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Billet   /bˈɪlət/  /bˈɪlɪt/   Listen
Billet

noun
1.
A short personal letter.  Synonyms: line, note, short letter.
2.
Lodging for military personnel (especially in a private home).
3.
A job in an organization.  Synonyms: berth, office, place, position, post, situation, spot.



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"Billet" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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

... 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 I offer you." ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... 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

... 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

... 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



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