"Kerb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... jolted with surprise at finding a new business in full operation on one of the chief sites on Main Street. The new Catteline-Harvard car was standing at the kerb before the door, shrieking its newness. A great sign over the door told the world at large, and in no uncertain manner, that the Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation was doing business below. The two windows were a dainty display of the show-card writers' art, hanging above and around a miniature ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... imposing edifice than he had expected. There was no low, groggy appearance about the True Blue Athletic Club. It was brilliantly lit from basement to attic. A group of men, with hands in pockets, stood on the kerb as if waiting for something. There was an air of occasion about the place. The old man inquired of one of the loafers if that was ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... silly matter that had neither right nor wrong to it. She left her money to me when she died. I used always to go and see her for decency's sake. I had so much to do before night that I didn't know where to begin. I felt inclined to sit down on the kerb and hold my head in my hands. It was as if an engine had been started going under my skull. Finally I sat down in the first cab that came along and it was a hard matter to keep on sitting there I can tell you, while we rolled up and down the streets, ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... remonstrated as the taxi-driver, cowed by the look in her eye, drew up to the kerb, "if we take a taxi we shan't have anything left ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... at the kerb, and they entered it and sat down side by side in that restricted compartment, and the fat old driver, with his red face popping up out of a barrel consisting of scores of overcoats and aprons, drove off. It was very foggy, but one ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... summit—there are a trifle of fifty- eight floors, but an express lift makes nothing of them—I continued the implacable career of the tripper by watching for a while the deafening kerb market, which presented on that morning an odd appearance, more like Yarmouth beach than a financial centre, for there had been rain, and all the street operators were in sou'westers and sea-boots. There can be spasms ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... essential to his health. When he is not doing it in the pulpit he is at it in the newspapers; when both fail him he resorts to the social circle, the church meeting, the Sunday-school, or even the street corner. We have known him to disport for half a day upon the kerb-stone, carrying on with all his might to whomsoever would ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... in,' for fear the 'bus should extricate itself and drive on without him; he doesn't make confusion worse confounded by intimating his behest; he doesn't soil his bright boots by stepping off the kerb-stone; but, quietly waiting the evaporation of the steam, and the disentanglement of the vehicles, by the smallest possible sign in the world, given at the opportune moment, and a steady adhesion to ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... 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 ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... clothes, the possibility is they entertain about their persons a private menagerie of those interesting creatures whose name looks so vulgar in print. It is one of the commonest scenes in the streets to see a Chinaman squat on the kerb-stone and turn up a fold or two of his trousers to manipulate these little pests; and even the high officials and well-to-do people look upon it as no outrage to the proprieties, to be seen removing one of "China's millions" from the garment ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... drawn up close to the edge of the footways, while their teams stood motionless in close order as at a horse fair. Florent felt interested in one enormous tumbrel which was piled up with magnificent cabbages, and had only been backed to the kerb with the greatest difficulty. Its load towered above the lofty gas lamp whose bright light fell full upon the broad leaves which looked like pieces of dark green velvet, scalloped and goffered. A young peasant girl, some sixteen years old, in a blue linen jacket and cap, had climbed on to the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... At the kerb he saw the dim red rear-light of a car, and almost at the same moment a rough-looking Italian ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... of the world, as she had called herself, stepped down from the kerb. She looked hot and tired. It was a most unusual time for Madame Wachner to be out walking, and by herself, ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... at the corner of the Rue de Charonne the shops were closed. Two lines of soldiers extended on either side of the street of the Faubourg on the kerb of the pavement; the soldiers were stationed at every five paces, with the butts of their muskets resting on their hips, their chests drawn in, their right hand on the trigger, ready to bring to the present, keeping silence in the attitude of expectation. From that point a piece of cannon was stationed ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... went past, crawling dejectedly homeward. The driver checked his gaunt horse at the sight of Colwyn standing on the kerb-stone, and raised an interrogative whip. He added a vocal appeal for hire based on the incredible assumption that a man must live, which he proclaimed with a whip elevated to the sodden heavens, ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... never thinks and only eats—and then the heavenly music. It was as strange and arresting as that other mixture, that startling one of the men who sell flowers in the London streets and the flowers they sell. What does it look like, those poor ragged men shuffling along the kerb, and in their arms, rubbing against their dirty shoulders, great baskets of beauty, baskets heaped up with charming aristocrats, gracious and delicate purities of shape and colour and scent. The strangest effect of all is when they happen, round about ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... employer, irritated by the election crowds in the town: "As my wife says, it was bad enough before. The children of the lower classes used, as it was, to take the inside of the pavement, and we had to walk on the kerb. But now we shall be driven out ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... nor send your glance about. Oh, watch your feet, nor stray beyond the kerb. Oh, bind your heart lest it find secrets out. For thus no punishment Of magic shall disturb ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... Melkbridge, and, at the same time, avoid all possible risk of its identity being discovered, she left for future consideration. She was coming back from posting the letter, when she was overtaken by Windebank, who was driving a superb motor car. He pulled up by the kerb of the pavement ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... on the Stock Exchange. I rather liked her, and as she invited me to a small dance which she gave a week later we soon became friends. One day, while we were walking together in Bond Street we met Mr. De Gex, the great financier, to whom she introduced me. His car was standing at the kerb, so he took us back to tea at his house in Stretton Street. While we were at tea a tall, dark Spanish-looking girl came in and was introduced to us as Gabrielle Engledue. As we sat at tea we laughed over the similarity ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... and now are closed. One street became suddenly several feet wider than it used to be, for one side was sliding away. It was afterwards found that the houses on that side had moved three feet from their foundations, which were discovered under the kerb stones of the pavement! The Marston Road sank 15 feet in forty years, and at last had to be abandoned owing to a huge chasm many feet in ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... was speaking he left my side and darted across the road. In some astonishment I watched him for a moment from the kerb, and then made my way slowly to the other side. I found him in conversation with an emaciated, bedraggled woman standing by an enormous bundle, about three times her own cubic bulk, which she had rested on the slimy pavement. One ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... of the narrow street in which the hotel was situated. He was wearing—like most of the young bloods of Provence in winter-time—a short, shaggy, yet natty goat-skin coat, ornamented with enormous bone buttons, and a little cane valise stood near by on the kerb ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... Sweet Marjoram!" (Sang an old dame standing on the kerb); "You may hear a thousand ballads, You may pick a thousand salads, Ere you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... end of a lane leading into Treville Street, and as I leapt aside to avoid colliding with the hind-wheels of a hackney-coach drawn in there and at a standstill close by the kerb, to my unspeakable fright I felt myself gripped by ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... smaller children were beginning to weary of play. In narrow courts they lolled along on the flags, exhausted. In wider streets, they sat quietly on door-steps or the kerb, or announced their discomfort in peevish wailings. The elder children quarrelled still and swore from their playground, the gutter, but they avoided now the sun and instinctively sought the shade and it ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... that had gathered about the precincts of the Palais Bourbon, I crossed the Seine and made my way slowly towards the Madeleine. At the top of the boulevard there was a barrow of flowers drawn up alongside the kerb. Between the two shafts was a young girl making up bunches of violets. I went up to her and asked her for a bunch. I then saw a little girl of four sitting on the barrow amid the flowers. With her baby fingers she was trying to make bunches like her ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... walk the opposite kerb as though it were a tight-rope. Save for a certain disorder of attire, a protruding necktie and a muddy hat, he was respectable enough. He was young and, under other conditions, passably good looking. But with his fair hair streaming ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... is the dodge—you goes outside and lies down on the kerb-stone; whereby I spies you a-sleeping in the streets, contrary to Act o' Parliament; whereby it is my duty to take you to the station-house; whereby you gets a night's lodging free gracious for nothing, and company perwided ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al |
