at the west end, called the Bishop's door, is an insertion of the thirteenth century, with bold tooth-ornament on ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... Fig. 127. They also split out boards after the manner shown by Fig. 128. In making either the boards or the shakes, if it is found that the wood splinters down into the body of the log too far or into the board or shake too far, you must commence at the other end of the billet or log and split it up to meet the first split, or take hold of the split or board with your hands and deftly tear it from the log, an art which only experience can teach. I have seen two-story houses composed of nothing ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... is in a lower style than elsewhere. The croupiers seem to be always on the look-out for cheating. You never see here a pile of gold or bank notes on the table, as at Hombourg or Wiesbaden, with the player saying, "Cinquante louis aux billet," "Cent-vingt louis a la masse," and the winnings scrupulously paid, or the losings raked carefully away from the heap. They do not allow that at Spa; there is an order against it on the wall. They could not trust the people that play, I suppose, and it is doubtful if the people ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Militona had not appeared. He began to doubt the correctness of his emissary's information, when a light in the young girl's window showed that the room was inhabited. Hastily writing a few words in pencil on a scrap of paper, he called Perico, who lingered in the neighbourhood, and bade him take the billet to the pretty manola. Perico slipped into the house, fumbled his way up stairs, and discovered Militona's door by the light shining through the cracks. Two discreet taps; the wicket was half opened, and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... often so?" I asked. He had just been assuring that unfortunate major that a billet in the Commissariat department, with a pound of beef on one spur and a loaf of bread on the other to prevent accidents, was ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... present herself, without needless delay, at the homestead, since she was not reckoned sufficiently strong to attempt the uneven and muddy roads that still separated them. Mrs. Aylett also dispatched a billet by the coachman, the graceful burden of which was the same as that of Mabel's petition, and the two long-sundered friends were speedily together; fellow-partakers of a bountiful and painstaking hospitality, which kept them continually ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... until he came to the shop of a weaver, who was still at work. From him he inquired his way to the mayor's house, and the way-worn recruit soon found himself seated in the porch of that establishment, waiting for the billet he had asked for. Instead of receiving it at once, he was summoned to the mayor's presence, where he found himself the object of minute observation. The young man was good-looking, and belonged, evidently, to a distinguished family. His air and manner were those of the nobility. The intelligence ...
— The Recruit • Honore de Balzac
... This billet-doux was sealed and despatched, and in due time brought an acceptance. The engagement was formally ratified at a banquet given by the Swiggarts, and the health of the high contracting parties was enthusiastically drunk in pink lemonade. The marriage was arranged to take place during ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the smithy, waiting for "The Crooked Billet" to open for the evening. There was Joe Stackhouse the besom-maker, familiarly known as Besom-Joe, William Throup the postman, Tommy Thwaite the "Colonel," so called for his willingness to place his advice at the service of any of the Allied Commanders-in-Chief, and Owd Jerry ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... say "down to sleep," "down to sleep," "down to sleep," till I discovered myself, when I ceased. Then a shell, apparently just in range, dashed toward me, and the words spasmodically leaped up: "Now's your time. This is your billet." With the same insane pertinacity I continued to repeat "Now's your time, now's your time," and "billet, billet, billet," till at last I came up to the nearest battery, where I could look over the crest ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... about these here billet ducks," said Caleb, cunningly; "I must hurry up, you see, or I shan't ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... sir. It was his big case, and it got him a fine billet as Superintendent in Cairo ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... this purpose and I gave him a handkerchief to engage him in my interest. this matter being arranged to my satisfaction I called all the women and men together who had been assisting me in the transportation of the baggage and gave them a billet for each horse which they had imployed in that service and informed them when we arrived at the plaice where we should finally halt on the river I would take the billet back and give them merchandize for it. every one appeared ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... look on at the match stood in knots, and gazed with approval at the efforts of Kay's and Blackburn's juniors to wipe each other off the face of the earth. The air was full of shrill battle-cries, varied now and then by a smack or a thud, as some young but strenuous fist found a billet. The fortune of war seemed to be distributed equally so far, and the combatants were just ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... pumped two more bullets after his first one. Both had found their billet in the body of the bear; but neither had struck a vital spot. The scattering fire, as the beast plowed through the embers, drove the rest of the party out of range in a hurry. Jack dragged Wash to one side; ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... the Assembly, during which about half the soldiers lay on straw in outhouses and sheds till near midwinter, many sickening, and some dying from exposure. Loudon grew furious, and threatened, if shelter were not provided, to send Webb with another regiment and billet the whole on the inhabitants; on which the Assembly yielded, and quarters ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... North End, your billet, apologizing for the disappointment was given me. Lud! lud! what a giddy appearance! thought I. O that I had half the life, the spirit! of anything worth remembering I could ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... in Cherryvale, and was himself the handsomest boy in the crowd. Besides, he had more than once looked at Missy with soft eyes—the girls "teased" Missy about Raymond. It was fitting that Raymond should receive the first billet doux. So, at the corner of Maple and Silver, Tess pulled the rein which should have turned Ben into the shady street which led to Raymond's domicile. Ben moved his head impatiently, and turkey-trotted straight ahead. Tess ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... Henrietta company; the poor child could not rise to-day for want of a fire.' The truth is, that the Cardinal (Mazarin) for six months together had not ordered her any money towards her pension; that no tradespeople would trust her for anything and there was not at her lodgings a single billet. You will do me the justice to think that the princess of England did not keep her bed the next day for want of a faggot... Posterity will hardly believe that a princess of England, grand-daughter to Henry the Great, hath wanted a faggot in the month of January, in the Louvre, and in the ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... had fallen on my knees like a bullock felled by a pole-axe, and had a scorching pain in my left foot. Elzevir looked back. 'What, have they hit thee too?' he said, and ran and picked me up like a child. And then there is another flash and fut, fut, in the turf; but the shots find no billet this time, and we are lying close against the cliff, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... got a famous victory; all true subjects are overjoyed at it: There are bonfires decreed; an the times had not been hard, my billet ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Here he remains until his first term of service has expired. If he re-enlists and has shown aptitude for the service, he is sent to Washington navy yard for a course of six months' instruction in gunnery and special branches, such as electricity and torpedoes. He becomes a seaman gunner, with the billet and pay of a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... beautifying of gardens, which although it last not the whole yeere, yet it is most quaint, rare, and best eye-pleasing, and thus it is: you shall vpon the face of your quarter draw a plaine double knot, in manner of billet-wise: for you shall vnderstand that in this case the plainest knot is the best, and you shall let it be more then a foote betwixt line and line (for in the largenesse consists much beauty) this knot being scored out, you shall take Tiles, or tileshreds and fixe them within the lines of ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... he roared, and swinging the billet over his head, he brought it down with all his force on my arm, causing the pistol to fly from my ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... For billet or note-paper, some new styles of fine Parisian papers have just been introduced, and, for the extreme neatness of the design, or figure, in the paper, have become very fashionable. The different ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... years at his post there. Previous to that, he had acted as Government Commissioner on the Councils of War in the various garrisons where he had been stationed.... Some six months ago Dumoulin had sent in his request to the Minister of War for a change of billet. His record being an excellent one, the Minister had appointed him Government Chief-commissioner attached to the Principal Council of War, sitting ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... main arches, slightly smaller in proportion than those of the nave, are extraordinarily rich and beautiful in detail. Their mouldings are very complex and deep, and are varied with dog-tooth and billet ornament. ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... or caravansaries are of royal foundation; others, like the fountains, the monuments of departed piety. But much as we might admire the institution, we could not feel very ambitious of occupying a billet of so very gregarious and inexclusive character. Besides, in these khans you must provide for yourself all that you require in the shape of provisions; and it was too much of a good thing to carry with us tea, and bread and butter. We clung to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... court, and much trusted by Queen Isabeau in old days. How he came to suspect me I cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledge; and this morning, as we came from mass, he took my hand into his, forced it open, and read my little billet, walking by my side ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... cottage room, The Lady sat at even, Beneath the peerless evening star, Just peeping out in heaven; And, in her hands, as lilies, white, She held a billet-doux, Which, round upon the tranquil air, A grateful ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... much interested our party on the night before. But he received my salutation with a gravity which instantly put an end to my good-humour; and I waited for the denouement, at his pleasure. He produced a small billet from his pocket, which I opened, and which, on glancing my eye over it, appeared to me a complete rhapsody. I begged of him to read it, and indulge me with an explanation. He read it, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the wheelbarrow, and, reversing it, spun a lot of billet out. "Ye must not do that," said Dard with all the energy he was capable of in his present condition. "Why, that is Jacintha's wood."—"To the devil with Jacintha and her wood too!" cried Edouard, "a man is worth more than a fagot. Come, I shall wheel you home: it is only ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... yes. There's Bruce, and Virginia Spring, and Sedgwick. They do very nicely. But poetry—do you know how Vaughn Marlow makes his living?—teaching in a boys' cramming-joint down in Pennsylvania, and of all private little hells such a billet is the limit. I wouldn't trade places with him if he had fifty years of life before him. And yet his work stands out from the ruck of the contemporary versifiers as a balas ruby among carrots. And the reviews he gets! Damn them, all ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... "You'll billet the men in your Court House," said the Colonel, "and you'll search every motor that goes through that village to cross ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... provided with overhead cover which gives protection from the weather as well as from shrapnel balls and splinters of shells. Considerable ingenuity has been exercised by the men in naming these shelters. Among the favorite designations are the "Hotel Cecil," the "Ritz Hotel," the "Billet-Doux Hotel," and the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... Gilles precipitates himself through the door, de Sille jumps out of the window, they meet below and stand aghast. Howls are heard in the chamber where the magician is operating. There is "a sound as of sword strokes raining on a wooden billet," then groans, cries of distress, the appeals of a man ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... living—for I always longed to be a man, and hated my green and petticoat-governed days—I will pass forthwith to the hour when I reached the age of eighteen years. My dear father was then in Heaven, and old Betty had found, as was believed, another billet. But my mother lived, and the Vicar, like the King, had come to his own again: and I was five feet eleven in my stockings, and there was urgent need that I should set about pushing my way and putting money in my purse; for our lands had not returned with the King, and ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... joint-stock mania of 1824, or the railway mania of 1845, in this country, of which, in the conclusion of his first volume of "Tancred," Mr D'Israeli has given a graphic picture. Lady Bertie and Bellair, whose billet regarding the "broad gauge" occasioned her to swoon, and dispelled the romantic attachment of Lord Montacute, was but a repetition of the French countesses, who thronged the antechambers of Law a century before. More vehement in their desires, more mercurial in their temperament ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... clear, And who, more strange! might think themselves sincere. Lo! now the hero shuffling through the town, To hunt a dinner and to beg a crown; To tell an idle tale, that boys may smile; To bear a strumpet's billet-doux a mile; To cull a wanton for a youth of wealth (With reverend view to both his taste and health); To be a useful, needy thing between Fear and desire—the pander and the screen; To flatter pictures, houses, horses, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... suspended from the davits on either side of the quarter-deck, and a small dingy over the stern. On the main deck she was pierced for twelve guns, with two heavy pivot guns amidships. Her lines were beautifully fine, with sharp flaring bows, billet head, and elliptic stern. The cabin accommodation was perhaps somewhat scanty, but this, in so small a vessel, built altogether for speed, not comfort, was scarcely to be avoided. The semicircular stern-cabin was, of course, appropriated to the captain, with a small ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... next steamer, and you know what that means. The steamer gets paid a shilling a day, and grubs and berths you accordingly, and you earn your 'bacca money by bumming around the galley and helping the cook peel spuds. Or else, if you don't like that, you can do the sensible thing, and step into the billet ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... poisons too, as well as antidotes; and said I to myself, 'Maybe that little dagger in the cathedral was specially prepared, eh?' Which would account for Carmona hurrying off to Granada after it had found the wrong billet. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Virginia's room. A minute after she was reading it to her father at his bedside. It was written with a pencil on a leaf torn from a little blank book in which Pomp kept a sort of diary; but never had gilt-edged or perfumed billet afforded the blind old minister and ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... By the gods! the twelve lines begin to fail—men look suspiciously at my hand when it rattles the dice. That infernal Sallust insinuates cheating; and if it be discovered that the ivory is clogged, why farewell to the merry supper and the perfumed billet—Clodius is undone! Better marry, then, while I may, renounce gaming, and push my fortune (or rather the gentle Julia's) at ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... execute. Sometimes he delivers a hare or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel or newspaper to the door of a public house; and sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly import, hands to some half-blushing, half-laughing house-maid an odd-shaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. As the coach rattles through the village every one runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of fresh country faces and blooming giggling girls. At the corners are assembled juntos of village idlers and wise men, who take their stations ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... the Great rang the bell one day, and nobody answered. He opened the door, and found the page sleeping on a sofa. About to wake him, he perceived the end of a billet out of his pocket, and had the curiosity to know the contents: Frederick carefully drew it out, and read it; it was a letter from the mother of the young man, who thanked him for having sent her part of his wages, to assist her in her distress; and it concluded by beseeching ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... Lumley Letter claim a full share of literary homage. Boasting a distinguished signature, it possessed the first essential of a superior autograph; for, although a rose under any other name may smell as sweet, yet it is clear that with regard to every thing coming from the pen, whether folio or billet doux, imaginative poem, or matter-of-fact note of hand, there is a vast deal in this important item, which is often the very life and stamina of the whole production. Then again, the subject of extreme ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... get the chiefs of the King's friends, who were in France, advertised of this, which the Cardinal desired me to undertake. The Earl Marischal had brought with him from the Duke of Ormonde a little billet containing these words—"Pray have entire confidence in the bearer," and signed Ormond, to be given to him who should be sent; and with this and about 18,000 crowns, I set out from Madrid the 19 of February,[74] and three days after arrived at St. Sebastian, where I deliver'd ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... were leaving the Colonel's office together, Gerhardt asked him whether he had got his billet. Claude replied that after the men were in their quarters, he would look out ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... 6-pounder. It was prize aim, and the shot found more than a billet in the Guido's pilot-house. It tore a part ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... the page with a pair of shears, tossed the coin in the air, listened to its ring on the desk with a satisfied look, slipped the whole twenty-franc piece into his pocket—regular fare, fifteen francs, irregular swindle, five francs—and handed me the billet. Then he added, with a trace ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Ingot or billet steel is rated at about one cent per pound; the hair-springs of watches are worth several thousand dollars per pound; what makes the difference ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... scarcely seated myself at the breakfast table this morning when a servant entered with a card of invitation from Major Sanford, requesting the happiness of my hand this evening at a ball given by Mr. Atkins, about three miles from this. I showed the billet to Mrs. Richman, saying, "I have not much acquaintance with this gentleman, madam; but I suppose his character sufficiently respectable to warrant an affirmative answer." "He is a gay man, my dear, to say no more; and such are the companions ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... on earth he finds to do, Mrs. Elliott?" said he one morning, after he had just read the hasty billet and sat down ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... first Frederic seemed to have gained the victory. So sanguine was he then of success that he dispatched a courier from the field, with the following billet to ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... quintain post and stands in the center of the village green. It consists of a revolving crossbar on the top of a tall, white post. One end of the bar is flattened and pierced with small holes, while at the other a billet of wood is suspended from a chain. The pastime consisted of riding on horseback and aiming a lance at one of the holes in the broad end of the crossbar. If the aim were true, the impact would swing the club around with violence, ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... despatched it without delay. The next morning I received a few lines, simply expressive of the writer's thanks; but without a single jest, or the least invitation to continue the correspondence. Such a billet displeased me; nevertheless I determined to persevere. Six long letters were the result, for each of which I received a few laconic lines of thanks, with some declamation against his enemies, followed by a joke on the abuse he had heaped ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... "My dear Kitty,—If this billet catches you in bed, you are a lazy, sleepy little slut, and I am a giddy, foolish, unthinking fellow, for keeping you so late up—but this Sabbath is a day of rest, at the same time that it is a day of sorrow; for I shall not see my dear creature to-day, unless you meet me at Taylor's ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... area, which in winter became one of the wettest and most dismal in France. The Somme battle, which for three months had rumbled in the distance like a huge thunderstorm, was a magnet to attract all divisions in turn. The predictions of the French billet-keepers were realised at the end of October, when the 2/4th Oxfords were relieved in the trenches by a battalion of the Middlesex Regiment and prepared to march southwards ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... at, you woman fitter for the swarthy monsters? Why do you send tokens, why billet-doux to me, and not to some vigorous youth, and of a taste not nice? For I am one who discerns a polypus, or fetid ramminess, however concealed, more quickly than the keenest dog the covert of the boar. What sweatiness, and how rank an odor every where rises from her withered limbs! when she ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... sensible from feeling very cold and shivering, owing to my late exposure to the rain, and sleeping in the night air. Collecting, therefore, all the dry sticks and furze I could find, I placed them upon the fireplace, adding certain chips and a billet which I found in the cart, it having apparently been the habit of Slingsby to carry with him a small store of fuel. Having then struck a spark in a tinder-box and lighted a match, I set fire to the combustible heap, and was not slow in raising ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... strait lacing, squeezing for a shape, till you mould my boy's head like a sugar-loaf, and instead of a man-child, make me father to a crooked billet. Lastly, to the dominion of the tea-table I submit; but with proviso, that you exceed not in your province, but restrain yourself to native and simple tea-table drinks, as tea, chocolate, and coffee. As likewise to genuine and authorised tea-table talk, such as mending of fashions, spoiling reputations, ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... Vulgate. Bought Edwards' works. Drawing—Truly there was nothing in me that should have induced Him to choose me. I was but as the other brands upon whom the fire is already kindled, which shall burn for evermore! And as soon could the billet leap from the hearth and become a green tree, as my soul could have sprung to newness ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... Parravicin, as the paper dropped from his hand; "she little dreamed, when she wrote it, who would read her billet. Disbrowe does not deserve such a treasure. I am sorry she is unwell. I hope she has not taken the plague. Pshaw, what could put such an idea into my head? Lydyard's warning, I suppose. That fellow, who is the veriest rake among us, is always preaching. Confound him! ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... runners were going to Ranjitgarh and back. But as Antony will probably punish your misdeeds by sentencing you to stay on here and keep the peace between the rival Regents, it's just as well you didn't make yourself impossible by accepting. Can't say I envy you the billet." ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... they had come over from Naples on St. Antony's eve, as they had done the year before, to report themselves to their patron, to keep up good relations, to drink Capri wine and to join in the tarantella. They arrived late, while we were at supper; they received their welcome and their billet, and I am not sure it was not the conversation and the beautiful manners of these obscure young men that most fixed in my mind for the time the sense of the side of life that, all around, was to come out strongest. It would be artless, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... been assured by my medical agent, Mr. Turcival, that I should find the practice of which I was now taking charge "an exceedingly soft billet, and suitable for a studious man;" and certainly he had not misled me, for the patients were, in fact, so few that I was quite concerned for my principal, and rather dull for want of work. Hence, when ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... the knowledge only maddened me. I had had an idea of getting a billet in one of the big wool-stores—I was a fair wool expert—but Mary was afraid of the drink. I could keep well away from it so long as I worked hard in the Bush. I had gone to Sydney twice since I met Mary, once before ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... as related in the preceding chapter, it had been decided that the King's quarters should be established for the night in the village of Rezonville; and as it would be very difficult, at such a late hour, to billet the whole party regularly, Count Bismarck and I went off to look for shelter for ourselves. Remembering that I had seen, when seeking to water my horse, a partly burned barn with some fresh-looking hay in ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... you have acted in a sentimental sort of a way over such things. But it would never do for me to tell you what Ralph did? Whether he put the letter into his bosom or not, he put the words into his heart, and, metaphorically speaking, he shook that little blue billet, written or coarse foolscap paper—he shook that little letter full of confidence, in the face and eyes of all the calamities that haunted him. If Hannah believed in him, the whole world might distrust him. ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... added to our indebtedness by his new budget of refreshing absurdities.... In shooting folly as it flies, he launches darts that find their billet on both ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... is a private one in the tavern known as The Crooked Billet. It has a neat, cheerful, welcoming aspect. At left a small fire glimmers on the brass andirons of a well-kept hearth. A brass kettle rests on a hob. On the shelf above the hearth candles ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... under these circumstances they were very glad to have Sir Wolf Hartschwert return his billet—the room in the Crane allotted to him by the valet was large enough to accommodate half a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... whose modesty as he afterwards assured us had been the only reason of his having so long concealed the violence of his affection for Janetta, on receiving this Billet flew on the wings of Love to Macdonald-Hall, and so powerfully pleaded his Attachment to her who inspired it, that after a few more private interveiws, Sophia and I experienced the satisfaction of seeing them depart for Gretna-Green, which they chose for the celebration of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the captain departed; and as we did not doubt that the message which he had delivered had been suggested by some unintentional misconstruction of O'Connor's first billet, we felt assured that the conclusion of his last note would set the matter at rest. In this belief, however, we were mistaken; before we had left the table, and in an incredibly short time, the captain returned. He entered the room with ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... had faithfully promised and bound himself to quit all thoughts of his love. However, when his cool reflections returned, he plainly perceived that his case was neither mended nor altered by Sophia's billet, unless to give him some little glimpse of hope, from her constancy, of some favourable accident hereafter. He therefore resumed his resolution, and taking leave of Black George, set forward to a town about five miles distant, whither he had ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... billet-doux (love letter) conversazione (conversation) ad nauseam (to disgust) distingue (distinguished) ad infinitum (infinitely) entre ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... more for the beauty of her hair; so she said to her, "I cannot part your hair on my knee, fetch a billet of wood." So she fetched it. Then said the stepmother, "I cannot part your hair with a comb, fetch me an axe." So ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... everywhere. The air was thick with it. To have lifted my head would have meant the billet for a bullet. So there I had to lie soaked through to the skin, and before I had been there twenty minutes I was literally lying in water. The German fusillade seemed interminable. Suddenly with a roar the Belgian guns spoke. About fifty ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... altar built Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves, And all the trophies of his former loves; With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre, And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire; Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes Soon to obtain, and ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... door most of the leading names of the day presented themselves. From morning till night the most flattering testimonies of his success crowded his table from the grave tributes of the statesman and the philosopher down to (what flattered him still more) the romantic billet of some incognita, or the pressing note of invitation from some fair leader of fashion; and, in place of the desert which London had been to him but a few weeks before, he now not only saw the whole splendid interior of high life thrown open to receive him, but found ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... while, its sense, though painful, is sweet to me from its outspoken truthfulness:—I value it so highly, that I could not deem it more precious, if it were written on a golden tablet in characters set with diamonds—were it the longest letter maiden ever wrote, the sweetest billet lover ever received! ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... clothing, until nothing remained but the breech-cloth. Beaulieu took a rope (selected by himself for the purpose) and first tied and knotted one end about the juggler's ankles; his knees were then securely tied together, next the wrists, after which the arms were passed over the knees and a billet of wood passed through under the knees, thus securing and keeping the arms down motionless. The rope was then passed around the neck, again and again, each time tied and knotted, so as to bring the face down upon the knees. A flat river-stone, of black color—which was the J[)e]ssakk[-i]d's ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... began to doubt the correctness of his emissary's information, when a light in the young girl's window showed that the room was inhabited. Hastily writing a few words in pencil on a scrap of paper, he called Perico, who lingered in the neighbourhood, and bade him take the billet to the pretty manola. Perico slipped into the house, fumbled his way up stairs, and discovered Militona's door by the light shining through the cracks. Two discreet taps; the wicket was half opened, and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... relic, the only one of the kind remaining in the Kingdom. This is called a quintain post and stands in the center of the village green. It consists of a revolving crossbar on the top of a tall, white post. One end of the bar is flattened and pierced with small holes, while at the other a billet of wood is suspended from a chain. The pastime consisted of riding on horseback and aiming a lance at one of the holes in the broad end of the crossbar. If the aim were true, the impact would swing the club around with violence, and unless the rider ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... flowers by the wayside to lay on the grave of Bill; I've sneaked away from the billet, 'cause Jim wouldn't understand; 'E'd call me a silly fat'ead, and larf till it made 'im ill, To see me 'ere in the cornfield, wiv a big ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... deplorable habits and peregrinations of the household fly, that we sometimes wondered if we were scavengers or soldiers. Though we lay no claims to perfection—or anything like it—few trenches were cleaner than ours were, and right to the very end of the war we never left a trench or billet without it being cleaner and more "lime and creosol"-ated than when we ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... they give me a billet in the Army Pay and let me release a man sounder of wind and limb?" I asked. "What's the good of legs to a man who sits on his hunkers all day in an office and fills up Army forms? I hate seeing you lucky fellows ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... men set their teeth and went down into the nullah, clearing all before them. The Arabs defended every bush, every rock, every boulder; but there was no wild firing now, at thirty, twenty, ten paces, and even closer; every bullet had its billet, and the valley was cleared of the living, though every point which afforded cover, and had been tenaciously held by Osman Digna's soldiers, had its ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... finishing dressing. We came out of the trenches yesterday; we were only in three or four days, as the brigade has to hold these trenches for longer than was first intended—my second in command is in now. I shall have about 11 days rest now. We arrived at our billet at about 11 o'clock last night tired and hungry, and found everyone in bed; however, one of the girls got up and made me an omelette, consisting of five eggs, and some coffee, and the men had beer ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... the stove. A certain bunch of sergeants nearly asphyxiated themselves before they discovered the secret of the damper in the stove. They were nearly pickled in pine smoke. And a whole company of soldiers nearly lost their billet in Kholmogori when they started up the sisters' stoves without pulling the plates ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... citizens o' these United States end Territories gits a chance, end we'll show them gentry what a free people, wi' our institooshuns, kin do. There'll be no more talk o' skoolin fer Injuns, you bet! I'd give them Kernel Crunch's billet. ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... fifteen years, besides living in splendour and squandering twice his legal income. The same unprincipled peculation was practised by other municipal or state officers. The Russian generals were in league with the magistrates and billet-master, to divide the booty received from the inhabitants as the price of exemption from the oppressive quartering of troops on their houses. Spies were employed by the police to watch every man of the least consequence in society, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... his first term of service has expired. If he re-enlists and has shown aptitude for the service, he is sent to Washington navy yard for a course of six months' instruction in gunnery and special branches, such as electricity and torpedoes. He becomes a seaman gunner, with the billet and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... us the wrong direction, mistaking our French, I suppose! But we were not to be done, for we picked up an old lady trotting along in the dark, and, having satisfied her that we were not Germans, she soon showed us the road, coming a couple of miles with us. I arrived home—or, rather, at my billet—shivering about 7.30 p.m., having had heavy cold rain during a great part of the day. I turned out to an "Alarm" Parade at 9 o'clock, returning to my house again at 10 p.m. So, you see, I am not eating the bread of idleness! To-day we have all been out ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... encore plus de l'Institut, et vous y donner un rang digne de vous; mais je ne dois pas vous laisser ignorer qu'il y aura lutte. Je ne sais s'il vous conviendra que votre nom soit discute. Pour vous eclairer sur ce point, je vous envoie a titre confidentiel un billet que me fait parvenir M. Aucoc pour faire suite a un entretien ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... piled them up in a heap, and set fire to them; then the men and maidens danced and sang round the bonfire. I lay still,' said the wind, 'but I softly moved a branch, the one laid by the handsomest young man, and his billet blazed up highest of all. He was the chosen one, he had the name of honour, he became 'Buck of the Street!' and he chose from among the girls his little May-lamb. All was life and merriment, greater far than ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... hard squalls, with rain. At 3 p.m. saw something upon the Water, which must either have been a Billet of Wood or a Seal. At Noon a hard gale and Squally, which obliged us to take in the Topsails. Wind Westerly; course South 80 degrees West; distance 15 miles; latitude 37 degrees 52 minutes South, longitude 147 ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... deg. 58' W. In the evening, the calm was succeeded by a breeze from S.W., which soon after increased to a fresh gale; and fixing at S.S.W, with it we steered N.E. 1/2 E. in the latitude of 41 deg. 25', longitude 135 deg. 58' W., we saw floating in the sea a billet of wood, which seemed to be covered with barnacles; so that there was no judging how long it might have been there, or from whence or how ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... the release of the cords had caused the aide to fall forward out of the chair; but he instantly scrambled to his feet, and without so much as a glance behind him, seized the billet from the hands of the cook and sprang toward the doorway, reaching it at the moment the dragoon turned about to learn the cause of the sudden commotion. Bringing the log down with crushing force on the man's head, Jack stooped as the man plunged' ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... privates, especially the old soldiers, had learnt the art of making themselves comfortable and were hunting for straw for beds. I saw the wisdom of this and got a Wolesley sleeping bag, which I afterwards lost when my billet was shelled at Ypres. Under this new arrangement I was able to get a little rest. A kind friend in Quebec provided fifty oil stoves for the use of the Quebec contingent and ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... the service. Some were newly-joined recruits waiting for the orders to be forwarded to their respective regiments. Some were invalids just issued from the hospital, some were sick and wounded on their way homeward. There were sergeants with billet rolls, and returns, and court-martial sentences. Adjutants with regimental documents, hastening hither and thither. Mounted orderlies, too, continually came and went; all was bustle, movement, and confusion. Officers ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... came from the Cherokees in the woods with a deeper roar of musketry at closer quarters; and a hollow groan within the blockhouse, where there was a sudden commotion in the dim light, told that some bullet had found its billet. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Seven. Then Ralph felt that the strain could be borne no longer. He resolved to count a hundred and at the end of that time to rush desperately forward, hoping against hope that the murderous bullet would not find its billet. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... afterwards to dog and keep watch on your new friend. The moment the latter entered I saw at once, from his dress and his address, that he was a 'scamp;' and thought it highly inexpedient to place you in his power by any money transactions. While talking with him, Sharp sent in a billet containing his recognition of our ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the back of his head and passes a weary hand across a worried brow. When he has confused himself to the top of his bent he searches round for other victims. On this Sunday night ill luck directed his footsteps to my billet; seeing me in bed, he became positively aghast, though I firmly believe he was inwardly delighted to discover so depressing ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... departed; and as we did not doubt that the message which he had delivered had been suggested by some unintentional misconstruction of O'Connor's first billet, we felt assured that the conclusion of his last note would set the matter at rest. In this belief, however, we were mistaken; before we had left the table, and in an incredibly short time, the captain returned. He entered the room with a countenance evidently ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... southern porch is covered with foliated incrustations of a late and decorative Gothic style: the exterior of the apse combines Arabic inlaid patterns of black and yellow with the Greek honeysuckle: the western door adds Norman dog-tooth and chevron to the Saracenic billet. Nowhere is any one tradition firmly followed. The whole wavers and yet is beautiful—like the immature eclecticism of the culture which Frederick himself endeavoured to establish in his southern kingdoms. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... from his aunt, Lady de la Paule, his emotion was so great that he staggered a little, and a friend standing by in the billet took out his flask and gave him some brandy, thinking that he must have received ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... of the artery of traffic which united the Upper and Lower towns. It was too marked a challenge. Bigot determined to harass him. He sent Pierre de Repentigny, then a lieutenant in the provincials and a young fellow of the rashest temper, to billet in Philibert's house, though he had no right to do so, as Philibert, being a King's Munitioner, was exempt from billeting. Bigot knew there would be a quarrel. It turned out as he had foreseen. Philibert stood ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross, 'neither sickness, nor business, nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your billet.' ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... a French translator, strangely mistakes the meaning of the passage, as if it amounted to this, "I have gorged till I am ready to burst;" and he quotes the remark of "une femme charmante," who said that her only reply to such a billet-doux would have been to send the writer an emetic. But the lady might have prescribed a different remedy if she had been ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... all very well," ventured X-Ray Tyson, who had also managed to arm himself with a billet of wood, "but somebody tell me what the end's going to be. Do we have to camp outside in the cold, cold world; or will we invite Mr. Bear to skip? That's what I want to know. Phil, ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... baby, this admission that they had aught which was not essentially despicable. Nevertheless, he suddenly saw a reason for the Grinnell baby's existence; he loaded up both arms with the sticks of wood, and, followed by the peripatetic sun-bonnet, conscientiously weighed down with one billet, he strode into the house, and let his burden fall with a mighty clatter in the corner of the chimney. The sun-bonnet staggered up and threw her stick on the top of ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the failure at Suvla and of the hardships endured in that enterprise. Mails from home arrived all too slowly and precariously. Death was always present. We regretted the loss of Captain H.T. Cawley on the night of the 23rd September. He had given up a soft billet as A.D.C. to a Major General in order to share the lot of his old regiment, a battalion of the Manchesters, and was killed in a mine ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... at the heads of the tallest and never miss. And this I can do the day by the length, and never grow weary. Then again, for pleasaunce, my father used to put me to the cutting of light wood with an axe, not always laying it upon a block or hag-clog, but sometimes setting the billet upright and making me cut the top off with a horizontal swing of the axe. And in this I became exceedingly expert. And how difficult it is no one ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... day he was ordered to be brought before the governor. Here it appeared how much he was beloved by the people, who endeavored by all means to save his life. They cried out to the judge that he was no deacon; but he affirmed that he was. A centurion presented a billet which set forth that he was not. The judge accused him of lying to procure his own death. He answered: "Is that probable? and not rather that they are guilty of an untruth who say the contrary?" The people ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... commissions to execute. Sometimes he delivers a hare or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel or newspaper to the door of a public house; and sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly import, hands to some half-blushing, half-laughing house-maid an odd-shaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. As the coach rattles through the village every one runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of fresh country faces and blooming giggling girls. At the corners are assembled ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... out again the billet covered with seals and signs and cabalistics that he did not understand. Madame Trebassof translated it aloud: "Order to all officials in surveillance of the Villa Trebassof to obey the bearer ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... will probably punish your misdeeds by sentencing you to stay on here and keep the peace between the rival Regents, it's just as well you didn't make yourself impossible by accepting. Can't say I envy you the billet." ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... one in the tavern known as The Crooked Billet. It has a neat, cheerful, welcoming aspect. At left a small fire glimmers on the brass andirons of a well-kept hearth. A brass kettle rests on a hob. On the shelf above ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... range over the town, to go to places of public amusement, or to conclude our meritorious labours at a tavern. Being one night at this latter place, an old woman entered, and inquiring whether I were Master Serventius, Doctor Sanazio's pupil, slipped a billet and a piece of gold into my hand and desired me to follow her. I did so, without hesitation, and whilst behind my guide, contrived to peruse the note by moon-light, which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... m'affaiblera inevitablement s'il continue longtemps et que l'affaiblissement amenerait probablement un mauvais etat du systeme nerveux, je crois que le plus sage serait de renoncer pour cette fois au voyage en Angleterre et de revenir au Pre-Charmoy comme un faux billet indigne de circuler. Mon intention est donc de retourner, et pour changer je prendrai probablement la ligne de Dijon, en m'arretant un jour a Sens pour voir Challard. [An artist who had copied some drawings of Jean Cousin for the ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... militia, daily varying in number, sometimes not exceeding fifty, sometimes amounting to 600, under General Lacey, had taken post at a place called Crooked Billet, about seventeen miles from Philadelphia on the road to New York, for the purpose of intercepting the country people who attempted to carry provisions to the British army. Early on the morning of the 4th of May, Colonel Abercrombie and Major Simcoe, with a strong detachment, attempted to ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... and I discovered that they dug up the roots for the sake of drinking the sap. It appeared that they first cut these roots into billets, and then stripped off the bark or rind, which they sometimes chew, after which, holding up the billet and applying one end to the mouth, they let the juice drop into it. We now understood for what purpose the short clubs which we had seen the day before had been cut. The youths resumed their work the moment they had received ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... of gardens, which although it last not the whole yeere, yet it is most quaint, rare, and best eye-pleasing, and thus it is: you shall vpon the face of your quarter draw a plaine double knot, in manner of billet-wise: for you shall vnderstand that in this case the plainest knot is the best, and you shall let it be more then a foote betwixt line and line (for in the largenesse consists much beauty) this knot being scored out, you shall take Tiles, or tileshreds and fixe them within the lines of your knot ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... deserve to be exhibited in detail. The architrave is composed of several bands of the simplest moulding, inclosed within three of a different style; the two outermost being formed of the chevron ornament, with its angles unusually acute; the inner, of the billet moulding. The capitals of the pillars are studded with small heads, placed under the Ionic volute, exhibiting a mixture of classical and barbarous taste, which is likewise to be found at Cerisy, and upon one of the capitals in the abbey church ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... into the room followed by a page in BAS DE SOIE—silk stockings—who, while they remained at some distance making the most graceful obeisances, advanced to the feet of his lovely mistress, and dropping on one knee presented, on a golden salver gorgeously chased, a scented BILLET. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht for the month after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy. His son and helper was to receive a sum proportionally exorbitant. This worthy man sighted Mohair on a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a brief note to Woodburn, delicately expressing her sense of obligation to him, and concluding with the hope that she might soon have it in her power to do something towards alleviating his present situation. Having signed, sealed, and superscribed the billet, she rose and stood some ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... The lady rose from table, and I had no choice but to follow her example. All the time I was beating my brains for any means by which I should be able to get a word apart with Flora, or find the time to write her a billet. The windows had been opened while I breakfasted, I suppose to ventilate the room from any traces of my passage there; and, Master Ronald appearing on the front lawn, my ogre leaned ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Great Brocken without a river—the highest mountain in all the north of Germany, and the seat of innumerable superstitions. On the first of May all the witches dance here at midnight; and those who go may see their own ghosts walking up and down, with a little billet on the back, giving the names of those who had wished them there; for 'I wish you on the top of the Brocken,' is a common curse throughout the whole empire. Well, we ascended—the soil boggy—and at last reached ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... a knock at the room door, which introduced a letter for Mr. Lovel. The servant waited, Mrs. Hadoway said, for an answer. "You are concerned in this matter, Mr. Oldbuck," said Lovel, after glancing over the billet, and handing it to the Antiquary ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... lay a heavy billet of wood, which the man had intended to split up for kindlings. Macklin caught up the stick, and jumping behind Hal, hit the youth a fearful blow directly on the top of ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... asserted of Lombard carving is true of that in the Romanesque buildings in Germany, Scandinavia (Fig. 182), France, and to a certain extent in Great Britain, though in our own country a large proportion of the ornamental carving consists simply of decorative patterns, such as the chevron, billet, and zig-zag; and sculpture containing figures and animals is ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... requested he would tell me where a stranger could get lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," says he, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better." He brought me to the Crooked Billet in Water-street. Here I got a dinner; and, while I was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance, that ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... happened that on the very next day our old man's servant went sick, and in spite of my extreme youth and innocence, I was selected from the crowd to fill the vacant billet. And then it was that the Colonel realised that fate had dropped a heaven-sent blessing on his knees in the shape of a—well, in the shape of an ingenious bloke like me. He lifted up his voice in thanksgiving ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... "This billet, young sir, would be enough to secure you a welcome from me. Tell me of my good friend Captain Jack. Ah! if he could have but stuck to honest trade, he and I might have made our fortunes together ere now. Never was such a figure for showing off coat or vest or ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... abruptly terminating the interview. "You and I, too, sir, if you please, will forget what has passed between us this morning, and never come back on it. How is Tom getting on in the drapery business? Does he like his billet?" ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... excellent fellow, whose only fault is that he didn't start before. Now and then he is a plutocrat, as I have found to my cost. It was my first job to prearrange the lodging of two hundred of them in their temporary billet, an unoccupied mansion originally designed to house twenty persons at the outside. There was an overflow, as you may imagine, which had to be lodged in the outhouses. The garage I marked out for twenty-five, leaving it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... the fire a worm-eaten billet, the sound part of which was as red as mahogany; then drew Amy to him and said, "I once sat with your father under the apple-tree of which that piece of wood was a part, and I can see him now as ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... he was of an understanding heart. But for a beginning of sacrifice he cast bristles from the head of the white-tusked boar upon the fire, and prayed to all the gods that wise Odysseus might return to his own house. Then he stood erect, and smote the boar with a billet of oak which he had left in the cleaving, and the boar yielded up his life. Then they cut the throat and singed the carcass and quickly cut it up, and the swineherd took a first portion from all the limbs, and laid ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... think?" said the doctor. "When he went to London to apply for his billet, the Lieutenant said to him: 'You must have been down there before, young man.' 'No such luck,' said Martin. 'But you know as much about the Antarctic already as the whole boiling of us put together,' said the Lieutenant. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... all," said he, tendering her a fresh, crisp billet de banque for fifty francs. "Voila! ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... occasionally passed to shorten the way. There we sat without speaking a word, shivering with cold and fear, listening to the clock which went slowly, tick, tick, and occasionally starting as the door creaked on its hinges, or a half-burnt billet fell upon the hearth. My sister was ghastly white, as white as the garment which was drying before the fire. And now half an hour had elapsed and it was time to turn.... This we did, I and my sister, without saying a word, and then we again sank on our ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... poultry. Even these, if they did not appear upon the north, would be presently visible to the southward, the "Sans Souci" drawing them as with cords. In an island with a total population of twelve white persons, one of the two drinking-shops might seem superfluous; but every bullet has its billet, and the double accommodation of Butaritari is found in practice highly convenient by the captains and the crews of ships: "The Land we Live in" being tacitly resigned to the forecastle, the "Sans Souci" tacitly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of days ago," Miss Greeby informed him easily. "He's my secretary now, Lambert. Yes! The poor beast was chucked out of his comfortable billet by the death of Pine, and hearing that I wanted some one to write my letters and run my errands, and act like a tame cat generally, he applied to me. Since I knew him pretty well through Pine, I took him on. He's a cunning little fox, but all right when he's kept ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... answered. "'Tis a good billet; but nothing to make a fuss about. Of course for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, it would be a godsend and above their highest hopes or deserts; but I'm the hundredth man—a man of very rare gifts and understanding, and full of ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... in the vivid imagination of the swindling "company-promoters" or so-called "prospectors," who infested the place; and when his illusions of easily-made wealth had vanished also, and he had tried to obtain a billet, he ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... had considerable expectations. I was left at home, with no other company than my books: my books I found were not now such companions as they used to be; I was restless, melancholy, unsatisfied with myself. But judge my situation when I received a billet from Mr. Winbrooke informing me, that he had sounded Sir George on the subject we had talked of, and found him so averse to any match so unequal to his own rank and fortune, that he was obliged, with whatever reluctance, to bid adieu to a place, the remembrance of which should ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... Bute's and Grenville's administrations the public money was sown broadcast. If votes were wanted, they were purchased. It was not unusual for a member of the Commons to find four hundred pounds in his napkin at dinner, or in a billet-doux left by the postman. Of course he understood the meaning of it. The ministers helped themselves to sugar-plums worth five thousand pounds. When the Duke of Grafton was at the head of the ministry, that parasite, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... parat que je refusai... Enfin, nous chargemes un autre pistolet; nous fmes deux billets qu'il jeta dans cette mme casquette qu'autrefois ma balle avait traverse. Je pris un billet, et j'eus encore le ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... want of a fire.' The truth is, that the Cardinal (Mazarin) for six months together had not ordered her any money towards her pension; that no tradespeople would trust her for anything and there was not at her lodgings a single billet. You will do me the justice to think that the princess of England did not keep her bed the next day for want of a faggot... Posterity will hardly believe that a princess of England, grand-daughter to Henry the Great, hath wanted a faggot in the month of January, in the Louvre, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... height of the main royal did not appall them, and they could lay out on the yards without thinking of the empty space beneath them. By the first of June, all the petty officers had been appointed, and every student had his station billet. When the order was given to unmoor ship, to make sail, or to furl the sails, every one knew where to go and what to do. The station billets were cards on which the various evolutions of the ship had been printed in a column on the left, while the particular duty of ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of the two men, Pierce, submitted to arrest, for the officer, Cantrelle, who accosted him, put his gun in the young man's face ready to blow his brains out if he moved. The other colored man, Charles, was made the victim of a savage attack by Officer Mora, who used a billet and then drew a gun and tried to kill Charles. Charles drew his gun nearly as quickly as the policeman, and began a duel in the street, in which both participants were shot. The policeman got the worst of the duel, and fell helpless to the sidewalk. Charles made his escape. Cantrelle took ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... over the cobbles into sleeping Armentieres, and hadn't the slightest idea where we had to go. Nobody being about to tell us, we paraded the town like a circus procession for about an hour before finally finding out where we were to billet, and ultimately we reached our destination when, turning into the barns allotted to us, we made the most of what remained of the ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... a bit of rope with one hand and a billet of firewood with the other, as he dashed out of the hut and made straight for the prison, with Gashford and Westly close at ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... shingle. I turned, and saw the gallant guardsman, who had so much interested our party on the night before. But he received my salutation with a gravity which instantly put an end to my good-humour; and I waited for the denouement, at his pleasure. He produced a small billet from his pocket, which I opened, and which, on glancing my eye over it, appeared to me a complete rhapsody. I begged of him to read it, and indulge me with an explanation. He ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... said Mrs. Spottiswoode, the wife of the chief magistrate, who was likewise banker of Priorton, to her spouse, "your cousin, Bourhope, has asked his billet with us: I must have my sister Corrie in ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... The billet of acceptance having been written, it was sent off immediately, entrusted to one of the errand-goers belonging to the hotel, that it might be received in advance of the next hour for the dispatch-post—and Edward Morland desired the man to get into ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... him pressed to the rail. A huge miner, head down, had his arms around the waist of the Scotchman and was trying to throw him overboard. Macdonald lashed out and landed flush upon the cheek of a man attempting to brain him with a billet of wood. He hammered home a short-arm jolt against the ear of the giant who was giving ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... soothe or please, or awaken remorse in her heart? Her manner was more than ordinarily affectionate and gentle, when, presently, after pacing the walks for a half-hour, the person for whom she was waiting came to her. This was our young Virginian, to whom she had despatched an early billet by one of the Lockwoods. The note was signed B. Bernstein, and informed Mr. Esmond Warrington that his relatives at Castlewood, and among them a dear friend of his grandfather, were most anxious that he should come to "Colonel Esmond's house in England." ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... told me her story. She is alone and friendless in Sydney. She came out to Australia when she was seventeen, got a billet with this Mrs. Lavery-Thornton—who seems to be a perfect brute of a woman—suffered a two years' martyrdom, and then was dismissed from her situation with the large sum of twenty-two shillings in her pocket Tried to get another ...
— In The Far North - 1901 • Louis Becke
... added to Max, "I'm not sure where my billet will be. When you're through all this, locate the officer's mess and ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... hampered by a rope to its fore-feet, to the which was attached a billet of wood, called technically "a clog," so that it had no fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had justly provoked. But the ass turning round with unusual nimbleness at the first stroke of the cane, the squire caught his foot in the rope, and went head over heels ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... finally, if I rejected this chance and made the best of my way back home, there was the possibility that I might be out of employment for a considerable period, while at best I could hope for nothing better than another billet as fourth officer in a Planet boat. In fine, the more I considered the boatswain's proposal, the better I liked it; but at the same time some inward monitor whispered that it would be wise not to manifest too keen a readiness to fall in with ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... therewithal that that were a good token that he had lain by her. Thus as he bore her off to her bed, his spurs hooked them into the serge at the bed's edge toward the foot thereof, and down fell the knight, he and the lady together, he below and she above; but she rose up straightway and caught up a billet of wood, and smote Sir Raoul therewith amidst the face, and made him a wound both deep and wide, so that the blood fell to earth. So when Sir Raoul felt himself hurt he had no great desire to play, wherefore he arose and got him gone out ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... should be demanded from him, and that wherever he appeared he should be given free board and lodging, but that he should never be allowed to stop more than twenty-four hours in any one place." These orders are obeyed, and wherever Luckless goes, "nobody ever asks him for his billet or his passport, but they give him food to eat, and liquor to drink, and a place to spend the night in; and next morning they take him by the scruff of the neck and turn him ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... also took an amusing fling at article six. As originally drawn it stipulated that the local unit should be termed a billet. "I object to the word billet," he said. "It has too many unpleasant associations as those men who slept in them in France will testify. A billet meant some place where you lay down and slept as long as certain little animals ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... Duke Villeroy rode, And soft are the beds in his princely abode; In billet and barrack the garrison sleep, And loose is the watch which the sentinels keep: 'Tis the eve of St. David, and bitter the breeze Of that mid-winter night on the flat Cremonese; A fig for precaution!—Prince Eugene sits down In ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... billet, Francie?" said she; and when he had handed it over, and she had read and burned it, "Did ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... longer than the average "immortal;" but the continued existence of Bellini and Donizetti seems to be as closely bound up with that of two or three singers as was Meleager's life with the burning billet which his mother snatched from the flames. So far as the people of London and New York are concerned whether or not they shall hear Donizetti more, rests with Mesdames Patti and Melba, for Donizetti spells "Lucia;" ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... for, put, lay, set, seat, station, lodge, quarter, post, install; house, stow; establish, fix, pin, root; graft; plant &c (insert) 300; shelve, pitch, camp, lay down, deposit, reposit^; cradle; moor, tether, picket; pack, tuck in; embed, imbed; vest, invest in. billet on, quarter upon, saddle with; load, lade, freight; pocket, put up, bag. inhabit &c (be present) 186; domesticate, colonize; take root, strike root; anchor; cast anchor, come to an anchor; sit down, settle down; settle; take up one's abode, take up one's quarters; plant oneself, establish oneself, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to engage in her service any person of either sex who cannot produce, not a certificate of civism from the municipality as was formerly the case, but a certificate of Christianity, and a billet of confession signed by the curate of the parish, she had often been robbed, and the robbers had made particularly free with those relics which were set in gold or in diamonds. She accused her daughter, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... "thou art an inexorable ruffian, Troisboules; but I will give thee all I am worth." And here he produced a billet of five hundred francs. "Look," said he, "this money is all I own; it is the payment of two years' lodging. To raise it, I have toiled for many months; and, failing, I have been a criminal. O heaven! I STOLE that plate ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... parking our vehicles. I sent off the sergeant-major to scout for water supply, and took possession of a newly-roofed barn in which the men might sleep. There was a roomy shed for the officers' horses and a stone outhouse for the men's kitchen. Now about a billet for the colonel! ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... absent, as related in the preceding chapter, it had been decided that the King's quarters should be established for the night in the village of Rezonville; and as it would be very difficult, at such a late hour, to billet the whole party regularly, Count Bismarck and I went off to look for shelter for ourselves. Remembering that I had seen, when seeking to water my horse, a partly burned barn with some fresh-looking hay in it, I suggested that we lodge there. He too thought ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... manner he had come to the inn—and the night-scene which had followed, was apologizing to the owner of No. 5,—when, to his great alarm the church clock struck eleven. 'Nine,' he remembered, was the hour fixed by the billet: and the more offence he might have given to the princess by his absurdities over-night, of which he had some obscure recollection, so much the more necessary was it that he should keep the appointment. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... was it—'87—'88—'89 that Stanley went and rescued him? Perhaps you recall what was then described as Emin's ingratitude after the event? British government offered him a billet. Khedive of Egypt cabled him the promise of a job, all on Stanley's recommendation. Emin turned 'em all down and accepted a job from the Germans. Nobody understood it at the time. My own idea is that Emin ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... like not yonder billet of wood, near to the fence against the knoll. If it were not so plainly a half-burnt log, one might fancy there is life in it. But when fancy is at work, the sight is keen. Once or twice I have thought it seemed to be rolling towards the brook; ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... sang again, "you remember the number of the billet where I had dinner with you three weeks ago? Well, halve ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... wife, but no family; and he loves to drill the children of his tenants, or run races with them, or do anything with them, or for them, that is good-natured. He is of a highly convivial temperament, and his hospitality is unbounded. Billet a soldier on him, and he is delighted. Five-and-thirty soldiers had M. Loyal billeted on him this present summer, and they all got fat and red-faced in two days. It became a legend among the troops that whosoever got billeted on M. Loyal rolled in clover; and so it fell out that the fortunate ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... he was informed that, as a reward for his services and in recognition of his approaching convalescence, he was ordered to return to his own climate and that an easy billet had been found for him as a recruiting officer in New York City. Believing the woman he loved to be in Europe, this plan for his comfort only succeeded in bringing on a relapse. But the day following there came another cablegram. It put an ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... Queen Isabeau in old days. How he came to suspect me I cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledge; and this morning, as we came from mass, he took my hand into his, forced it open, and read my little billet, walking by my side ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... is a moral somnambulism more frightful than that which leads to midnight promenades on the combs of roofs, and the borders of Goat Island; so I wiped my tears away, and after that day, began to read the billet doux and wear the flowers ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... schooner's crew, Tunis could have filled every billet four times over had he so desired. But he had already picked his crew with some care. Mason Chapin was mate, a perfectly capable navigator who might have used his ticket to get a berth on a much larger craft than the Seamew. But he had an ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... afterwards, Mr. Trevannion, who was still weak, sent me a billet, in which he said that he was afraid that his anxiety to see me and his being still confined to his room, rather retarded his recovery, and begged as a favour that I would accept his acknowledgment in writing, and come to see him. That I consented ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... the grand jury of our foreign relations, turnips, or the state of trade; but I took a more humble theme at Aylesbury, when I informed that august body that the quarters assigned to her Majesty's Judges were such that an officer would hardly think them good enough to billet soldiers in. ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... miscreant, put him on a salary and set him on the midnight track of the Duke with a poisoned dagger. He also created an Irish coachman with a rich brogue and placed him in the service of the society-young-lady with an ulterior mission to carry billet-doux to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Fillet had taken for his recovery, insisted upon that gentleman's accepting a handsome gratuity. Then, in consideration of the cold bath he had undergone, he was prevailed upon to take the post of honour; namely, the great chair fronting the fire, which was reinforced with a billet of wood for ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... much wronged in his Satire, but who now forgot their resentment in generous admiration. From morning till night the most flattering testimonies of his success crowded his table,—from the grave tributes of the statesman and the philosopher down to (what flattered him still more) the romantic billet of some incognita, or the pressing note of invitation from some fair leader of fashion; and, in place of the desert which London had been to him but a few weeks before, he now not only saw the whole splendid interior of High Life thrown open to receive him, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... two; after which I returned to the dingle. Isopel was seated near the fire, over which the kettle was now hung; she had changed her dress—no signs of the dust and fatigue of her late excursion remained; she had just added to the fire a small billet of wood, two or three of which I had left beside it; the fire cracked, and a sweet ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... useful hours: Madame Elizabeth was at prayers meanwhile; the queen was making pleasant parties with her ladies; Monsieur the Count d'Artois was learning to dance on the tightrope; and Monsieur de Provence was cultivating l'eloquence du billet and studying ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... feeling very cold and shivering, owing to my late exposure to the rain, and sleeping in the night air. Collecting, therefore, all the dry sticks and furze I could find, I placed them upon the fireplace, adding certain chips and a billet which I found in the cart, it having apparently been the habit of Slingsby to carry with him a small store of fuel. Having then struck a spark in a tinder-box and lighted a match, I set fire to the combustible heap, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the political prisoners consisted of two small cells, the doors of which opened into the corridor, partitioned off from the rest. As Nekhludoff got beyond the partition he noticed Simonson feeding a billet of pine wood ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... of the kitchen, who vseth (by a tricke taken vp of late) [f] to giue in a brefe rehearsall of such and so manie dishes as are to come in at euerie course throughout the whole seruice in the dinner or supper while: which bill some doo call a [g] memoriall, other a billet, but some a fillet, bicause such are commonlie hanged on the file, and kept by the ladie or gentlewoman vnto some other purpose. But whither am I digressed?" —1577, W. HARRISON, in Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. I. p. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... repartee!' quoth the Prince, and, so saying, he lifted a billet of wood, which chanced to be lying near at hand, and smote the boy on the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... has a damp smell, and has probably been left open to be aired; for the wind comes through the unbarred casement, and a billet barns on the Hearth. The place has that attractive, fascinating air which belongs to a lumber-room,—than which I know nothing that so captivates the interest and fancy of young people. What treasures, to them, often lie hid in ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... our arms ached, for it was over two miles to the billet! A collision of milk-trains could hardly have made more noise than we did as we clashed and clanged down the main street. Of course we met everybody we knew. People we hadn't seen for years, people we didn't like, people who didn't like us—all seemed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... amid our horrid business and bustle, and I shall improve them as well as I can; but let my letter be as stupid as * * * * * * * * *, as miscellaneous as a newspaper, as short as a hungry grace-before-meat, or as long as a law-paper in the Douglas cause; as ill-spelt as country John's billet-doux, or as unsightly a scrawl as Betty Byre-Mucker's answer to it; I hope, considering circumstances, you will forgive it; and as it will put you to no expense of postage, I shall have the less ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... not sitting here to listen to any yarns of yours, Tom Craig. Well, as might have been expected, this old scientific fellow, Colonel Maclean, takes a fancy to the girl and asks her to take the billet of secretary to him. She took it—took it to help the old father who was getting shakier and shakier every day, and wanted all ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... Ranjitgarh and back. But as Antony will probably punish your misdeeds by sentencing you to stay on here and keep the peace between the rival Regents, it's just as well you didn't make yourself impossible by accepting. Can't say I envy you the billet." ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... continued the maid, taking a billet from her bosom, "which I hope will enliven you. When I was ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... to sleep," "down to sleep," "down to sleep," till I discovered myself, when I ceased. Then a shell, apparently just in range, dashed toward me, and the words spasmodically leaped up: "Now's your time. This is your billet." With the same insane pertinacity I continued to repeat "Now's your time, now's your time," and "billet, billet, billet," till at last I came up to the nearest battery, where I could look over the crest ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Adjoining this particular rest billet was another of similar character run by the K. of C., which was also well patronized; indeed there seemed to be a friendly rivalry between the organizations to discover which could spread the most ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... assigned. Following standard assignment procedures, the Department of Personnel's Detail Branch selected individual staff noncommissioned officers for specific duty billets. After screening the records of a marine and considering his race, the branch could reject the assignment of a Negro to a billet for any (p. 467) reason "of overriding ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... another billet for old Ranger, and had installed a dour Scotchman in his place. But Sylvia still corresponded with young Guy, still spoke of him as the man she meant to marry. It was true she did not often speak of him, but that might have been ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... interrupted Percival. "It's someone else's wife I've got to find. Ecoutez. Teddy Roker has got permission for his wife to visit him out here. He's expecting her by this afternoon's boat and has got a billet fixed up all right, but he's been suddenly rushed away on a court-martial case, so he's asked me to meet her, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... with a single hand. A second command and every bow was bent. A third and with a noise that was half hiss and half moan, thousands of arrows leapt forward. Forward they leapt, and swift and terrible they fell among the ranks of the advancing Genoese. Yes, and ere ever one had found its billet, its quiver-mate was hastening on its path. Then—oh! the sunlight showed it all—the Genoese rolled over by scores, their frail armour bitten through and through by the grey English arrows. By scores that grew to hundreds, that grew till the poor, helpless men who were yet unhurt among ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Morton took the billet, and crimsoning up to the ears, between joy and surprise, read these words: "If you can serve these poor helpless people, you will oblige ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... with the day of alarms, and the care of our wounded, had not kept better watch. Then knew I that some one had been less faithless than I, and I hoped that poor Henry was at least dying in peace; I had never deemed that he could survive. But when I saw thy billet, and heard Ferrers' tale, I had no further doubt, remembering likewise how strangely familiar was the face of that little one ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... strong possibility that they might be rescued by their friends from the other side of the river before assistance could reach him. Lieut.-Col. Dennis, however, was obdurate, and was making arrangements to billet the Welland Canal Battery in the village when the intelligence came that a battle had been fought at Ridgeway, and that the Fenians were on their way back to Fort ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... were forgotten by me, almost as soon as uttered. Angelo supped with me that night, and when he took his leave, he had never seemed gayer or happier. The next day, at noon, I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and a perfumed billet-doux; they were from Angelo. On opening the missive, I found that it contained the most eloquent assurance of his sincere love—but, to my horror, in a postscript of two lines he expressed his intention of destroying himself ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... light into our abode by tapping a live wire which ran outside, from one fosse to the next, for we were now in the Lens coal district with mines dotted about here and there. On the other hand, we soon learnt to refrain from sleeping or showing lights in the second storey of our billet which was evidently under direct observation by the enemy, who did not take long to acquaint ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... noble Alovisa appears a conquest worthy of her powers. To an incoherent expression of her passion sent to him in an anonymous letter he pays no attention, having for diversion commenced an intrigue with the lovely Amena. Though Alovisa in a second billet bids him aim at a higher mark, "he had said too many fine things to be lost," and continues his pursuit until Amena's father takes alarm and locks her up. Through her maid she arranges for a secret meeting, and though touched ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... the very next day our old man's servant went sick, and in spite of my extreme youth and innocence, I was selected from the crowd to fill the vacant billet. And then it was that the Colonel realised that fate had dropped a heaven-sent blessing on his knees in the shape of a—well, in the shape of an ingenious bloke like me. He lifted up his voice in thanksgiving ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... spoke not a word, and continued his position till he left the theatre. Next morning, the lady received a parcel, the contents of which she found to be the tresses which she had so much admired, and which the erratic poet had cut off close to his head. No billet accompanied the gift; but it could not have been more clearly said, "If you like the hair, here it is; but, for Heaven's ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... irksomely, will be Read in like manner. What did I say last In my late canto? Something, I believe Of gratitude. Now this same gratitude Is a fine word to play on. Many a niche It fills in letters, and in billet-doux,— Its adjective a graceful prefix makes To a well-written signature. It gleams A happy mirage in a sunny brain; But as a principle, is oft, I fear, Inoperative. Some satirist hath said That gratitude is only a keen sense Of future favors. As regards myself, Tis my misfortune, and perhaps, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... as the world's history, to the alliance and the active help of Fortune, the punctual goddess stepped down from the machine. One of the Princess's ladies begged to enter; a man, it appeared, had brought a line for the Freiherr von Gondremark. It proved to be a pencil billet, which the crafty Greisengesang had found the means to scribble and despatch under the very guns of Otto; and the daring of the act bore testimony to the terror of the actor. For Greisengesang had but one influential motive: fear. The note ran thus: "At ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... set us about fetching heaps of dry leaves to spread behind the stocks for a couch. A trunk of a small cocoa-nut tree was then placed for a bolster—rather a hard one, but the natives are used to it. For a pillow, they use a little billet of wood, scooped out, and standing on four short legs—a sort ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the wettest and most dismal in France. The Somme battle, which for three months had rumbled in the distance like a huge thunderstorm, was a magnet to attract all divisions in turn. The predictions of the French billet-keepers were realised at the end of October, when the 2/4th Oxfords were relieved in the trenches by a battalion of the Middlesex Regiment and prepared to march southwards ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... savage rush. The foreman gave ground, but stretched out his foot and Charnock, tripping over it, plunged forward and fell among the legs of the nearest men. They crowded back, and as he got up awkwardly the foreman seized a heavy billet of cordwood and flung it at his head. The billet struck his shoulder, but he was on his feet, his face set and white, and his eyes vindictively hard. It was a foul blow, but there are few rules to hamper men who fight in a Western construction camp, and Charnock thought ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... camp fire in the centre of a forest clearing in mid-Africa. They did not speak, but sat propped against logs, smoking. One of the five knocked out the ashes of his pipe upon the ground; a second, roused by the movement, picked up a fresh billet of wood with a shiver and threw it on to the fire, and the light for a moment flung a steady glow upon faces which were set with anxiety. The man who had picked up the billet looked from one to the other of the faces, then he turned and gazed behind him into ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... new—only nine months old! Potele! Some woman has sent you a love-scrawl and some tobacco; I suppose she knew your passions all ended in smoke! Rafle! Here is a little money come for you from France; it has not been stolen, so it will have no spice for you! Racoleur! Here is a love-billet from some simpleton, with a knife as a souvenir; sharpen it on the Arbicos. Poupard, Loup-terrible, Jean Pagnote, Pince-Maille, Louis Magot, Jules Goupil—here! There are your letters, your papers, your commissions. Biribi forgot nothing. As if you deserved ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... among them. Guarding a house is "not their pidgin" as the Chinese say. That is one great reason for the success of the dog at whatever branch of his tribe's work he goes in for—he is so thorough. Dogs who are forced to combine half-a-dozen professions never make a success at anything. One dog one billet is their motto. ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Provincial funds should warrant the opening of the long-surveyed Luni Protective Canal System. And Scott spoke openly of his great desire to be put on one particular section of the work where he knew the land and the people; and Martyn sighed for a billet in the Himalayan foot-hills, and said his mind of his superiors, and William rolled cigarettes and said nothing, but smiled gravely on her brother ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... want of admiration, to take due pains—would inevitably become a clever writer. As it is, her notes and 'jeux d'esprit' struck off 'a trait de plume,' have great point and neatness. Take the following billet, which formed the label to a closed basket, containing the ponderous present alluded to, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... least, of the three found a human billet. There was a shout of surprise and pain, and the next volley spurted from the ground level. This could do no damage owing to the angle, but he endeavored to disconcert the marksmen by keeping up a steady fire in their direction. He did not dream of attaining other than a moral effect, ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... into districts, about thirty or thirty-five in number, over each of which an officer presided as police magistrate, with a clerk and staff of constables, one of whom was official flogger, always a convict promoted to the billet for ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... measure we proceeded for a couple of miles at twenty metres, when, coming up to periscope depth, we surfaced, and finding all clear we proceeded. We were put down by a trawler at dawn, though she never saw us. After half an hour's hanging about she moved off, which was lucky, as she was right on our billet. ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... last night when I received my billet paper. For my life's sake I could not sleep; I lay awake all night long, thinking of home and of Mary. She asked for something from France. I had no money. I drew three months' advance last week to send home to my brother and my cousin. This morning, when I got up to go, I opened my window. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... read the telegram from his aunt, Lady de la Paule, his emotion was so great that he staggered a little, and a friend standing by in the billet took out his flask and gave him some brandy, thinking that he must have ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... far-sighted. In time he became my counsellor, until he knew more of my business than I did myself. He really had my interest at heart more than I did. Mine was the magnificent carelessness of youth, for I preferred romance to dollars, and adventure to a comfortable billet with all night in. So it was well that I had some one to look out for me. I know that if it had not been for Otoo, I should not ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... came to a sudden end, for without warning a billet of wood struck him fairly on top of the head and he ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... honesty a liberal interpretation. But amongst many others he had one conspicuous virtue: he loved the old Squire as a Highlandman loves his chief, and would almost, if not quite, have died to serve him. His billet was no easy one, for Mr. de la Molle's temper was none of the best at times, and when things went wrong, as they pretty frequently did, he was exceedingly apt to visit his wrath on the head of the devoted ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... courage to read it; but having scrupled to present to my readers the Reverend Father Brennan at the tail of a chapter, let me not be less punctilious in the introduction of her ladyship's billet. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... there is a moral somnambulism more frightful than that which leads to midnight promenades on the combs of roofs, and the borders of Goat Island; so I wiped my tears away, and after that day, began to read the billet doux and wear the flowers ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... charter of the liberties of England, known by the name of the Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act, the King bound himself to raise no taxes without the consent of Parliament, to imprison no man except by legal process, to billet no more soldiers on the people, and to leave the cognisance of offences to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... say, and leave them lying—and for what? To dangle at some faded opera, which I have heard a thousand times, behind the chair of some fine lady whose person I could possess (if I wanted it) for the writing of a billet. Is it not incredible? But there is more to come. My future master, the Grand Prince, is more of a fool than I am, because he doesn't know it. Yet I read more consequence out of some petulant freak of his than from all the despair of a nation starving to death; and I know very well which would ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... wheeled after a shot, to yell through the tower door into the courtyard. "Oot o' the way, wimmen! He's putten gunpowder to the gate if I canna stop him." Then, he wheeled into place, and was entranced to see that the next bullet found its billet under the Arab's turban. In the orange light of the bonfires, Angus could see a spout of crimson gush down the bronze forehead and over the glittering eyes. But the wounded Arab did not fall back an inch or drop a burden which he carried carefully. Now he was sheltering behind ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the letter. "Here, at last is the good news we have both been waiting for! I have been offered exactly the kind of billet I wanted—that of estate-agent to a big land-owner. The salary is a really generous one, and there's a jolly little cottage goes with it, so that you'll be able to chuck free-lancing and come and keep house for me as we've always planned. Needless ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... M'Kenrie, whose modesty as he afterwards assured us had been the only reason of his having so long concealed the violence of his affection for Janetta, on receiving this Billet flew on the wings of Love to Macdonald-Hall, and so powerfully pleaded his Attachment to her who inspired it, that after a few more private interveiws, Sophia and I experienced the satisfaction of seeing them depart for Gretna-Green, which they chose for the celebration of their ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... was at home and came instantly on the receipt of my billet. When he saw me, he endeavoured to smile; and not appear in the least surprised, or affected. But his feelings betrayed him; the tears started into his eyes, and he was obliged to turn away his face. He made an ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... as Stuart's column started southward, Mosby took his six men across Bull Run Mountain to Middleburg, where he ordered them to scatter out, billet themselves at outlying farms, and meet him at the Middleburg hotel on the night of January 10. Meanwhile he returned alone to Fairfax County, spending the next week making contacts with the people ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... especially if he is called out of town often, or resides in another city. The inexperienced, very-much-in-love girl is quite likely to write very ardent and affectionate letters. Leave that to the man. If she knows her Thackeray she will remember the rose-colored billet-doux poor Amelia used to write to her George, and which lay unopened day after day, and will model her missives upon the style of Lucy Snowe's to the Professor—"a morsel of ice, flavored with ever so slight a zest of sweetness." Let her make them bright, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... that they were doing something useful once more. For three days Mrs. Britling had to feed her new lodgers—the kitchen motors had as usual gone astray—and she did so in a style that made their boastings about their billet almost insufferable to the rest of their battery. The billeting allowance at that time was ninepence a head, and Mr. Britling, ashamed of making a profit out of his country, supplied not only generous firing ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... importance to a sub in a marching regiment; and therefore I was firm in my determination to avoid the gambling-table. Now my fortunes were altered; and as I looked at the heap of shining louis d'or, which Guy pushed before me in exchange for a billet de banque of large amount, I felt the full importance of my altered position, mingling with the old and long practised prejudices which years had been accumulating to fix. There is besides some wonderful fascination to most men in the very aspect of high play: to pit ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... Raymonde, whose billet was opposite the door of the tent, could see out, and watch the stars shining. She lay awake a long time, with her eyes fixed on a bright planet that moved across the little horizon of sky visible to her, till it passed out ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... soldiers they were, while the M.M. Police stood at the corners directing traffic as only the members of that unit can. Into the Rue d'Arras we turned, and outside an Ecole de Filles we halted. There was our billet, the best we ever had. In the playground stood our cooker. Upstairs we were packed into the classrooms, with just enough room allowed to stretch one's legs and to turn over should one wish. We had our stew, ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... before. I did not sail with Pearson that year, for he was promoted suddenly to a ship ready to sail. It was a piece of luck for him. One of the owners went down to the docks late one afternoon and found the captain blind drunk. So he was sent straight on shore, and Pearson got his billet. I was very sorry that I could not go with him, as after that business we became great friends, and in his report of the affair he gave me more credit than I deserved for my idea of getting those hatchets up, which, he said, alone enabled us to make a successful defence. I had the more cause to ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... Great rang the bell one day, and nobody answered. He opened the door, and found the page sleeping on a sofa. About to wake him, he perceived the end of a billet out of his pocket, and had the curiosity to know the contents: Frederick carefully drew it out, and read it; it was a letter from the mother of the young man, who thanked him for having sent her part of his wages, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... digged for their innocent, unoffending neighbours; and his mercy, in preserving those whom he employed as the Executioners of his vengeance on his Enemies. Not a Soldier or Yeoman was so much as slightly wounded! One Soldier indeed who had not left his billet, they hung with a sheet; but being ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... courtship (for they are both engaged in the wooing), they decide that Todaro, after walking back and forth a sufficient number of times in the street where the Biondina lives, shall write her a tender letter, to demand if she be disposed to correspond his love. This billet must always be conveyed to her by her serving-maid, who must be bribed by Marco for the purpose. At every juncture Marco must be consulted, and acquainted with every step of progress; and no doubt the Biondina has some lively Moretta for her friend, to whom ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... of New Jersey also took an amusing fling at article six. As originally drawn it stipulated that the local unit should be termed a billet. "I object to the word billet," he said. "It has too many unpleasant associations as those men who slept in them in France will testify. A billet meant some place where you lay down and slept as long as certain little animals ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... means of obtaining his object. Making the acquaintance of the lighthearted and cunning barber Figaro, the latter advises him to get entrance into Bartolo's house in the guise of a soldier possessing a billet of quartering for his lodgings. Rosina herself has not failed to hear the sweet love-songs of the Count, known to her only under the simple name of Lindoro; and with southern passion, and the lightheartedness, which characterizes all the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... aptitude for the service, he is sent to Washington navy yard for a course of six months' instruction in gunnery and special branches, such as electricity and torpedoes. He becomes a seaman gunner, with the billet and pay ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... circumstances you can call it resting. The rather stodgy Brigade-Major's leave being due, his wife has come over to Paris to wait for him. The leave being cancelled (and you could see how desperately overworked Headquarters was) there suddenly appears what purports to be a niece of the billet landlady's, a Mdlle. Juliette, of the Paris stage, with a distinctly coming-on disposition (and frock). The uxorious Brigade-Major, weakly consenting to the deception, suffers the tortures of the damned by reason of the gallantries of the precocious Staff-Captain and the old-enough-to-know-better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... that doesn't look like a billet-doux. 'My dear duke, help, I am drowning! The Cour des Comptes has stuck its nose into ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... to brandish. blando soft, smooth. blanquear to whiten, whitewash. blanquecino whitish. blasfemar to blaspheme. blasfemia blasphemy. bobo stupid, silly. boca mouth. bola ball, globe. boleta soldier's billet. bolsillo pocket, purse. bondadoso kindly. Bonifacio Boniface. bonito pretty. boqueron m. anchovy. boquete m. gap, narrow entrance. bordar to embroider. bordo board (of ship). borrar to blot, efface. borrego lamb. borrico donkey. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... deny that the soldiers in our gigantic European armies, who do nothing with their shooting-sticks but allay their helpless fears by shooting innumerable holes in the air, only one out of two hundred of their bullets reaching its billet, could do little with such antagonists. 'But how would you defend yourselves against the artillery ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... to his mother or to his father, or to Miss Clendenning or old Mr. Crocker. Occasionally he would write to Sue—not often—for that volatile young lady had so far forgotten Oliver as to leave his letters unanswered for weeks at a time. She was singing "Dixie," she told him in her last billet-doux, now a month old, and wondering whether Oliver was getting to be a Yankee, and whether he would be coming home with a high collar and his hair cut short and parted ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Shock, who thought she slept too long, Leaped up, and waked his mistress with his tongue. 'Twas then, Belinda, if report say true, Thy eyes first opened on a billet-doux; Wounds, charms, and ardours were no sooner read, But all the vision vanished from ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... two the light of a taper gleamed through the shot-hole, and very shortly after, the preacher, with the assistance of his staff, pushed a billet ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... of a feather bed upon the fire. The dense smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him. Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come; Where the scalper — never troubled by the 'war-whoop of the push' — Has a quiet little billet — breeding rabbits in the bush; Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw, And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law; Where the labour-agitator — when the shearers rise in might — Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right; ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... were never carried out. As the messenger hastened with the King's billet-doux, and the Brethren on the northern frontier were setting out for Poland, Augusta and Bilek were on their way to the famous old castle of Prglitz. For ages that castle, built on a rock, and hidden away in darkling woods, had ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... there," said the captain, pushing him to the window; "on the plain, near the houses of Villafranca, where there is a gleam of bayonets. There stand our troops, motionless. You are to take this billet, tie yourself to the rope, descend from the window, get down that slope in an instant, make your way across the fields, arrive at our men, and give the note to the first officer you see. Throw ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... cabbage, five shillings a hundred! I'm not his father-in-law, and I'm not his friend, so I'll have a dip in here. (Taking some from first box.) It's strange my tastes and the governor's should be so similar—we both like the best of everything! (Lighting cigar.) I'm not in a bad billet here, nothing to do and no end of leisure to do it in, especially when the missus is away; she's gone to her aunt's at Tunbridge Wells, so master and his friend, Mr. Fred Bellamy, are left to do as they like. (Sits in ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun
... Albany. The manuscript has suffered considerably from the tooth of time, and from several marks of antiquity about it, it may be safely inferred, that a century at least has elapsed since it was written. It is hardly necessary to inform the judicious reader, that this piece is no other than a billet doux, or love epistle, sent by some Dutch swain in the country, to the girl of his heart, who, it seems, had gone to reside some time ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... "Un billet doux" said the patron, playing without design the part of a bewildered chorus, "Why should not madame have given it to him if she wished to write that which she was too ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... Sponge, turning away to give his orders to Leather. 'I'll work him for it,' he added. 'He sha'n't get rid of me in a hurry—at least, not unless I can get a better billet elsewhere.' ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Dravot. ‘It means running the country as easy as a four-wheeled bogy on a down grade. We can’t stop to inquire now, or they’ll turn against us. I’ve forty Chiefs at my heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall be. Billet these men on the villages and see that we run up a Lodge of some kind. The temple of Imbra will do for the Lodge-room. The women must make aprons as you show them. I’ll hold a levee of Chiefs tonight and ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... here?" asked Desiree, who was eminently practical. A billet was a misfortune which Charles Darragon had hitherto succeeded in warding off. He had some small influence as an officer of the ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... you. If you should make for Fortress Monroe, you have all of Magruder's army to get through. You would surely be caught in the act, and then I could do nothing for you. You would be sent to Castle Winder, and that isn't a very comfortable billet." ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Pezay, a French translator, strangely mistakes the meaning of the passage, as if it amounted to this, "I have gorged till I am ready to burst;" and he quotes the remark of "une femme charmante," who said that her only reply to such a billet-doux would have been to send the writer an emetic. But the lady might have prescribed a different remedy if she had been acquainted with ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... bestride the plank and lie prone upon it; which she did with great trouble and timidity; but as she was unable, on account of the fullness of her bust, to lay her neck upon the block, this had to be raised by placing a billet of wood underneath it; all this time the poor woman, suffering even more from shame than from fear, was kept in suspense; at length, when she was properly adjusted, the executioner touched the spring, the knife fell, and the decapitated head, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... some unwillingness, and after much ineffectual entreaty having for its object the immediate settlement of the business, that his quarters would be at the Crooked Billet in Tower Street; where he would be found waking until midnight, and sleeping until breakfast ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... latitude of 42 deg. 39', longitude 137 deg. 58' W. In the evening, the calm was succeeded by a breeze from S.W., which soon after increased to a fresh gale; and fixing at S.S.W, with it we steered N.E. 1/2 E. in the latitude of 41 deg. 25', longitude 135 deg. 58' W., we saw floating in the sea a billet of wood, which seemed to be covered with barnacles; so that there was no judging how long it might have been there, or from whence or how far ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... circuitous passage through the body of the stove. A certain bunch of sergeants nearly asphyxiated themselves before they discovered the secret of the damper in the stove. They were nearly pickled in pine smoke. And a whole company of soldiers nearly lost their billet in Kholmogori when they started up the sisters' stoves without pulling the ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... harried their little tin souls, Seeing he came not from Chatham, jingled no spurs at his heels, Knowing that, nevertheless, was he first on the Government rolls For the billet of "Railway Instructor to Little ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... They ought to be ashamed of themselves. He could never respect an Englishman again." "And yet," adds the writer, "this gentleman (had an officer been billeted there) would have sold him a bottle of wine out of his cellar, or a billet of wood from his stack, or an egg from his hen-house, at a profit of fifty per cent., not only without scruple, but upon no other terms. It was as common as ordering wine at a tavern, to call the servant of any man's establishment where we happened to be quartered, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... at mrs. C—rt-f—r's, flattered my vanity enough to make me think he was no less charmed with me than I too plainly found I was with him. I slept little that night, and pretty early the next morning received a billet ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... been incorrigible, and had insisted on intruding his clumsy person upon Lady Fareham's party, arguing with a dull persistence that his name was on her ladyship's billet of invitation. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... backward course, you see the interminable foliage of the forest of Dean, and the rich valleys of Glo'stershire. A very handsome house, about a mile down the river, attracted our attention. "It's a reg'lar good billet," said Mr Williams, breaking off from some other piece of information with which he was regaling the idle wind, for by this time we had acquired a power of not hearing a word he said; "and it's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... Guernsey," all classes of the community fully manifested the pleasure they enjoyed at this signal honour; he being the first native of that island who had taken his seat in the House of Lords. On the 6th October, 1831, the bailiff officially announced the joyful news in his Billet d'Etat, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... me where a stranger could get lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," says he, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better." He brought me to the Crooked Billet, in Water Street. Here I got a dinner; and, while I was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance that I might be some runaway. After dinner my sleepiness returned, and, being shown to a bed, I lay down without undressing, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... disappeared among the crowd. The incident awakened Morton's curiosity; and when he found himself on board of a vessel bound for Rotterdam, and saw all his companions of the voyage busy making their own arrangements, he took an opportunity to open the billet thus mysteriously thrust upon him. It ran thus:—"Thy courage on the fatal day when Israel fled before his enemies, hath, in some measure, atoned for thy unhappy owning of the Erastian interest. These are not days for ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... divided into messes, each man being assigned to a certain mess at the same time his billet number or ship's number is given to him. There are from fifteen to thirty men in a mess. Each has its own "berth-deck cook," who prepares the food for the galley; each, too, has a mess caterer, or striker, whose business it is to help the mess ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... as liberated convicted witches. As in England so here, a body of men came into existence whose business it was to travel the country and detect witches. Anonymous accusations were invited, the clergy "placing an empty box in church, to receive a billet with the sorcerer's name, and the date and description of his deeds."[194] In 1603 "at the College of Auld Abirdene" every minister was ordered to make "subtill and privie inquisition," concerning the number of witches in his parish, and report the same ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... he finds to do, Mrs. Elliott?" said he one morning, after he had just read the hasty billet and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mac picked up a billet of wood, and drove the cork in flush with the neck. Then, placing upright on the cork the helve of the hammer, he drove the cork down a ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... withered energies on petty law cases, to one of which the present note refers. The hand is a little tremulous with age, yet small and fastidiously elegant, as became a man who was in the habit of writing billet-doux on scented note-paper, as well as documents of war and state. This is to us a deeply interesting autograph. Remembering what has been said of the power of Burr's personal influence, his art to tempt men, his might to subdue them, and the fascination that enabled him, though ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cavalry, scion of a Philadelphia family well known to the Stuyvesants of Gotham and "trotting in the same class," had come over from department head-quarters, where he had a billet as engineer officer, to call on Stuyvesant and to cheer him up and contribute to his convalescence, and did so after the manner of men, by talking on all manner of topics for nearly an hour and winding up by a dissertation on Billy Ray's pretty daughter and "Wally" Foster's infatuation. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... the means that had been used in bringing Hetty off. Two dead and dry, and consequently buoyant, logs of pine were bound together with pins and withes and a little platform of riven chestnut had been rudely placed on their surfaces. Here Hetty had been seated, on a billet of wood, while the young Iroquois had rowed the primitive and slow-moving, but perfectly safe craft ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... afflicted that they can almost compel the doctor to admit them into the hospital. So whenever they are put into some billet they like they are well, and whenever they are put into one they dislike they send in a sick report, and the medical officer in general must admit them. This was the case with the prisoner I have referred to. Moreover, I question if he was ever a single day in the prison without doing something ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... certainly live it up when he got back, Lance swore. He would have his wedding; import Casey from the Club to spike the punch; and, perhaps after he'd gotten in his required number of scout-missions, he might even settle for a chair-borne exec's billet, himself. ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... baggage of Mr. Edwin Salsbury and Mr. Charles Burnham was sent to the depot at Wikhasset Station, and they presented themselves at the hotel-office with a request for their bill. As Jerry Swayne deposited their key upon its hook, he drew forth a small tri-cornered billet from the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... than ordinarily affectionate and gentle, when, presently, after pacing the walks for a half-hour, the person for whom she was waiting came to her. This was our young Virginian, to whom she had despatched an early billet by one of the Lockwoods. The note was signed B. Bernstein, and informed Mr. Esmond Warrington that his relatives at Castlewood, and among them a dear friend of his grandfather, were most anxious that he should come to "Colonel Esmond's house in England." And now, accordingly, the lad ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her nerves were excited again; and she was consoled or horrified, as the case may be (the reader must settle the point according to his ideas and knowledge of womankind),—she was at any rate dreadfully excited by the receipt of a billet in the well-known clerk-like hand of Mr. Sly. It ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... you ought to be. Your past life is sufficient certificate of manhood; and now has come your time to be a baby, while I am mother. You have been lying here like an engine, under a high pressure of steam, and the safety-value fastened down with a billet of wood, until there has been almost an explosion. Now just take away that stick of wood—your manhood and pride, and let out all the groans and tears you have pent in your heart. Cry all you can! This is ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... sleep in my bed to-night, for I suspect there may be treachery abroad. Thou shalt keep watch, therefore, in case anything may happen in the night; and if thou shalt see me strive with anyone, do not alarm the men. Meanwhile go thou and fetch me a billet of wood, and let it be a ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... flat pilasters which support the round arches of its base are sheeted with a delicately-tinged marble; the flower-work of their capitals and the mask enclosed within it are gilded like the continuous billet moulding which runs round in the hollow of each arch, while the spandrils are filled in with richer and darker marbles, each broken with a central medallion of gold. The use of gold indeed seems a "note" of the colouring of the early Renascence; a broad ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... repetition of low expressions: but I could not but, in justice to myself, point out to him the passages in my case which he had overlooked. Accordingly, having marked them with letters, I sent it back, with the following billet. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Drawing—Truly there was nothing in me that should have induced Him to choose me. I was but as the other brands upon whom the fire is already kindled, which shall burn for evermore! And as soon could the billet leap from the hearth and become a green tree, as my soul could have sprung to ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... work was concerned, either a feast or a famine with her, and she longed for just such a position as that held by an older scholar, who was stenographer and typewriter on salary in the office of a great law firm and yet was enabled to take frequent transcribing or copying from outside; but for a billet of this kind she looked in vain. Then came another winter. How it affected Miss Wallen can best be told through this simple fact, that she was no longer able to ride home even in the dark wet evenings. Mart had again ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... gotten the billet, Francie said she; and when he had handed it over, and she had read and burned it, 'Did you ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of bein' lapped in luxury in a billet better than me and Jim. Mrs. Dawkins, as I told you, give us the best of everything in the 'ouse and our lives wasn't worth livin' owin' to Mr. Dawkins and the little Dawkinses and a young man lodger takin' against us in consekence. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... always cuddled close against her shoulder, and how she loved him! But she died some months ago, and I gave up my outpost work for a time, with a year's leave, and have come to England until my next billet is fixed. We named the boy "Paul" after myself, and have given him the surname which was with difficulty made out on the brass collar of a dog which came with him—the name of "Fife," presumably that of its former master. I seemed to gather from the man that the dog had been found with ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... it for him to gratify both, and not very easy to deceive either:—he went back into the garden, ruminating what course he should take in so intricate an affair; at first he thought of writing a little billet, and slipping it into Elgidia's hand, acquainting her that the abbess had commanded him to attend her in the garden at the time she mentioned, and telling her that he thought it necessary to obey, to prevent ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... the while I took her for a Man: But finding me asleep, she softly rose; and, by a Light yet burning in my Chamber, she writ this Billet, and left it on my Table. [Gives it George, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... glad to rest our weary feet—I, especially. I cannot say that my leg hurt me, but my feet! I had never undergone such fatigue. With our billet for lodging we had the right to a corner of the fire, but our hosts also gave us a place at the table. We had nearly always buttermilk and potatoes, and often fresh cheese or a dish of sauerkraut. The children came to look at us, and the old women ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... leave a dream. I got into our wagon-lines last night after midnight, having had a cold ride along frozen roads through white wintry country. I was only half-expected, so my sleeping-bag hadn't been unpacked. I had to wake my batman and tramp about a mile to the billet; by the time I got there every one was asleep, so I spread out my sleeping-sack and crept in very quietly. For the few minutes before my eyes closed I pictured London, the taxis, the gay parties, the mystery ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... line at a fair number of places—since writing these words, many miles away in my billet, working in the brick-floored cottage bedroom by the light of an oil lamp, I have stepped to the door, and there I can see it now, always flickering and flashing like faint summer lightning under the clouds on the horizon. When you come to the very limit—to the farthest point which ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... not been quite quick enough to snatch his hands away, after working the trick. The consequence was that when the billet of wood was plucked from his grasp with such swiftness, and drawn instantly aloft, Steve staggered, and might have fallen only that Obed clutched ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... John-the-Divine (now used as a clergy vestry), which is perhaps the oldest part of the fabric. The undoubted Norman remains consist of three arches in the same chapel, where their outline is just discernible among the brickwork; the fragment of a string-course, with billet moulding, on the inner wall of the north transept; a portion of the Prior's entrance to the cloisters; the old Canons' doorway; and an arcaded recess. Of these, it may be briefly remarked that the remains of the Prior's door, showing the mutilated shafts and the zigzag moulding ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... young men reached Andernach the night was dark. Presuming that they would lose much time in looking for their chiefs and obtaining from them a military billet in a town already full of soldiers, they resolved to spend their last night of freedom at an inn standing some two or three hundred feet from Andernach, the rich color of which, embellished by the fires of the setting sun, they had greatly admired from the summit of the hill ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... leaving the Colonel's office together, Gerhardt asked him whether he had got his billet. Claude replied that after the men were in their quarters, he would look out ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... Harry, as he placed the kettle on the fire—"strange to be hungry after a five miles' walk and a night in the snow? I would rather say it was strange if you were not hungry. Throw on that billet, like a good fellow, and spit those grouse, while I cut some pemmican and prepare ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... demander. Elle lui repondit une admonestation, et en l'engageant a etre desormais plus econome, de facon a ne pas se trouver depourvu a la fin du mois. Tres bien. Quelque jours apres, elle recut un second billet de son petit-fils. ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... knees and began crawling towards his countrymen like a poor, stricken dog, in the hope that they would spare him when they saw his condition. But pitilessly once more the rifles crashed out, and this time their bullets found a billet in his vital parts, for the beggar rolled over and remained motionless. There he now lies where he was shot down in the dust and dirt, and his white beard and his rotting rags seem to raise a silent and eloquent protest ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... nothing remained but the breech-cloth. Beaulieu took a rope (selected by himself for the purpose) and first tied and knotted one end about the juggler's ankles; his knees were then securely tied together, next the wrists, after which the arms were passed over the knees and a billet of wood passed through under the knees, thus securing and keeping the arms down motionless. The rope was then passed around the neck, again and again, each time tied and knotted, so as to bring ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... in his avocation, when Benj. S. Rust, with a warrant from United States Commissioner H.K. Smith, went on board the boat. Daniel was called up from below, and as his head appeared above the deck, Rust struck him a heavy blow, upon the head, with a large billet of wood, which knocked him back into the cook-room, where he fell upon the stove and was badly burned. In this state, he was brought before the Commissioner, "bleeding profusely at the back, of the head, and at the nose, and was moreover so stupefied by the assault, ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society
... discourse involved her opinions of her neighbors, friends, and relatives; and, one day, a few weeks after, I was suddenly surprised by a visit from a gentleman—one of the members of the bar—who placed a letter in my hands from Mr. Perkins. I read this billet with no small astonishment. It briefly stated that certain reports had reached his ears, that I had expressed myself contemptuously of his abilities and character, and concluded with an explicit ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... away one evening in the Civil Service band at King's College, as was my custom while my leisure was larger than at present, when the gorgeous porter of the college entered with a huge billet which he placed on my music-stand with a face of awe. It was addressed to me, and in the corner of it was written "Order for Execution." The official waited to see how I bore it, and seemed rather surprised that I went on with my fiddling, and smilingly said, "All right." ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... the skipper can't be seen just now. Just came aboard a little while ago and there was a friend on either side of him. You know how it is," and he winked. "He's below now, sound asleep, and 'twould be as much as my billet's ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... me a bow of recognition,—and of that particular kind of it, which told me she had not yet done with me. She was as good as her look; for, before I had quite finished my supper, her brother's servant came into the room with a billet, in which she said she had taken the liberty to charge me with a letter, which I was to present myself to Madame R- the first morning I had nothing to do at Paris. There was only added, she was sorry, ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... officer has a change when he leaves the trench for his billet, there is none for the naval officer, who, unlike the army officer, is Spartan-bred to confinement. The army pays its daily toll of casualties; it lies cramped in dug-outs, not knowing what minute extinction may come. The Grand Fleet has its usual comforts; ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... down and wanted to give Jim a cheque for a hundred; but he wouldn't hear of so much as a note. Then he said he'd give him a billet on the run—make him under overseer; after a bit buy a farm for him and stock it. No! Jim wouldn't touch nothing or take a billet on the place. He wouldn't leave his family, he said. And as for taking money or anything else for saving Miss Falkland's life, it was ridiculous ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... expectations. I was left at home, with no other company than my books: my books I found were not now such companions as they used to be; I was restless, melancholy, unsatisfied with myself. But judge my situation when I received a billet from Mr. Winbrooke informing me, that he had sounded Sir George on the subject we had talked of, and found him so averse to any match so unequal to his own rank and fortune, that he was obliged, with whatever reluctance, to bid adieu to a place, the remembrance of ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... he would start away from her, and enclose himself in his tower, in an agony of agitation, vowing to renounce her, and her whole sex, for ever; and returning to her presence at the summons of the billet, which she never failed to send with many expressions of penitence and promises of amendment. Scythrop's schemes for regenerating the world, and detecting his seven golden candle-sticks, went on very slowly in this fever ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... favourable idea of his intellects than his conversation could possibly inspire, resolved to dictate a letter, which her brother should transcribe and transmit to his mistress as the produce of his own understanding, and had actually composed a very tender billet for this purpose; yet her intention was entirely frustrated by the misapprehension of the lover himself, who, in consequence of his sister's repeated admonitions, anticipated her scheme, by writing, for himself, and despatching the letter one afternoon, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... rooms, one of which was a sleeping apartment, and the other the dining-room. It was papered with a gay-coloured paper, and photographs of friends were stuck up against the wall. We were asked to be seated. To accommodate the strangers, an empty box and a billet of wood were introduced from the outside. I could not say the table was laid, for it was guiltless of a table-cloth; indeed all the appointments were rather rough. When we were seated, one of the mates, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... on foot. On the first day he felt only a slight pain, on the second it increased, and on the third, the fever seized him. He was then three leagues from Poitiers, near a very little village: exhausted with fatigue, and weakened by the fever, he resolved to go to the mayor, and ask him for a billet; this functionary was from home, but his wife said, that at all events, it would be necessary first to obtain the consent of Monsieur the Marquis de ——— Colonel of the National Guard. The weary traveller thought there could be no impropriety in waiting on the Marquis: ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... bachelor indeed, fell desperately in love with a dashing girl of twenty, the orphan daughter of a bankrupt ship chandler. Miss Maria Manners was highly educated; that is, she could write short notes on perfumed billet paper, without making any orthographical or grammatical mistakes, had taken three quarters' lessons of a French barber, could work worsted lapdogs and embroider slippers, danced like a sylph, and played on the piano indifferently well. She had visited the Catskills on a matrimonial speculation, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... which was carefully despatched to Stevenlaw's Land, Middlemas, with a suitable letter. Menie knew the hand-writing and watched her father's looks as he read it, thinking, perhaps, that it had turned on a different topic. Her father pshawed and poohed a good deal when he had finished the billet, and ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... And then some! You have my permission to stay as long as you please! Come on, boys!" and he led his war-weary men back to a rest billet. ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... not been brought about in a day. Months had passed; Roswell had seen his last billet of wood put in the camboose; had tried various experiments for producing heat by means of oil, which so far succeeded as to enable the ordinary boiling to be done, thereby saving wood; but, when a cold turn set in, it was quickly ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... overwhelmed by the full measure of all this tragic drama. The vastness and the duration of its horror appalled me. I went to my billet in an old monastery, and sat there in the darkness, my window glimmering with the faint glow of distant shell-flashes, and said, "O God, give us victory to-morrow, if that may help us to the end." Then to bed, without undressing. There ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... however, that I can never shake off the feeling that I am living with some capricious creature who frequently growls and may possibly bite. Well, it won't be very long before I write again, and by that time I shall probably know whether I am likely to find any permanent billet here or not. I am so sorry to hear about Mrs. Swanborough's indisposition. You know that I take the deepest interest in everything that affects you. They tell me here that I am looking very fit, though I think they ought to spell it ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... days. How he came to suspect me I cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledge; and this morning, as we came from mass, he took my hand into his, forced it open, and read my little billet, walking by my side ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... more minutes we were scrambling out again through the deep, muddy trench leading to the dugout, promising to come back to tea with the officers, in their billet, when ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Alessandro, the chief executioner, and asked what she was to do; he told her to bestride the plank and lie prone upon it; which she did with great trouble and timidity; but as she was unable, on account of the fullness of her bust, to lay her neck upon the block, this had to be raised by placing a billet of wood underneath it; all this time the poor woman, suffering even more from shame than from fear, was kept in suspense; at length, when she was properly adjusted, the executioner touched the spring, the knife fell, and the decapitated head, falling on the platform of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to be of the same opinion. He mutters something about fate and free-will, and walks off with the billet-doux. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... policy,’ says Dravot. ‘It means running the country as easy as a four-wheeled bogy on a down grade. We can’t stop to inquire now, or they’ll turn against us. I’ve forty Chiefs at my heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall be. Billet these men on the villages and see that we run up a Lodge of some kind. The temple of Imbra will do for the Lodge-room. The women must make aprons as you show them. I’ll hold a levee of Chiefs tonight ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... sodden graves lay the yet warm body of a dead man. The random bullet had found a billet in his heart, and "Nature's sweet restorer" had been merged into the sleep of death. Fortunate man! He had been spared, probably, months of slow-timed misery, with almost certain death at the end ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... and turgid: if the style exhibit the man, how I pity M. de Blacas! He took extreme pains to vary, himself, the form of his appointments (rendez-vous): and the trouble he gave himself, to say the same thing in several different ways, wonderfully reminded us of the billet-doux of the Bourgeois Gentilhomme: "Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour; d'amour mourir me font, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... by the wayside to lay on the grave of Bill; I've sneaked away from the billet, 'cause Jim wouldn't understand; 'E'd call me a silly fat'ead, and larf till it made 'im ill, To see me 'ere in the cornfield, wiv a big bookay in ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... receiving it, assuring us that he could never read writing by day-light: we laughed a little at the disappointment which the benevolent coquetry of our beautiful friend had met with, and thought that a billet from her hand would not have always had the same fate. Our life passed in this manner, without any of us, if I may judge from myself, finding the time at ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... said Carter with a certain bitterness of tone. "People do all kinds of queer things for a living, and I am not particular myself, but I would think twice before taking your billet." ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... of the dingle. It was nearly involved in obscurity. To dissipate the feeling of melancholy which came over my mind, I resolved to kindle a fire; and having heaped dry sticks upon my hearth, and added a billet or two, I struck a light, and soon produced a blaze. Sitting down, I fixed my eyes upon the blaze, and soon fell into a deep meditation. I thought of the events of the day, the scene at church, and what I had heard at church, the danger of losing one's soul, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... not well up in otter-hunting in these parts, there being no hounds within fifty miles. I have never seen an otter on the Coln. But one day, at a spot near which we have noticed the billet of an otter and some fishes' heads, I heard a noise in the water, and a huge wave seemed to indicate that something bigger than a Coln trout was proceeding up stream close to the bank all the way. On running up, of course I saw nothing. But half an hour afterwards I saw another big ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... smell, and has probably been left open to be aired; for the wind comes through the unbarred casement, and a billet barns on the Hearth. The place has that attractive, fascinating air which belongs to a lumber-room,—than which I know nothing that so captivates the interest and fancy of young people. What treasures, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... learned from the waiter in what manner he had come to the inn—and the night-scene which had followed, was apologizing to the owner of No. 5,—when, to his great alarm the church clock struck eleven. 'Nine,' he remembered, was the hour fixed by the billet: and the more offence he might have given to the princess by his absurdities over-night, of which he had some obscure recollection, so much the more necessary was it that he should keep the appointment. The botanic garden was two miles off: so, shutting up Juno, he ordered a horse: and in ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... semicolon, ";", colon, ":"; comma, ","; apostrophe, "'"; single quote, "'"; tilde, "". [For identification: general] badge, criterion; countercheck[obs3], countermark[obs3], countersign, counterfoil; duplicate, tally; label, ticket, billet, letter, counter, check, chip, chop; dib[obs3]; totem; tessera[obs3], card, bill; witness, voucher; stamp; cacher[Fr]; trade mark, Hall mark. [For identification of people, on a document] signature, mark, autograph, autography; attestation; hand, hand writing, sign manual; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... want to know why, particularly, Burkett is married, and his wife's just had a kid, and she's up at Simla, in the cool, and Burkett has a very nice billet that takes him into Simla from Saturday to Monday. That little woman isn't at all well. If Burkett was transferred she'd try to follow him. If she left the baby behind she'd fret herself to death. If she came,—and Burkett's one of those selfish little beasts who are always ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... was as close as he was likely to get, and then at intervals fired three shots, the little bullets whizzing through the clear morning air, and the last, to the boy's surprise and delight, finding its billet with ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... of him. "You must forgive me for being a bit touchy, old chap. It's this infernal thundery weather. May I have another drink?" He helped himself without waiting for permission. "Of course I want to be taken seriously. It's a billet that would suit me down to the ground. I know the place, every inch of it, and, as you know, I'm fond of it. I would look after your interests as though they ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... tournait. Il parat que je refusai... Enfin, nous chargemes un autre pistolet; nous fmes deux billets qu'il jeta dans cette mme casquette qu'autrefois ma balle avait traverse. Je pris un billet, et j'eus encore le ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... add a title[df]— "Count Arnold:" it hath no ungracious sound, And will look well upon a billet-doux. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... this billet caused such a flush of joy and exultation to unhappy happy Mrs. Catherine, that Wood did not fail to remark it, and speedily learned the contents of the letter. Wood had no need to bid the poor wretch guard it very ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this job's done," one of them was saying, "I'm going to look for a billet as stoker in the gas works, or sign on in one o' them factories that roll red-hot steel plates and you 'ave to wear an asbestos sack to keep yourself from firing. After this I want something as hot and as dry ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... had them as well. I wondered where I was to pass the night. Three friends had accompanied me from Jerusalem, and they told me not to worry, as we could stay at the Jewish doctor's. It seemed to me a cool piece of impudence to billet a party on a man whose name had been previously unknown to me, but the result proved that they were right. The doctor welcomed us right heartily; he said that it was a joy to entertain us. Now it was that one saw the advantages of ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... Howe made up his mind to return home, and the evening before he took this step, sent her an anonymous note requesting her to meet him the following day in Birdcage Walk, St. James's Square. At the time this billet arrived, Mrs. Howe was entertaining some friends and relatives at supper—one of her guests being a Dr. Rose, who ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... from back yonder, where we passed along," remarked Fred; and as though in his mind an ounce of prevention might be better than a pound of cure, he too hastened to pick tip a heavy billet of wood, that was as large as an ordinary ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... and friends lavish lovely things upon me, and you will open your unsophisticated eyes when I display my silks and laces, trinkets and French hats, not to mention billet deux, photographs, and other relics of ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... you know? I thought you didn't. There's another billet, inclosing a bit of pasteboard, lying on your table now unopened too, I'll warrant. Don't you read any of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... truth is, that the Cardinal (Mazarin) for six months together had not ordered her any money towards her pension; that no tradespeople would trust her for anything and there was not at her lodgings a single billet. You will do me the justice to think that the princess of England did not keep her bed the next day for want of a faggot... Posterity will hardly believe that a princess of England, grand-daughter to Henry the Great, hath wanted a ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... on the outside, giving her open ports in her streak, and finishing off the nice work upon the stern, where sat Neptune in his car, holding his trident, drawn by sea horses; and retouched the gilding and coloring of the cornucopia which ornamented her billet-head. The inside was then painted, from the skysail truck to the waterways,— the yards, black; mast-heads and tops, white; monkey-rail, black, white, and yellow; bulwarks, green; plank-shear, white; waterways, lead-color, &c., ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... referred to him as a blankety blank "skunk," and a "hound of hell." He said he hoped I wound pardon him for the apparent egotism, but he felt as though the Tribune was attracting attention almost everyday. Some of these little billet-doux invited him to call at a trysting place on Tribune avenue and get his alleged brains scattered over a vacant lot. Most all of them threatened him with a rectangular head, a tin ear, or a watch pocket under the eye He ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... moment and under cover of a Government seal, that I stood stupid. Catriona's grey eyes shone in my remembrance. I thought, with a bound of pleasure, she must be the friend. But who should the writer be, to have her billet thus enclosed with Prestongrange's? And of all wonders, why was it thought needful to give me this pleasing but most inconsequential intelligence upon the Bass? For the writer, I could hit upon none possible except Miss Grant. Her family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona's eyes, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suggestions were never carried out. As the messenger hastened with the King's billet-doux, and the Brethren on the northern frontier were setting out for Poland, Augusta and Bilek were on their way to the famous old castle of Prglitz. For ages that castle, built on a rock, and hidden away in darkling woods, had been renowned in Bohemian lore. There the mother ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... what on earth he finds to do, Mrs. Elliott?" said he one morning, after he had just read the hasty billet and sat ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... craved. When he pressed the trigger he was thrilled to see the mountain sheep give a wild spring into the air and then fall over the edge of the platform. This time its spring lacked the buoyancy of life, and Frank knew that his bullet had reached its billet. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... was of an understanding heart. But for a beginning of sacrifice he cast bristles from the head of the white-tusked boar upon the fire, and prayed to all the gods that wise Odysseus might return to his own house. Then he stood erect, and smote the boar with a billet of oak which he had left in the cleaving, and the boar yielded up his life. Then they cut the throat and singed the carcass and quickly cut it up, and the swineherd took a first portion from all the limbs, and laid the raw flesh on the rich fat. And ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... share, allotment, fair share, allocation, lot, measure, dose; dole, meed, pittance; quantum, ration; ratio, proportion, quota, modicum, mess, allowance; suerte^. V. apportion, divide; distribute, administer, dispense; billet, allot, detail, cast, share, mete; portion out, parcel out, dole out; deal, carve. allocate, ration, ration out; assign; separate &c 44. partition, assign, appropriate, appoint. come in for one's share &c (participate) 778. Adj. apportioning &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... wholly awake, for I heard voices close by, and I judged that some one was standing close to where I was. I was about to get up, and make my way back to my billet, but I remained quite still. I was arrested by a word, and that word ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... factor with his "Huguenots," which, like "Lucia," has endured from ten to twenty years longer than the average "immortal;" but the continued existence of Bellini and Donizetti seems to be as closely bound up with that of two or three singers as was Meleager's life with the burning billet which his mother snatched from the flames. So far as the people of London and New York are concerned whether or not they shall hear Donizetti more, rests with Mesdames Patti and Melba, for Donizetti spells "Lucia;" Bellini pleads piteously ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Commander Peary, had the misfortune to have the piece explode while in his hands. From some unknown cause a cartridge was discharged, the projectile pierced two thick partitions of inch-and-a-half pine, and penetrated the cabin occupied by Professor MacMillan and Mr. Borup. The billet of that bullet was the shoulder and forearm of Professor MacMillan, who at the time was sound asleep in his berth. He had been lying with his arm doubled and his head resting on his hand. A half inch nearer and the bullet would have ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... but the moment of his first arrival at home, amusing himself with discussing the various modes in which he might surprise his family. At length that which he seemed inclined to adopt was to apply for a billet upon his own people; to enter the house with all the swagger of a soldier quartered on strangers— in short, to enact the part which he had often played in Germany and so many other countries, and after having well tormented and frightened the ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... resentment in generous admiration. From morning till night the most flattering testimonies of his success crowded his table,—from the grave tributes of the statesman and the philosopher down to (what flattered him still more) the romantic billet of some incognita, or the pressing note of invitation from some fair leader of fashion; and, in place of the desert which London had been to him but a few weeks before, he now not only saw the whole splendid interior of High Life thrown ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... one of those big untidy fellows, very nice for purposes of war and all that, whom not the cleverest adjutant could manage to conceal on a ceremonial parade. His service equipment alone was notorious in the division. While we were still in England he and I used to share a billet. Every night the last thing I saw before going to sleep was the Anarchist trying on a new piece of personal furniture. He had at least a hundred aunts, and each of them had at least a hundred bright ideas; besides which few days went by but he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... visits one of Mr. Champagne Wright's masquerades, where he falls in love with a fresco nun. He receives a billet.] ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... ridiculous, among the rouge-pots and hair-brushes; or else at the dinner-table. They have no leisure at other times. As it is, the philosopher is often interrupted by the entrance of a maid with a billet-doux. Virtue has then to bide her time; for the audience will not be resumed till the gallant ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... decision at law may be grounded; he does not tell him that he has got the least proof of the want of title in those ladies: not a word of the kind. You cannot help observing the soft language used in this tender billet-doux between Mr. Middleton and Sir Elijah Impey. You would imagine that they were making love, and that you heard the voice of the turtle in the land. You hear the soft cooing, the gentle addresses,—"Oh, my hopes!" to-day, "My fears!" to-morrow,—all the language of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... Skinner answered tersely, receiving the little roll of bills without hesitation, and retreating into a quiet corner, where he carefully counted and examined every one. "That's all right!" he announced at the conclusion of his task. "Come and have one with me now before you read your little billet-doux, eh?" ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Colonel's office together, Gerhardt asked him whether he had got his billet. Claude replied that after the men were in their quarters, he would look out for something ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... goings" [Wilhelmina, i. 229, 230.] advising Hotham to relent: Hotham could not relent. The Crown-Prince himself writes, urged by a message from his Mother; Crown-Prince sends Katte off from Potsdam with this Billet [Ib. i. 230.] (if this be a ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... contracted a severe cold. The cold never seemed to leave me, and now, after a week of fog, after sleeping in a gun pit, I grew hoarse and developed a nasty cough. I was not really sick when I left the firing line after my six days and returned to the billet, but I felt pretty miserable. I can remember being glad when, after a several miles' walk back of the lines, we found the army trucks ready to carry us to the village ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... down with us. He started badly with a heavy reverse and casualty list, for we played bridge on the way and he lost his first day's pay, messing allowance and field allowance, all except twopence, which goes (I believe) to income-tax. When we arrived at our billet we found Pay in process. A private, who has a moment or so ago saluted and withdrawn with his pay, seeks re-admission. "Colour-Sergeant!" he says. "What is it?" "I think you have given me sixpence short." To which the brutal Colours replies briefly, "'Op ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... confronts us with several novel problems. It is not so easy to billet troops here, especially in the Salient, as in France. Some of us live in huts, others in tents, others in dug-outs. Others, more fortunate, are loaded on to a fleet of motor-buses and whisked off to more civilised dwellings many miles ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... to billet in Bois de Boussu and Dour, the real Boussu being another half mile on. But where the whole countryside was one vast straggling town, it was impossible to say where one town ended and the other began. Even the inhabitants ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... to rest our weary feet—I, especially. I cannot say that my leg hurt me, but my feet! I had never undergone such fatigue. With our billet for lodging we had the right to a corner of the fire, but our hosts also gave us a place at the table. We had nearly always buttermilk and potatoes, and often fresh cheese or a dish of sauerkraut. The children came to look at us, and the old women asked us from what place we came, ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... to Water Street, and showed him the Crooked Billet,—a house where he might be accommodated. Benjamin thanked him for his kindness, entered the house, and called for dinner and a room. While sitting at the dinner-table, his host ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... hail, and nothing is too good for the successful espada and the idol of the moment. Even the dignified sombra shouts itself hoarse, and at times showers bank-notes and jewellery down, and perhaps—let it be whispered low, for it is not unknown!—a billet-doux or papelito for the brave torero from some newly-created female admirer. Grave gentlemen in frock-coats and ladies in elegant attire, on the one hand, discuss the points of the entertainment, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... time, and from several marks of antiquity about it, it may be safely inferred, that a century at least has elapsed since it was written. It is hardly necessary to inform the judicious reader, that this piece is no other than a billet doux, or love epistle, sent by some Dutch swain in the country, to the girl of his heart, who, it seems, had gone to reside some time in the ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... There was a slight discussion within him on the abstract question of his right to open it. After turning it over twice, the question was decided in the affirmative. He slit the envelope with his thumb, and brought to light a billet faultlessly written, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... had crumbled away, leaving him to exert his withered energies on petty law cases, to one of which the present note refers. The hand is a little tremulous with age, yet small and fastidiously elegant, as became a man who was in the habit of writing billet-doux on scented note-paper, as well as documents of war and state. This is to us a deeply interesting autograph. Remembering what has been said of the power of Burr's personal influence, his art to tempt men, ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... else—money or big family connections. I voted in practically every division for four years, and I made the rottenest speeches you ever heard of at Primrose League meetings in small places, and after all that the best thing the whips could offer me was a billet in India at four hundred a year, and even that you took in depreciated rupees. When I tried to talk about something at home, they practically laughed in my face. I had no leverage upon them whatever. They didn't care in the least whether ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... pull Weldon off Brown, when he was struck by half a dozen men on the head, shoulders, and face. He was soon forced to the ground. Just then Riley Stewart struck Weldon across the back of the head with a billet of oak lumber and broke his skull. Weldon fell on me, and appeared lifeless. The blood flowed freely from the wound. Immediately the fight ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... stoop to make money by such means? They ought to be ashamed of themselves. He could never respect an Englishman again." "And yet," adds the writer, "this gentleman (had an officer been billeted there) would have sold him a bottle of wine out of his cellar, or a billet of wood from his stack, or an egg from his hen-house, at a profit of fifty per cent., not only without scruple, but upon no other terms. It was as common as ordering wine at a tavern, to call the servant of any man's establishment where we happened ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... extended at his length along the naked boards, and buried in a deep sleep. So timid were the steps of his visitors, and so noiseless was their entrance, that they approached even to his side without disturbing his slumbers. The head of the prisoner lay rudely pillowed on a billet of wood, one hand protecting his face from its rough surface, and the other thrust in his bosom, where it rested, with a relaxed grasp, on the handle of a dirk. Although he slept, and that heavily, yet his rest was unnatural and perturbed. His breathing was hard and quick, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... me this letter last night when I received my billet paper. For my life's sake I could not sleep; I lay awake all night long, thinking of home and of Mary. She asked for something from France. I had no money. I drew three months' advance last week to send home to my brother and my cousin. This morning, when I got up to go, I opened my ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the West—the swift flowing Platte. They were still three miles out when Blake found leisure to examine the contents of that beaded pouch, and the first thing drawn from its depths was about the last a Christian would think to find in the wallet of a Sioux—a dainty little billet, scented with wood violet,—an envelope of delicate texture, containing a missive on paper to match, and the envelope was addressed in a strange, angular, characteristic hand that Blake recognized at once, to a man of whom, by that name at least, he ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... be showing the populace what fine soldiers they were, while the M.M. Police stood at the corners directing traffic as only the members of that unit can. Into the Rue d'Arras we turned, and outside an Ecole de Filles we halted. There was our billet, the best we ever had. In the playground stood our cooker. Upstairs we were packed into the classrooms, with just enough room allowed to stretch one's legs and to turn over should one wish. We had our stew, and quickly rushed off to see all the town. In the square ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... Perhaps you would like some pictures. I've a rather striking oleograph of the Deutcher Kaiser. It must be like him, for two of his subjects recognised it. One hung it up in his shanty. The other asked me to hold it out, and then pitched a stove billet through the middle of it. He, however, produced his dollar; said he felt so much better after what he'd done ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... necessary to release it quickly is the "Lark's Head" (Fig. 30). To make this tie, pass a bight of your rope through the ring, or other object, to which you are making fast and then pass a marline-spike, a billet of wood, or any similar object through the sides of the bight and under or behind the standing part, as shown in A, Fig. 30. The end of the rope may then be laid over and under the standing part and back over itself. This knot may be instantly released by merely ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... wounds had been inflicted still sticking in her side. The two girls Julia and Emma, who had recovered sufficiently to be able to talk yesterday morning, declare that their father knocked them down with a billet of wood and stamped on them. They think they were the first attacked. They further state that Hopkins had shown evidence of derangement all day, but had exhibited no violence. He flew into a passion and attempted to murder ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... conversation began, and the Cardinal making a sign to the Queen, Madame de Chevreuse had a long conference that night with her Majesty, who gave her this billet for me, written and signed with her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... having been transformed into that bird. Theseus, having now become celebrated, is invited to the chase of the Calydonian boar, which Atalanta is the first to wound. Meleager slays the monster; and his death is accelerated by his mother Althaea, who places in the fire the fatal billet. Returning from the expedition, Theseus comes to Acheloues, and sees the islands called the Echinades, into which the Naiads have been transformed. Pirithoues denies the possibility of this; but Lelex quotes, as an example, the case of Baucis ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... almost all sorts of ground.[40] The aeronauts, provided with large scale maps of the hostile country, will mark down to the gunners below the precise point upon which to direct their fire, and over hill and dale the shell will fly—ten miles it may be—to its billet, camp, massing night ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... captions? We've found captioned pictures, and what have they given us? A caption is intended to explain the picture, not the picture to explain the caption. Suppose some alien to our culture found a picture of a man with a white beard and mustache sawing a billet from a log. He would think the caption meant, 'Man Sawing Wood.' How would he know that it was really 'Wilhelm II in ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... expected much of a billet in a defeated and starving country; that was probably why everybody was enthusiastic over it—at first. I, as billeting officer, was especially proud of having discovered it. The very thing for Brigade Headquarters—secluded, ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... small, when measured in money, his progress had seemed to be. He was in despair when his friend Solomon Binkus arrived from Virginia. For two years the latter had been looking after the interests of Major Washington out in the Ohio River country. They dined together that evening at The Crooked Billet and Solomon told him of his adventures in the West, and frontier stories of the notorious, one-legged robber, Micah Harpe, and his den on the shore of the Ohio and of the cunning of the outlaw ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... fatal, indeed, was that unfortunate billet delivered by Florinda unwittingly to Petro. It was the author of all her present misery, and the consequences to follow were, if possible, of a still more fatal character. In that little note, Petro possessed himself ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... ranks, this success was not acquired without infinite labour, and a considerable expense of blood. After a furious contest of six hours, fortune seemed to declare so much in favour of the Prussians, that the king despatched the following billet to the queen at Berlin:—"Madam, we have driven the Russians from their intrenchments. In two hours expect to hear of a glorious victory." This intimation was premature, and subjected the writer to the ridicule of his enemies. The Russians were staggered, not routed. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... was somewhat sly, and, perhaps within certain lines, at times capable of giving the word honesty a liberal interpretation. But amongst many others he had one conspicuous virtue: he loved the old Squire as a Highlandman loves his chief, and would almost, if not quite, have died to serve him. His billet was no easy one, for Mr. de la Molle's temper was none of the best at times, and when things went wrong, as they pretty frequently did, he was exceedingly apt to visit his wrath on the head of the devoted George, saying things to him which he should not have said. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... preparation. Having been regaled with these delicacies, for such they were considered by that hospitable spirit which provided them, we laid ourselves down to rest with no other canopy than the sky. But I never enjoyed a more sound and refreshing rest, though I had a board for my bed and a billet ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... a snarl; but before he could lay hands upon her Big Lena, with a roar of rage, leaped past the girl and drove a heavy stick of firewood straight at the half-breed's head. The man ducked swiftly, and the billet thudded against his shoulder, staggering him. Instantly two of the scowmen threw themselves upon the woman and bore her to the ground, where she fought, tooth and nail, while they pinioned her arms. Vermilion, his face livid, seized Chloe roughly. The girl shrank in terror from the grip ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... sill, which is of gritstone. West of this is the principal entrance, a Norman arch, beneath which a pointed arch has been inserted, the original imposts, however, remaining. The upper arch is enriched with the chevron, and its dripstone with two rows of the round billet arranged chequerwise and with a moulding composed of a series of little crosses, rather suggestive ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... tickets of the whole party at the luggage department, otherwise the luggage will be treated as belonging to one person, and thus it will probably be overweight. Another advantage of having the entire number of the party on the "Billet de Bagage" is that, in case of one or other losing their carriage tickets, this will prove the accident to the stationmaster (chef-de-Gare) and satisfy him. If, after having purchased a ticket, the train is missed, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... openings, and round arches on massive square piers; the imposts are of the plain early Norman character, merely a square projection chamfered off on the under side, but one of them is enriched with the billet ornament. There are recesses for tombs down the sides, and a fourth aisle or passage has been cut out on the south side, apparently for tombs only, as it has recesses on both sides to receive the stone coffins. Still farther to the south, but connected by a passage, is a circular chamber ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... white. blancura whiteness. blandir to brandish. blando soft, smooth. blanquear to whiten, whitewash. blanquecino whitish. blasfemar to blaspheme. blasfemia blasphemy. bobo stupid, silly. boca mouth. bola ball, globe. boleta soldier's billet. bolsillo pocket, purse. bondadoso kindly. Bonifacio Boniface. bonito pretty. boqueron m. anchovy. boquete m. gap, narrow entrance. bordar to embroider. bordo board (of ship). borrar to blot, efface. borrego lamb. borrico donkey. borroso ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... vestry), which is perhaps the oldest part of the fabric. The undoubted Norman remains consist of three arches in the same chapel, where their outline is just discernible among the brickwork; the fragment of a string-course, with billet moulding, on the inner wall of the north transept; a portion of the Prior's entrance to the cloisters; the old Canons' doorway; and an arcaded recess. Of these, it may be briefly remarked that the remains of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... said the captain, pushing him to the window; "on the plain, near the houses of Villafranca, where there is a gleam of bayonets. There stand our troops, motionless. You are to take this billet, tie yourself to the rope, descend from the window, get down that slope in an instant, make your way across the fields, arrive at our men, and give the note to the first officer you see. Throw ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... for the revolver at his hip. The hidden marksman shot twice, evidently discerning only dim outlines at which to aim; the red flame of discharge cut the gloom like a knife. One ball hurtled past Hamlin's head; the other found billet in Wade's horse, and the stricken creature toppled over, bearing its dead burden with him. The Sergeant ripped off his glove, found the trigger with his half-frozen fingers, and fired twice. Then, with ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... to his lodgings, where he found a billet already from Redmond, who was all eagerness to wing ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... unhealthy. Having run the gamut in her time, she was now not averse to trying conclusions with a Bonanza King whose wealth was such that he could not guess it within six figures. Like a wise soldier casting about after years of service for a comfortable billet, she had come into the Northland to be married. So, one day, her eyes flashed up into Floyd Vanderlip's as he was buying table linen for Flossie in the P. C. Company's store, and the thing was ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... hardly know whether to arrange as an expression of a divine law, or a representation of a physical fact, the alternation of shade with light which, in equal succession, forms one of the chief elements of continuous ornament, and in some peculiar ones, such as dentils and billet mouldings, is the source of their only charm. The opposition of good and evil, the antagonism of the entire human system (so ably worked out by Lord Lindsay), the alternation of labor with rest, the mingling of life with death, or the actual physical fact of the division of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... making either the boards or the shakes, if it is found that the wood splinters down into the body of the log too far or into the board or shake too far, you must commence at the other end of the billet or log and split it up to meet the first split, or take hold of the split or board with your hands and deftly tear it from the log, an art which only experience can teach. I have seen two-story houses composed of nothing but a framework with sides and roof shingled over with these splits. ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... full and solemn assent to that celebrated instrument, the second great charter of the liberties of England, known by the name of the Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act, the King bound himself to raise no taxes without the consent of Parliament, to imprison no man except by legal process, to billet no more soldiers on the people, and to leave the cognisance of offences ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that Hartlib, and a great many sensible old gentlemen of his date, spoke of the art of husbandry as a mystery. And so it is; a mystery then, and a mystery now. Nothing tries my patience more than to meet one of those billet-headed farmers who—whether in print or in talk—pretend to have solved the mystery ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... weight to meet this. I did not deny that the soldiers in our gigantic European armies, who do nothing with their shooting-sticks but allay their helpless fears by shooting innumerable holes in the air, only one out of two hundred of their bullets reaching its billet, could do little with such antagonists. 'But how would you defend yourselves against the artillery of ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Joe added to Max, "I'm not sure where my billet will be. When you're through all this, locate the officer's mess and wait ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... momentarily turned in a very different direction by a local insurrection, followed by severe reprisals, and the bombardment of Palermo by the Italian Fleet. His sick wife was for some time under rifle as well as shell fire; but cheerfully remarking that "every bullet has its billet," she remained perfectly serene and undisturbed. It was the year of the last war with Austria, and also of the suppression of the Monastic Orders in Sicily; two events which probably helped to produce the outbreak, of which Yule contributed an account to The Times, and subsequently ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... I should say we would have you! Wait a minute and I'll have a detail put your baggage under cover for the night. Then we'll see about dinner and a billet." ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... precaution for their sakes. She would steal timidly to my table, always appearing from under a gray shred of bark on a fallen birch log, following the same path, first to a mossy stone, then to a dark hole under a root, then to a low brake, and along the underside of a billet of wood to the mouse table. There she would stuff both cheeks hurriedly, till they bulged as if she had toothache, and steal away by the same path, disappearing at last under ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... after gazing through it attentively for some minutes; "yes, that is something like what I call a glass. 'Gad, it makes me young again to see those marks—every bullet had its billet, I warrant me. The eye you have left, my friend, does not look, though, as if it wanted such ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... while several were flattened at the sides as if they had been compressed by some considerable weight. Evidently as they had dragged the stone up they had thrust the chunks of wood into the chink, until at last, when the opening was large enough to crawl through, they would hold it open by a billet placed length-wise, which might very well become indented at the lower end, since the whole weight of the stone would press it down on to the edge of this other slab. So far I ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a good billet; but nothing to make a fuss about. Of course for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, it would be a godsend and above their highest hopes or deserts; but I'm the hundredth man—a man of very rare gifts and understanding, and full of accomplishments gathered from ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... travels like a tornado, and distorts like a convex mirror, poisons the mind of Cachita's parent, Don Severiano, and one sultry afternoon, Cachita's black maid, Gumersinda, brings me a billet-doux from her young mistress, which fills me with alarm. Don Severiano knows all—more than all—and has resolved to separate us by removing Cachita to one of his sugar estates, eight leagues from town. For some weeks I hear nothing of her whereabouts, but at last one of Don Severiano's black mule-drivers ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... continue longtemps et que l'affaiblissement amenerait probablement un mauvais etat du systeme nerveux, je crois que le plus sage serait de renoncer pour cette fois au voyage en Angleterre et de revenir au Pre-Charmoy comme un faux billet indigne de circuler. Mon intention est donc de retourner, et pour changer je prendrai probablement la ligne de Dijon, en m'arretant un jour a Sens pour voir Challard. [An artist who had copied some drawings of Jean Cousin for ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... have not explained what the boys are doing up yonder. Well, we shall now announce their metier. Each has taken up with him a number of little billets of wood, fashioned something like the letter T, and about six inches in length. When this billet is flung into the air, and twirls about in its descent, it exhibits some resemblance— though not a very close one—to a flying pigeon-hawk. The resemblance, however, is near enough to "do" the pigeons; for ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... said I to myself, when I had read this billet; "and yet, after all, it shows more feeling and more character than I could have supposed she possessed." I took up the chain: it was of Maltese workmanship; not very handsome, nor, indeed, in any way remarkable, except for a plain hair ring which was attached to ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... housewife fetched a joint-stool, first clearing it from dust, whilst her husband added a billet to the heap. She was just preparing breakfast. A wooden porringer, filled to the brim with new milk, in which oatmeal was stirred, a rasher of salted mutton, and a large cake of coarse bread, comprised the delicacies of their morning repast. To this, however, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... found a billet in some pirate breast sooner or later, one of the villainous desperadoes falling over his oar here and another dropping down on the bamboo deck of a junk there; while, occasionally, some wretch would tumble overboard with a wild yell, in answer to the ping of the rifle, shot through the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... setting Mr. Sands to work that December afternoon, he would have paid his way to London, had a trans-Atlantic trip been made the price of being rid of him. But a Senator is not a soothsayer, and no impression of the kind once touched him. He got Mr. Sands his billet, and said it gave him pleasure to comply with the request of his young friend, Mr. Storms. To Richard, the hereafter was as opaque as it was to Senator Hanway, and, having seen his protege installed, he walked away unconscious of a morn to dawn when Mr. Sands would recur as an instance ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... gone to bed. I and the machine-gun section rattled over the cobbles into sleeping Armentieres, and hadn't the slightest idea where we had to go. Nobody being about to tell us, we paraded the town like a circus procession for about an hour before finally finding out where we were to billet, and ultimately we reached our destination when, turning into the barns allotted to us, we made the most of what remained of ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... was a winsome country lass, So William on a brief vacation, The time more pleasantly to pass, Essayed flirtation. And while they strolled in twilight dim, As near the time for parting drew, Asked if she would have from him A "billet-doux." Now this simple maid of French knew naught, But doubting not 'twas something nice, Shyly she lifted her pretty head, Her rosy lips together drew, and coyly said, "Yes, ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... very friendly and has given me excellent advice. He has recommended me to his 'mecanos,' who are the real type of the clever Parisian, inventive, lively and good humored...." Next day he gives some details of his billet, and adds: "I have had a mitrailleuse support mounted on my machine, and now I am ready for the hunt.... Yesterday at five o'clock I darted around above the house at 1700 or 2000 meters. Did you see me? I forced my ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... neighbors, friends, and relatives; and, one day, a few weeks after, I was suddenly surprised by a visit from a gentleman—one of the members of the bar—who placed a letter in my hands from Mr. Perkins. I read this billet with no small astonishment. It briefly stated that certain reports had reached his ears, that I had expressed myself contemptuously of his abilities and character, and concluded with an explicit demand, not for an explanation, but an apology. ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... jury of our foreign relations, turnips, or the state of trade; but I took a more humble theme at Aylesbury, when I informed that august body that the quarters assigned to her Majesty's Judges were such that an officer would hardly think them good enough to billet soldiers in. ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... written the names he asked me to cut them apart into slips, having one name on each slip. Now here I do not remember whether he folded them himself, or had me help, as I was not expecting them to be folded. However, we folded each one into a billet with ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... quarters. And presently her father entered her room, and after announcing that he had been honored by the commander-in-chief with a mission to Skenesboro', from which he should not be able to return till late at night, presented her a sealed billet, and immediately departed. With a trembling hand she opened the suspected ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... on the snaky fire, Crushes the curling heads till smoke is thickened And the ash sinks beneath the billet's weight, And then again the hissing heads are quickened: Just as this wood, by fretful fangs new stung, Glows angrily, then whitens in the grate And slowly smouldering smoulders away, And dies defeated every famished tongue And nothing's left but a memory of heat ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... heavy billet of wood, which the man had intended to split up for kindlings. Macklin caught up the stick, and jumping behind Hal, hit the youth a fearful blow directly on the ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... he set us about fetching heaps of dry leaves to spread behind the stocks for a couch. A trunk of a small cocoa-nut tree was then placed for a bolster—rather a hard one, but the natives are used to it. For a pillow, they use a little billet of wood, scooped out, and standing on four ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... up a bit of rope with one hand and a billet of firewood with the other, as he dashed out of the hut and made straight for the prison, with Gashford and Westly ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... poor devil who has been shamefully used by one of my Ministers; I rise, I say, and leave them lying—and for what? To dangle at some faded opera, which I have heard a thousand times, behind the chair of some fine lady whose person I could possess (if I wanted it) for the writing of a billet. Is it not incredible? But there is more to come. My future master, the Grand Prince, is more of a fool than I am, because he doesn't know it. Yet I read more consequence out of some petulant freak of his than from all the despair of a nation starving to death; and I know ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... up, and, though his injured foot was painful, moved forward a pace or two noiselessly in his soft moccasins. A billet had rolled in his direction, and swaying lithely from the waist, with his eyes fixed upon the man, he seized it. The homesteader was stooping still, and he made another pace, crouching a ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... suspicious, and during the wretched year they had spent together she had had a disastrous effect on his work. At last, acting on the shrewd advice of one of those instinctive men of the world of which Bohemia is full, he had bought her a billet in a theatrical touring company. There, by an extraordinary chance, Kitty made a tiny hit—sufficiently of a hit to bring her from an American impresario a creditable offer, contingent on her fare being paid ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... Still they are more mannerly than those who invaded Mrs. Wray's, for one of them, a very good-looking officer, asked to see you with an air of seeking a favor. But we have hardly chambers enough to accommodate even a company, so heaven send they do not billet ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... remained but the breech-cloth. Beaulieu took a rope (selected by himself for the purpose) and first tied and knotted one end about the juggler's ankles; his knees were then securely tied together, next the wrists, after which the arms were passed over the knees and a billet of wood passed through under the knees, thus securing and keeping the arms down motionless. The rope was then passed around the neck, again and again, each time tied and knotted, so as to bring the face down upon the knees. A ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... had not kept better watch. Then knew I that some one had been less faithless than I, and I hoped that poor Henry was at least dying in peace; I had never deemed that he could survive. But when I saw thy billet, and heard Ferrers' tale, I had no further doubt, remembering likewise how strangely familiar was the face of that little one ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she wrote. It was a billet of the kind in which the intellects of the ten thousand Sevignes that Paris now can number particularly excel. And yet only a Duchesse de Langeais, brought up by Mme la Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, could ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... altogether. Placed in the convenient position we were, we agreed that we could easily shoot them, and thus raise the siege; but on examining the contents of our pockets, we found that we had only got five bullets between us. Now, supposing every bullet to have had in this case its billet, and to have mortally wounded an animal, that would have left two unprovided for; and even with two we had no desire to contend on the level ground. Still we determined to do what we could; so I loaded and took a steady aim at the beast which had led ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... round to haymaking, glad of a job to supplement their pensions, were very positive that if you bit the bullet and indented it with your teeth, it was perfectly fatal, no matter to what part of the body its billet took it. ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... an Indian," replied the Sambo, observing the billet; "it is some young girl of the other classes. Martin Paz, ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... its contents on the fire. This produced the desired effect.—The smoke and heat occasioned by the burning of the feathers brought the two Indians down, rather unpleasantly; and Mr. Merril somewhat recovered, exerted every faculty, and with a billet of wood soon despatched those half smothered devils. Mrs. Merril was all this while busily engaged in defending the door against the efforts of the only remaining savage, whom she at length wounded so severely with the axe, that he was glad to ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... 1837 or 1838. The girl was fourteen or fifteen years old and had been kept for six months and well treated. Two days before the sacrifice she was led from wigwam to wigwam, accompanied by the whole council of chiefs and warriors. At each lodge she received a small billet of wood and a little paint, which she handed to the warrior next to her. In this way she called at every wigwam, receiving at each the same present of wood and paint. On the twenty-second of April she was taken out to be sacrificed, attended by the warriors, each of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... hand. Passing there to-day, I thought I must stop a moment to speak to them, and had no notion of doing more; but Mrs. Marshman was very kind, and Miss Sophia in despair, so the end of it was I dismounted and went in to await the preparing of that billet, while my poor nag was led off to the stables and a fresh horse supplied me. I fancy that tells you on ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... or Billet, so composed as to have the signatures of many persons in a circle, in order that the reader may not be able to discover which of the party ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... thought Jack; "are these your tricks upon travellers? But I hope to prove as cunning as you." Then getting out of bed, he groped about the room, and at last found a large thick billet of wood; he laid it in his own place in the bed, and then hid himself in a dark corner of the room. In the middle of the night the giant came with his great club, and struck many heavy blows on the bed, in the very place where Jack had laid the billet, and then he went back to ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... Miss Dashwood unfolded the billet, and after a moment's silence, instead of participating, as he expected, in her father's feeling of distress, burst out a-laughing, while she said: "Why, really, Papa, I do not see why this should put you out much, after all. Aunt may be somewhat of a character, as her note evinces, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... door, is a fine specimen of Norman work. The arch is of four orders supported by nook-shafts with plain cushion-capitals. The innermost order has a very uncommon moulding—large chevrons with a fleur-de-lis in the angles. The outermost order has a double zigzag moulding, and a double-billet hood moulding surrounds the whole arch. The other archway at the west end, called the Bishop's door, is an insertion of the thirteenth century, with bold ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... obvious to the unlucky "creature of her own," that the Queen did not easily digest "contempt." Nevertheless these instructions to Heneage were gentle, compared with the fierce billet which she addressed directly to the Earl: It was brief, too, as the posy of a ring; and thus it ran: "To my Lord of Leicester, from the Queen, by Sir Thomas Heneage. How contemptuously we conceive ourself to have been used by you, you shall by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the billet, Francie?" said she; and when he had handed it over, and she had read and burned it, "Did ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an Englishwoman before. Never! Your responsibility is terrible. How tired you must be!... What a journey! For to-night we have found you billets. We billet you on Germans. It is more comfortable; they do more for you. What, you have met no Germans yet? ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... finding himself every day deprived of some companion, began to repine at his situation, and resolved, if possible, to procure his release from the jurisdiction of the person whom he both detested and despised. With this view he went to work, and composed the following billet, addressed to the commodore, which was the first specimen of his composition ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the most need of. Some honest men of the first trade of St. Matthew, who gather together the Jews and Christians at the gates of your city, have seized something in the breeches pocket of an Israelitish page, belonging to the poor circumcised, who has the honour to tender you this billet, with all proper submission and humility. I beg leave to join my Amen to his at a venture. I but just saw you at Paris as Moses saw the Deity, and should be very happy in seeing you face to face. If the word face can any ways be applied to me, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... out-of-the-way Kentish village, stands the only quintain post in England. It consists of a tall white post, having a spike at the top, upon which revolves a cross-bar. This portion, which turns on the spike, has a fairly broad square end covered with small holes, while at the opposite end hangs a billet of wood. ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... much smaller. The main arches, slightly smaller in proportion than those of the nave, are extraordinarily rich and beautiful in detail. Their mouldings are very complex and deep, and are varied with dog-tooth and billet ornament. ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... to empty the contents of a feather bed upon the fire. The dense smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him. Bleeding and disheartened ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... a camp fire in the centre of a forest clearing in mid-Africa. They did not speak, but sat propped against logs, smoking. One of the five knocked out the ashes of his pipe upon the ground; a second, roused by the movement, picked up a fresh billet of wood with a shiver and threw it on to the fire, and the light for a moment flung a steady glow upon faces which were set with anxiety. The man who had picked up the billet looked from one to the other of the faces, then he turned and gazed behind him into the darkness. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... qui etait souvent distrait ecrivit la lettre suivante a un de ses amis: "Mon cher ami, j'ai oublie ma canne chez vous; faites-moi le plaisir de me la rendre par le porteur de ce billet." Au moment de cacheter la lettre, il trouva sa canne et il ajouta en post-scriptum: "Je viens de trouver ma canne, ne prenez pas la peine de la chercher." Puis il ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... by a note from Mr. Bainrothe, full of his characteristic, guileful sophistry and cool impertinence. It ran as follows (I still possess this billet with others of his inditing—along with ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... made them feel that they were doing something useful once more. For three days Mrs. Britling had to feed her new lodgers—the kitchen motors had as usual gone astray—and she did so in a style that made their boastings about their billet almost insufferable to the rest of their battery. The billeting allowance at that time was ninepence a head, and Mr. Britling, ashamed of making a profit out of his country, supplied not only generous firing and lighting, but unlimited cigarettes, cards and games, illustrated newspapers, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... upon the north, would be presently visible to the southward, the "Sans Souci" drawing them as with cords. In an island with a total population of twelve white persons, one of the two drinking-shops might seem superfluous; but every bullet has its billet, and the double accommodation of Butaritari is found in practice highly convenient by the captains and the crews of ships: "The Land we Live in" being tacitly resigned to the forecastle, the "Sans Souci" tacitly reserved for the afterguard. So aristocratic were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lowering his morale. Usually the points thus selected are the shell-torn villages back of the front, where Fritz has been sent for a brief period of rest before being sent to the front again. About the time he lies down in the half-ruined house that is his billet, and dreams of home and conquering peace, a bomb falls inside. The walls are further shattered, some of his comrades killed or maimed, he perhaps among them. Other bombs fall, heavy explosions result, and Fritz finds that his night's rest is ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... strong," said one, as she span her thread. "He shall be fortunate and brave," said the second. But the third laid a billet of wood on the flames, and while her withered fingers held the fatal threads, she looked with old, old, sad ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... was a billet of the kind in which the intellects of the ten thousand Sevignes that Paris now can number particularly excel. And yet only a Duchesse de Langeais, brought up by Mme la Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, could have written that delicious note; ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... what fine soldiers they were, while the M.M. Police stood at the corners directing traffic as only the members of that unit can. Into the Rue d'Arras we turned, and outside an Ecole de Filles we halted. There was our billet, the best we ever had. In the playground stood our cooker. Upstairs we were packed into the classrooms, with just enough room allowed to stretch one's legs and to turn over should one wish. We had our stew, and quickly rushed off to see all the town. ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," says he, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better." He brought me to the Crooked Billet in Water-street. Here I got a dinner; and, while I was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance, that I ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... this. I did not deny that the soldiers in our gigantic European armies, who do nothing with their shooting-sticks but allay their helpless fears by shooting innumerable holes in the air, only one out of two hundred of their bullets reaching its billet, could do little with such antagonists. 'But how would you defend yourselves against the artillery ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Ukridge, whose enthusiasm brooked no delay, started immediately the task of fashioning the coops, while I, assisted by Beale, draped the wire-netting about the chosen spot next to the paddock. There were little unpleasantnesses—once a roar of anguish told that Ukridge's hammer had found the wrong billet, and on another occasion my flannel trousers suffered on the wire—but the work proceeded steadily. By the middle of the afternoon, things were in a sufficiently advanced state to suggest to Ukridge the advisability of a halt ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... from some poor devil who has been shamefully used by one of my Ministers; I rise, I say, and leave them lying—and for what? To dangle at some faded opera, which I have heard a thousand times, behind the chair of some fine lady whose person I could possess (if I wanted it) for the writing of a billet. Is it not incredible? But there is more to come. My future master, the Grand Prince, is more of a fool than I am, because he doesn't know it. Yet I read more consequence out of some petulant freak of his than from all the despair of a nation starving to death; and I know ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... I thought you didn't. There's another billet, inclosing a bit of pasteboard, lying on your table now unopened too, I'll warrant. Don't you ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... of that spring of 1789, no fairer day dawned than that great day of Monday, the 4th of May. By earliest morning the whole world of Paris seemed to be taking its way to Versailles. Mr. Jefferson, having presented Calvert with the billet reserved for Mr. Short (the secretary being absent at The Hague), and Mr. Morris being provided for through the courtesy of the Duchesse d'Orleans, the three gentlemen left the Legation at six in the morning in Mr. Jefferson's coach. The grand route to Versailles was thronged with carriages ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... not know enough to give the gist of the incident, which was that Marty South's letter had been concerning a certain personal adornment common to herself and Mrs. Charmond. Her bullet reached its billet at last. The scene between Fitzpiers and Felice had been sharp, as only a scene can be which arises out of the mortification of one woman by another in the presence of a lover. True, Marty had not effected it by word of mouth; the charge about the locks of hair was made simply by Fitzpiers ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... assembled, the cloth was laid, and Ben had brought a great billet of wood, and had laid it artfully on the top of the fire, so that a touch or two of the poker after supper should make a roaring blaze. Having deposited my brown beauty in a red nook of the hearth, inside the fender, where she soon began to sing like an ethereal cricket, diffusing ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... you've heard his side of the case. . . . But to go back to our subject—you see I don't bear you any malice: I am out of this quarrel, and—saving my lady's obstinacy—I don't see—I really don't see why I should billet myself with His Majesty's prisoners. What's more, I have an estate in the east of the county, a little this side of Plymouth. They quartered a troop of your fellows upon it last year, and the place, I hear, is a wilderness. . . . If I could get to it, or to Plymouth—well, one good turn ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... up in otter-hunting in these parts, there being no hounds within fifty miles. I have never seen an otter on the Coln. But one day, at a spot near which we have noticed the billet of an otter and some fishes' heads, I heard a noise in the water, and a huge wave seemed to indicate that something bigger than a Coln trout was proceeding up stream close to the bank all the way. On running up, of course I saw nothing. ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... a moral somnambulism more frightful than that which leads to midnight promenades on the combs of roofs, and the borders of Goat Island; so I wiped my tears away, and after that day, began to read the billet doux and wear the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of the horses made him presently look up. His eye in the moment caught the gleam of something white attached to a part of the harness. Examined by the light of the lantern this proved to be a folded paper—a billet. It bore no address without; within ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... seemed to leave me, and now, after a week of fog, after sleeping in a gun pit, I grew hoarse and developed a nasty cough. I was not really sick when I left the firing line after my six days and returned to the billet, but I felt pretty miserable. I can remember being glad when, after a several miles' walk back of the lines, we found the army trucks ready to carry us to the village where we ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... "But I've been trying to get out for all these years, and I was always told that every billet was taken and that there were hundreds on the waiting list. Last December the Chaplain-General himself showed me a list of over two ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... damp smell, and has probably been left open to be aired; for the wind comes through the unbarred casement, and a billet barns on the Hearth. The place has that attractive, fascinating air which belongs to a lumber-room,—than which I know nothing that so captivates the interest and fancy of young people. What treasures, to them, often lie hid in those quaint odds ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... before opening it, "a letter from Bourrienne." And he almost immediately added, for the note was speedily perused, "He is in the sulks.—Accepted." I had left the Tuileries at the moment he returned, but Duroc sent to me where I was dining the following billet: ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... was. Well, men are sick fools. I'm thinking about gittin' a billet up-country, myself, soon. Where's he ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... information, when a light in the young girl's window showed that the room was inhabited. Hastily writing a few words in pencil on a scrap of paper, he called Perico, who lingered in the neighbourhood, and bade him take the billet to the pretty manola. Perico slipped into the house, fumbled his way up stairs, and discovered Militona's door by the light shining through the cracks. Two discreet taps; the wicket was half opened, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... her on the outside, giving her open ports in her streak, and finishing off the nice work upon the stern, where sat Neptune in his car, holding his trident, drawn by sea horses; and retouched the gilding and coloring of the cornucopia which ornamented her billet-head. The inside was then painted, from the skysail truck to the waterways,— the yards, black; mast-heads and tops, white; monkey-rail, black, white, and yellow; bulwarks, green; plank-shear, white; waterways, lead-color, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... he neared the other, who was right in his way, he raised his revolver, waited till he was as close as he was likely to get, and then at intervals fired three shots, the little bullets whizzing through the clear morning air, and the last, to the boy's surprise and delight, finding its billet with ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... and finally, if I rejected this chance and made the best of my way back home, there was the possibility that I might be out of employment for a considerable period, while at best I could hope for nothing better than another billet as fourth officer in a Planet boat. In fine, the more I considered the boatswain's proposal, the better I liked it; but at the same time some inward monitor whispered that it would be wise not to manifest too keen a readiness to fall ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... absence to write and dispatch a letter to Mr Allworthy, in which he had faithfully promised and bound himself to quit all thoughts of his love. However, when his cool reflections returned, he plainly perceived that his case was neither mended nor altered by Sophia's billet, unless to give him some little glimpse of hope, from her constancy, of some favourable accident hereafter. He therefore resumed his resolution, and taking leave of Black George, set forward to a town about five miles distant, whither he had desired Mr Allworthy, unless he pleased to revoke ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... wooing), they decide that Todaro, after walking back and forth a sufficient number of times in the street where the Biondina lives, shall write her a tender letter, to demand if she be disposed to correspond his love. This billet must always be conveyed to her by her serving-maid, who must be bribed by Marco for the purpose. At every juncture Marco must be consulted, and acquainted with every step of progress; and no doubt the Biondina has some lively Moretta for her friend, to whom ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... was absent, as related in the preceding chapter, it had been decided that the King's quarters should be established for the night in the village of Rezonville; and as it would be very difficult, at such a late hour, to billet the whole party regularly, Count Bismarck and I went off to look for shelter for ourselves. Remembering that I had seen, when seeking to water my horse, a partly burned barn with some fresh-looking hay in it, I suggested that we lodge there. He too thought it would answer ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... that night, partly with Biggs, his lordship's chauffeur, and partly with a motor expert who came along on a bicycle, and said he'd have my Renault going in twenty minutes. I'm not one that can stand a billet in servants' quarters, and I chose rather to put up at the little inn down by the bay and take my luck there. It was here that Biggs came after supper, and he and the motor expert got ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... chose. Comme ce manque d'appetit m'affaiblera inevitablement s'il continue longtemps et que l'affaiblissement amenerait probablement un mauvais etat du systeme nerveux, je crois que le plus sage serait de renoncer pour cette fois au voyage en Angleterre et de revenir au Pre-Charmoy comme un faux billet indigne de circuler. Mon intention est donc de retourner, et pour changer je prendrai probablement la ligne de Dijon, en m'arretant un jour a Sens pour voir Challard. [An artist who had copied some drawings of Jean Cousin for the "Fine ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... like a bullock felled by a pole-axe, and had a scorching pain in my left foot. Elzevir looked back. 'What, have they hit thee too?' he said, and ran and picked me up like a child. And then there is another flash and fut, fut, in the turf; but the shots find no billet this time, and we are lying close against the cliff, panting ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... room followed by a page in BAS DE SOIE—silk stockings—who, while they remained at some distance making the most graceful obeisances, advanced to the feet of his lovely mistress, and dropping on one knee presented, on a golden salver gorgeously chased, a scented BILLET. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the battalion. Or maybe it's a staff billet. You'll be a blighted brass-hat, coming it heavy over the hard-working regimental officer. And to think of the language you've wasted on brass-hats in ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... of royal progresses it was the duty of the Marshal of the King's Household to secure lodgings for the members of the retinue which accompanied him; and this he did by means of a billet, by virtue of which he appropriated for the occasion the best of the houses in the vicinity, marking them with chalk and ruthlessly ejecting the occupiers. The Marshal, it may be observed, did not do the chalking himself—a task which seems to have been delegated to the Sergeant ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... I'd lost. When I got back to Sydney, the crew, and some of the tradesmen who'd extended me credit, libelled the schooner. I pawned my watch and sextant, and shovelled coal one spell, and finally got a billet in the New Hebrides on a screw of eight pounds a month. Then I tried my luck as independent trader, went broke, took a mate's billet on a recruiter down to Tanna and over to Fiji, got a job as overseer on a German plantation back of Apia, ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... along the naked boards, and buried in a deep sleep. So timid were the steps of his visitors, and so noiseless was their entrance, that they approached even to his side without disturbing his slumbers. The head of the prisoner lay rudely pillowed on a billet of wood, one hand protecting his face from its rough surface, and the other thrust in his bosom, where it rested, with a relaxed grasp, on the handle of a dirk. Although he slept, and that heavily, yet his rest was unnatural ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... out of the black beyond only to take shape at the rifle muzzle. Thought and action were simultaneous. Each rifle was pressed tight into the shoulder, while the hot barrel hurled its billet of death ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... he pressed the trigger he was thrilled to see the mountain sheep give a wild spring into the air and then fall over the edge of the platform. This time its spring lacked the buoyancy of life, and Frank knew that his bullet had reached its billet. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... also split out boards after the manner shown by Fig. 128. In making either the boards or the shakes, if it is found that the wood splinters down into the body of the log too far or into the board or shake too far, you must commence at the other end of the billet or log and split it up to meet the first split, or take hold of the split or board with your hands and deftly tear it from the log, an art which only experience can teach. I have seen two-story houses composed of nothing but a framework with sides and roof shingled over with these splits. In ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... quoth Jack to himself, starting up at once, "So that is your Welsh trick, is it? But I will be even with you." Then, leaving his bed, he laid a big billet of wood among the blankets, and taking one of these to keep himself warm, made himself snug in a corner of the room, pretending to snore, so as to make Mr. ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... Menie knew the hand-writing and watched her father's looks as he read it, thinking, perhaps, that it had turned on a different topic. Her father pshawed and poohed a good deal when he had finished the billet, and ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... appeared he should be given free board and lodging, but that he should never be allowed to stop more than twenty-four hours in any one place." These orders are obeyed, and wherever Luckless goes, "nobody ever asks him for his billet or his passport, but they give him food to eat, and liquor to drink, and a place to spend the night in; and next morning they take him by the scruff of the neck and turn him ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... Blavincourt has walked into Germany with a large scale-map in his hand, showing every H.Q. mess and billet.' He tapped a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... give even, to gallantry a character of innocence; besides, they have no ridicule to dread from that society in which they live. Some of them are so ignorant that they cannot write; this they publicly avow, and answer a billet by means of their agent (il paglietto) in a formal style on official paper. But to make amends for this, among those who are well educated, you will find academy professors who give public lessons in a black scarf; and should this excite a smile, you would be answered, ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... you doubt me, only ask Sir Sydney Smith; he'll talk to you about Acre for thirty-six hours on a stretch, without taking breath; his cockswain at last got so tired of it, that he nick-named him 'Long Acre.'" * * * "Capital salmon this," said the captain; "where does Billet get it from? By the by, talking of that, did you ever hear of the pickled salmon in Scotland?" We all replied in the affirmative. "Oh, you don't take. Hang it, I don't mean dead pickled salmon; I mean live pickled salmon, swimming about in tanks, as merry as grigs, and as hungry as rats." We all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... New Year's Day had been past for some weeks, and there was a pause in the festivities of their circle, when a billet of the usual form and purport was left at the door by a servant in livery. Rose, who had seen him pass the window, had much to do to keep herself quiet, till Nelly had taken it from his hand. She just noticed that it was addressed to Graeme, in time to prevent ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... troops, in a small country tavern, where an Englishman had never before been seen, and he found the house full as it could hold of half-pay Napoleonists. The hostess had but one room where the guests could dine, and even that had a bed in it; and this bed was his billet. ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... are no stranger to this singular billet with which MY kinsman of Ravenswood (an emphasis on the word 'my') has been favoured by your lady; and, of course, that you are prepared to receive my adieus. My kinsman is already gone, having thought it unnecessary to offer any on his part, since ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... generous Majesty has to do it; and leave the Dutch in peace, this time. Hessians, Hanoverians, after eloquence enough, are at last got sent for, to guard us against this terrible Invasion: about 10,000 of each kind; and do land,—the native populations very sulky on them ("We won't billet you, not we; build huts, and be—!"), with much Parliamentary and Newspaper Commentary going on, of a distressful nature. "Saturday, 15th May, 1756, Hessians disembark at Southampton; obliged to pitch Camp in the neighborhood: Friday, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... forgery, and gave another proof of being a great man in little things, while he is really small in great ones. I must add General Dearborn's declaration, that he never wrote a letter to Burr in his life, except that when here, once in a winter, he usually wrote him a billet of invitation to dine. The only object of sending you the enclosed letters is to possess you of the fact, that you may know how to pursue it, if any of your witnesses should know any thing of it. My intention in writing to you several times, has been to convey facts or observations occurring ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... fellow, whose only fault is that he didn't start before. Now and then he is a plutocrat, as I have found to my cost. It was my first job to prearrange the lodging of two hundred of them in their temporary billet, an unoccupied mansion originally designed to house twenty persons at the outside. There was an overflow, as you may imagine, which had to be lodged in the outhouses. The garage I marked out for twenty-five, leaving ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... opening of the long-surveyed Luni Protective Canal System. And Scott spoke openly of his great desire to be put on one particular section of the work where he knew the land and the people; and Martyn sighed for a billet in the Himalayan foot-hills, and said his mind of his superiors, and William rolled cigarettes and said nothing, but smiled gravely on her brother because he ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... But as Antony will probably punish your misdeeds by sentencing you to stay on here and keep the peace between the rival Regents, it's just as well you didn't make yourself impossible by accepting. Can't say I envy you the billet." ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... branches, the longest and driest they could find. These they took to the town, piled them up in a heap, and set fire to them; then the men and maidens danced and sang round the bonfire. I lay still,' said the wind, 'but I softly moved a branch, the one laid by the handsomest young man, and his billet blazed up highest of all. He was the chosen one, he had the name of honour, he became 'Buck of the Street!' and he chose from among the girls his little May-lamb. All was life and merriment, greater far than within ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... it without delay. The next morning I received a few lines, simply expressive of the writer's thanks; but without a single jest, or the least invitation to continue the correspondence. Such a billet displeased me; nevertheless I determined to persevere. Six long letters were the result, for each of which I received a few laconic lines of thanks, with some declamation against his enemies, followed by a joke on the abuse he had heaped upon them, asserting that it was extremely natural ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... however, had a suspicious malice prepense air about it; it seemed as if it were smeared on, and by examining it closely, two seams were discovered, which it had been hoped the mud would conceal. The billet had been split in two, hollowed, and reunited by means of pegs. The mud was to hide these pegs and the seams, as I have told you, and in the cavity were found seventy gold watches! I saw the billet of wood, and really felt less resentment ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... nettles and put on the full (though in modern times not very splendiferous) panoply of war. And in course of time the brigade of artillery rolled away and new troops took their place; and Marmaduke Trevor, Esquire, of Denby Hall, was called upon to billet a couple of officers ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... a full share of literary homage. Boasting a distinguished signature, it possessed the first essential of a superior autograph; for, although a rose under any other name may smell as sweet, yet it is clear that with regard to every thing coming from the pen, whether folio or billet doux, imaginative poem, or matter-of-fact note of hand, there is a vast deal in this important item, which is often the very life and stamina of the whole production. Then again, the subject of extreme want is one of general interest, while the allusion to the unpublished ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... would be different if the young lady knew that the marksman was lying in ambush, and determined to run the gantlet. In that case the incident would be a trait of character; but, unless my memory deceives me, that is not the case. On the stage, every bullet should have its billet—not necessarily in the person aimed at, but in the emotions or anticipations of the audience. This bullet may, indeed, give us a momentary thrill of alarm; but it is dearly bought at the expense of ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... spring into the air. Far away on the distant hillside was a tiny puff of smoke, and as he looked the faint pop of the rifle reached his ear. Then the truth dawned on him: this was his baptism of fire—a long-range fire, to be sure, but none the less deadly if the bullet found its billet! ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... an understanding heart. But for a beginning of sacrifice he cast bristles from the head of the white-tusked boar upon the fire, and prayed to all the gods that wise Odysseus might return to his own house. Then he stood erect, and smote the boar with a billet of oak which he had left in the cleaving, and the boar yielded up his life. Then they cut the throat and singed the carcass and quickly cut it up, and the swineherd took a first portion from all the limbs, and laid the raw flesh on the rich ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... courier entered. This one seemed a boy hardly fourteen years old; he held under his arm a packet sealed with black for the King, and gave to the Cardinal only a small letter, of which a stolen glance from Joseph could collect but four words. The Cardinal started, tore the billet into a thousand pieces, and, bending down to the ear of the boy, spoke to him for a long time; all that Joseph heard was, as ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... two later, I strolled across to a neighbouring billet to see a friend, and to tell him of ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... They miss you a lot at the Red Mill, Ruthie. I have been out once behind Dr. Davison's red and white mare, to see Aunt Alviry. We just gabbled about you all the time. Your pullets are laying. Tell Helen 'Hullo!' for me. I expect to see you soon, though—that is, if arrangements can be made to billet me with somebody who doesn't mind having a ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... his stead, to range over the town, to go to places of public amusement, or to conclude our meritorious labours at a tavern. Being one night at this latter place, an old woman entered, and inquiring whether I were Master Serventius, Doctor Sanazio's pupil, slipped a billet and a piece of gold into my hand and desired me to follow her. I did so, without hesitation, and whilst behind my guide, contrived to peruse the note by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... the mail, that should arrive on the morning of the seventh. The seventh proved the day of joy. Our doubts were dispelled. The cloud that hung over our course was cleared away, by the arrival of the expected epistle! My fingers trembled as I took the precious billet from the hands of the postmaster. He must have observed my emotion— though I did not open the letter in his presence. The superscription was enough to tell me from whom it came. I had studied the fac-simile of that pretty cipher, till ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... a word, but departed. Now he had in his pocket an unanswered billet-doux, which had been laid upon his table the preceding night: the billet-doux had no name to it; but, from all he had remarked of the lady's manners towards him, he could not doubt that it was the charming Alicia's. He was determined ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... soon picked up strength, forgetting, in truth, my wounds and illness before the shooting season. Nevertheless, I throw a gun up to my shoulder less nimbly than I did before Miste's bullet found its billet among ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... got further into Virgil and Clelia, I found myself transported from Arcadia to the garden of Italy; and saw Windsor Castle in no other view than the Capitoli immobile saxum. I wish a committee of the House of Commons may ever seem to be the senate; or a bill appear half so agreeable as a billet-doux. You see how deep you have carried me into old stories; I write of them with pleasure, but shall talk of them with more to you. I can't say I am sorry I was never quite a schoolboy: an expedition against bargemen, or a match at cricket, may be very pretty things to recollect; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... behaved herself with such an air of innocence, that she easily gained credit, and was acquitted. Upon which occasion I gave it as a standing rule, "That any person, who in any letter, billet, or discourse, should tell a woman he died for her, should, if she pleased, be obliged to live with her, or be immediately interred upon such their own confessions ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... later than the southern one, which was completed first in order that the cloister might be built. The windows are of plate tracery, and mark the transition between Early English and Decorated. The south aisle is very richly decorated with a fine wall arcade enriched with cable and billet mouldings. The vaulting is of the same date as that in the north aisle, and is also the work of Peter, Prior from 1195 to 1225. In the western bay is the original Norman window, the others being filled with modern tracery of Decorated ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... I were jesting. At my stern request she recovered and unfolded the horrible tale. She had caught Carlotta kissing her hand to him. She had also seen him smuggle a three-cornered note between Carlotta's fingers, and Carlotta had definitely refused to surrender the billet-dour. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... there is much soundness in the advice you gave me just now. It will probably be safer for us to go to Cherbourg by land. In that case, however, I must request you to billet us for the night." ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... were dashing about in clouds of dust and smoke, crossing and recrossing each other in all directions, with shots firing right and left, before, behind—everywhere—in quick succession. The explanation must be that, every man being a trained marksman, nearly every bullet found its billet ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... day but one after to-morrow," I heard spoken in English. Great Heavens! was it possible? had I arrived at a clue? That was the day of days for me. "You have given it, you say, in this billet,—I wish to be exact, you see," continued the voice,—"to prevent detection, you gave it, ten minutes after it came into your hands, to the butler of Madame——," (here the speaker stumbled on the rough pavement, and I lost the name,) "who," he continued, "will put it in the——" (a second stumble ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... could probably have gotten a place as dishwasher or even as a 'bus' or porter, in one of the big Miami hotels," he pursued, "or a billet with one of the dredging gangs in the harbor. But somehow I'd rather do farm work of some sort. It seems less of a slump, when a chap is down on his luck, than to go in for scrubbing or for section-gang hustling. There ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... you L. Stephen's letter which is certainly very kind and jolly to get[14]. I wrote some stuff about Lord Lytton, but I had not the heart to submit it to you. I sent it direct to Morley, with a Spartan billet. God knows it is bad enough; but it cost me labour incredible. I was so out of the vein, it would have made you weep to see me digging the rubbish out of my seven wits with groanings unutterable. I certainly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... many useful hours: Madame Elizabeth was at prayers meanwhile; the queen was making pleasant parties with her ladies; Monsieur the Count d'Artois was learning to dance on the tightrope; and Monsieur de Provence was cultivating l'eloquence du billet and studying ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... after a hard spell in the trenches is withdrawn to some shell torn village behind his lines to rest. He enters the ruined house, that forms his billet, and with a sigh of contentment at reaching such luxury after the miseries of trench life prepares to sleep in peace. He dreams of home, and then out of the night comes the terror ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... An American baby would have screamed and sunk, but Chin-Fan was not American, and so he did nothing of the sort. He dropped all thoughts of the strange baby, and considered nobody but himself; he managed to get hold of the billet of wood to which his cord was fastened, and by holding on firmly he kept his head out of water. The current of the river carried him along, and very luckily it carried him to where a ship was anchored, with her great cable sloping down the stream. He struck against this cable, and ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... company; the poor child could not rise to-day for want of a fire.' The truth is, that the Cardinal (Mazarin) for six months together had not ordered her any money towards her pension; that no tradespeople would trust her for anything and there was not at her lodgings a single billet. You will do me the justice to think that the princess of England did not keep her bed the next day for want of a faggot... Posterity will hardly believe that a princess of England, grand-daughter to Henry the Great, hath wanted a faggot in the month of January, in the Louvre, and in the eyes ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... whom we knew at Paris, told me several delightful anecdotes of Josephine: he was attached to her household, and high in her confidence. Napoleon sent him on the very morning of his second nuptials, with a message and billet to the ex-empress. On hearing that the ceremony was performed which had passed her sceptre into the hands of the proud, cold-hearted Austrian, the feelings of the woman overcame every other. She burst into tears, and wringing ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... remember, when two or more are travelling together, to present the tickets of the whole party at the luggage department, otherwise the luggage will be treated as belonging to one person, and thus it will probably be overweight. Another advantage of having the entire number of the party on the "Billet de Bagage" is that, in case of one or other losing their carriage tickets, this will prove the accident to the stationmaster (chef-de-Gare) and satisfy him. If, after having purchased a ticket, the train is missed, that ticket, to be available for the next train, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... come to the inn—and the night-scene which had followed, was apologizing to the owner of No. 5,—when, to his great alarm the church clock struck eleven. 'Nine,' he remembered, was the hour fixed by the billet: and the more offence he might have given to the princess by his absurdities over-night, of which he had some obscure recollection, so much the more necessary was it that he should keep the appointment. The botanic garden was two miles off: so, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... had digged for their innocent, unoffending neighbours; and his mercy, in preserving those whom he employed as the Executioners of his vengeance on his Enemies. Not a Soldier or Yeoman was so much as slightly wounded! One Soldier indeed who had not left his billet, they hung with a sheet; but being soon ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... entered I saw at once, from his dress and his address, that he was a 'scamp;' and thought it highly inexpedient to place you in his power by any money transactions. While talking with him, Sharp sent in a billet containing his recognition of our gentleman as a ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Isopel was seated near the fire, over which the kettle was now hung; she had changed her dress—no signs of the dust and fatigue of her late excursion remained; she had just added to the fire a small billet of wood, two or three of which I had left beside it; the fire cracked, and a sweet odour ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... ago and, I understand, took offense at my continued absence from her side, and went back to England. This is what she left for me;" and plunging his hand into his breast pocket he selected from his note-case a fragrant little billet-doux, formally desiring Dr. Gardner to explain his strange conduct at his leisure—that the next opportunity granted him of seeing Evelyn Howard must be of his ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... 5 o'clock P.M.—I have finish'd my stent of sewing work for this day & wrote a billet to Miss Caty Vans, a copy of which I shall write on the next page. To-morrow if the weather is fit I am to visit. I have again been told I was a good girl. My Billet to Miss Vans was in the following words. ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... all the way from the convent of St. Maurice. Napoleon conversed freely with the young man, and was much interested with his simplicity. At parting, he asked the guide some particulars about his personal situation; and, having heard his reply, gave him money and a billet to the head of the monastery of St. Maurice. The peasant delivered it accordingly, and was surprised to find that, in consequence of a scrap of writing which he could not read, his worldly comforts were to be permanently increased. The object of his generosity ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... appeared to him. His step woke the echoes of the silent streets, but he met no one until he came to the shop of a weaver, who was still at work. From him he inquired his way to the mayor's house, and the way-worn recruit soon found himself seated in the porch of that establishment, waiting for the billet he had asked for. Instead of receiving it at once, he was summoned to the mayor's presence, where he found himself the object of minute observation. The young man was good-looking, and belonged, evidently, to a distinguished family. His air ...
— The Recruit • Honore de Balzac
... Khita, en guise de monnaie, des morceaux d'un papier de forme allongee fabrique avec des filaments de muriers sur lesquels est imprime le nom de l'empereur. Lorsqu'un de ces papiers est use, on le porte aux officiers du prince et, moyennant une perte minime, on recoit un autre billet en echange, ainsi que cela a lieu dans nos hotels des monnaies, pour les matieres d'or et d'argent que l'on y porte pour etre converties ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... with which her wounds had been inflicted still sticking in her side. The two girls Julia and Emma, who had recovered sufficiently to be able to talk yesterday morning, declare that their father knocked them down with a billet of wood and stamped on them. They think they were the first attacked. They further state that Hopkins had shown evidence of derangement all day, but had exhibited no violence. He flew into a passion and attempted to murder them because ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... year. Our travellers passed many scattered forests, some of which were seen clinging to the mountain sides, at a vast elevation above them. In others men were at work felling trees or cutting up the wood. Rollo stopped at one of these places and procured a small billet of the Alpine wood, as large as he could conveniently carry in his pocket, intending to have something made from it when he should get home to America. The woodman, at Henry's request, cut out this billet of wood for ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... too good for the successful espada and the idol of the moment. Even the dignified sombra shouts itself hoarse, and at times showers bank-notes and jewellery down, and perhaps—let it be whispered low, for it is not unknown!—a billet-doux or papelito for the brave torero from some newly-created female admirer. Grave gentlemen in frock-coats and ladies in elegant attire, on the one hand, discuss the points of the entertainment, whilst the red serapes of the peones and pelados and their great ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... turned, and saw the gallant guardsman, who had so much interested our party on the night before. But he received my salutation with a gravity which instantly put an end to my good-humour; and I waited for the denouement, at his pleasure. He produced a small billet from his pocket, which I opened, and which, on glancing my eye over it, appeared to me a complete rhapsody. I begged of him to read it, and indulge me with an explanation. He read it, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... early hours of the following day, and soon had commenced their first route march into the battle-ways of France, and, incidentally, at the first resting place, Mouflers, made cheerily light of what was their first experience of faulty billeting arrangements. One billet, for 150 men, at the Folie Auberge was uninhabitable, and the appearance of the billets in general was greeted with good-natured growls of amazement and disgust. The weather, however, was mild and sunny, and ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... with the lightning change of mood characteristic of him. "You must forgive me for being a bit touchy, old chap. It's this infernal thundery weather. May I have another drink?" He helped himself without waiting for permission. "Of course I want to be taken seriously. It's a billet that would suit me down to the ground. I know the place, every inch of it, and, as you know, I'm fond of it. I would look after your interests as ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Pasha? When was it—'87—'88—'89 that Stanley went and rescued him? Perhaps you recall what was then described as Emin's ingratitude after the event? British government offered him a billet. Khedive of Egypt cabled him the promise of a job, all on Stanley's recommendation. Emin turned 'em all down and accepted a job from the Germans. Nobody understood it at the time. My own idea is that Emin thought he knew more or less where that hoard is. He didn't really want to come away with Stanley, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... been attracted by newspaper work, and had found his first billet on a Western journal of the type whose society column consists of such items as "Jim Thompson was to town yesterday with a bunch of other cheap skates. We take this opportunity of once more informing Jim that he is a liar and a skunk," and whose editor works with a pistol ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... and blows were rained so fast and fierce upon him, that he was unable to defend himself. Knocked down and terribly mangled, he was dragged with savage brutality over the rough pavement, and swung from side to side like a billet of wood, till the large, powerful body was a mass of gore, and the face beaten to a pumice. The helpless but still animate form would then be left awhile in the street, while the crowd, as it swayed to ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... are "crown and anchor", which is a dice game, and "pontoon", which is a card game similar to "twenty-one" or "seven and a half." Most of these are mildly discouraged by the authorities, "house" being the exception. But in any estaminet in a billet town you'll find one or all of them in progress all the time. The winner usually spends his winnings for beer, so the money all goes the same ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... with ease bend apart the heavy iron bars of the prison, was led out with others to summary execution. "Every bullet has its billet," runs the proverb. All the merit of proverbs consists in the concise and picturesque expression. In the surprise of our minds is found their persuasiveness. In other words, we are struck and convinced ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... walk, Aurelia was surprised by the tidings that Mistress Phoebe Treforth had come to call on her, and had left a billet. The said billet was secured with floss silk sealed down in the antiquated fashion, and was written on full-sized quarto paper. These were ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this letter to Walsingham, who, though much concerned, could not forbid his sending it. 'Poor lad,' he said to the tutor; ''tis an excellently writ billet for one so young. I would it were in a wiser cause. But he has fairly the bit between his teeth, and there is no checking him while he has this show of right on ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... household word—or perhaps one should say a trench-hold word. Who is ever the worse for a laugh? Certainly not the soldier in trench or dug-out or shell-swept billet. Rather may it be said that the Bairnsfather laughter has acted in thousands of cases as an antidote to the bane of depression. It is the good fortune of the British Army to possess such an antidote, and the ill-fortune ...
— Fragments From France • Captain Bruce Bairnsfather
... Pierce, submitted to arrest, for the officer, Cantrelle, who accosted him, put his gun in the young man's face ready to blow his brains out if he moved. The other colored man, Charles, was made the victim of a savage attack by Officer Mora, who used a billet and then drew a gun and tried to kill Charles. Charles drew his gun nearly as quickly as the policeman, and began a duel in the street, in which both participants were shot. The policeman got the worst of the duel, and fell ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... he complained of.... One difficulty still remain'd,—which was to get the chiefs of the King's friends, who were in France, advertised of this, which the Cardinal desired me to undertake. The Earl Marischal had brought with him from the Duke of Ormonde a little billet containing these words—"Pray have entire confidence in the bearer," and signed Ormond, to be given to him who should be sent; and with this and about 18,000 crowns, I set out from Madrid the 19 of February,[74] and three days after arrived at St. Sebastian, where I deliver'd 12,000 ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... term of service has expired. If he re-enlists and has shown aptitude for the service, he is sent to Washington navy yard for a course of six months' instruction in gunnery and special branches, such as electricity and torpedoes. He becomes a seaman gunner, with the billet and pay of a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... This curious billet was the production of the hunter's eldest son, and is meant to intimate that if I would buy the mocassins the price was one dollar, or an order on one of the stores for four yards of calico; for so the squaw interpreted its meaning. The order for four yards of printed cotton was delivered ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... sitting here to listen to any yarns of yours, Tom Craig. Well, as might have been expected, this old scientific fellow, Colonel Maclean, takes a fancy to the girl and asks her to take the billet of secretary to him. She took it—took it to help the old father who was getting shakier and shakier every day, and wanted all sorts ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... things. But it would never do for me to tell you what Ralph did? Whether he put the letter into his bosom or not, he put the words into his heart, and, metaphorically speaking, he shook that little blue billet, written or coarse foolscap paper—he shook that little letter full of confidence, in the face and eyes of all the calamities that haunted him. If Hannah believed in him, the whole world might distrust him. When Hannah was in one scale and the whole world in the other, of what ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... of shots, but sent in under such conditions that they failed to find a billet, and were wasted. Those who fired were possibly more concerned about their own safety just then, than the chances of cutting down any of ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... fall of a billet of wood on the deck of the Feu-Follet gave the first intimation that any one was stirring in or near the haven. If there had been a watch on board that craft throughout the night—and doubtless ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... five Brothers had reported back to their billet for duty, and while they were in the dugout, detailing over again some of their experiences at the mill, ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... There's a billet-doux for you! As for the father, I think he ought to be encouraged; and for the daughter—pray, my Lord, persuade your bride to take her into her service ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... glittering serpent, the glitter of their muskets flashing back yonder on the afternoon sun and us, as they mount from hollow to height. Ten or twelve thousand of them; making for Striegau, to appearance. Intending to bivouac or billet there, and keep some kind of watch over us; belike with an eye to being rear-guard, on the retreat towards Breslau to-morrow? Or will they retreat without attempting mischief? Serenity of Weissenfels engages to seize the heights and proper posts, over yonder, this night yet; and will take Striegau ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... free quarters for the officers were demanded of the city. Upon its being objected to by the authorities of the city, as contrary to the laws of England and the liberties of America, the Viceroy, Loudoun, replied to the Mayor with an oath, "If you do not billet my officers upon free quarters this day, I'll order here all the troops in North America under my command, and billet them myself upon the city." "So," says Bancroft, "the magistrates got up a subscription, and the officers, who had done nothing for the country but waste its resources, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... that he would obey. He gave such an answer as became him, and was informed that his services were no longer needed. The interest which his many noble and amiable qualities inspired was heightened when it was known that he had received by the post an anonymous billet telling him that, if he did not promptly comply with the King's wishes, all his wit and popularity should not save him from assassination. A similar warning was sent to Shrewsbury. Threatening letters were then much more rare ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of trade; but I took a more humble theme at Aylesbury, when I informed that august body that the quarters assigned to her Majesty's Judges were such that an officer would hardly think them good enough to billet soldiers in. ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... privet, of white wings, That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide, With muffled music, murmured far and wide! Ah, Spring time, when we think of all the lays That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays, Of the fond hearts within a billet bound, Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound, The messages of love that mortals write Filled with intoxication of delight, Written in April, and before the May time Shredded and flown, play things for the wind's play-time, We dream that all white butterflies ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... Water Street, and showed him the Crooked Billet,—a house where he might be accommodated. Benjamin thanked him for his kindness, entered the house, and called for dinner and a room. While sitting at the dinner-table, his host asked, ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... young man returned home and waited all the evening and all the next day without getting any message. It was only on the following day, at about ten o'clock in the morning, as he was starting to call on M. Deschamps, the notary, that he received from the postman a small billet, which he knew to be from Valentine, although he had not before seen her writing. It was ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
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