"Hob" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when preaching to them, that his French had become rather difficult to understand. I was keenly alive to the exceptional study of human nature presented by this fine specimen of an old rustic priest, who was not the less to be respected because he took a great deal of snuff, hated shaving, wore hob-nailed shoes of the roughest make, and a threadbare, soup-spotted soutane with frayed edges. He was not a bit ascetic, and although he had lived so many years by himself, his good-humour and gaiety continually overflowed. ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... tyke it from me it was." W. Keyse rescued the kettle, restored it to the hob, returned to his place, and shook his finger at her warningly. "And if you go to remind me as wot 'e were drunk when 'e done wot 'e did——" ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... persons there who would like to see him, Mr. PUNCHINELLO took a trip to the aforesaid springs. He found it charming there. There was such a chance to study character. From the parlors where Chief-Justice CHASE and General LEE were hob-nobbing over apple-toddies and "peach-and-honey," to the cabins where the wards of the nation were luxuriating in picturesque ease beneath the shade of their newly-fledged angel of liberty, everything was instructive ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... man to notice it otherwise than by quietly incorporating the offender into his satire. "But the enigma is why you read them with a stripling, of whose breeding we have just had a specimen—mathematics with a hob-ba-de-hoy? Grand Dieu! Do pray tell us, Mr. Dodd, why you come to Font Abbey every day; is it really to teach Master Orson ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... a dark oilcloth took up all the middle of the little room. There was a wicker cradle on the floor, a kettle spouting steam on the hob, and some child's linen lay drying on the fender. The room was warm, but the door opens right into the ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... and carved into mincemeat, he comes home to a heap of ashes, and a handful of acres, harried and rivelled into a common; Sir Knight thanks him for his valour, but he does not build up his house; Sir Knight gets a grant from the king, or an heiress for his son, and Hob Yeoman turns gisarme and bill into ploughshares. Tut, tut, there's no liberty, no safety, no getting on, for a man who has no right to the gold spurs, but in the guild of his fellows; and London is the place for a born Saxon ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that lay by them. There were scarcely thirty, yet he gloated on them as on an inexhaustible store, while Will, whistling wonder at his taste, opined that since some one was there to look after the stove, and the iron pot on it, he might go out and have a turn at ball with Hob and Martin. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Hob's pound to cool, My boy Hobbie O? Because I bade the people pull The House into ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... qualifications entitling me to aspire. It was a sharp but wholesome lesson to my vanity and pride, to find myself, so soon as deprived of my factitious advantage of inherited wealth, less able to provide for my commonest wants than the fustian-coated mechanic and hob-nailed labourer, whom I had been wont to splash with my carriage-wheel and despise as an inferior race of beings. Bitter were my reflections, great was my perplexity, during the month succeeding my sudden change of fortune. I passed whole days lying upon the bed in my melancholy lodging, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... cottage so neat that it was a pleasure to look inside it. In the summer Rose-red took care of the house, and every morning laid a wreath of flowers by her mother's bed before she awoke, in which was a rose from each tree. In the winter Snow-white lit the fire and hung the kettle on the hob. The kettle was of brass and shone like gold, so brightly was it polished. In the evening, when the snowflakes fell, the mother said: 'Go, Snow-white, and bolt the door,' and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took her spectacles ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... already, and I wanted a secret which is not revealed. I wanted to know more about the working of the imagination which planted the little snow-white feet in the sally garden, and which heard the kettle on the hob sing peace into the breast, and was intimate with twilight and the creatures that move in the dusk and undergrowths, with weasel, heron, rabbit, hare, mouse and coney; which plucked the Flower of Immortality in the Island of Statues and wandered with Usheen in Timanogue. ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... enter the junior class, too, for I choose to hob-nob with you girls. Don't say you don't want me, for I have made up my mind; and it is like the laws of the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... regions of the kitchen, she found them deserted. Nobody was there. The fire, in a sullen state of half life, seemed to bear witness to the fact; the gridiron stood by the side of the hearth with bits of fish sticking to it; the saucepan which had held the eggs was still half full of water on the hob; the floor was unswept, the tray of eggs stood on one table, a quantity of unwashed dishes on another, but silence everywhere announced that the hands which should have been busy with all these matters were no longer within reach of them. Mrs. Laval ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... I dined with him at Mr. Ramsay's, with Lord Newhaven[1240], and some other company, none of whom I recollect, but a beautiful Miss Graham[1241], a relation of his Lordship's, who asked Dr. Johnson to hob or nob with her. He was flattered by such pleasing attention, and politely told her, he never drank wine; but if she would drink a glass of water, he was much at her service. She accepted. 'Oho, Sir! (said Lord Newhaven) you are caught.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, I do not see how I am caught; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... do not worry too much about your father's situation. At the very moment you are worrying he may be eating supper, or hob-nobbing with a party of very courteous and hospitable ranch owners, or fishing in a neighboring brook where the trout are as hungry as shoats at feeding ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... the hob. Every other knife and fork was silent; so was every tongue. Master Gammon ate and the kettle hummed. Twice Mrs. Sumfit sounded a despairing, "Oh, deary me!" but it was useless. No human power had ever yet driven Master Gammon to a demonstration ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more. And not even his wife dared to question him on his return—indeed, she was only too happy to see him back again after her anxious waiting. At such times he madly scoured Paris, especially the outlying quarters, from a longing to debase himself and hob-nob with labourers. He expressed at each recurring crisis his old regret at not being some mason's hodman. Did not happiness consist in having solid limbs, and in performing the work one was built ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... have an excellent time of it, and, to use a fashionable phrase, 'do themselves very well indeed.' They move freely in society; their books lie on every table; they hob-a-nob with Bishops; and when they come to die, their orthodox relations gather round them, and lay them in the earth 'in the sure and certain hope'—so, at least, priestly lips are found willing to assert—'of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.' And ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... autumn, while the weather is dry; and when the roots are cleared from dirt, without washing, they should be dried in the sun for a few days before they are hung up. The better way would be to wrap them up separately in whited brown paper, and dry them on the hob of a common stove. Lemon and orange peel will dry remarkably well ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... vaults, and shut in on the north and east by the backs of shops and lofty slum tenements, could not be said to be cheerful. It suited Auld Jock, however, for what mind he had was of a melancholy turn. From his place on the floor, between his master's hob-nailed boots, Bobby could not see the kirkyard, but it would not, in any case, have depressed his spirits. He did not know the face of death and, a merry little ruffian of a terrier, he was ready ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... radiant with love and beer, he with ditto; their sides met, for the sofa exactly took them both in, without an inch to spare; their hands met, their eyes met, and whenever one raised the glass, the other was on the alert, and their glasses met and jingled—a mere practical specimen of hob and nob was never witnessed. There was but one thing wanting to complete their happiness, which, unlike other people's, did not hang upon a thread, but something much stronger, it hung upon a cord—the cord which was ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... in the evening twisted his calves and his knees as if they were being made into ropes. What was to be done under these circumstances? The best physicians consulted together, and recommended him to order a pair of hob-nailed shoes from a country shoemaker, and instantly leave ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... said the old sailor, knocking the ashes from his pipe upon the hob; "you may try, but dash my timbers if you'll ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "local habitation and a name" to some of the most interesting creations of Sir Walter Scott's genius. The abbey is situated in a valley, surrounded by the Eildon hills. Some ruins of the abbey mill, with the dam belonging to "Hob Miller," the father of the "lovely Mysinda," are still to be seen; and the ford across the Tweed, where the worthy Sacristan was played so scurvy a trick by the White Lady, is also pointed out. Some miles off, on a wild and romantic spot on the course of the river, Elwin, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... the moonlit street, the china dog kept as much as possible in the shadow of the houses; 'Zekiel following, his hob-nailed boots click, clicking against the rough stones as he stumbled ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... Hob and nob," returned the sergeant. "The top of mine to the foot of yours,—the foot of yours to the top of mine,—Ring once, ring twice,—the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your health. May you live a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... our friend of the earlier part of the evening, Comrade Windsor," said Psmith. "The merchant with whom we hob-nobbed on our way to the Highfield. In a moment of imprudence I mentioned Cosy Moments. I fancy that this was his first intimation that we were in the offing. His visit to the Highfield was paid, I think, purely from sport-loving motives. He was not on our ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... demonstrative man, and he rarely answered one directly as one might have wished. On this occasion, I remember, he went about his work for a little while before he spoke again; and it was not until the coffee was boiling on the hob that he came across to me and, seating himself on the arm of my chair, ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... without fear of evil consequences. For chapped hands and lips the following will be found efficacious: Equal quantities of white wax (wax candle) and sweet oil; dissolve in these a small piece of camphor; put it in a jam crock, and place it upon the hob till melted. It must be kept closely covered. It should be applied to the hands after washing, and ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... ridge of very clean roads and red sand pits and pines and gorse and heather. The Three Ps could not afford to buy bicycles and they found boots the greatest item of their skimpy expenditure. They threw appearances to the winds at last and got ready-made workingmen's hob-nails. There was much discussion and strong feeling over this step ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... . Many a Time and oft have Charles Diodati and I discust fond Legends, such as this, over our Winter Hearth; with our Chestnuts blackening and crackling on the Hob, and our o'er-ripe Pears sputtering in the Fire, while the Wind raved without among the creaking Elms. ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... hob-nailed boot must be to the lonely traveller across the desert, what the sight of a man from one's own club going down Pall Mall is in mid-September, or as a draught of Giesler's '68 to an epicure who has been about to perish on ginger-beer—so did Herbert ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... his fortune, with one louis in his pocket. The recommendation of an apothecary at Tours got him a place as shop-boy with Monsieur and Madame Ragon, perfumers. Cesar owned at this period a pair of hob-nailed shoes, a pair of breeches, blue stockings, a flowered waistcoat, a peasant's jacket, three coarse shirts of good linen, and his travelling cudgel. If his hair was cut like that of a choir-boy, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... prod'uct ful'crum rus'tic hob'by prob'lem hud'dle rub'bish loft'y ros'ter pub'lic sulk'y log'ic tor'rent pub'lish sul'try af'flux bank'rupt kin'dred scrib'ble am'bush cam'phor pick'et trip'let an'them hav'oc tick'et trick'le an'nals hag'gard wick'et liz'ard ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... a dingy place, poorly furnished, but some one had dusted the table, the mantelpiece, and the small bookcase, and the fire was laid in the grate, while a bright copper kettle stood on a movable hob. Mr. Van Torp struck a match and lighted the kindling before he took off his overcoat, and in a few minutes a cheerful blaze dispelled the gathering gloom. He went to a small old-fashioned cupboard in a corner and brought from ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... While Hob the smith with sturdy arm Circleth the feigned maid; And, spite of Jack's assumed alarm, Busseth his lips, like a lover warm, And will ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... the top, for the rocks are getting bigger and tumbled about in all directions, and the guide-book says that's what the top of Scafell Pike is like. Shan't I be glad to get to the top! I'm frightfully cold and wet here, and there's scarcely a hob left on my wretched boots. I wish ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... next morning passed off uneventfully. Our knocker advertised no dun. Our lawn remained untrodden by hob-nailed boots. By lunch-time I had come to the conclusion that the expected Trouble would not occur that day, and I felt that I might well leave my post for the afternoon, while I went to the professor's to pay my respects. The professor ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... knelt, still watching. Then with a low cry of terror she turned and ran headlong down the steep stairs. Her mind could not tell what to do, but her heart cried out that she must do something for her king. Reaching the ground floor, she ran with wide-open eyes into the kitchen. The stew was on the hob, the old woman still held the spoon, but she had ceased to stir and ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... indifference of the peasant to the visions around him. After a hard day's scything or woodcutting on slopes so steep that the resistance of one's hob-nailed boots seems like that of soft soap, I have felt profoundly healthy and ready to go to bed without listening to any lyrics on the Alps. And even the thought of Tennyson's "awful rose of dawn" would not have roused me before the labour of the ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... appeared upon the stage at all. When at length the outbreak occurred, he came forward as one of the chief leaders of it; there were however, several other leaders. The names by which the principal of them were known were Jack Straw, William Wraw, Jack Shepherd, John Milner, Hob Carter, and John Ball. It is supposed that many of these names were fictitious, and that the men adopted them partly to conceal their real names, and partly because they supposed that they should ingratiate themselves ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Styrian dress, consisting of a sort of Yoppe, or Austrian jacket of grey homespun, with green collar and facings, and buttons of rough stag-horn, homespun breeches, cut off above the knees, which are left entirely uncovered, thick woollen stockings rolled below the knee, and heavy, hob-nailed, laced boots. The head gear is that known in this country as the Tyrolese hat, adorned by a chamois beard, which is inserted between the ribbon and ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... saloon, all right—but everybody just comes in quietly and gets slobbery drunk. Met a guy named Fisher, thought the same thing I did when he came up five years ago. A real go-getter, leader type, lots of ideas and the guts to put them across. Now he's got a hob-nail liver and he came back here on the ship with me, hating Mars and everything up there, most of all himself. Something's wrong up there, Dan. Maybe ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... Lord Hermiston. Archie, his son. Aunt Kirstie Elliott, his housekeeper at Hermiston. Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap, her brother. Kirstie Elliott, his daughter. Jim, } Gib, } Hob } his sons. & } Dandie, } Patrick Innes, a young ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... interposed Anne mischievously. "She forsook me and hob-nobbed openly all afternoon with that curly-haired girl, Miss Thayer. I am terribly jealous, and there is a ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... were hob-nobbing with royalty at the time, so such a trifle as the theft of ten thousand pounds' worth of negotiable securities didn't trouble you a bit. I see you're wearing the ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... childhood. She gave him one glassy kiss, and four stiff fingers muffled in worsted. This embrace concluded, he sat down on the opposite side of her little table. There was a fire in the grate, as there had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a kettle on the hob, as there had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a little mound of damped ashes on the top of the fire, and another little mound swept together under the grate, as there had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a smell of black ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... our distress, gave them ten shillings, and obliged them to throw their oars into the Thames. The agreeable reward and the fears of being thrown in themselves in case of a denial, made them readily consent. In we plunged after them, and soon made the shore. Though we looked like Hob just drawn out of the well, those that saw us only imagined it was a drunken frolic. Our expeditious flight soon dried our clothes, and without catching the least cold, we both arrived safe ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... which had been left in the room on the previous evening are gone,—the window is open, and you observe the mark of a dirty hand on the window-frame, and perhaps, in addition to that, you notice the impress of a hob-nailed shoe on the gravel outside. All these phenomena have struck your attention instantly, and before two minutes have passed you say, "Oh, somebody has broken open the window, entered the room, and run off with the spoons and the tea-pot!" That speech is ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... open to three-year-olds and upward, and run over a distance—two miles and a half. The distance kept out the sprinters—it also, now and again, played hob with racing idols. To win a horse must be able to go—also to stay. With twenty thousand of added money, there was sure to be always a long list of entries. The conditions held one curious survival from the original fixture—namely, that, horses brought over three hundred miles to run in ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... no part of the bargain that we are never to commit trespasses. The bargain is that if we would be forgiven we must forgive them that trespass against us. Nor again is it part of the bargain that we are to let a man hob-nob with us when we know him to be a thorough blackguard, merely on the plea that unless we do so we shall not be forgiving him his trespasses. No hard and fast rule can be laid down, each case must be settled instinctively as ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... stuff, must of necessity be drawn forth into your nebulones and your galimofries; and so the silken purses of your Senate and prerogative being made of sows' ears, most of them blacksmiths, they will strike while the iron is hot, and beat your estates into hob-nails, mine host of the Bear being strategus, and king piper lord orator. Well, my lords, it might have been otherwise expressed, but this is well enough a-conscience. In your way, the wit of man shall not prevent this or the like inconvenience; ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... walked into the kitchen, and sat himself down on the hob, with the top of his cap accommodated up the chimney, for it was a great deal ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... "Why, thou hob thrust, no good can come where thy fingers are a-meddling; there is another jade besides mine own tied to the rack, not worth a groat. Dost let thy neighbours lift my oats and provender? Better turn my mill into a spital for ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a rainy night, as this is, When rarely and more rare the coaches rattle From street to street, to sip thy fragrant kisses; While from the Strand remote some drunken battle Far-faintly echoes, and the kettle hisses Upon the glowing hob. No tittle-tattle To make a single thought of mine an alien From thee, my coffee-pot, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... they no longer have any sort of interest for me. No, my dear friend, the world is not yet turned into a farm-yard; there are other things to tell of besides the mud pies of the Speller children and the marks of little Billy Saltmarsh's hob-nailed shoes in the grass where he set the snare. The Turks say that a fool has three points in common with an ass,—he eats, he drinks, and he brays at other asses. I must fain eat and drink; let me at ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... he found to his dismay Every time he tried to play That the ball with sundry hoots Chased the hob-nails in his boots. Finally he had to use On his feet a pair of shoes Of a most peculiar shape Made of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... Simplex? or for Hircus Satiricus, as well as for any of them? And this in Latine, besides Hedera Seguace, Harpia Subata, Humore Superbo, Hipocrito Simulatore in Italian. And in English world without end. Huffe Snuffe, Horse Stealer, Hob Sowter, Hugh Sot, Humphrey Swineshead, Hodge Sowgelder. Now Master H.S. if this do gaule you, forbeare kicking hereafter, and in the meane time you may make a plaister of your dried Marjoram. I have seene in my daies an inscription, harder to finde ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... beautifully combined with the daily exercise of charity, had begun; for waiting for them in Priscilla's parlour, established indeed in her easy-chair by the fire and warming her miserable toes on the very hob, sat grey Ill Luck ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... thi pipe—for aw knaw tha'rt reight fond ov a rick,— An tha'll find a drop o' hooam-brew'd i' that pint up o'th' hob, aw dar say; An nah, wol tha'rt tooastin thi shins, just scale th' foir, an aw'll side thi owd stick, Then aw'll tell thi some things 'at's happen'd ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... that I held him in my own heart. Next morning at sunrise we clambered out together, and together we gathered sticks, and together bent over the fire and blew into its struggling little flames. Life was rich. We hob-nobbed together. We doubled all our happinesses, and we promised to share all our griefs. Sitting on the rocks—there were many of them about, of all shape and size—we taught one another songs. I wrote songs; he sang them. I told him of ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... hob at the door, you may observe a toil-worn man, without coat or waistcoat; his red, muscular, sunburnt shoulder peering through the remnant of a skirt, mending his shoes with a piece of twisted flax, called a lingel, or, perhaps, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... dingy room lined with books and littered with papers, where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed upon the hob, and in the midst of the wreck of papers a table shone, with plenty of wine upon it, and brandy, and rum, and sugar, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... very pretty woman on the island came to you in the night and said she had seen hob-goblin eyes in the dark, and was afraid—how long, though you still love her, would you be faithful to Lucy? A man like you, in good health, with an incompletely ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... weather? Come in! Come in!" he added, and, turning on his heel, he shuffled back into the inner room, and then returned carrying a lighted lamp, which he set upon the table. "Amelie left a sup of hot coffee on the hob in the kitchen before she went to bed. You must have ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... window, to which she had given children's names: the few poor pieces of furniture, polished with much loving labour: the shining grate: the foolish china dogs and the little china house between them on the mantelpiece. The fire was burning brightly, and the kettle was singing on the hob. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... old-world air pervaded the place, with its low ceiling and sawdust-sprinkled floor, its well-worn benches and tables and paneling. The engravings on the walls added to the charm, and the head waiter might have stepped from a page of Dickens. Savory smells abounded, and the kettle rested on the hob over the big fireplace, to the right of which Doctor Johnson's favorite seat spoke eloquently of the great lexicographer, who in time past was wont to foregather here ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... wonderin' what fool thing I'd ask next. I'm more used to lodge rooms than I am to clubs, I guess. I'd like to take home a picture of this place to Theophilus Kenney. Theoph's been raisin' hob because the Odd Fellows built on to their buildin'. He said one room was enough for any society. 'Twould be, if we was all his kind of society. Theoph's so small he could keep house in a closet. He's always hollerin' in meetin' about his soul. I asked the minister if it didn't ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... very introduction to the Big M Ranch is going to be in a whirl of excitement, fellows. I've noticed that somehow we seem to stir up things wherever we go; not that we mean to have things happen, but they just pick out such a time to play hob," said Jerry, shaking his ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... were mean and dirty. Brickmaking was a lost art, stone was found only in a few places. The wood fire was on a hob of clay. Chimneys were unknown, except in castles and manor houses, and the smoke escaped through the door or whatever other aperture it could reach. The floor of the homestead was filthy enough, but the surroundings were filthier still. Close by the ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... him myself," confessed Dick. "From all we hear he's the man who kept McClellan from taking Richmond. He certainly played hob with the plans of our generals. You know, I've got a cousin, Harry Kenton, with him. I had a letter from him a week ago—passing through the lines, and coming in a round-about way. Writes as if he thought Stonewall Jackson was a demigod. Says we'd better ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... evening, enjoying the profound calm of the place, attending from time to time to my little coffee-pot on the hob, and slowly turning the pages of a favorite author, I luxuriate in a state of mind half idle, half studious. Leaving off presently to listen to some sound which I hear, or fancy I hear, in the adjoining room, I wonder for the twentieth time whether Hortense has yet returned from ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... they're hob-nailed, and shaped after my foot, which is broad, as it should be, seeing as I'm only a kitchen-maid. But they're strong, and they are sure ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... Madam Richards herself, he opened the carriage door and held Willie while she entered, asking if she were comfortable, and peering a little curiously in Willie's face, which puzzled him somewhat. "A near connection, I guess, and mighty pretty too. Them old maids will raise hob with the boy,—nice little shaver," ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Miss Hob an' Miss Hall, Each dress'd i' ther jackets, new turban, an' fall, An' if you'd o' seen 'em you'd o' thowt they wor fine, Wi' ther nice parasols an' ther gert crinoline; But as they wor marchin' foaks sed at Miss Hob, Wor t'nicest and ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... closer than we have ridden before, and left the Colonel's orderly and Hale in a bit of a valley with Minotaur, Jezebel, Hob, and Tank. Tank is a new mare I've got. Hale was riding her, as I never take Swallow ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... the round breakfast rolls—and whiter still the table-cloth on which they were laid; and merrily sang the kettle on the hob, as the white steam ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... of 'em? Sakes alive! you don't say so!" replied Matty. "Have a cup of tea, Fortune, do; I have it brewing lovely on the hob." ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... Fairfax! Hark how the corslets ring! Why are the blacksmiths out to-day, beating those men at the spring? Ho, Willie, Hob and Cuddie!—bring out your boats amain, There's a great red pool to swim them o'er, ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... she sat at her own hearth, quite alone, engaged as we have represented her. What she may have been meditating on, we cannot pretend to ascertain; but after some time, she looked sharply into the "backstone," or hob, with an air of anxiety and alarm. By and by she suspended her knitting, and listened with much earnestness, leaning her right ear over to the hob, from whence the sounds to which she paid such deep attention proceeded. At length she crossed herself devoutly, and exclaimed, "Queen of ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... myself over the parlour fire. It was already bubbling on the hob. Directly she had left I went to the kitchen, and got a second cup. I felt much better since I had had supper. And as I took the cup from the shelf the fantastic idea came into my mind to ask my protegee to come in and drink her coffee by the fire in the ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... Mrs. Pipelet had given to the extreme neatness of Miss Dimpleton's humble home. Nothing could be gayer or better arranged than this little room. A gray paper, with green flowers, covered the walls; the red-waxed floor shone like a mirror; a saucepan of white earthenware was on the hob, where was also arranged a small quantity of wood, cut so fine and small that you could well compare each piece to a large match. Upon the stone mantelpiece, representing gray marble, were placed for ornament two common flower-pots, painted an emerald green; a little wooden stand held a silver watch, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... Turpin. "You shall have—but what do I see, my friend Sir Luke? Devil take my tongue, Luke Bradley, I mean. What, ho! Luke—nay, nay, man, no shrinking—stand forward; I've a word or two to say to you. We must have a hob-a-nob glass together for old acquaintance sake. Nay, no airs, man; damme you're not a lord yet, nor a baronet either, though I do hold your title in my pocket; never look glum at me. It won't pay. I'm one of the Canting Crew now; no man shall sneer at me with impunity, eh, Zory? Ha, ha! ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the dining-room, slipped away from her friends, and summoning the cook to her presence, received an explanation of the mystery. The woman said, she had left the kitchen only for one minute, and when she returned, she saw the monkey standing on the hob of the kitchen grate, with one fore-paw resting on the lid of the boiler which contained the soup. "Oh, Mr. Curiosity," she exclaimed, "that is too much for you, you can't lift that up." To her horror and amazement, however, he had lifted it up, and was ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... along one side mouse-coloured curtains fell to the ground in folds from the angle where the sloping roof met the wall; on the other a cheerful fire glowed from a hearth of white tiles and a kettle sang merrily upon the hob. A broad couch, piled with silk cushions occupied the far end beneath the window, and the feet sank with a delicate pleasure into a thick velvety carpet. In the centre a small inlaid table of cedar wood held a silver tea-service. The ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... wonder? In the grate, which had been empty and rusty and cold when she left it, but which now was blackened and polished up quite respectably, there was a glowing, blazing fire. On the hob was a little brass kettle, hissing and boiling; spread upon the floor was a warm, thick rug; before the fire was a folding-chair, unfolded and with cushions on it; by the chair was a small folding-table, unfolded, covered with a white cloth, and upon it were spread ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... glorieth not in phizzes of dismay Heaven takes no pleasure in perpetual sobbing, Consenting freely that my favourite day, May have her tea and rolls, and hob-and-nobbing; Life with the down of cygnets may be clad Ah! why not make her path a pleasant track— No! cries the pulpit Terrorist (how mad) No! let the world ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... only an insult or a threat from without stirs this gigantic force into life. In Ireland the national kettle is kept always on the boil; in Scotland and Wales it is kept simmering; in England, on the other hand, it dozes quietly on the hob. Nevertheless English nationality is a force which pervades the whole population lying between Berwick-on-Tweed and Land's End. In the course of centuries statesmanship has succeeded in raising up in the minds of all the inhabitants of the British Isles—all save in the greater ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... nice little room. A bright fire burned in the grate, and a shining tea-kettle was steaming on the hob. The carpet on the floor was faded and worn, and the furniture was of the plainest; but there were a few pretty things in the room to brighten it, and over the mantel-piece was a portrait of John's father, "taken at his best." For some strange reason, which he himself did not ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... parlour of the Old Hulk, to which Aunt Dorothy Grumbit had consented to be removed, and in which she was now a fixture. Then it was that old Mr. Jollyboy beamed with benevolence, until the old lady sometimes thought the fire was going to melt him; then it was that the tea-kettle sang on the hob like a canary; and then it was that Barney bustled about the room preparing the evening meal, and talking all the time with the most perfect freedom to any one who chose to listen to him. Yes, seven p.m. was Martin's great hour, and Aunt Dorothy's great ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... tragedies have survived to us from the Interludes, neither of them of much interest. Cambyses (1561), by Thomas Preston, has all the qualities of an imperfect Interlude. There are the base fellows and the clowns, Huff, Ruff, Snuff, Hob and Lob; the abstractions, Diligence, Shame, Common's Complaint, Small Hability, and the like; the Vice, Ambidexter, who enters 'with an old capcase on his head, an old pail about his hips for harness, a scummer and a potlid by his side, and a rake on ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... of sentiment and movement also inspired Burns. He must have had a mind full of variety and wide human sympathy almost Shakspearian, who could step from the musings of Windsor and the beautiful heroine, all romance and ethereal splendour, to the lasses in their gay kirtles, and Hob and Raaf with their rustic "daffing," as true to the life as the Ayrshire clowns of Burns, and all the clumsy yet genial gambols of the village festival. It is one of the most curious and least to be expected transformations ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... o'clock and never settled down to work before three o'clock. The interim was spent in puttering over the exchanges, gossiping with visitors, of whom he had a constant stream, quizzing every other member of the staff, meddling here, chaffing there, and playing hob generally with the orderly routine of affairs. He was a persistent, insistent, irrepressible disturber of everything but the good-fellowship of the office, to which he was the chief contributor. No interruption from Field ever ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the kettle that stood upon the hob; she stamped out to the scullery and re-filled it at the tap. She returned, stamping, and set it ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... table, to offer him libations, and to 'draw' him—make him talk. He would talk of any subject: of art, literature, politics; of life and morals; of the news of the day. He would regale us with anecdotes of persons, places, events; he had outlasted many generations of students, and had hob-and-nobbed in their grub-period with men who had since become celebrities, as he was now hob-and-nobbing with us. He was quite shameless, quite without reverence for himself or others; his conversation was apt to be highly-flavoured, scandalous, slanderous, and redundant with ambiguous jests; yet—what ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... say 'we' I mean Summerlee and myself. Old Challenger was up a tree, eatin' pines and havin' the time of his life. I'm bound to say that he managed to get some fruit to us, and with his own hands he loosened our bonds. If you'd seen him sitting up in that tree hob-nobbin' with his twin brother—and singin' in that rollin' bass of his, 'Ring out, wild bells,' cause music of any kind seemed to put 'em in a good humor, you'd have smiled; but we weren't in much mood ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he set the teapot on the hob, and drew out Sue's clothes anew; but they were far from dry. A thick woollen gown, he found, held a deal of water. So he hung them up again, and enlarged his fire and mused as the steam from the garments went up ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... have come to it!" cried Mr. Grand. "I thought I should touch the secret spring at last! And you would like us to associate with you as equals—is that it, Joshua? Gentlemen and common men hob-and-nob together, and no distinctions made? You to ride in our carriages, and perhaps ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... southern-wood—old man they called it in those parts—to keep it company. After granny came old Samuel Tibbs, the patriarch of the village, in his clean smock and scarlet handkerchief, followed by his youngest grandson in all the glories of corduroys and hob-nailed boots. Young Sam, as they called him, was the youngest of fifteen, who had all grown up strong and healthy under the thatched eaves of the low, whitewashed cottage down by the pond. There the ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... them in England, but rounded on the surface—cobbles that turned one's ankles, cobbles that the nails of one's boots slipped on, that were metallic, that "gave" not the fraction of a millimetre. The hob-nails in the Subaltern's boots began to press through the soles. To put his feet to the ground was an agony, and they swelled with the pain and heat. The bones of them ached with bearing his weight. They longed ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... hob, my dear, and a basin over it. Matilda, my love, you know my maxim—'Duty first, dinner afterward.' Cadman, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... masonry, padded over that with a great many feet of earth, containing a fabulous amount of powder—tons and tons of it. Saw also the slippers which the worshippers of Mars put upon their martial feet when they enter into his temple—slippers without a suspicion of shod, hob nail or sparable, with which the heels of the worshippers of Ceres in this country are armed. If any one of these intruded on this domain sacred to Mars, he would in his indignation gift them with the feathered heels of Mercury and send ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... the Brew of the Little Pot beside me, for though I am ragged and empty, my forbears were well clothed and full until their house was burnt and their cattle harried seven centuries ago by the Dillons, whom I shall yet see on the hob of hell, and they screeching'; and while he spoke the little eyes gleamed and ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... ein frommes Buch, Das stets der Junker bei sich trug Am Degenknauf. 15 Ein Grenadier von Bevern fand Den kleinen erdbeschmutzten Band Und hob ihn auf. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... I saw the plough-share that in an instant was to cut me in two; but the madman, with an incredible effort, started it out of the earth and flung it fairly over me! Unable however to recover his balance, he trod upon my forehead with his hob-nailed shoe, and cut a deep gash just over my eye, and another in my skull: whether with the same foot or in what manner I do not know. My eye was presently closed up, and my hair steeped in the blood that flowed plentifully from ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... looking building. The leper window has been noticed above. The only other building at Witham which pretends to bear traces of Hugh's hand is the guest house, and this, as we have seen, may be at bottom the very house where Hugh hob-a-nobbed ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... a copy of my Life of Grant, the first I had seen; and, as I opened it I laughed, for I bore little resemblance to a cloistered historian at the moment. My face was the color of a worn saddle; my fingers resembled hooks of bronze, and my feet carried huge, hob-nail shoes. "What would Dr. Brander Matthews, Colonel Church and Howells, who had warmly commended the book, think of me at this ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... in another room, six feet by eight feet, three of us have our mattress on the floor and one more in a small room by himself. Most of the rooms lead out of the kitchen. In the kitchen most of the servants and a few other men hob-nob with Madame and her buxom daughter, who are Belgian refugees, and who are very agreeable and don't seem to mind us over-running the whole place, and soldiers coming in to their kitchen, where they live, in all stages of dishabile, to buy huge bowls of coffee at 1d. each. The General this morning ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... seated at a table in the centre of the stage, engaged in sewing. Her costume consists of a white dress and blue apron. Patrick is seated near her, smoking a short pipe. Costume consists of velvet coat and breeches, white hose, large shoes, with hob nails in the soles, buff vest, red wig, face and hands painted tan color. His left leg is placed across the right knee, hands placed in his pants pocket, eyes fixed on Bridget, countenance expressing ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... dinner, quite late, we were building castles amidst tobacco clouds, when, following a 'May I come in?' Tennyson made his appearance. This was the first time I had ever met him. We gave him the only armchair in the room; and pulling out his dudeen and placing afoot on each side of the hob of the old-fashioned little grate, he made himself comfortable before he said another word. He then began to talk of pipes and tobacco. And never, I should say, did this important topic afford so much ingenious conversation before. We discussed the relative merits of all the tobaccos ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the dogs that demoralised Quintana. He'd had no experience with hunting hounds, — did not know what to expect, — how to manoeuvre. If only he could have seen these beasts that filled the forest with their hob-goblin outcries — if he could have had a good look at the creatures who gave forth that weird, ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... dinner every day, and, a bully supper every night of your life, and a swig of stout ale to wash it down, with plenty of straw to sleep on, and a winnow-cloth and lots of sacks to keep you as warm and cosey as a winter hob. You know where to find me every evenin' after dusk, Tom, and when you come with good news, you'll be a made man; and, listen, Tom, it'll make you a foot taller, and who knows, man alive, but we may show ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... minutes to wait before Lord Plowden appeared. He came down the stairs then with the brisk, rather impatient air of a busy man whose plans are embarrassed by the unpunctuality of others. He was fully attired, hob-nailed shoes, leggings, leather coat and cap, gloves, scarf round his throat and all—and he behaved as if there was not a minute to lose. He had barely time to shake perfunctorily the hand Thorpe offered him, and utter an absent-minded ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... by ourselves he told me, 'Forty years ago, Sir, I was in love with an actress here, Mrs. Emmet, who acted Flora, in Hob in the Well.' What merit this lady had as an actress, or what was her figure, or her manner, I have not been informed: but, if we may believe Mr. Garrick, his old master's taste in theatrical merit was by no means refined; ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... in very low spirits, watched it taken away. Big men in hob-nailed boots ran noisily up the bare stairs, and came down slowly, steering large pieces of furniture through narrow passages, and using much vain repetition when they found their hands acting as fenders. The wardrobe, a piece of furniture ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... Tobe, for Aun' Sheba had shaken his self-confidence terribly. The little company broke up with hand-shaking all around, Tobe saying: "Sister Buggone, I bears no ill-will. I'se gwine ter look inter my speritool frame, an' ef I cotch de debil playin' hob wid me he's gwine to be put out, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... to the room, and threw open the door. Sure enough, there at a table, on which burned a light as blue as brimstone, sat the three guests from Gibbet-Island, with halters round their necks, and bobbing their cups together, as if they were hob-or-nobbing, and trolling the old Dutch freebooter's glee, since ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... scattering of fuel and cinders on the open hearth could be prevented. Sussex backs gave place in time to the grate in which a metal back was frequently incorporated, flanked by the dogs in front. Then came the closed-in grates and the hob-registers of the eighteenth century, many being designed after the beautiful ornamentation produced by the Adam Brothers; also the decorative metal work enriched with ormolu and brass, which in due course again gave ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... Distin now, and he did not want any biscuits, he passed, and hurried along the street to where Michael Chakes sat in his open window, tapping away slowly at the heavy sole of a big boot which he was ornamenting with rows of hob-nails. ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... to get wise to what we are really after up here on this mountain, Mr. Crow," said he, "it would play hob with everything. If it gets out that we are after gold—why, the price of land would be so high ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... bath; but when a second door was opened the heat became even more intense, for the kitchen fire was still alight, and, as if sent as an extra blessing from above, the coffee-pot was actually on the hob, filled and ready for the peasants' early morning meal. Could anything be more providential—warmth ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... about Kenneth's manner and look, and a tone of command in his voice that there was no resisting, especially when it was coupled with such physical strength, so the countryman heaved a sigh and took off his smock-frock and hob-nailed boots, while the supposed highwayman took ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dudgeons; but it is so plain itself that a modern house agent would let both at about the same rent. The chief dwelling room has the same sort of kitchen fireplace, with boiler, toaster hanging on the bars, movable iron griddle socketed to the hob, hook above for roasting, and broad fender, on which stand a kettle and a plate of buttered toast. The door, between the fireplace and the corner, has neither panels, fingerplates nor handles: it is made of plain boards, and fastens with a latch. The table is a kitchen ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... beard is short and thin and grizzled, and his gray hair, curling at the ends, hangs around his neck. His shoulders are sloping, his chest deep but not wide, his arms long, and his hips narrow. He is always dressed in a blue flannel shirt, blue overalls, hob-nailed shoes, and a gray slouch hat; and the whole outfit is always very old and very dirty. His overalls, fastened upon him in some miraculous way, hang far below his waist. Why they stay in place suggests the goodness of God ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... has a sore tail," said she, "by reason of sitting too close to a part of the hob that was hot. The dog has a toothache, the horse has a pain in her stomach, and the hen has ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... on shore, but therewithal He meeteth Puck, which most men call Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall, With words from frenzy spoken: "Oh, oh," quoth Hob, "God save thy grace! Who drest thee in this piteous case? He thus that spoiled my sovereign's face, I would his neck ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... He then ordered Mr. Whittington in, who was at this time cleaning the kitchen and would have excused himself from going into the counting-house, saying the room was swept and his shoes were dirty and full of hob-nails. The merchant, however, made him come in, and ordered a chair to be set for him. Upon which, thinking they intended to make sport of him, as had been too often the case in the kitchen, he besought his master not to mock a poor ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... said the worthy matron, setting it down very hastily on the hob; 'a little stupid thing, that only holds a couple of cups! What use is it of, to anybody! Except,' said Mrs. Corney, pausing, 'except to a poor desolate creature ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... might be pertinent for you to find out how the festive George, of yacht-racing, Waler-hob-nobbing fame, has managed to reap such pronounced benefits from the revival in business. It is notorious among railroad men that one of the first moves of Superintendent Trice, who succeeded Tim Campbell as manager of the I. & G. N., was to inaugurate ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... imperceptible wave of a fat white hand, he conveyed to Ashe that he desired him to sit down. With a stately movement of his other hand, he picked up a kettle, which simmered on the hob. With an inclination of his head, he called Ashe's attention to a decanter on ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a frightened frog to a bend in the street caused by the projection of a mill just where the square opens into the main thoroughfare; but in spite of his agility his hob-nailed shoes echoed on the stones with a sound easily distinguished from the music of the mill, and no doubt heard by the person ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... hob," said the Thin Woman. "You can get it for yourself. I would not move the breadth of my nail if you were dying of hunger. I hope there's lumps in it. A Leprecaun from Gort na Cloca Mora was here to-day. They'll give it to you for robbing their pot of gold. You old ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... barked, sharply: "Nix! I've told you that twenty times, Wally. It'll put hob-nails in your liver." He rose with difficulty, swaying upon his feet, and where he had sat was a large, irregular shaped, sweat-dampened area. "Come ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... it simple, then, Hugh," he went on to say, exultantly, "for with such a thing settled, it ought to be easy for us to hatch up some scheme to play hob with their plan of campaign. It'd just about serve the sneaks right if we set a spring-gun trap that'd give them a dose of fine bird-shot; but then I don't suppose you'd want to go quite as far as that. Look here, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... nicely; the pig was as fat as a self-respecting pig ought to be, and the chickens were healthy and well-grown. Ted re-entered the house, scraping his feet carefully this time, and looking at Margaret with increased respect as she bustled about. The kettle already sung merrily on the hob, a plateful of most inviting buttered toast was keeping warm within the fender, and Miss Hep. was in the act of placing on the table a ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... other than the squire Fabian, who was concealed from observation by his position behind the hob, or projecting portion of the old-fashioned fireplace, and hid himself yet more carefully when he heard the conversation between the governor and the archer turn to the prejudice, as he thought, of his master. The squire's employment at this time was the servile task of cleaning ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... it is his own, and he shall have it to a farthing." He then sent for Dick, who at that time was scouring pots for the cook, and was quite dirty. He would have excused himself from coming into the counting-house, saying, "The room is swept, and my shoes are dirty and full of hob-nails." But the merchant ordered him to ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... incursions into philosophy, fiction, or theology. More and more eagerly, however, they read books; and as a consequence of reading, they began at last to write. The precious Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, hob-a-nobbed with every Muse in her amazing divagations. But the earliest professional woman of letters was Aphra Behn, the novelist and playwright, to whose genius justice has only quite lately been done by Mr. Montague Summers. Mrs. Behn died ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... teapot, ready on the hob!" said Dot; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. "And there's the cold knuckle of ham; and there's the butter; and there's the crusty loaf, and all! Here's a clothes basket for the ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... "The hob," Cicely said severely; "and when I am tired of writing, I refresh myself with a cup of Flowery Pekoe and a biscuit, and then I return ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... drawing-room to the library at the end of the house. The library was almost the only surviving portion of the old manor-house of Bellomont: a long spacious room, revealing the traditions of the mother-country in its classically-cased doors, the Dutch tiles of the chimney, and the elaborate hob-grate with its shining brass urns. A few family portraits of lantern-jawed gentlemen in tie-wigs, and ladies with large head-dresses and small bodies, hung between the shelves lined with pleasantly-shabby books: books ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton |
