"Hansom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sound of Broadway had changed subtly, with the coming of the September dusk. The quick-pacing people had given way to the clop-clop-clop of hansom-cabs, and the tram-cars with their tired horses came less frequently now. One felt that a giant had been at work all day, and was now stretching himself, not lazily, but a little relaxingly. Soon the great lamps would flare, and the crowds would be going to the playhouses: ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... to his own room, where for the next few minutes he could be heard bustling Harrison, the clerk, to make haste; then a hansom was whistled for, there were footsteps down the old stairs, the sounds of a departing vehicle on the uneven stones, and after that silence ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... up his umbrella, and from under it, the next moment, he saw the Captain waving two fingers at him out of the front of a hansom. When he returned to his hotel he found on his table a letter superscribed in Gordon Wright's hand. ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... shopping. Malcolm had promised to be there at the same time, and they would all go back together to Queen's Gate for the remainder of the day. It so happened that Mrs. Richardson had planned one of her favourite shopping expeditions for the same day, and in the course of the afternoon the hansom she had chartered drew up at a shop exactly opposite the gallery, where at that very moment Anna, Cedric, and Malcolm were coming down the staircase to join Mrs. Herrick, who was waiting for them in ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... residence. But, realizing the probability of "shadow" work upon all who came from the door of the club, after the curious message on the wire, Shirley did not propose to expose his hand. Walking leisurely to the Avenue, he hailed a passing hansom. He directed the driver to carry him to an address on Central Park West. His shrewdness was not wasted, for as he stepped into the vehicle, he espied a slinking figure crossing the street diagonally before him, to disappear ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... the gratifying cortege which he pictured in his dreams, a hansom cab or a motorcycle could quite easily have conveyed all the sorrowing employees of the Bartlesville Tool Works who voluntarily would have followed its president to ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... good-night, and shut Mildred into the warm, lighted hall, and ran down the steps, and hailed a passing hansom, and was driven back to Chilworth Street. It had rained, and the heat, excessive for April, had abated, and the wise, experienced stars looked down between drifting veils of greyish vapour upon the little human lives ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... is the funniest building I ever saw," he exclaimed. "It looks as if it was built up of sentry-boxes, and Hansom's cabs, and dovecots, and windmills, and pig-sties, and all sorts of other things. It was built, I see, by Ivan the Cruel, and it is said that he was so pleased with its strangeness that he put out the eyes of the unfortunate architect, to prevent his ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... are more comfortable than the hansoms were. But the old hansom was very good for seeing in the streets, as the driver was behind and not in front of you. The four-wheel horse cabs seem very slow to us now, but they carried more luggage than the taxi-cabs can. Some of us think ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... enter again into English life. I found in Curzon Street another "Nouvelle Athènes," a Bohemianism of titles that went back to the Conquest, a Bohemianism of the ten sovereigns always jingling in the trousers pocket, of scrupulous cleanliness, of hansom cabs, of ladies' pet names; of triumphant champagne, of debts, gaslight, supper-parties, morning light, coaching; a fabulous Bohemianism; a Bohemianism of eternal hard-upishness and eternal squandering of money,—money that ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... much in that way. Then the door was opened, and Lord Fawn was announced. It was not at all unusual with Lord Fawn to call on the widow at this hour. Mount Street is not exactly in the way from the India Office to the House of Lords; but a Hansom cab can make it almost in the way. Of neglect of official duty Lord Fawn was never guilty; but a half hour for private business or for relaxation between one stage of duty and another,—can any Minister grudge so much to an indefatigable follower? Lady Eustace had been in tears ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... said a sharp voice behind the man as the hansom drove away. Letty Tressady, elaborately dressed, with a huge white hat and lace parasol, was standing on the stairs, her pale face peering out of the shadows. The butler handed her the card, and telling him to get her a cab at once, she ran up again ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... was time for the girls to return to school. They took a hansom, Bob accompanying them. As they drove, Laura sitting sandwiched between the other two, it came over her with a rush what a miserable failure the day had been. A minute before, her spirits had given a faint flicker, for Bob had laid his arm ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... in obeying Dolly's summons, and it was with an exhilaration a little tempered by a nervousness to which he was not usually subject that he leaped into the dipping and lurching hansom that was to carry him to Kensington ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... spectacle once seen, Phil dashed into the street, hailed a hansom, and drove pell-mell, exciting the cabman who conducted him by the promise of a double fare, to the residence of old Brown and old Brown's daughter. There he told the glorious news, a little broken and halting in his speech. ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... to see Frank Danton's friendly face, and to listen to his friendly voice, commanding as one who had the right. Rose had her hat and shawl on directly, and, with baby in her arms, followed him down stairs. A hansom stood waiting. He helped her in, gave the cabman his orders, took his place beside ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... 1825 from the Fr. cabriolet, derived from cabriole, implying a bounding motion), a form of horsed vehicle for passengers either with two ("hansom") or four wheels ("four-wheeler" or "growler"), introduced into London as the cabriolet de place, from Paris in 1820 (see CARRIAGE). Other vehicles plying for hire and driven by mechanical means are included in the definition of the word "cab" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Thirty-fourth Street were too many and too perplexing; for the first time in his life Hedger took a hansom cab for Washington Square. Caesar sat bolt upright on the worn leather cushion beside him, and they jogged off, looking down on the ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... becomes the mermaid's haunt; her back hair flies and dries in the wind, and disturbs the peace of the too susceptible Punch. She is a little amazon pour rire, and rides across country, and drives (even a hansom sometimes, with a pair of magnificent young whiskerandoes smoking their costly cigars inside); she is a toxophilite, and her arrow sticks, for it is barbed with innocent seduction, and her bull's-eye is ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... My hansom here completely stuck; No chance to catch my train, worse luck! I sit and wonder: Why should the roads be up in May? Who muddles matters in this way, With ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... ago," my well-beloved remarked. "Do you recollect when Short went to London in a hansom and brought you down at ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... of those moments of grown-up confidence which are so tremendously impressive to the child's mind, that he was buried there because he was a "good and great man." Later, on an anniversary, she was taken by her mother through the fog in a hansom cab, and given a large bunch of bright, sweet-scented flowers to lay upon his tomb. The candles in the church, the singing and the booming of the organ, were all, she thought, in his honor. Again and again she was brought down into the drawing-room to receive the blessing ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... be sure!" said Mr Gregory grimly, and with a sarcastic smile. "Widgeon, run round the corner and call a couple of hansom cabs." ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... for finding cabs; it was the hour of the scavenger and no other being; and Rachel walked into broad sunlight before she spied a solitary hansom. It was then she did the strangest thing; instead of driving straight back for her trunk, when near the house she gave the cabman other directions, subsequently stopping him at one with a ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... returned home thinking of his play. The sunset still glittering in the skies; the bare trees were beautifully distinct on the blue background of the suburban street, and at the end of the long perspective, a 'bus and a hansom could be seen coming towards him. As they grew larger, his thoughts defined themselves, and the distressing problem of his fourth act seemed to solve itself. That very evening he would sketch out a new dramatic movement around which ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... accident of a peculiarly painful character is reported from King William Street. About eleven o'clock last night a young man was observed while endeavouring to get out of the way of a hansom to slip and fall under the wheels of a heavy, two-horse dray. On being picked up his injuries were found to be of the most shocking character, and he expired while being conveyed to the hospital. An examination ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... book is quite up to the level of the high standard which Mr. Hume has set for himself in 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' and 'The Rainbow Feather.' It is a brilliant, stirring adventure, showing the author's prodigious inventiveness, his well of ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... "come along." And in a few minutes more they were rolling along in a hansom down ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... saved a goodish bit, I should think. Just come home with me now and look at a horse I can let you have cheap. I bought him only a few weeks ago, thinking he'd do for a Hansom, but I was wrong. He's got bone enough for a waggon, but a waggon ain't a Hansom. He ain't got go enough for a Hansom. You see parties as takes Hansoms wants to go like the wind, and he ain't got wind enough, for he ain't so young as he once was. But for a four-wheeler as takes ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... of a particular Gazetteer which was not to be found in the office, and being in no mood to take a clerk, however uncritical, into my confidence, I called a hansom and drove straight to the Museum; where, having ensconced myself in the reading-room with the work in question, I prepared to devote a dusty and laborious morning to ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... quickly Mr. Biggleswade had seen that the game was up, flung Blazer away from him, and bolted through the barrier. The Inspector rushed after him; but Blazer, who apparently had not had enough of Mr. Biggleswade's calf, outstripped him, and pinned the fugitive on the very step of a hansom. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... much!" I heard myself saying, just as if he had had on a frock-coat and top-hat, and had stopped a hansom cab for ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... "Yes, please, a hansom," said Lady Enid Thistle, some five minutes later, as she and the Prophet stood together upon the kerb in front of the rabbit shop. "I feel much ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... hansom cab drove to the offices of the very respectable firm of solicitors who managed the affairs of the Norland family. They had one or two other families as well, and in spite of agricultural depression, they made a very good thing indeed out of a very comfortable business. The cab contained ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... "if it is all the same to you, we will perform the journey in a hansom. I am not in training just at present for your tramps ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... anything of the man? That would no longer be the refrain of his correspondent, but some absurd strain of devotion and admiration of the man whom John knew nothing of, not even his name. He wondered as he went along in his hansom, and even between the courses at dinner, while he listened with a smile, but without hearing a word, to what the lady next him was saying—what she would tell him about this man? That he was everything that was delightful, no doubt; handsome, of course; probably clever; ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... roofs behind. Here Chesterton lived in the days when he was becoming famous, when the inhabitants of that part of London began to realize that they had a great man in their midst, and grew accustomed to seeing a romantic figure in a cloak and slouch hat hail a hansom and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... took no account of Jessie. When the elopement came, therefore, it was a double disappointment to her, for she perceived his hand by a kind of instinct. She did the correct thing. The correct thing, as you know, is to take hansom cabs, regardless of expense, and weep and say you do not know WHAT to do, round the circle of your confidential friends. She could not have ridden nor wept more had Jessie been her own daughter—she showed the ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... too small for four," Bobby calmly told Mr. Elliston, and, excusing himself from the Starletts, deliberately conducted Agnes to a hansom. As they got well ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... are rather meagre," he said; "but I'll find a hansom first, and then we'll invent something." He led her through the throng of returning holiday-makers, past sallow-faced girls in preposterous hats, and flat-chested women struggling with paper bundles and palm-leaf fans. Was it possible that she belonged to the ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... to town. When he arrived at Victoria he took a hansom and drove to the house of the great doctor who had last seen Sibyl. Sir Henry Powell was at home. Ogilvie sent in his card and was admitted almost immediately into his presence. He asked a few questions, they were straight and to the point, and to ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab drove up to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. He was a remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached— evidently the man of whom I had heard. He appeared to be in a great hurry, shouted to the cabman to wait, and brushed ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... in London a hansom pulled up close to where I was walking, and a friend of Toole's jumped out, and, seizing my hand, he said, "I say, Furniss, you travel about a lot, lecturing and all that kind ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... memory, has described himself encountering Dickens in the oddest places and most inclement weather, in Ratcliffe-highway, on Haverstock-hill, on Camberwell-green, in Gray's-inn-lane, in the Wandsworth-road, at Hammersmith Broadway, in Norton Folgate, and at Kensal New Town. "A hansom whirled you by the Bell and Horns at Brompton, and there he was striding, as with seven-league boots, seemingly in the direction of North-end, Fulham. The Metropolitan Railway sent you forth at Lisson-grove, and you met him plodding speedily ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... what I felt like. I felt like crying, I believe, or dancing, or jumping clean over the Nelson Column. I was like a fellow caught up out of Hell and flung down into the dandiest part of Heaven. Then I spotted for a hansom with a spanking horse. 'A shilling for yourself if you're there in twenty minutes!' said I to the jarvey. He went a good pace, though of course it was a trifle to the carpet; and in nineteen minutes and a half I was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quickly clouded up again, just as my own heart clouded up. For I knew, notwithstanding my willingness to deny it, that I was once more acting on impulse, very much as I'd acted on impulse four long years ago in that residuary old horse-hansom in Central Park when I agreed to marry Duncan Argyll McKail before I was even in love with him. But, like most women, I was willing to let Reason step down off the bridge and have Intuition pilot me through the more troubled waters of a life-crisis. For ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... overheard her conversation—with Miss Vavasor, and had seen with delight the unmistakable symptoms of serious difference which at last appeared, and culminated in their parting. He did not venture to approach her, but when she got into a cab, took a Hansom and followed her to the entrance of the square, where he got down, his heart beating with exultant hope that "the rascal ass of a nobleman" ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... that the hansom was there. He moved into the hall with the intention of sending it away; no party for him to-night—when, to his amazement he saw Clare coming slowly down the stairs, her cloak on, ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... on and I did a thing I had never done before, though I had often read of it in the novelettes. I waved my umbrella and I got into a hansom cab. ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... reproach. Mr. Ford's client did not lean back, the tension of his mind was too great. He sat stiffly, and gazed vacantly before him, half seeing and half transforming into other visions whatever lay before the hansom, as it wound its way through the streets. Now for a moment a four-wheeled cab, loaded with schoolboy luggage, occupied the field of view, and idle memories of his own boyhood flitted over it. Then, crawling ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... departed punctually at One? I've come back expressly from the Michael Rossiters to carry you off to them—or rather to Kew. They're going to have tea with the Thiselton-Dyers and then revel in azaleas and roses. I shall go out and charter a hansom and we'll drive down ... it'll be some compensation for your having worked extra ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... coming of the taxicab and the motorbus, for their coming meant the entire extinction of the driver of the horse-drawn bus, who was an institution, and the practical extinction of the hansom cabby, who was a type and very frequently a humorist too. But an American finds no fault with the present arrangement; he is amply satisfied ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... later, when we took a hansom and entered the streams of traffic, she responded to the stimulus of the place: the movement, the colour, the sight of the well-appointed carriages, of the well-fed, well-groomed people who sat in them, the enticement of the shops in which ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... escaped our hero lips when a young fellow garbed as Romeo, alighting from a hansom, ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... part of our dinner and then took a hansom to the theatre. As we sat close, side by side, in one of the dark streets, I ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... away in July? What about the Varsity match and Gentlemen v. Players? You must be at Lord's for those. Yes; July is the month for Lord's. Drive there, I beg you, in a hansom, if indeed there is still one left. A taxi by all means in May or when you are in a hurry, but a day at Lord's must be taken deliberately. Drive there at your leisure; breathe deeply. Do not he afraid of taking your seat before play begins—you can buy a Sportsman on the ground and ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... stand on the very edge of the pavement, and waited. His exercised eyes had made out in the confused movements of lights and shadows thronging the roadway the crawling approach of a hansom. He gave no sign; but when the low step gliding along the curbstone came to his feet he dodged in skilfully in front of the big turning wheel, and spoke up through the little trap door almost before the man gazing ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... the footman, received my order with impassivity and shut us in together with the unconcern of a good servant. It was dark in the carriage, and neither of us spoke as we whirled through the snowy streets. Once the lights of a passing hansom illumined my companion's face and I saw that she was crying. It pleased me to see her suffer; she had cost me eleven weeks of misery; why should she ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... which answers the same purpose as the hansom cab in Chicago or New York, and which is a much lighter and smaller vehicle, being drawn by a Cingalese who trots along between the shafts as though it were a pleasure instead of a business, is about the only sort ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... away from the splendour of it and laid her aching head against the cool windowpane. A hansom flashed along in the street below with just a glimpse of a pretty laughing girl in it with a man by her side. From another part of the Royal Palace Hotel came sounds of mirth and gaiety. All the world seemed to be happy, to-night, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... the hotel he went into his sitting-room and worked for an hour and a half, producing a short paragraph, which did not please him. Then he took a hansom ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... hansom a few days ago, he went on, in London. She was on her way to meet her mother whom she had not seen for many years. At the corner of a street the shaft of a lorry shivered the window of the hansom in the shape of a star. A long fine needle of the ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... in 1881, on the seventeenth of October, a collision between two hansom cabs which resulted in the death of a driver whose name was Samuel Green. He lived at 14 Portington Mews, and had a wife ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... separation. For example, he now proposed that the discussion of the whole question should be postponed for the present, and that Sheila should take him about London and show him all that she had learned; and he suggested that they should then and there get a hansom cab and drive to some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... Trevennack had set off to catch the fast train from Waterloo to Portsmouth direct (he was frequently down there on Admiralty business), she put on her cloak and bonnet, without a word to Cleer, and set out in a hansom all alone to ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... hansom in the Broad Sanctuary, and drove to Hendon. The bar of the Hawk and Heron was full of carriers, carters, road-menders, and farm-laborers, all drinking, and all noisy. But, despite this evidence of a thriving trade, the whole place had a bankrupt appearance as of things going to wreck. Jabez served ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Cross Station, delayed by the streams of vehicles issuing forth, when in a hansom at a little distance I saw a form—a face—which made me start and tremble, and turn hot and cold, and red and white, all at the same time. It could not be Jack. It ought not, must not, should not be Jack. Had I not to act in suffering and despair to-night? Well, even if he had returned ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... stirred at this time by the publication of Robert Browning's "Pauline," a narrative in unusually virile verse, and by Edmund Keane's original creation of the character of "Othello." The new invention of steel pens first came into general use during this same year, as did Hansom's "safety cab," and Lord Brougham's favorite style of carriage. Robert Brown, an English scientist, in the course of his microscopic studies of orchids happened to make the important discovery of the nucleus of cells. Joseph Saxton, an American, constructed the first electro-magnetic ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... The Baron walked out through the door first, but Mr Bunker stopped for an instant opposite the hall-porter's box, and crying, "Good night to you, sir!" hurled the bag through the glass, rushed after his friend, and in less time than it takes to tell they were tearing up Pall Mall in a hansom. ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... supported Mr. Hadden in splendour for about three months out of twelve; the rest of the year he passed in retreat among the islands. He was now about a week returned from his eclipse, pervading Sydney in hansom cabs and airing the first bloom of six new suits of clothes; and yet the unaffected creature hailed Carthew in his working jeans and with the damning bundle on his shoulder, as he might have claimed acquaintance with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the crowded streets, absorbed in his own thoughts, for some distance. Then he suddenly emerged from that quiet shelter, and accepted the urgent invitation of a hansom-cab driver to ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Bullier's! They step into the blazing entrance, and go thence to the stairway which leads to the celebrated public ballroom. They are stifled by the odor of dust, escaping gas, and human flesh. Alas! there are in every village in France doctors in hansom cabs, country lawyers, and any quantity of justices of the peace, who, I can assure you, regret this stench as they take the fresh air in the open country under the starry heavens, breathing the exquisite perfume of new-mown hay; for it is mingled with the little poetry ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... his own hair-breadth escape from the clutches of the law, of his prodigies of valour in connection with Spotts, whom he had met in his headlong flight, and who, it seemed, had prevailed on his more timid companion to follow the prisoner in a hansom. ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... paid his bill hurriedly and ran downstairs. Lord Randolph had come to the window in his greatcoat. His follower waited for him outside. It was possible that he would take a hansom and drive straight to the House, but Andrew had reasons for thinking this unlikely. The rain had somewhat abated. Lord Randolph came out, put up his umbrella, and, glancing at the sky for a moment, set off briskly up ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... think I mentioned, in the heart of the city, and, unless you prefer Shanks's pony, must perforce take a hansom to your hotel, or, if you have much luggage, two hansoms, for four-wheelers are almost unknown. In compensation, the Sydney hansoms are the cleanest and fastest you will ever have the good fortune to come across. Steam trams run out to the railway station, which ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... now, I'll tell you what happened to me last season in London. I was asked to go down and dine with some fellows at Richmond; and being awfully late, I rushed out of the club and hailed the first hansom I could see with a likely horse in Pall Mall. I scarcely looked at the man, but said, 'Now I want to get down to the Star and Garter by eight: go a good pace and I'll pay you for it.' Well, he had a stunning good horse, and we rattled away at a fine rate; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... themselves at home in those fantastic purlieus which Mr. Stevenson's fancy discovered near the Strand. The impossible Young Man with the Cream Tarts, the ghastly revels of the Suicide Club, the Oriental caprices of the Hansom Cabs—who could foresee that the public would taste them! It is true that Mr. Stevenson's imagination made the President of the Club, and the cowardly member, Mr. Malthus, as real as they were terrible. His romance always goes hand in hand with reality; and Mr. Malthus ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... we were safely seated in a "Hansom's Patent," and on our way to Hughes's—one of the politest men of the George Fox stamp we have ever met. Here we found forty or fifty persons, who, like ourselves, were bound for the Peace Congress. The ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... the obscurity of his verse, I was surprised at the lucidity of his talk. But at last, both of us becoming somewhat anxious, we called a halt and questioned the driver, who confessed that he had no idea where he was. As good, or ill, luck would have it, there just then emerged from the fog an empty hansom-cab, and finding that its driver knew more than ours, I engaged him as pilot, first to Browning's house, and then ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... The sadoe is the hansom of Java. It is a small two-wheeled carriage, in which the seats are placed back to back (hence the name, which is a corruption of dos-a-dos), and which is furnished with a square top to keep off the sun. It is drawn by one (or two) of the sturdy little horses bred in the island. ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... toot from the horn on a Happy Hansom means that business men, messenger boys and other persons in a hurry must postpone indefinitely their contemplated journey across the street. Crossing the street in front of a chauffeur who has given the above signal is very ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... conveyance have been improved. One finds the plebeian cab or "growler," the more fastidious hansom, and the popular electric tram, which is fast replacing the omnibus in the outlying portions, to say nothing of the underground railways now being "electrified," ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... road was crowded, but as yet far from congested. Most of the fugitives at that hour were mounted on cycles, but there were soon motor cars, hansom cabs, and carriages hurrying along, and the dust hung in heavy clouds along the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... sprawling green stone house on Michigan Avenue, there were signs of unusual animation about the entrance. As he reached the steps a hansom deposited the bulky figure of Brome Porter, Mrs. Hitchcock's brother-in-law. The older man scowled interrogatively at the young doctor, as if to say: 'You here? What the devil of a crowd has Alec raked together?' But the two men exchanged essential courtesies ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... it would not matter one way or another, when you haven't got to do yourself up in uniform, and make tremendous marches, and so on. I should not want to walk, at all; I should have chambers somewhere close to the club, and could always charter a hansom, when I wanted to go anywhere. Besides, fat is eminently ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... who were least hurt among the wounded men. He was looking anxiously for the return of the boats. One, however, only was seen to put off from the side of the frigate with the remainder of the prize crew, Mr Hansom deeming it imprudent to allow more than necessary to make the passage. It was not without considerable difficulty that this boat reached the side of the prize. Again Denham urged the captain to quit her, but he refused on ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... his heroine. This incident gave him such a sense of insecurity that he turned his back on her without a word, bolted out of the theatre, dashed along the Strand and walked as far as the Bank. Then he jumped into a hansom and came westward, and when he reached the theatre again the business was nearly over. It appeared, almost to his disappointment, not bad enough to give him the consolation of the old playhouse adage that the worst dress-rehearsals make the ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... Stevenson on his donkey, for instance. The rider on wheels is an object that exasperates the nerves of horses, dogs, and men. Mrs. Pennell in this little book describes a collision on the old Kent Road with the driver of a hansom cab, who sat watching their extrication scowling. If he had his way, he said, he would burn all them things." And, little affiliation as most human beings have with cabmen, we yet believe that he gave utterance to the sentiments of all non-wheelmen. However, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... happened. As they sat facing one another in the silent, half-darkened room, Mannering trying to bring himself into accord with half-admitted but repugnant convictions, she watching him hopelessly, the tinkle of a hansom bell sounded outside. The sudden stopping of a horse, the rattle of a latchkey, and she was in the room. Mannering rose to his ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thinking of this as he left the shop and began to cross the street. Because his mind was wandering he was less watchful. Suddenly a rubber-tired hansom, moving without sound, appeared immediately in his path—the horse's head loomed up above his own. He made the inevitable involuntary whirl aside to move out of the way, the hansom passed, and turning again, he went on. His movement had been too swift ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... they got out at Euston Square she seemed a trifle bewildered, and could only do implicitly as her husband bade her—clinging to his hand, for the most part, as if to make sure of guidance. She did indeed glance somewhat nervously at the hansom into which Lavender put her, apparently asking how such a tall and narrow two-wheeled vehicle could be prevented toppling over. But when he, having sent on all their luggage by a respectable old four-wheeler, got into the hansom beside her, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... profits out of an ostrich-farm; but, speaking at random, we should say they would probably arise by pulling the feathers out of the tails of the birds and selling them to Court Milliners. Your idea of trying them in harness in a Hansom seems to have something in it. Turn it over, by all means. Meantime, get a Shilling Handbook on the Management of the Ostrich. We think you will have to cover in your garden with a tarpaulin as you suggest. You cannot expect the fifty birds to stay ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... freadums shore and when he arived it was the last of October and must look for sum wourk for the winter he choped wood until Feruary times are good but money is scarce he thinks a great deal of the girl he left behind him he thinks that there is non like her here non so hansom as his Rachel right and let him hear from you as soon as convaniant no more ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... his memory; they occurred at various hotels in Seagate. Afterwards he would go, first taken by a governess, and later going alone, to Charing Cross, where he would be met, in earlier times by a maid and afterwards by a deferential manservant who called him "Sir," and conveyed, sometimes in a hansom cab and later in a smart brougham, by Trafalgar Square, Lower Regent Street, Piccadilly, and streets of increasing wealth and sublimity to Sir Godfrey's house in Desborough Street. Very naturally he fell into thinking of these discreet and ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... at length you seek her, prove her, Lean to her whispers never so nigh; Yet if at last not less her lover You in your hansom leave the High; Down from her towers a ray shall hover— Touch ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... taking out a cigarette case and choosing a cigarette with exaggerated precision. When he had lighted it he tipped the porter, and strolled back to the entrance, on the chance of finding the carriage still there, but it had gone, and he called a hansom, paused a moment with his foot on the step, then finally directed the man to ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... walking down Piccadilly together one afternoon in the hard winter of 1894. It was a black frost, agonizingly cold. A shivering wretch held out matches for sale. His hideous red toes protruded through his boots. "My God, my God!" cried Pasquale, "I can't stand this!" He jumped into a crawling hansom, tore off his own boots, flung them to the petrified beggar and drove home in his stocking-feet. I stood on the curb and, with mingled feelings, watched the recipient, amid an interested group of bystanders, match the small ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... displeased. A man of less culture and poise and wealth would have sworn. But Blinker always remembered that he was a gentleman—a thing that no gentleman should do. So he merely looked bored and sardonic while he rode in a hansom to the center of disturbance, which was the Broadway office of Lawyer Oldport, who was agent ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... very lean and lonely itself, but so close to a crowded thoroughfare that they could see the vague masses of vehicles going by, and could even see an individual hansom cab passing the corner at the instant. Turnbull put his fingers to his mouth like a gutter-snipe and whistled twice. Even as he did so he could hear the loud voices of the neighbours and the police coming down ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... "You women understand some things better than we do. All the same, I don't know what would happen if you always let your hearts lead you, and if you had no men to look after you. I shall take a hansom and follow on." ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the hansom, and Malim, about to follow me, found that a constable, to whom the soil of the City had given spontaneous birth, was standing at his shoulder. "Wot's the game?" inquired ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... and took a hansom for the ferry,— Larry with me, chaffing away drolly with his old zest. He crossed with me, and as the boat drew out into the river a silence fell upon us,—the silence that is possible only between old friends. ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... A hansom flitted slowly up to them, and Acton hailed it. "In you get, Jack. Kingdom!" said Acton to the cabby. They glided noiselessly through the lighted streets, and in a minute or so were before the "Kingdom Theatre." The two hurried up the steps, and ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... finger in acquiescence, and the hansom rattled up to the curbstone. Flint handed Tilly Marsden into it with his habitual deference, gave a street and number to the driver, and, jumping in himself, slammed to the half doors with a clang which echoed along the silent street. The driver cracked his whip over the horse's ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... pursued him along two streets without realising that I was doing so. Then curiosity put me into a hansom. We followed William, and it proved to be a three-shilling fare, for, running when he was in breath and walking when he was out of it, he ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... of Hyde Park was within a short distance, and I took a Hansom at the cab-stand there, and drove to the American Despatch Agency, 26 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, having some documents of state to be sent by to-day's steamer. The business of forwarding despatches to ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he threw me down! Twenty minutes later, after composing my soul and powdering my nose, I was telephoning all over the city trying to find Duncan. I got him at last, and he came to the Ritz on the run. Then we picked up a residuary old horse-hansom on Fifth Avenue and went rattling off through Central Park. There I—who once boasted of seven proposals and three times that number of nibbles—promptly and shamelessly proposed to my Dinky-Dunk, though he is too much of a gentleman not to swear it's a horrid lie and that ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... behind the screen and looked from the window. The shops round the market place were brilliantly lighted now; the elegant backs of the couple emerging from the confectioner's beneath the tea-room were easily visible. The man raised his stick and hailed a hansom. ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann |
