"Kerb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... walk the opposite kerb as though it were a tight-rope. Save for a certain disorder of attire, a protruding necktie and a muddy hat, he was respectable enough. He was young and, under other conditions, passably good looking. But with his fair hair streaming over his forehead and his hat at the back of his head he lacked ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... to the kerb; Ashton banged open the door and got in. Micky followed, and they drove ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... crossed the courtyard and sat down on the kerb; his head swam and he felt along his legs with shaking hands. A belated fruit seller went by, and he bought a handful of dates, stuck on a small rod and looking like immense beetles, and as he ate his confidence in life gradually returned. The Joss was at a safe distance in his ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... look of them—he stepping from the kerb and she following him round the edge of the big building brims me with wonder—floods me anew. Mysterious figures! Mother and son. Who are you? Why do you walk down the street? Where to-night will you sleep, and then, to-morrow? Oh, how it ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... dark when we turned into the Place d'Armes and drew up before the long, grey Hotel de la Poste. I jumped out and stood by the kerb ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... in the mood for any desperate leap into the Unknown. Such was her unconscious thought as she crunched a spray of verbena in her fingers and inhaled the scent which had always a faintly heady effect upon her imagination. She was leaning on the stone kerb of the balustrade, vague emotions stirring her, when she heard McKeith's step on the gravel. Presently he stood beside her, his tall form, in the well-cut evening suit which always became him best, towering ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... stemmed a pushful policeman. I didn't notice he was a policeman until he was biting the dust, with my stick between his legs. However an instantaneous application of palm-oil made it all right between us, and he squatted half-stunned on the kerb, nursing his brow with one hand, my five bob with the other and took no further interest in the proceedings. And very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... to describe to you exactly how Herbert looked. But shame, defiance and unconcern were the principal ingredients in his expression as he stood on the kerb ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... proceeded down the path, through the gates and out into the street. A neat brougham was drawn up alongside the kerb, and towards this she made her way. I opened the door and held it for her to get in. But before she did so she turned to me and stretched ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... only her own friends, but those of her fellow-boarders, so that from an early hour the rooms began to fill, and by nine o'clock there was hardly space for the dancers. Hansoms and growlers rattled up in a continuous stream and discharged their burdens. There was a carpet down from the kerb to the head of the lodging-house steps, "like r'yalty," as the cook expressed it, and the greengrocer's man in the hall looked so pompous and inflated in his gorgeous attire that his own cabbages would hardly have recognized him. His main defect as a footman ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... such preparations being in the slow, unwieldy vehicle which crunched its way towards him; but he would not give in to the weakness. Neither would he walk down the street to meet the waggon, lest she should not be there. At last the broad wheels drew up against the kerb, the waggoner with his white smock-frock, and whip as long as a fishing-line, descended from the pony on which he rode alongside, and the six broad-chested horses backed from their collars and shook themselves. In another moment something ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... past, crawling dejectedly homeward. The driver checked his gaunt horse at the sight of Colwyn standing on the kerb-stone, and raised an interrogative whip. He added a vocal appeal for hire based on the incredible assumption that a man must live, which he proclaimed with a whip elevated to the sodden heavens, ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Moppleton, a barber, in such manner as to render him incapable of pursuing his ordinary avocations, and being chargeable on the parish infirmary; besides sundry and divers damage to carpets, crockery, glass, doorposts, kerb-stones, and the jacket of the aforesaid C. Prog. On the whole, when I arose from my bed and stepped once more into the outer world, I found myself ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... three on the kerb-stone; they had presented themselves before the lamp, because they thought it was the street-lamp who gave away the office; the one of these three was a herring's head, for it shines in the dark, and it thought that it could be of great service, ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... impact threw him right over the handle-bars, and he landed in a huddled heap on his hands and knees in the gutter. The machine flew in half, and the front portion careered madly away by itself till stopped by the kerb. ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... right nor wrong to it. She left her money to me when she died. I used always to go and see her for decency's sake. I had so much to do before night that I didn't know where to begin. I felt inclined to sit down on the kerb and hold my head in my hands. It was as if an engine had been started going under my skull. Finally I sat down in the first cab that came along and it was a hard matter to keep on sitting there I can tell you, while we rolled ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... town was jolted with surprise at finding a new business in full operation on one of the chief sites on Main Street. The new Catteline-Harvard car was standing at the kerb before the door, shrieking its newness. A great sign over the door told the world at large, and in no uncertain manner, that the Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation was doing business below. The two windows were a dainty display of the show-card writers' ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... both got over our excitement and were sitting decorously drinking tea, when the judge drew the greys up to the gate, and we both went out to the kerb to ask him and the lovely long lady to come in. They couldn't; but we stood and talked to them long enough for Mrs. Johnson to get a good look at us from across the street, and I was afraid I should find Aunt Adeline in a faint when I ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to the kerb, and Rolleston stopped short, as Calton sprang out directly in front of him. Madge lay back in the cab and pulled down her veil, not wishing to be recognised by Felix, as she knew that if he did it would soon be all over ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... The kerb was removed during the Second Empire. Moreover it is admitted that no faith should be put in such traditions. G. de Cougny, Charles VII et Jeanne d'Arc a Chinon, Tours, 1877, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... plashing of the rain. I peered through the streaming glass of the windows but could distinguish nothing save the yellow blur of a lamp. Then a vehicle of some kind seemed to move away in front of us, for I heard the grating of wheels against the kerb, and my cab ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... "to find one's own second sister mixed up in a strike, and that's what it's come to last week. They've struck, all the International waitresses have struck, and last night in Piccadilly they were standing on the kerb and picketing and her among them. With a crowd cheering.... And me ready to give my right hand to keep that ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... high evening dress. I noted swiftly that she had violets in her toque. Her beauty, her rare daintiness compelled a stupefied silence. I sped towards the door and went with her into the street. A closed carriage stood by the kerb. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... that she was French—exceedingly French—and he preferred English beauty, as a rule. But, French or English, beauty is beauty, and here undeniably was a perfect type, so he unhesitatingly sprang to her assistance and piloted her safely to the kerb, revelling in her voluble thanks and tingling as she clung timidly but rather firmly ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... affected to be delivering the incoherent messages of inspiration when they were merely trying to pronounce "The scenery is truly rural" in choice Arabic, and who accounted for the black eye contracted by collision with the kerb by a highly-coloured narrative of an engagement in mid-air with an emissary of Sheitan. Neither did I accord any pleased attention to anecdotes of a "lella," or Arab lady, who tempted the Scorpions to charge ten ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... supper tonite i asked what wild time was and aunt Sarah said it must be what father and Gim Melcher used to have. then we all laffed and father told aunt Sarah she was geting so funny that she wood have to wear a kerb bit and a martingail. ennyway it was a good ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... of Haunaunau, the City of Refuge for western Hawaii. In this district there is a lava road ascribed to Umi, a legendary king, who is said to have lived 500 years ago. It is very perfect, well defined on both sides with kerb-stones, and greatly resembles the chariot ways in Pompeii. Near it are several structures formed of four stones, three being set upright, and the fourth forming the roof. In a northerly direction is the place where Liholiho, the king who died ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... at the corner of the Rue de Charonne the shops were closed. Two lines of soldiers extended on either side of the street of the Faubourg on the kerb of the pavement; the soldiers were stationed at every five paces, with the butts of their muskets resting on their hips, their chests drawn in, their right hand on the trigger, ready to bring to the present, keeping silence in the ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... sufficiently on the summit—there are a trifle of fifty- eight floors, but an express lift makes nothing of them—I continued the implacable career of the tripper by watching for a while the deafening kerb market, which presented on that morning an odd appearance, more like Yarmouth beach than a financial centre, for there had been rain, and all the street operators were in sou'westers and sea-boots. There can be ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... past him up the stairs, and so left the hall and the open doorway clear. Whittington looked now straight through the doorway, and saw the carriage and the lady on the point of stepping down onto the kerb. His face assumed a look of extreme surprise. Then he glanced up the staircase after Wogan and laughed as though the conjunction of the lady and Mr. Wogan was a rare piece of amusement. Mr. Wogan did not hear the laugh, but the lady did. She raised her head, and at ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... moment,' said Hugo; and he retreated to the kerb, in the expectation of being able to descry Camilla's light ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... house by the confused and noisy traffic of the roadway, and by the streaming throngs on the opposite pavement. And none of these people riding or driving or walking, and none of the people pushing past them on the pavement behind, guessed that here on the kerb was the future master of the Chichester, an amazing man, and that she, Hilda Lessways, by his side, was the woman to whom he had chosen first to relate his triumph! This unrecognised secrecy in the great animated ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... saluting sun, and flames superb As once he flamed it on his ocean round. The dingy dreariness of the picture-place, Turned very nearly bright, Takes on a certain dismal grace, And shows not all a scandal to the ground. The very blind man pottering on the kerb, Among the posies and the ostrich feathers And the rude voices touched with all the weathers Of all the varying year, Shares in the universal alms of light. The windows, with their fleeting, flickering fires, The height and ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... whimsical humourist. There are two stories in the regiment which reveal him in this light very nicely. He was once walking with a friend on the esplanade of some English seaside place, and the day was piping hot. Suddenly, without explanation of any kind, B.-P. sat himself down on the kerb, placed his billycock hat solemnly on his knees, and buried his face in a flaming red handkerchief. This unprecedented sight stirred the depths of the one and only policeman's heart, and he strode ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... they were not disappointed in their wish to see the Grand Old Man, for Mr. Garratt's shop does not boast of a back-door through which fame can escape its penalties. On coming out, Mr. Gladstone, looking, as a working man standing on the kerb expressed it, 'as straight as a new nail,' received quite an ovation, the people waving their hats and cheering vigorously as he drove away in a cab. Mr. Gladstone's marked catalogues are a familiar and a peculiarly welcome feature with second-hand booksellers, who proudly ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... the window, and Havill recognized the Power liveries. 'Hullo—she's coming here!' he said under his breath, as the carriage stopped by the kerb. 'What does she want, I wonder? Dare, does she ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... of the Court. A big car was standing by the kerb and one of the attendants was holding open the door for a girl dressed in black. They had a glimpse of a pale, sad face of extraordinary beauty, and then she disappeared behind the ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... her arm go and ran after it, while she stood waiting at the corner. In a moment he came back followed by the cab, which drew up by the kerb. He opened the door and she got in. He was preparing to follow her when she leaned forward and put ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens |
