"Back room" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... encrustations of mineral particles. Their number is exceedingly restricted and is usually limited to two. The front room, which is larger because the width of the passage goes on increasing, is the abode of a male, superior in size to the other sex; the less spacious back room contains a female. I have already drawn attention in an earlier chapter to the wonderful problem submitted for our consideration by this breaking up of the laying into couples and this alternation of the males and females. Without calling for other work than the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... was the back room of an all-night saloon in the slum quarter beyond the bridge. It was warm, stiflingly warm and close, after the outdoor blast and chill, and it reeked like a sty. Kellow kicked out a chair for me and drew up one for himself on ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... And Cousin Egbert always standing in with her. He's been another awful trial, refusing to play tennis at the country club, or to take up golf, or do any of those smart things, though I got him a beautiful lot of sticks. But no: when he isn't out in the hills, he'd rather sit down in that back room at the Silver Dollar saloon, playing cribbage all day with a lot of drunken loafers. But I'm so hoping that will be changed, now that I've made him see there are better things in life. Don't you really think ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... furloughs and ridden in from the Soldiers' Home for the express purpose of assuring him of their support, as the vindicator of their honor, wringing his hand and cheering on the fight. They retired with Cap into the back room and emerged shortly, beaming and refreshed. They had no votes to cast in the city, but ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... temporary lull in the rear, he started to meet his fate when Rodman Boynton followed him into the back room, and the boy was at once set to work by Patty, who was the most consummate slave-driver in the State of Maine. After half an hour there was another Heavensent chance, when Rodman went up to Uncle Bart's shop with a message for Waitstill, but, ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... In a back room upon the second floor the lad was explaining, not without considerable difficulty, to his grandmother that he had decided to return to England upon the next steamer. He was endeavoring to make it plain to the old lady that she might remain in Africa if she wished but that for his part ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in a lodging in the Clapham Road—a very clean back room, in a very respectable house—where I am expected not to be at home in the day-time, unless poorly; and which I usually leave in the morning at nine o'clock, on pretence of going to business. I ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... giving him the candle, pointed to the back room; then drowsily resumed her nest on the buffalo robe. Pepillo took the feeble light; nodded, but did not immediately follow directions. He set the candle down upon the floor in front of the bar, so that its faint flicker, unobserved by the woman, made objects ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... in the back room of the first floor that the jury had assembled. There on the narrow bed lay the mortal remains of the officer whose death-cry had startled the garrison so short a time before. Men and women had spoken with bated breath, with dread and horror on ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... order and neatness which bespeaks the superintendence of a notable English housewife. A group of amphibious-looking beings, who might be either fishermen or sailors, were regaling themselves in one of the boxes. As I was a visitor of rather higher pretensions, I was ushered into a little misshapen back room, having at least nine corners. It was lighted by a sky-light, furnished with antiquated leathern chairs, and ornamented with the portrait of a fat pig. It was evidently appropriated to particular customers, and I found a shabby ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... enough out he popped from the back room at that very instant. Katie looked at him, and he looked at Katie, and I seen his face get kind of hard; but he didn't say a word. And presently ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... drawing-room—found Flora, with eyebrows lifted up and smiling lips, listening to Sheila proclaiming the doctrine that it was impossible not to live 'on one's own.' Nothing else—Felix learned—was compatible with dignity, or even with peace of mind. She had, therefore, taken a back room high up in a back street, in which she was going to live perfectly well on ten shillings a week; and, having thirty-two pounds saved up, she would be all right for a year, after which she would be able to earn her living. The principle she purposed to keep before her eyes was that of committing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his stinging legs and wondered if there was anything beyond what he had suffered. He staggered to his feet and went to the house as limp as a rag. He did not seek his mother, but went straight up stairs and threw himself upon the bed in the back room, where he cried for half an hour, and finally ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... odor pervaded the air; insects and loathsome reptiles crept over the floor. On the opposite side of the hall were two apartments, but not enough of either remained to divine what had been their uses. In a small back room there yet was to be seen a great open fire-place capacious enough to roll in a good-sized tree; a swinging crane was bolted to the corner of the chimney, supporting hanging hooks, blackened by soot; it had doubtless been the kitchen. Having fully explored ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... lived in Philadelphia with her husband and younger children. General Howe's adjutant took up his quarters and secured a back room in which private councils could be held. Just before one of these my grandmother was told to retire early as the British officers would require the room at seven o'clock and would remain late. Lydia suspected that something against the patriot army was to take place. She ...
— History Plays for the Grammar Grades • Mary Ella Lyng
... of events ran as anyone familiar with the Barbary Coast might have prophesied. They returned to the boarding-house for supper and joined their fellows at the long table in the back room, and were waited on by Tom Mowbray's "runners." Mowbray himself, with his scared, lean wife and his wife's crippled brother, had a table apart from the men; as he ate he entertained himself by baiting the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... last Saturday, having in DICKY DIKES's words "broken the back of the blooming canvas." During my last night's round we went into a small house in one of the slums. The husband was out, but the wife and family were all gathered together in the back room. There were five children, ranging in age from ten down to two, and the mother looked the very picture of slatternly discomfort. We asked the usual questions, and I was just turning to go, when I heard a violent fit of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... supporting the body with the other. They were being rapidly carried away down the stream, when a boat which had been sent out, reached the almost exhausted boy. Paul and the unconscious boy were taken ashore and conveyed to the back room of a saloon where a doctor soon revived both. He then proposed that, some token of recognition should be presented by the assembled crowd to the brave little fellow who had made the rescue. Paul's hat was taken and soon filled to the brim with silver. Then the ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... I hastened to attend upon her will and pleasure, in the back room. I knew very well that it would make no difference whether I hurried or not; I should "have to take it" the moment she saw me. If I was in the barn, I ought to have been in the shop; if in the shop, then I should have been in the barn—unless she ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... here"—she took his hand in both of hers as she spoke—"used to know me, if you didn't, and spent a heap of money upon me. I reckon he spent all he had. And one day—it's six years ago this winter—Jim came into my back room, sat down on my sofy, like as you see him in that chair, and never moved again without help. He was struck all of a heap, and never seemed to know what ailed him. The doctors came and said as how it ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the schoolmaster to put the money in. He said he had a system for buying only the tickets with prime numbers, that won't divide by anything, and that it must win. He said it was a mathematical certainty, and he figured it out with the schoolmaster in the back room of a saloon, with a box of dominoes on the table to show the plan of it. He told the schoolmaster that he himself would only take ten per cent of what they made, as a commission for showing the system, and the schoolmaster could ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... likewise such a thoughtful woman, too—ah, poor soul—that a' minded every little thing that wanted tending. 'Yes,' says she, 'when I'm gone, and my last breath's blowed, look in the top drawer o' the chest in the back room by the window, and you'll find all my coffin clothes, a piece of flannel—that's to put under me, and the little piece is to put under my head; and my new stockings for my feet—they are folded alongside, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... rap at the door of Shirley's shop brought the four girls on the run from the back room, where they had been doing the last of ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... fallen asleep Edna bore him into the back room, and Robert went and lifted the mosquito bar that she might lay the child comfortably in his bed. The quadroon had vanished. When they emerged from the cottage Robert bade ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... faced about with a start as a low groan came from a corner of the back room. A man lay at full length on the floor, tied hand and foot, and gagged. It was Ed Nelson, one of the Double Arrow hands who had been surprised and captured by the posse, and a little farther away in the shadow against the wall his two companions lay in a like condition. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... back room, bending over a tub. It was washing-day, and she was particularly busy. She was a driving, bustling woman, and, whatever might be her faults of temper, she was at least industrious and energetic. Had Mr. Mudge been equally so, they would have been better off in a worldly point of view. But her ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... Neefit came to him. This was certainly a better arrangement. It was easier to talk of his own affairs sitting at ease in his own arm-chair, than to carry on the discussion among the various sporting garments which adorned Mr. Neefit's little back room, subject to interruption from customers, and possibly within the hearing of Mr. Waddle and Herr Bawwah. Neefit, seated at the end of the sofa in Ralph's comfortable room, looking out of his saucer eyes with all his energy, was ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... all I can make out is that you favour certain numbers and keep on winning. Now the ten of us game-owners have got together, and we want to make a friendly proposition. We'll put a roulette-table in a back room of the Elkhorn, pool the bank against you, and have you buck us. It will be all quiet and private. Just you and Shorty and us. ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... that was so much the better. She went to a pawnshop, and took off her finery in a back room. She was known by the people, and had a character for honesty, so she had no very great difficulty in inducing them to let her have a suit of outer clothes, befitting the wife of a working-man, a black silk bonnet, a printed gown, a plaid shawl, dirty and rather worn to be sure, but which had a ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak for this ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... stairs to a back room on the second floor of the house. Entering the room, they discovered through a thick cloud of tobacco smoke, a small, fat, bald-headed, dirty, old man, in an arm-chair, robed in a tattered flannel dressing-gown, with a short pipe in his mouth, a pug-dog on ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... ain't right well dis evenin'," he said, evasively, but when Sherman persisted he was ushered into a back room where sat the redoubtable captain, all the fierceness of his burnside whiskers, the austerity of his West Point manner, melted in the indignity of ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... from the outside, had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, till with the last words the speaker also entered the back room, where Esther and her father were standing. They were standing in the midst of packing-cases, of every size and shape, between which the shadows lay dark, while the faint lantern light just served to show the rough ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... been playing the part of a false friend, I'll block his little game. He seemed rather too anxious to take Diane away that night. And he'll bear watching for another reason—I'm almost certain that it was his voice I heard in the Jew's back room. Benjamin and Company, like charity, may cover a multitude of sins. Nevill was going a rapid pace when he was abroad, and he couldn't well have kept it up all these years on ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... brother George of the "Cyclopedia of American Literature," and author of "The War for the Union"; and Mrs. Botta, the Anne Lynch of earlier mention, had for a time a home there; and in the street Richard Watson Gilder dwelt later, and in No. 33, in a third-story back room, a young clerk named Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote his "Ballad of Babie Bell"; and there, at No. 84 which was the residence of Judge Daly, the African explorer Paul Du Chaillu wrote fiction and fact ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... rifle on his bed, in the back room, he cleared away all the little second-hand furniture with which the front room was decorated; packing the three rickety chairs together in one corner, and turning up the cracked round table in another. Then, untying a piece of cord which secured the mouth of the corn-sack, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... may have to leave you soon, my dear cousin. I want to talk to you a little. Is there any one in the back room?' As there is no one, he goes on, and asks his cousin to tell him about the title to Wyncote as he had promised. His brother was ill and uneasy, and it was all they had, and it was a poor thing after all. Your father roused up, and seemed to me to fully understand ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... joined them in the back room of the restaurant. When the coffee came Jerry rose to explain the purpose of the meeting. "Our problem," he began, "may amount to nothing at all. Or it could turn out to be mighty nasty. Hen and I thought it was time ...
— The Invaders • Benjamin Ferris
... Wetherley turned simultaneously toward the speaker. It was a young man, with clustering black hair and sparkling eyes, in a traveling dress. He stood in the back room, which he had ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... ornaments, small busts, or other personal things, with which a man crowds the room he really lives in; of course, I am speaking to those who make a den or working-room of their library, and not to those who fit a back room up with various tiers of shelving, on which are arranged a library of books which are seldom looked at, and where the room is only occasionally used, and that only for the purpose of a cloak-room on grand occasions. Above this lower nest of cupboards and shelving should be shelving ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... shop in the very house of which they had so often thought. There was the shop itself—a back room—and two others. They were small, to be sure, but convenient and well arranged; only she thought ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... disposal until the store was empty; she had a nervous feeling that they would all know what she was looking for. Slowly the group melted away, till there was no one left except the proprietor, who had gone into the back room to look after some seed corn, and Silas, the young farmer, who had thrown himself down into a chair to read his paper at his leisure, and was not noticing Lucyet. Eagerly she opened the printed sheet. She caught her breath in the joy ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... picked up a magazine and seated himself. It was twenty minutes ere Dick came out from that back room. Then the chums started out for ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... tinsmith and plumber, who ran his shop on the main street, rented me a back room over his store, for two dollars a week. It had been occupied by big Sam, the negro shoemaker, and it was neither in order, nor did it smell very sweet. But I cleaned and aired it, and sprinkled disinfectant about that I had ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... which hung from the archway between the back room and the front; and here her brow cleared. The one wide window looked out on a space of green grass and trees, inexpressibly refreshing to Lesley's eye. The walls were lined with rows of books, from floor to ceiling; and some easy chairs and small ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes when we are very hard put to it let in behind the counter with a corkscrew; but never when it can be helped, his demeanour towards the public being disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as to marry him, I don't know; but I suppose ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... violence of the wind, the walk was not only a comfortless, but most uncertain one. I had fortunately taken the right course, however, and succeeded, after a little difficulty, in finding the house to which I had been directed—a coal-shed, with one Storey above it, in the back room of which lay the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... night. On Saturday we killed Hogboom. That is, he killed himself. He got permission to go home over Sunday and retired to an upper back room in our house, very unostentatiously. He had already written to his operator chum, who had attended college just long enough to take away his respect for death, the integrity of the telegraph service and practically everything else. The result was that at nine o'clock ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... her mistress, as she phrased it (which means, assisted to undress her), and having seen her comfortably to bed in the back room on the first floor, withdrew to her own apartment, in the attic story. Notwithstanding her declaration in the locksmith's presence, she was in no mood for sleep; so, putting her light upon the table and withdrawing the little ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... expectin' youse. Go on in," and the fellow nodded toward a back room, the door of which stood partly open. Joe hesitated a moment, while the youth who had spoken to him went out and stood on the half-rotting steps. Then, deciding that, as he had come thus far, he might as well see the thing through, Joe started for ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... destruction of the monarchy, amounted in practice to nothing more offensive than a somewhat studious rudeness towards the few strangers of high position who from time to time visited the workshop in the Via dei Falegnami. In the back room of his inn, Marzio could find loud and cutting words in which to denounce the Government, the monarchy, the church, and the superiority of the aristocracy. In real fact, Marzio took off his hat when he met ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Elster knew, or any one else, indeed, excepting Jervis Whitney himself. When he had heard it, the young hunter, big with wonder and pity, leaned his rifle against the wall beside the doorway, and, treading the floor as lightly as were he walking on thin ice, followed his mother into a back room, which had been ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... big-boned, docile-looking kind of creature, probably the porter's wife—entered, followed by two other women, the last two wearing the same cut of prim black waist and skirt, and the same pattern of white wristlets and collar. We then carried the two soldiers upstairs to a back room, where the old servant had filled a kind of enamel dishpan with soapy water. Very gently and deftly the beefy old porter and his wife took off the fouled, blood-stained uniforms of the two fighting men, ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... could be, save for a faint gleam from the fanlight; but Frank could have gone blindfold, and dashing over the marble floor to the foot of the staircase, he bounded up two steps at a time, reached the door of the back room, beneath which shone a line of light, and turned the handle sharply. As he did so, there was a dull sound within, and the light ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... said needs no illustration—Bonamy kept on gently returning quiet answers and accumulating amazement at an existence squeezed and emasculated within a white satin shoe (Mrs. Durrant meanwhile enunciating strident politics with Sir Somebody in the back room) until the virginity of Clara's soul appeared to him candid; the depths unknown; and he would have brought out Jacob's name had he not begun to feel positively certain that Clara loved him—and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... that never rejoices!" he would say, at the conclusion of such a nightmare interview. "But I must get to my plew- stilts." And he would seclude himself as usual in his back room, and Archie go forth into the night and the city quivering with animosity ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it was evident that Mr. Blaisdell was in a most genial frame of mind, he fairly beamed on every one; but Houston, not waiting to meet him, made a hasty retreat into the back room, to decide quickly upon his course of action. Nearly a thousand plans occurred to him, but none seemed feasible. If Mr. Blaisdell were the only member of the firm present, he felt he would have little difficulty, but the presence of Mr. ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... in the back room, wistfully engrossed in an English magazine sent that evening from Bishop's Lodge. The bad blood in the son had not affected Dr. Methuen's keen but tactful interest in the mother. She looked up in tolerant consternation as her Oswald ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... quarters of the city, by which means he learnt the opinions of the people, and inspected the conduct of the police. One day in an excursion of this sort he passed by a cook's shop, and being hungry, stepped in to take some refreshment. He was, with seeming respect, conducted to a back room spread with flowered carpeting, over which was a covering of muslin transparently fine. Pulling off his slippers, he entered the room and sat down upon a neat musnud, but to his surprise and terror it instantly sunk under him, and he found himself ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... Planner than for any other object. Mr Planner only could give advice as to the alteration of the south wing of the hall: Mr Planner's taste must decide upon the internal embellishments: then there were private and mysterious conversations in the small back room—the parlour; nods and significant looks when they met and separated; and once, Michael called to see Planner after the hours of business, and whom should he discover in his room but Mr Bellamy himself, sitting in conclave with the schemer, and manifestly intent upon some serious matter. What was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... boy I know—he's a cousin of mine—with weak lungs. Rejected for the Army three times as totally unfit. For the last four years he's been living in a slum off Whitechapel and the people there love him. . . . He just walks in and planks down a pork chop in the back room; or a bottle of Basa, or something and has a talk to the woman . . . he's dying . . . but he's dying happy. . . . I couldn't do that; no more could you. . . . We should loathe it, and so we should be fools to attempt it. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... remaining an interval of two days before the time agreed upon for the departure of the Pickwickians to Dingley Dell, Mr. Weller sat himself down in a back room at the George and Vulture, after eating an early dinner, to muse on the best way of disposing of his time. It was a remarkably fine day; and he had not turned the matter over in his mind ten minutes, when he was suddenly stricken filial and affectionate; and it occurred to him ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... to the last opportunity, Long slipped through the back room and ascertained the outlook there. He was surprised at the result. Hardly a native was visible. It looked indeed as if they were working their way round to the front, and that some scheme of attack had been agreed upon by the leaders ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... to take place at any time within six months, and meanwhile the opponents industriously practise. The scene of the duel is usually the back room of some beer-hall, with locked doors between the duellists and the police. The latter know very well what is going on, but shut their eyes to it. The opponents take their places at about a yard and a half distance ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... twitched. "I bought it," he drawled. "I got so far all accordin' to prophecy. And I put it on a plate out in the back room where 'twas cold, intendin' to cook it ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... away. Robelot occupied a little house of three rooms, where he lived by himself; one of the rooms served as a shop, and was full of plants, dried herbs, grain, and other articles appertaining to his vocation as an herbist. He slept in the back room, which was better furnished than most country rooms. His body was placed upon the bed. Among the men who had brought it was the "drummer of the town," who was at the same time the grave-digger. This man, expert in everything pertaining ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... your daughter back, go yourself, alone and without telling a soul, to Enrico Albano's Saturday night at the twelfth hour. You must provide yourself with $10,000 in bills hidden in Saturday's Il Progresso Italiano. In the back room you will see a man sitting alone at a table. He will have a red flower on his coat. You are to say, "A fine opera is 'I Pagliacci.'" If he answers, "Not without Gennaro," lay the newspaper down on the table. He will pick it up, leaving his own, the Bolletino. On the third page ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... in the back room of the post-office when the other clerk was out for lunch; he tried elaborate and ornate bows upon Aunt Melvy, who considered even the mildest "reel chune" a direct communication from the devil. The moment the post-office closed ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... he exclaimed, 'to have to do with a literary man! You are large-minded, sir; you see things from an intellectual point of view. I can't tell you how it gratifies me, sir, to have made your acquaintance. Let us go into the back room.' ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... crossed the street, and went into a saloon. The men already there had watched the arrival of the hack and the two prisoners at the jail, and two of them, when they saw Nick coming, hurried into the back room, leaving the door open. ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... bottom one of the kindest-hearted creeters in the world, but embittered by strugglin' along alone, Arvilly opened the door and went in. She went through a little parlor into the back room, and wuzn't that a sight ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... dollarless again, and even Roland felt that Elizabeth could not be appealed to for some months at least. Denasia was facing the sorrowful hopes of motherhood. For three or four months she could not sing. They restricted themselves to a small back room in a Second Avenue boarding-house, and Roland searched the agencies and the papers daily for something suitable to his peculiar characteristics and capabilities, and found nothing. There was a great city full of people, but not one of them wanting the services ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... There was as yet no lightning move up on the chess board, and in vain he studied her resolute, smiling face. "All I can tell you," murmured Justine to her handsome Mentor, in the seclusion of Ram Lal's back room, "is that this Madame Berthe Louison comes to spend the day in looking over Hugh Johnstone's art treasures. Nadine and I are to meet her, with the master. Do you know aught ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... through the bar and into the back room, where a number of poker-games were in progress. For a moment he stood, his cold, ophidian glance circling the room until it came to rest on no less a personage than the Black Minorca, an individual with whom the reader has already had some slight acquaintance. ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... unharmed. Mansfield, accused of being a member of the anti-K.K.K. gang, was beaten unmercifully. While this was being done, two members of the gang returned to the house where they searched the back room (men slept in the front room, the women and children in the rear) to see if any adults were secreted there. The small boys under the bed said "Don't harm us, we're only children". After this outrage, done at the request of the mistress, the Huff family moved back ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... over in a few minutes. Mr. Frog scratched some figures on a flat stone. And then he went into the back room of his shop. ...
— The Tale of Brownie Beaver • Arthur Scott Bailey
... entered one of these dens of iniquity on such an errand needs to be told of the heartsickness that almost over-came them as they, for the first time, saw behind those painted windows or green blinds, or entered the little stifling "back room," or found their way down winding steps into the damp, dark cellars, and realized that into such places those they loved best were being landed, through the allurements of the brilliantly lighted drug-store, the fascinating billiard ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Rifle, for just then their elders entered the house, and closed and fastened the door before coming into the back room. ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... In the back room was old Captain Randall, squatting on the floor native fashion, fat and pale, naked to the waist, grey as a badger, and his eyes set with drink. His body was covered with grey hair and crawled over by flies; one was in the corner of his eye—he never heeded; and the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cigars as tardily as if he had had to cross a Rubicon in the back room. Two were lighted, and the Surgeon ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... gayly into Madame Cie's back room to have the dresses tried on, Madame Cie said, "You have a beautiful lace shawl, but it wants arranging; in five minutes I could astonish you with what I could do to ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... I said. There was a man killed last night in that back room upstairs. Shot in the head through the window. I heard the shot and investigated. His body lies ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... undisputed possession of the field. Anything to get away for five minutes from the heated atmosphere of the dancing-room; so it is generally advisable to propose "tea" to your partner as an excuse for a visit to the back room down stairs (probably Paterfamilias's study or the children's school-room on other days); and, once there, you will ask instructions as to whether "tea" shall this time take the form of "cup," or something-ade, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... the back room, which was the most extraordinary contrast to the front one, having only a plain deal table, and half-a-dozen kitchen chairs scattered about on a linoleum floor. At one end was an electric battery and a big magnet. ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... class in the world, he seldom allowed himself to be caught alone; but every night he held counsel with some of his followers at a certain respectable beer-garden where, in the summer-time, a long table in a quiet, half-screened corner was reserved for him and his followers, and in the winter a back room was given up for the same purpose. Here Stone transacted all the real business of his local organization, drinking beer, reviving strange-looking callers, and confining his own remarks to a grunted yes or no, or a brief direction. Every night at about nine-thirty ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... rang with a loud clang as Billy opened it, and when the children stepped inside the shop an old man with a black, curly beard and long black hair that seemed as if it had never been combed, came out from a back room. ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... of them that lead a double life by stopping in at the Family Liquor Store for a gin fizz or two after work hours, or going downtown after supper to play Kelly pool at the Temperance Billiard Parlours and drink steam beer, or getting in with the bunch that gathers in the back room of the Owl Cigar Store of an evening and tells these here suggestive stories. Not that he was hide-bound. If he felt the need for a shot of something he'd go into the United States Grill and have a glass of sherry and bitters brought to him at a table and eat a cracker with ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they begged, borrowed and built what ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... that desk by the drop-light. It seemed she could not read; nothing held her. She was irritable with Fleming, and then she would pet him piteously to make up. He was always gentle. He would watch her over his book as she walked up and down in the back room in the light between the dining-room curtains. If he saw I noticed, he'd look away and ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... originally only two rooms, extensive for those old days, but not sufficiently so for ours. One of these had therefore been enlarged, by throwing into it a back room and part of the entrance, and even then it was not long enough for the Baron's retainers, and at feast-time a wooden shed was built opposite, and up to the window, to continue, as it were, the apartment out of doors. ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... was cleared, and Miss Benson took Ruth into the sitting-room. There were only two sitting-rooms on the ground-floor, one behind the other. Out of the back room the kitchen opened, and for this reason the back parlour was used as the family sitting-room; or else, being, with its garden aspect, so much the pleasanter of the two, both Sally and Miss Benson would have appropriated it for Mr Benson's study. As it was, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... newspaper customers, the peanut and popcorn business and the transfer of the exclusive agencies he had arranged with the dailies of Des Moines and St. Louis. Two boys bought the business, backed by their fathers. A talk in the back room of the bank, with the cashier telling of Sam's record as a depositor, and the seven hundred dollars surplus clinched the deal. When it came to the deal with Freedom, Sam took him into the back room at the bank and showed his savings as he had shown them to ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... time. It shows ye'er in good thrim, an' it don't hur-rt him. They'se no wan to stop his pay. He goes up to th' cashier an' dhraws his forty-wan-sixty-six jus' th' same whether he's sick or well, an' whether he's pulled th' box reg-lar or has been playin' forty-fives in th' back room. But whin ye come to castin' aspersions on th' ar'rmy, be hivens, ye'll find that I can put me thumb on this showcase an' go over at ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... Dicey had made several trips to the little back room just off her sitting room as she talked with the promoter. Three times in the window had she waved a lighted lamp. Three times without success. But at the last "all right," she went into the room again. ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... casts of his work, and many curious things in the line of art. His servant greeted the callers and made them at home, expressing much regret at the absence of his master, who was "out of the city," etc. Meanwhile, Thorwaldsen was hard at it in a back room, to which only the elect were admitted. The King of Bavaria, a genuine artist himself in spirit, who spent much time in Rome, conceived a great admiration for Thorwaldsen. He walked into the atelier where the sculptor was at work one day and hung around his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... in nurseries; and strange fellowship of little wild things that strayed in now,—bees in summer, and squirrels in winter,—and brought the woods and fields with them under the old roof. Why, I think we should have missed it more than she would, if we had put her into some back room, and poked her sewing in at her, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... that winter, as I worked my way to the Coast, I wondered what the monthly mails were doing for the old man and whether to him and to his friends of those secluded valleys any better relief from the monotony of life had come than that offered by Paddy Dougan's back room. ...
— Michael McGrath, Postmaster • Ralph Connor
... midshipmen then went back to the tavern from which they had set off to fight the duel, and ordering a good dinner to be served in a back room, they amused themselves with killing flies, as they talked over the events of the day, and ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... book, while his sister led the new-comer into a back room, where a stout gentleman was frolicking with two little boys on the sofa, and a thin lady was just finishing the letter which she seemed to ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... fineness of soul and life, seen or unseen, must have existed in earlier generations to have produced this man, I noticed the in conspicuous sign over his door, P.T.B. Manouvrier, and as he led me at once into the back room I asked him playfully what such princely abundance ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... he had the right money, and departed; and Winthrop followed Mr. Forriner through a narrow entry cut off from the store, to a little back room, which was the first of the domestic premises. Here stood a table, and Mrs. Forriner; a hard-featured lady, in a muslin cap likewise hard-featured; there was a "not-give-in" look, very marked, in both, cap and lady. A look ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... occasionally to learn if any word had come from Plainville, but it was not until the afternoon of the fourth day that the fateful yellow envelope was handed in at the hotel. As it happened, Gardiner and Riles were present at the moment. They slipped into the back room and waited in a fever of expectation for Harris to ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... the close friend and champion of the other; but it was altogether different with Zeigler. Before his swelled lip and bulging nose had resumed their normal appearance, he resumed his petty persecutions as before. Those who knew of the bout in the back room (and, indeed, every clerk quickly learned the particulars) urged Tom to lay out his enemy so effectually that he ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... Lort at jerusalem. I did not much like going back, but the moment I recovered breath, I resolved not to make bad worse by staying longer away: but at the door of the room, I met Mrs. Thrale, who, asking me if I would have some water, took me into a back room, and burst into a hearty fit ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... out in the back room, and the Countess opened her door in answer to my knock, she looked so worn out and ill that I was alarmed. She had fallen asleep, she said, and my knock had wakened her. She ate little, and I could see that she was glad to go back and lie ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... lady laughed a little nervously. She hoped very much indeed that they could come to terms. She brought a chair from the back room, and Mr. Tolman sat down with her by the stove to talk it over. Few customers came in to interrupt them, and they talked the matter over very thoroughly. They both came to the conclusion that there would be no difficulty about terms, nor about ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... The back room, which, for nearly six long, weary weeks Laura had occupied on the second floor was characteristic of the place and the class of lodgers who lived there. For years the house had been falling into general ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... perspiration from his face, he turned the handle and found himself in a large, bare, carpetless room, with a table and a few chairs in the middle of it, a clock over the chimneypiece, a few directories piled up in one corner, and a bundle of circulars and wrappers in another; and a little back room screened off from the general observation with the word "private" on the door. Such was the impression formed in Reginald's mind by a single glance round ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... J. Goldstein no incongruities of time and place. Kent was the veteran of a dozen real-estate booms, during which he had drafted agreements at all hours of the day and night, improvising as his office the back room of a liquor saloon or the cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of any other writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief though binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... them at the head of the wharf, before they intimated that it would be well to consider a morning dram. To this end, they walked into a "Dutch corner shop," and passing into the back room, gave sundry insinuations that could not be misunderstood. "Well! come, who pays the shot?" said Dunn, stepping up to the counter, and crooking his finger upon his nose at a dumpling-faced Dutchman, who stood behind the counter, waiting for his man to name it. The Dutchman was very ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... on, however, and no one came so soon as Helen had expected. She was sitting in a back room where no knocks at the door could be heard; but she would have been called, surely, if General Clarendon had come. He had come, but he had not asked for her; he had at first inquired only for his sister, but she was ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... circumstances to add to their scanty stock of furniture. The dining-table and mahogany chairs bought second-hand in Dr. Luttrell's bachelor days and the small, ugly chiffonier had been moved into the smaller and duller back room, and the front parlour had been transformed into a dainty sitting-room. Greta's skilful fingers and good taste had been placed at her friend's service. To gratify Marcus's love of comfort two really handsome saddle-back chairs were beside the fireplace, and ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... even made a few suggestions, as Wilmet explained how she thought of making a sitting-room upstairs, and giving the two downstairs front ones to Mr. Audley, using the back room for the boys and children; she was altogether so much more open to comprehension, and ready to speak, that Wilmet was full of hope and assurance that ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as you like about that," returned Hiram, and he walked into the back room, took off his apron, and got into ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... Plover's of a morning, in company with a Peer, a Bishop, a parliamentary orator, two blue ladies of fashion, a popular preacher, the author of the last new novel, and the very latest lion imported from Egypt or from America: and would quit this distinguished society for the back room at the newspaper office, where pens and ink and the wet proof-sheets were awaiting him. Here would be Finucane, the sub-editor, with the last news from the Row: and Shandon would come in presently, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and there in a little back room behind a plate-cluttered table with a red and white checkered table cloth, we found the Major. The Major said he spoke the English with the fluency. He demonstrated his delusion when we asked ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons |
