"Switch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... find out, not even with the ingenious little random-firing device that Dakin designed for the study. With this gadget, neither Lambertson nor I know what impulse the box is going to throw at him. He just throws a switch and it starts coming. He catches it, reacts, I catch it from him and react, and we compare reaction times. This afternoon it had us driving up a hill, and sent a ten-ton truck rolling down on us out of control. I had my flasher on two seconds before ...
— Second Sight • Alan Edward Nourse
... electrical appliances are wet, first turn off the main power switch in your house, then unplug the wet appliance, dry it out, reconnect it, and finally, turn on the main power switch. (Caution: Don't do any of these things while you are wet or standing in water.) If fuses blow when the electric ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense
... alternator, potential transformer, condenser and oscillation transformer are self-contained. Usually the alternator is mounted on the underside of the fuselage where the propeller spends its force in the form of an air stream. The telegraph sending keys, field and battery switch, dry battery, variometer and antenna reel are the only units included inside ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... he prepared to press the electrical switch which would set off the guns. Ned and Lieutenant Marbury stood near the indicators to notice how much of the recoil would be neutralized by the ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... subject conceiving himself wronged by the king was permitted, on proving his injury, to beat a brazen image of the royal offender with a switch that was afterward applied to his own naked back. The latter rite was performed by the public hangman, and it assured moderation in the plaintiff's choice ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... your husband, of course, by reputation. My husband is connected with the Wilkes Frog and Switch Company." ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... and breaking off a hazel switch, dragged the paper out from where it lay and carefully smoothed it. Then she raised a piece of turf, hid the paper underneath and rolled a stone on the top. It was a hope that lay buried there, and ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... her; but unfortunately a cause was brought to trial before him, wherein a man was sued for beating his wife. When the matter was agitated, the Doctor gave his opinion, 'That although a man had no right to beat his wife unmercifully, yet that, with such a little cane or switch as he then held in his hand, a husband was at liberty, and was invested with a power, to give his wife moderate correction'; which opinion determined the lady against having the Doctor. He died an old man ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... break my back in two let me go till I have grown strong. A time may perhaps come when I may reward thee for it." "Run off," said the tailor, "I see thou art still a giddy thing." He gave it a touch with a switch over its back, whereupon it kicked up its hind legs for joy, leapt over hedges and ditches, and galloped ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... clean nightgowns in the left-hand tray of my trunk, covered with white tissue paper. Get a nurse that doesn't sniffle, or talk about the palace she nursed in last, where they treated her like a queen and waited on her hand and foot. For goodness' sake, put my switch where nothing will happen to it, and if I die and they run my picture in the Dry Goods Review under the caption, 'Veteran Traveling Saleswoman Succumbs at Glen Rock,' I'll haunt the ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... see," he went on, "that it's difficult for you to put yourself outside sculpture. Let's switch off to literature, because literature, next to music, is the supreme expression in art. I heard one of the keenest men in London say the other day, 'The man who writes a book that everybody agrees with is one ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... second thoughts, to feel that this was quite such a brainy scheme as he had at first, and it wasn't long before he came trotting back to tear up this second will and switch back to the first one—the one leaving the money to the niece. That restoration to sanity lasted till about a month ago, when he broke loose once more and paid his final visit here to will you the contents of his stocking. This morning ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... The switch went up and descended hissing upon part of an averted face; but the lad sprang as it fell, and the next moment the horse rose almost upright with two men clinging to it; one of them, whose sallow cheeks were livid now, swaying in the saddle. Then Grant grasped the bridle that fell from ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... left the shades down and the hangings drawn at both windows; and since these had not been disturbed, something nearly approaching complete darkness reigned in the room. But though promptly on entering his fingers closed upon the wall-switch near the door, he refrained from turning up the lights immediately, with a fancy of impish inspiration that it would be amusing to learn what move Roddy would make when the tension became too much ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... fit of passion which approached madness, he had taken a switch and struck wildly at this dried hand riveted to the wall, and which had disappeared, no one knows how, at the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... "Switch me off to the main track at once," thundered Andrews. "Don't you see, fool, that the last local freight is in, and I have ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... faubourg. With an economy worthy of Silhouette, the scamp had taught Adrienne—for that was the beast's name—to bray every time he said "Pommes de terre, de terre—terre!" As often as he said this, or "Chante, Adrienne, chante!" Adrienne would switch her tail and chante lugubriously, setting the whole neighborhood in commotion. So adroitly had he trained the creature—with her thigh-bones sticking in peaks through her hide, and a visage of preternatural solemnity—that when her master but lifted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... referred to consists in giving a rapid "switch" motion to a pencil upon a piece of paper, or a cardboard, or a smooth metal plate; and then cutting out the curve so produced, and employing it as a pattern or "template," to enable copies to be traced from it. When placed at equal distances, and at equal angles on each side of a central ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... thirsty, and he went off to find something wetter than water to drink, and while he was gone the once-a-day train also went off through the desert. Lite saw the last pair of wheels it owned go clipping over the switch, and he stood in the middle of the track and swore. Then he went to the telegraph office and found out that a freight left for Nogales in ten minutes. He hunted up the conductor and did things to his bank roll, and afterwards climbed into the caboose ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... "No, not yet. But I have only to touch this other switch, and I could produce an effect in that room that would rival the famous writing on Belshazzar's wall—only it would be a voice from the wall ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... the apparatus (Fig. 4) to be described is the cut-off, which is used when there are several lamps in series. It is brought into play by the switch, C D, which can be placed at E or D. When it is at E, the negative terminal, A, is in communication with the positive terminal, B, through the resistance, R, which equals the resistance of the lamp, which is, therefore, out of circuit. When it is at D the cut-off acts automatically to do the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... slender dogwood switch that I had been poking into the holes of the digger-wasps up the hillside. If one thing more than another will turn a snake tail to in a hurry it is the song of a switch. Expecting to see this overbold fellow jump out of his new skin and lunge off into the swale, I leaned forward and ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... one point of view," shrilly returned Mr. Follet, "and that's the point of view of man's rights. Why, it won't be long till a man can't milk his own cow without the government standing round to watch her switch her tail and tell him how to do it,—all ready to grab the money if he sells a little to ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... handkerchief to him. With eager hands he tore the fastening of a fantastically-shaped little nugget that hung on his watch-chain and flung it towards her. He saw her stoop to pick it up. Then the train swept on past a switch-house and he saw her no more, save in the picture gallery of his memory stored with priceless paintings of the face he loved; and in the little photo that he conned till his fellow-passengers nudged ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... rascals were gentlemanly enough in their manner, and I could not help admiring their mixture of courtesy and cruelty, either of which they could switch on at a moment's notice ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... and as to his tail he was much more decorative. About two inches after this member left his body it was closely shaved for some six inches or more, and for that space it presented the effect of a rather large size of garden-hose; below, it swept his thighs in a lordly switch. If anything could have added distinction to our turnout it would have been the stiff side-whiskers of our driver: the only pair I saw in real life after seeing them so long in pictures on boxes of ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... rarity that most strikes him is a black horse of admirable shape and appearance, with a saddle and bridle of gold. He leads this horse into the open air, and is tempted to mount him. The horse first stands still; but at length, being touched with a switch, spreads a pair of wings which the prince had not before perceived, and mounts to an amazing height in the air. The horse finally descends on the terrace of a castle, where he throws his rider, and leaves him, having first dashed out his ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... He just faced about to stare once more. And then the miracle came to pass. Around a far bend in Dexter Allison's single spur track there came careening an ashmatic switch engine with a half-dozen empty flats in tow. With a brave puffing and blowing of leaky cylinder heads, it rattled across an open space between piles of timber in the mill-yard and disappeared with a shrill toot of warning for unseen workmen ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... He carried a riding-switch, and he seemed to grasp it now in a manner peculiarly menacing. But La Boulaye was nothing daunted. Lost he already accounted himself, and on the strength of the logic that if a man must hang, a sheep as well as a lamb may be the ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... that your last remark is worth remembering. At least, I shall remember it, and when this trouble is over, no matter what the result may be, I will hold you to account for it. And to prove that I am in earnest I'll lend you the weight of this." And with that I cut at his face with a switch. His horse shied and the apple tree sprout whistled in the air. He said something about hoping to meet me again and rode off at a brisk canter. I knew that I had acted unwisely, felt it even while the impulse was rising fresh and strong within me, but I was in no humor to ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... upon the broken door, and walked into the rooms of Kazmah. Flashing the ray of his torch on the wall, he found the switch and snapped up the lights. He removed his overall and tossed it on a divan with his cane. Then, tilting his bowler further forward, he thrust his hands into his reefer pockets, and stood staring toward the door, beyond which lay the room of ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... wall switch Locke had led wires carrying the house current. Already, also, he had let Eva in on his secret plan, and she was all eagerness ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... think you ought to be punished?" He nodded. "Very well," I answered, "I'll punish you myself. Go and cut me a nice, straight switch," and I handed him my open penknife. Round-eyed, the Imp obeyed, and for a space there was a prodigious cracking and snapping of sticks. In a little while he returned with three, also the blade of my knife was broken, for ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... the service record at the gray metal wall across from him; then he got up, brought the record back to his desk, smoothing the pages. There were tears in his eyes. He flipped a switch on his desk, dictated the notification to Central Secretarial, ordered it sent out priority. Then he went groundside and got drunk on Hochar Brandy, Orne's ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... the door to the outside closed and facing two alternatives, to go on with it or to cut and run, I found a sort of desperate courage, clenched my teeth, and felt for the nearest light switch. ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... resistance is broken, we can switch to some of the other stuff," Tang Ya, torn away from his beloved communicators for the conference, said wistfully. "They like color—how about breaking out some rolls of ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... The switch snapped, and in a few seconds the watcher saw Archer return to his office, bend for a moment over the lock of the door, then reseat ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... threw off the switch, sir," he explained, "when I came out to get the shutters. The switch is in a little iron box on the wall just back of the stairs, sir. It's one of my duties to turn it on every night before I ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... route on a card, and gives him a fresh send-off. It wa'n't more'n half an hour afterwards that I was out on an errand, and as I cut through 22d-st. back of the Flatiron I sees a crowd. Course, I pushes in to find out what was holdin' up all the carriages and bubbles that has to switch through there goin' north. Somehow I had a feelin' that it might be Clifford. ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... He flicked the switch that ignited the powerful steering rockets, and the whine grew louder, unbearably loud. It sang to him, his bitch sang, I had a true wife, but I left her ... oh, ...
— Sound of Terror • Don Berry
... gaieties you find it locked and in darkness, but though there is a "portier" you do not disturb him by calling out your name as you would in Paris. In modern houses there is electric light outside each floor that you switch on for yourself, and you have a race with it that you lose unless you are active; but you soon learn to feel your way up to the next light when you are left in darkness. The Berlin "portier" is not as much in evidence as the Paris concierge. ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... face was bathed and her hair brushed out she thought more kindly of Diana, remembering that she, too, was in trouble. Well, tomorrow there would have to be a great clean-up of all these miserable pretences and deceits; tonight, at least, she would try and sleep. Her hand was on the switch to turn out the lights when there came a knocking at the door. It was such a strange, peremptory knocking—such a careless outraging of the small hours, that for a moment she stood rooted with astonishment and apprehension, staring at herself ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... places, so that it occasioned much halting and considerable trouble to pick out a route by which the sled could move at all. About noon, however, we were rejoiced by reaching the head of a small river or creek by a perilous flying switch down a very long and steep hill. One of the sleds was overthrown, but fortunately it sustained no material damage, and was soon righted and landed on the ice below. One more flying run and we were safe upon the river. We had to congratulate ourselves upon the ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... through part of a circle, carries a "wipe" block at the end of a spring, which presses it against D. The spring itself is attached to an insulated plate. When the revolution of D brings the wipe and contact together, current flows from the accumulator through switch S to the wipe; through the contact-piece to C; from C to M P and the induction coil; and back to the accumulator. This is the primary, or low-tension, circuit. A high-tension current is induced by the coil in the ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... that," he replied. "See here," and he indicated a device at the right of the destination compass. "This is my 'obstruction evader,' as I call it. This visible device is the switch which throws the mechanism on or off. The instrument itself is below deck, geared both to the steering apparatus ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... afore she swallows it. Mrs. Craig says, besides, 't she asked Augustus, but he jus' said, 'Wash zhat?—Zhat a cow?—Zhi a cow?—Zhu a cow?' 'n' she see plain 'n' forever where he got the name o' bein' so bad, for she was dyin' to switch him 'n' couldn't in honor say as she had any real reason to. But all the same she says she's as sure as Fate 't him 'n' no one else 's at the bottom o' her cat—only how in all creation are you to get it out o' him? She says there ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... rose from the big chair and went to his room. The door was closed. He opened it and entered. Even as his hand groped for the switch on the wall, his nostrils caught the scent of something which was familiar and yet which should not have been there. It filled the room, just as it had filled the big hall at the Kirkstone house, the almost sickening fragrance of agallochum burned in a cigarette. It hung ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... cautiously over the sill, followed by Jimmy. The latter struck a match, and found the electric light switch. They were in a parlor, furnished and decorated with surprising taste. Jimmy had expected the usual hideousness, but here everything from the wall-paper to the smallest ornaments was wonderfully ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... power switch from stand-by to on, then waited as the indicators came up. Delicately, he turned a couple of microdrive dials till the needles settled on their red lines. Then he opened the control head, poked the tape in, and ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole
... as he stepped out from the sheltering projection. "Switch you, whoever you are, for keeping me from the fire when I am chilled to the marrow. Why, Eustace, this is luck beyond belief! But hast swallowed a frog? You croak so that I ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... great fame had already reached the town, the court-yard was filled with spectators in less than an hour. My master rejoiced to see such a plenteous harvest, and resolved to show himself that day a first-rate conjuror. The entertainment began with my leaping through a hoop. He had a willow switch in his hand, and when he lowered it, that was a signal for me to leap; and when he kept it raised, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... break of day, a freight train took a side track; in a few moments, with nearly a mile-a-minute speed, a limited passenger train took the same track, and in the time of a second five men were hurled into eternity. Why? How? The conductor and his brakeman were in such heavy sleep when the switch was opened that they were not awakened to ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... General was abroad on the estate and pointed out what direction to take to come upon him. "You will meet, sir, with an old gentleman riding alone in plain drab clothes, a broad-brimmed white hat, a hickory switch in his hand, and carrying an umbrella with a long staff, which is attached to his saddle-bow—that person, ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... meantime various changes were taking place in the seasons, which Bobby noted in his own fashion. The little green apples of summer—just right for throwing and for casting from the end of a switch—were now large and rosy. Under the big hickory tree in the Fuller's yard were already to be found occasional nuts. The leaves were turning gorgeous; and enough were falling to make it necessary that the householder ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... times, for all they looked so mild and patriarchal and desiccated. They paid scant heed to the white-haired old women who, like themselves, were sunning in the park. They watched the young women switch by, with appreciative glances at their trim figures and slim ankles. The day of the short skirt was a grand time for them. They chuckled among themselves and made wicked comment. One saw only white-haired, placid, tremulous old men, but their minds still ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... switch himself from one subject to another as easily as a monkey leaps from tree to tree, and when once he had made the leap no persuasion could ever induce him to return. Olga knew this, and abandoned the discussion, albeit ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... the city was horror-stricken by the news of a frightful accident at Spuyten Duyvil. An overloaded train from the Thirtieth Street Depot there, through a broken switch, came into collision with another overloaded train from the Grand Central Depot. The slaughter was horrible. Twelve cars were derailed, and more than a hundred and twenty people, mostly women and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... He rushed Ronny to a chair, saw him seated, returned to the desk and flicked an order box switch. "Irene," he said, "do up a badge for Ronny, will you? You've got his code, haven't you? Good. Send it over. ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... little scut, an' do what I told ye, or, by God, I'll cut a switch that'll learn ye good! Never a word, ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... with th' assistance iv th' officers iv th' law has discovered that th' lady took a boat ride with a gintleman frind in th' summer iv sixty-two, that she wanst quarreled with her husband about th' price iv a hat, that wan iv her lower teeth is plugged, that she wears a switch an' that she weeps whin she sees her childher. They'se a moral in this. It's ayether don't wake a man up out iv a sound sleep, or don't get out iv bed till ye have to, or don't bother a burglar whin ye see he's busy, or kill th' iditor. I don't ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... numbing in the very note of prolonged interrogation. The folds of Mrs. Guinness's glossy alpaca lay calmly over her plump breast; her colorless hair (both her own and the switch) rolled and rose high above her head; her round cheeks were unchanging pink, her light eyes steady; the surprised lift of those flaxen eyelashes had made many a man ashamed of his emotions and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... war game. The CIA man was well acquainted with it. He watched the general flip a switch, then sit back and fold his arms over his chest. A row of lights on the desk console began blinking on and off, one, two, three ... down to the end of the row, then back to the beginning again, on and off, ...
— The Next Logical Step • Benjamin William Bova
... modernization; teledensity of 8.6 main lines per 100 persons is very low domestic: the majority of telephones are in Baku and other industrial centers - about 700 villages still without public telephone service; satellite service connects Baku to a modern switch in its exclave of Naxcivan international: the old Soviet system of cable and microwave is still serviceable; a satellite connection to Turkey enables Baku to reach about 200 additional countries, some of which are directly connected to Baku by satellite providers other ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... stretched from pier to pier. To the right of the higher ground a fan of sidetracks spread, with lines of flat cars and gondolas loaded with stone, brush, piling and timbers, and in the foreground two hulking pile-drivers, their leads, like rabbits' ears laid sleekly back, squatted mysteriously. Switch engines puffed impatiently up and down the ladder track shifting stuff to the distant spurs. At the river front an army of men moved like loaded ants over the dikes. Beyond them the eye could mark the boiling yellow of the Spider, its winding channel marked through ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... pipe of tobacco at home, and the same toad appeared betwixt his leggs. He took the toad out to kill it, and to his thinking cut it in several pieces, but returning to his pipe, the toad still appeared. He endeavoured to burn it, but could not. At length he took a switch and beat it. The toad ran several times about the room to avoid him he still pursuing it with correction. At length the toad cryed and vanish't, and he was ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... for a moment. He was lying with Milton and Lanier in another chamber whose force beat upon them. He saw a yellow-lit room instead of the great cone—saw the tense, anxious face of Nelson at the switch beside them. He strove to move, made to Nelson a gesture with his arm that seemed to drain all strength and life from him; and then, as in answer to it Nelson drove up the switch and turned off the force of the matter-receiver in which they ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... Hall. He is dressed in a knickerbocker suit with arrows on it (such as can always be borrowed from a friend), and, to judge from the noises which he emits, is not in the best of training. The lights go on suddenly; and, he should seize this moment to stagger to the door and turn on the switch. This done, he sinks into the nearest chair and ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... as he spoke, like a flash of powder, as swiftly as one throws an electric switch, as blindingly as a train leaps from the tunnel into the glaring sun, the darkness vanished and the tug was swept by the fierce, blatant radiance ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... around. His weapons were gone, of course. The huge man snapped on the induction-screen switch again and put down his weapon. With that screen separating the room into two halves, no living thing could cross it without either such muscular paralysis as Thorn had just experienced, or death. Coils in the floor induced alternating currents ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... fraction the revolutions of each screw per minute; here the altimeter, to indicate height; here the air-speed indicator, the compass with reflector, the inclinometer, the motometers—to show the heat in each engine—and there, the switch to throw on the gigantic searchlight, with the little electric wheel to control its direction, as accurately as you would point ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... the door," proceeded Mrs. Forbes, "is the switch. There's electricity all over this house, and you don't need any matches. See?" Mrs. Forbes turned the switch and the white ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... and there among his instruments, and tiny lights flashed; he threw a switch, and from one of the black openings like a deep cave came a rushing roar of sound. It dropped to silence as the end of a cylindrical car protruded into the room. A door in the metal car opened, and their guard hustled them roughly inside. The one in red followed while behind ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... intercity: NA international: international traffic is carried to the other former USSR republics by land line or microwave and to other countries partly by leased connection to the Moscow international gateway switch, and partly by a new Tallinn-Helsinki fiber optic submarine cable which gives Estonia access to international circuits everywhere; substantial investment has been made in cellular systems which are operational throughout Estonia and also Latvia and which have access to the ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... 374; Yerevan is connected to the Trans-Asia-Europe fiber-optic cable through Iran; additional international service is available by microwave radio relay and landline connections to the other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, through the Moscow international switch, and by satellite to the rest of the world; satellite ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... he did, and warned Tom, the young inventor slid his hand under his pillow and pressed an auxiliary electric switch he had concealed there. In a moment the rooms were flooded with a bright light, and the two lads had a momentary glimpse of an intruder making a dive ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... letter with a sudden, spasmodic clenching of her hand. A lump rose chokingly in her throat. She stabbed at the light switch and threw herself on the bed, sobbing her heart's cry in the dusky quiet. And she could not have told why, except that she had been overcome by a miserably forlorn feeling; all the mental props she relied upon were knocked out from under her. Somehow those few scrawled words had flung swiftly ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... requests for touches, apparitions, etc., but to concentrate their desires and their wills on the things I asked for....' What he wanted her to do was very simple, but conclusive. He wished 'the spirit hand' to press an electric button and light a red lamp within the cabinet. The coil and the switch had been dragged out of the cabinet and thrown on the table. Bottazzi begged them all not to touch it. No one but Scarpa, Galeotti, and Bottazzi knew what it was for. 'At a certain moment Eusapia took hold of the first finger of my right hand and squeezed it with her fingers. A ray of light from ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... hands. The native loves a stick, and as he is forbidden to carry either an assegai—which is a very formidable weapon indeed—or even a knobkerry, only one degree less dangerous, he consoles himself with a wand or switch in case of coming across a snake. You never see a Kafir without something of the sort in his hand: if he is not twirling a light stick, then he has a sort of rude reed pipe from which he extracts sharp and tuneless sounds. As a race, the Kafirs make the effect of possessing a fine ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... her when he found himself alive in the morning. There used to be considerable rivalry between the frats at Siwash in the matter of giving a freshman a good, hospitable time. I remember when the Sigh Whoopsilons hung young Allen from the girder of an overhead railroad crossing, and let the switch engines smoke him up for two hours as they passed underneath, there was a good deal of jealousy among the rest of us who hadn't thought of it. The Alfalfa Delts went them one better by tying roller skates to the shoulders and hips ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... of what 'e 'ad to do. But 'is thoughts was set on 'igher things, admirin' of the view. 'E looked a puffect pictur, and a pictur 'e would stay, 'E wouldn't even switch 'is tail ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... but in her possession; Who must to he, his dear friend's secrets tell, Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell. Were such the wife had fallen to my part, I'd break her spirit or I'd break her heart; I'd charm her with the magic of a switch, I'd kiss her maids, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... cable through Iran; additional international service is available by microwave radio relay and landline connections to the other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and through the Moscow international switch and by satellite to the rest of the world; satellite ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... quite as pleasing as picturesque. The sway of the old man was paternal. His rod was rather a figurative than a real existence; and when driven to the use of the birch, the good man, consulting more tastes than one, employed the switch from the peach or some other odorous tree or shrub, in order to reconcile the lad, as well as he could, to the extraordinary application. He was one of those considerate persons, who disguise pills in gold-leaf, and if compelled, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... went to Khu, he saw an empty skull, bleached indeed, but still retaining its shape. Tapping it with his horse-switch, he asked it saying: 'Did you, sir, in your greed of life, fail in the lessons of reason and come to this? Or did you do so, in the service of a perishing state, by the punishment of an axe? Or was it through your evil conduct, reflecting disgrace on your ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... the gate. Thrown out. Got the razzle-dazzle. Got the hook thrown into me. Bounced. Kiyudeled. That is, at least, I will be, as soon as I let the old man get at me, judging from the love-letters he's been sending me, inviting me to cut a switch and come out ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... Thou hast spoiled the work with thy clumsy handling! Why canst not leave alone what thou dost not understand? Who gave permission to change? Body of me! Must I stand over thee every hour in the day and switch thy ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... switch had been turned, the light broke on Constance. She saw herself face to face with one of the dark shadows in the ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... a little while," the girl volunteered, as if to reassure her guest, after a particularly wild break on the part of the horses. But on the extreme edge of town, where the wagon road runs closest to the railroad track, a passing switch engine proved too much for the excited team. In a moment the frightened animals were running toward the Mesa at full speed. With all her strength Barbara struggled to regain control, but her arms were ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... trees, delightful to look upon, or to listen to, as they swayed and rippled in the wind. Uncle Billy had been one of the most worthless old drunkards who ever sat on a store box and told filthy stories. One night he played hide-and-seek with a switch engine and got his sodden brains knocked out. But his grove, the one creditable thing he had ever done in his life, rustled on. Beyond this grove the houses of the depot settlement began, and the naked board walk, that had run in out of the sunflowers, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... by Mr. Smith in an instant, with a switch and red tape and a long feathered pen. Bertha was properly blind and made an irresistible Cupid; she entered and shot, and all the company fell: Love. 2nd: Harriet, Mr. Smith, and Maria, all very sick. 3rd: Fanny, a love-sick ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... "wouldn't you rather snip my hands? You can snip 'em with a piece o' whalebone, you know, and switch me all over with a switch, and do every thing to me, if you'll only let ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... of old a boy was dull or quite adverse to knowledge, he Was set an imposition or corrected with a switch: Far different our practice is, who reign by Methodology And guide the dunce by precepts learnt from Landon or from Fitch: 'Twas difficult by rule of thumb to check unseemly merriment, To make your class their pastor treat with proper due regard— 'Tis easy ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... Davy," the skipper went on, "had sent a switch o' wind from the sou'west. So they was a bit o' lop on the sea, an' 'twas t' that I turned, when the case got desperate. An' desperate it soon got, lad. Ah, indeed! 'long about Herring Head it got fair desperate. 'Skipper Thomas,' says she, 'we're ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... meanwhile, had by a superhuman effort penetrated the great Drocourt-Queant switch of the Hindenburg line, and firmly maintained their grip on the ground to the east of it, and all counter attacks made by the enemy, to dislodge them, proved unavailing. The troops to the south had also effected good progress, and the ill-fated town of Bapaume ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... 4a3b4c3b, 12ca: Variants of Sir Hugh, Child, No. 155. One of the Kentucky versions makes the murdered boy's mother go seeking him switch in hand, to punish him for not returning home before nightfall. (Communicated by Dr. ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... of his window one halfer, and discontentedly wondering how he could exist till he should switch on the electric for the evening grind, when a not unfamiliar knock sounded on the door. Gus faced round wonderingly, and opened the door. The house-master dropped into the chair which Todd hastily drew ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... cavalcade approached, there came a boy on a pony at speed towards them. He carried a switch in his hand, and with it he urged his little ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... at long words which he bawled out at the top of his voice, and I refrain from recording, lest they should haunt others as they have done by me all my life. Now and then Chapman caught up a long switch and dashed out at some obstreperous child to give an audible whack; and towards the close of the litany he stumped out—we heard his tramp the whole length of the church, and by and by his voice issued from an unknown height, proclaiming—'Let us sing ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... word!" retorted the petted cripple. "When I'm a man I'll be my own master, and switch Duty ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... of a row, Jeff D. would ha' ben where A. Lincoln is now, With Taney to say 'twuz all legle an' fair, An' a jury o' Deemocrats ready to swear 40 Thet the ingin o' State gut throwed into the ditch By the fault o' the North in misplacin' the switch. Things wuz ripenin' fust-rate with Buchanan to nuss 'em; But the People—they wouldn't be Mexicans, cuss 'em! Ain't the safeguards o' freedom upsot, 'z you may say, Ef the right o' rev'lution is took clean ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... so fine, he's dressed so grand, A supple switch is in his hand; I've seen while I a-milking sat The shadow of his ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... and a sound of voices proclaimed that the apartments were tenanted. Benton entered his own unlighted room, and then with his hand at the electric switch halted in embarrassment. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... smiling and tapping his gaiters with a riding switch, explained in a few words that he did not want the hay and did not intend ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... made heavy to Maggie, and Tom's persistent coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird's nest without caring to show it Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself, without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, "Maggie, shouldn't you like one?" ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... will cut some switches, and make them behave," he replied. At the first tree he cut himself a long, slender switch from one of the branches, and ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... There was a switch on the top of the closet in the kitchen that beat Tom out of doors when he ventured in. Doris' tender heart rather ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the gesture of leave-taking with his riding-switch, and sent his mount at an easy amble down the wood road, apostrophizing great nature, as his habit was. "Lawzee! how we pore sinners do tempt the good Lord at every crook and elbow in the big road, toe be shore! ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... father, putting out his hand to prevent the switch from coming down, "your boy can't have done anything so terribly bad. I've always thought a lot of your boy. Haven't you punished him ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... legerdemain. Now we are going to see another little piece of conjuring." The Minister walked quietly to both doors of the room, locked them, and put the keys in his pocket. He then placed a small silver bowl from the side-board in the centre of the dinner-table, and continued: "I am now going to switch off all the lights, and to count ten slowly. When I have reached ten, I shall turn on the lights again, and hey presto! Madame de—'s necklace will be found lying in that silver bowl!" The room became plunged in darkness, and the Minister counted slowly up to ten. The electric ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... bumkin. The beast was sturdy, large, and tall, With mouth of meal, and eyes of wall. I wou'd say eye; for h' had but one, 425 As most agree; tho' some say none. He was well stay'd; and in his gait Preserv'd a grave, majestick state. At spur or switch no more he skipt, Or mended pace, than Spaniard whipt; 430 And yet so fiery, he wou'd bound As if he griev'd to touch the ground: That CAESAR's horse , who, as fame goes Had corns upon his feet and toes, Was not by half so tender hooft, 435 Nor trod upon the ground so soft. And as that beast ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... only switch on the light it would be easier," he said in a voice which I did not recognise. But the face over the lantern was familiar to me. It was Pierce, the murderer of McCrae, and the chief figure after Holgate in that mutiny and massacre. I shrank back behind the half-open ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... Newman went on. "At the sting of the lash, as though some one had turned a switch, the daylight went out—to the sound of that gross animal laugh. There was again the frozen dark, the solitude—the chill—and I heard you saying, as from another planet, across great gulfs of space: 'Drink ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... Who the devil ever said that money spoiled life! Upon my soul, it is no such thing; on the contrary, it seems as if I absorbed a double quantity of air and sun. Mordioux! what will it be then, if I double that fortune, and if, instead of the switch I now hold in my hand, I should ever carry the baton of a marechal? Then I really don't know if there will be, from that moment enough of air and sun for me. In fact, this is not a dream, who the devil would oppose it, if the king made me a marechal, as his father, King Louis XIII., made ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... demanded Jenny suddenly sitting up with a portentous switch of her yellow mane. Mr. McClosky rubbed one side of his beard, which already had the appearance of having been quite worn away by that process, and faintly ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... bed has its back to the door, and faces the window. Very right. You have electric light, I see, near the fireplace, and above your bed. Then it is possible to switch on a bright light at any ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... swept in, the engineer jogging laxly on his cushions. Kendrick stood up and hollered at him. The salutation was acknowledged with a friendly wave of the hand. The long string of brown and yellow cars followed rattle-de-bang over the switch and rocked away eastward. The roar dropped off abruptly into diminuendo, punctuated by the rattle of a loose truck at the ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... I dare say there was never a one of them could forbear to do as I do-and, it please your fatherhoods, they be tears of joy. Aye, my Lord Archon shall walk the streets (if it be for his ease I mean) with a switch, while the people run after him and pray for him; he shall not wet his foot; they will strew flowers in his way; he shall sit higher in their hearts, and in the judgment of all good men, than the kings that go upstairs ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... I pulled a small branch from a tree that did be near, to be for a switch as you shall whip a boy with; and I held her with my left hand, and in verity I laid the switch thrice very sharp across her pretty shoulders, that she know all that she did need to know. And she seeming to ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... "Sorry if I was a bear! Don't switch off the light, it won't bother me." He nodded, smiled, drew his rug closer about his knees, and settled himself to sleep with the ease of the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... "The wire is cut. It wouldn't help matters if it weren't. I thought when I saw your train we might risk sending the engine on alone. But your engine is behind all these loaded cars. No switch. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... the fields belonging to Jordan's Journey, the sound of angry voices came to his ears, and through the bared twigs of the willows, he saw Archie and Jonathan Gay standing a little apart, while the boy made threatening gestures with a small switch he carried. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... sent forward reinforcements from the Reserve Company, and eventually the 7th Battalion from "Maple Copse" were despatched by Brigade and did splendid work in spite of heavy shelling, in digging a switch line connecting the trenches in the neighbourhood of "Zouave Wood" ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... still that the shuffle-shuffle of a footstep can be heard in the distance, the tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to and fro, the swish of an alder switch cropping the heads of the roadside weeds. All at once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it a child's, a woman's, or a man's? Neither yet ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he was, watching with alarmed eyes. When his father turned he had a switch in his hand. At sight of it the blood rushed to the boy's face, and every nerve tingled. He had doubted it a little bit up to this time; now there was no doubt left. His father was ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... mules passed down the street, dragging their double-trees reluctantly, and took their cursing meekly as they made the turn at the tracks. A switch engine bumped along the sidings, snaking ore-cars down to the bins and bunting them up to the chutes, but except for its bangings and clamor the town was still. An aged Mexican, armed with a long bunch of willow ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... She touched the switch of an overhead electric fan—the Government of India housed its Political Officer in Rohar much more luxuriously than the military ones—and sat down under it. Wargrave began to pace the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... main goal for which our troops went was the Oppy switch line, a hastily constructed main goal for which our troops went was the Oppy switch line, a hastily constructed trench system by which the Germans have extended their Hindenburg ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... he once described as being "more like a Malay fishing prahu than an honest-to-God English literary vessel," began inauspiciously with the publication of The Intended (1894), a tragic novel about two look-alikes, one rich, the other poor, who switch places on a whim. Bewildered by the novel's lack of success, Stacpoole consulted his friendly muse, Pearl Craigie, alias John Oliver Hobbes, who suggested a comic rather than tragic treatment. Years later, Stacpoole retold the story in The Man Who Lost Himself (1918), a commercially ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... imperative also to switch off all lights before attempting to open or close a window, if this necessitates ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... must be the torpedo. He glided in under the guns and slipped a scant three inches of knife blade between the ribs of the Mulberry Hill cruiser. Meanwhile Brick Cleary, a devotee to strategy, had skimmed across the lunch counter and thrown the switch of the electrics, leaving the combat to be waged by the light of gunfire alone. Dutch Mike crawled from his haven and ran into the street crying for the watch instead of for a Shakespeare to immortalize the ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... rail; its four wheels revolved in a line, one behind another; and it traveled with the level, flexible equilibrium of a ship moving across a dock. It swung over the sharp curves without faltering, crossed the switch, and floated—floated is the only word for the serene and equable quality of its movement—round and round the quarter-mile circle. A workman boarded it as it passed him, and sat on the edge with his legs swinging, and its level was unaltered. It was ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... forests, and winding among the sides of the mountains, centred in Templeton, had been thronged with equestrians and footmen, bound to the haven of justice. There was to be seen a well-clad yeoman, mounted on a sleek, switch- tailed steed, rambling along the highway, with his red face elevated in a manner that said, I have paid for my land, and fear no man; while his bosom was swelling with the pride of being one of the grand ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the cam, O, and bent or crooked lever, M, with the shaft N, of the gear wheel, L, and with the arm, I, rigidly connected with the switch, F, substantially as herein shown and described and for the ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... who touched the jump switch. There was an instant silence. They were at the approach to the ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... to the wall switch and turned on the lights in the darkened room. He looked around. He was definitely ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... was goin' to say," went on the official, exhibiting tokens of impatience and perturbation, "was that if we should make any switch this year, I guess you boys would have ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... the third case I changed the fuse to a new and tested one, and then placed a new, fused line around the fuse Herr Schweeringen had said would blow, and placed a workman beside it. When the fuse did blow as predicted, my workman instantly closed the extra-line switch, so that the lights of the State dinner barely flickered. But I shudder when I think of the result if Herr Schweeringen had not ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... could not make out what it meant. I understood no more about telegraphing than Kaiser, but in visiting Tom Carr during the fall I had learned to know the call for Track's End, which always sounded to me like clicket-ty-click-click, clicket-ty, over and over again till Tom opened the switch and answered. Well, as I stood listening I heard this call for Track's End, clicket-ty-click-click, clicket-ty. Then I saw that the line must have been repaired; but if this were so a train must have come nearly through; otherwise the repairmen could not have reached the ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... soon she suspected that there was foul play: all modes of doctoring dice had been made familiar to her by the experience of camps. She watched; and, by the time she had lost her final coin, she was satisfied that she had been plundered. In her first anger she would have been glad to switch the whole dozen across the eyes; but, as twelve to one were too great odds, she determined on limiting her vengeance to the immediate culprit. Him she followed into the street; and coming near enough to distinguish his profile ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... John Adams lose some of his aloofness when we see the picture his wife draws of him, submitting to be driven about the room by means of a switch in the hands of his little grandchild? In the eighteenth century home life was evidently just as free from unnecessary dignity as it is to-day, and possibly wives had even more genuine affection and esteem for their husbands than is the case in the twentieth century. Mrs. Washington's ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... masters. One day he refuses to go through with the performance. First one trick fails, and then another. The public grows impatient, the man in spangles grows nervous, raises his voice, stamps loudly with his foot, and strikes his terrible slave with his light switch. A low, deep sound breaks from the enormous throat, the spectators hold their breath, the huge, flexible limbs are gathered for the leap, and in the gaslight and the dead silence man and beast are face to face. Life hangs in the balance, and ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... now came dancing out of the house in her white frock, her hair loose and flowing for the pony's mane, while pinned to the back of her dress, at the waist line, was her mother's switch to represent the pony's tail. The strands of gray in the black hair did not match with the brown of the pony's mane, but that presented no difficulties to the imagination of the ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... respected and admired so deeply, Peggy wanted to respect and admire in the same way, but it was puzzling to understand just what it was that Georgina saw in that wooden figure to make her feel so. Accustomed to thinking of it in Bailey's way, as a sea-cook with a doughnut, it was hard to switch around to a point of view that showed it as Hope with a wreath, or to understand how it could help one to ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... children of my care! To practice now from theory repair. 580 All my commands are easy, short, and full: My sons! be proud, be selfish, and be dull. Guard my prerogative, assert my throne: This nod confirms each privilege your own. The cap and switch be sacred to his grace; With staff and pumps the marquis lead the race; From stage to stage the licensed earl may run, Pair'd with his fellow-charioteer the sun; The learned baron butterflies design, Or draw to silk Arachne's subtile line;[446] 590 The judge to dance his brother ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... the Russians closed a switch on the knapsack which he wore. From the bars below their chins came a dull violet glow which made their faces stand out eerily in the darkness. The flashlight was centered on the box which Dr. Bird could ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... hissed a warning. He reached out a hand to turn the switch controlling the lights. The boat lay in ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... switch was run out into the field, right along the edge of the piles of pig iron. An inclined plank was placed against the side of a car, and each man picked up from his pile a pig of iron weighing about 92 pounds, walked ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... man was in the inner office now, passing the desk, so close that Jimmie Dale could have reached out and touched him. There was a soft, rubbing sound as the man's hand felt along the wall for the electric light switch, a click, the room was suddenly flooded with light; and, with a low cry, blinking there in the glare, staring at Jimmie Dale's ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... dressing-room. "The Two Bonbons" had not finished their duet, and he was alone with her for a moment. She was pinning a switch into her back hair, in front of the scrap of looking- glass ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... nettles first opened Sabathier's Memoirs. The world lay still beneath the pale sky. Presently the little fat rector walked up the hill, his wrists still showing beneath his sleeves. Lawford meditatively watched him pass by. A small boy with a switch, a tiny nose, and a swinging gallipot, his cheeks lit with the sunset, followed soon after. Lawford beckoned him with his finger and held out the bag of tarts. He watched him, half incredulous of his prize, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... my automatic pistol which I kept under the pillow, and jumping out of bed crossed to the dressing-table where I had put my watch and bank-note-case on taking them from my pocket. As I did so I heard the click of an electric light switch, and next instant the ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... of the seven. He had a quick, light step at variance with his sturdy build, and very different from the heavy, slouching gait of the work-weary farmer. He had a habit of carrying in his hand a little twig or switch cut from a tree. This he would twirl blithely as he walked along. The switch and the twirl represented just so much energy and animal spirits. He never so much as flicked a ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... see I know your writing from having read Burnett all those "Burn this at once" epistles. And I know it still better from having to catalogue them for his ready reference. You know how impatient he is. (But I have run into an open switch and must digress backwards.) ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... me that I had been sitting in this trance-like condition for hours, when I was roused by hearing an engine give a certain number of whistles, which indicated it wanted the switch opened. The next moment a man rushed into the office. "Open the switch quick!" he shouted, "the passenger train will be here in two minutes." It was the driver of the engine! My companion sprang joyously to ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith |
