"Hob" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than ever when I took that in. I made a little move, and this funny old man must have heard me—he looked like one of them silly little critters that play hob with Rip Van Winkle out on the mountain before he goes to sleep. And he cocks his ears this way and that; then he jumped to his feet, and I come forward where he could see me. And darned if he didn't up with this here air gun of Rupert's, like a flash, and plunk me with a buckshot it carried—right ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... 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 to hang ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... a large room for so small a cottage, and comfortably furnished, with a floor of red tile, and with a grate at one end well raised up from the hearth. Upon the hob a kettle sang murmurously, and on a trivet stood a plate whereon rose a tower of toasted muffins. A round table occupied the middle of the floor and was spread with a snowy cloth whereon cups and saucers were arranged, while ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... he said when I had finished. "Began it as a joke on Rosie, and ended by picking up the broken china out of the road, knowing it would play hob with the tires of the car." Which shows how near one can come to the truth, and ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sculptured doorway up the straight wide ascent of stone called the grand staircase. At the top he turned to the right, along a dim corridor, from which he entered a suite of bedrooms and dressing-rooms, over whose black floors he led the trampling hob-nailed shoes without pity either for their polish or the labour of the ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... gentleman 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 too ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... 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 ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse.] He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill-husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. His feet never stink so unbecomingly ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... 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 of poetic versatility—for it is even amazing how he could know the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... general—the Mrs. Grundy of each respected reader's private circle—every one of whom can point to some families of his acquaintance who live nobody knows how. Many a glass of wine have we all of us drunk, I have very little doubt, hob-and-nobbing with the hospitable giver and wondering how the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sidle round a considerable part of the gallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at once, it takes time under the circumstances. At length the breakfast is ready. Phil announcing it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his pipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and sits down to the meal. When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit, sitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his plate on his knees. Either in humility, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... 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 be ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... had found the animal injured on the hill; the previous night he had heard the labourers making a noise, shouting and singing, as they crossed from the tillage fields. He knew what had happened when he had seen the marks of their hob-nailed boots on her body. She was always a sensitive brute, of a breed that came from the lowlands. The sombre eyes of the Herd glowed in a smouldering passion as he stood helplessly by while the white goat swung her head from ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... has a throne-room In our humorous town, Spoiling its hob-goblins, Laughing shadows down. Rank musicians torture Ragtime ballads vile, But we walk serenely Down the odorous aisle. We forgive the squalor And the boom and squeal For the Great Queen flashes ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... a top-boot in his wooing, If he comes to you riding a cob, If he talks of his baking or brewing, If he puts up his feet on the hob, If he ever drinks port after dinner, If his brow or his breeding is low, If he calls himself "Thompson" or "Skinner," ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... 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 ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... view of him the watching man understood the reason for the dense cloud of dust above the lone pedestrian. For when the boy raised his feet with each stride, the man-sized, hob-nailed boots which encased them failed to lift in turn. Indeed, the toes did clear the ground, but the heels, slipping away from the lean ankles, dragged in the follow-through. And the boy's other garments, save for his flannel ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... noting a clay tobacco pipe on the hob, a jar on the table, and an easy-chair and spittoon by the fireplace, while flowers were in a vase on the table, and a couple of solemn looking, swollen-eyed, pompous goldfish sailed round and round their little crystal globe, as if it were their world, and nothing outside were of the ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... even moved old 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, hoof ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... zu fuhren, Die Gottgesandte nahte mir: Doch ach! sie frevelnd zu beruhren Hob ich den Lasterblick zu ihr! O! du, hoch uber diesen Erdengrunden, Die mir den Engel meines Heil's gesandt: Erbarm' dich mein, der ach! so tief in Sunden Schmachvoll des Himmels Mittlerin verkannt!" In this stanza and in this song lies the whole significance of the ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... search he had found the ill which troubled him, and pulled it up by the roots. "Take that chair, my dear Poynter," he continued, pointing to one by the fire, where a bright copper kettle was on the hob, and closing the door, while his patient took off his hat, glanced round the room, and blew the dust off the top of a side table before depositing thereon ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... 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 smoking ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... 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 ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Mr. Talboys bit his lip at this boyish impertinence, but he was too proud a 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 mathematics ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... been thus assaulted, young man, and I am not disposed to say it is not as you assert, it can not have been by any of our village, unless it be that Counsellor Pippin and his fellow Hob were the persons: they were down, now I recollect, at the Catcheta pass, somewhere about the time; and I've long suspected Pippin to be more dangerous than ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... out of their cages and they're raising hob! Come on! Come on! Never again will I lighter a cargo of live stock of ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... 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 ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... knew what Would soon be its lot, When Frederick and Jenky set hob-nobbing,[1] And said to each other, "Suppose, dear brother, "We make this funny old ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... such proceedings as shooting marbles at any object behind her, whistling, stamping, fighting, shrieking out 'Amen' in the middle of a prayer, and sometimes rising en masse and tearing like a troop of bisons in hob-nailed shoes down from the gallery, round the great schoolroom, and down the stairs, and into the street. These irrepressible outbreaks she bore ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... like entering a Turkish 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 and succour—food, beds, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... vinak, yxka[c]ahol, quecha.—[c]a x[c]amar [c]a vave ri Caveki Totomay Xurcah qui bi xeboco.—Xavi [c]a x[c]amar vave ri Ahquehayi, Loch, Xet, quibi, xeboco;—xavi [c]a x[c]am ri ahPak, Telom, [c]oxahil, [c]obakil quibi xeboco; quere navipe ri Ikoma[t]i, xavi [c]a x[c]amar; he[c]a cah [c]hob ri [c]a ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... do you leave her out? And there's a corner For granddad in it, surely—an armchair On the other side of the ingle, with a pipe And packet of twist, and a pot of nappy beer, Hot-fettled four-ale, handy on the hob? Ay: there's the chair: ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... as she stepped into the kitchen, noticed the nice little fire in the bright grate (the lodge boasted of no range); she also saw a pile of buttered toast on the hob, and the tiny kitchen was fragrant with the smell of ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... C. BRANN: It 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 ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... parlour of your house, finds that a tea-pot and some spoons 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 seconds 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 ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... tall flowers in pots. A piano stood open by one of the walls and a violin lay carelessly on a chair not far off. There were piles of new music and some tempting, small, neatly bound books lying about. A fire glowed on the hearth and a little brass kettle sang merrily on the hob. The cocoa-table was drawn up in front of the fire and on a quaintly shaped tray stood the bright little cocoa-pot and the ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... underlings. In addition, at these dinners, followed by the secret conferences, there attended a certain smart, well-set-up officer named Miassoyedeff, a colonel stationed at Wirballen on the East Prussia frontier, and who had received gracious invitations from the Kaiser to go shooting and to hob-nob with him. This man afterwards became a spy of Germany, as I will later ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... 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
... province into another; or by breaking down the loom in the most distant corner of the British empire in America; and if this power were denied, I would not permit them to manufacture a lock of wool, or form a horse-shoe or hob-nail. But I repeat the House has no right to lay an internal tax upon America, that ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... compelling about this personality of Honey's. The whole world of creatures felt its charm. Dumb beasts fawned on him. Children clung to him. Old people lingered near as though they could light dead fires in the blaze of his radiant youth. Men hob-nobbed with him; his charm brushed off on to the dryest and dullest so that, temporarily, they too bloomed with personality. As for women—His appearance among them was the signal for a noiseless social cataclysm. They slipped ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... on earth did you ever come to marry?" asked Mr. Squills, abruptly, with his feet on the hob, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to find it the most natural thing in the world to live in the kitchen, and for all that appeared, had never taken his meals anywhere else in his life. He did justice to the supper too, which was a great gratification to Dolly; and lifted the kettle for her from the hob when she wanted it, and took his place generally as if he were one of the family. As for Dolly, there came over her a most exquisite sense of relief; a glimpse of shelter and protection, the like of which she ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... defense for every kind of attack. As Kendrick and McCorquodale first got sight of him three of the gang were rushing him simultaneously. He knicked the knife spinning from one man's hand with his heavy hob-nailed boot, grabbed the fellow by the waist and tossed him backward over his head, grabbed a second one and whirled him across his hip clean into the bushes; number three he laid out with a knee in the stomach and an uppercut that ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Wassail Sheffield Mumming Song Charms, "Nominies," and Popular Rhymes Wilful weaste maks weasome want A rollin' stone gethers no moss Than awn a crawin' hen Nowt bud ill-luck 'll fester where Meeat maks The Miller's Thumb Miller, miller, mooter-poke Down i' yon lum we have a mill, Hob-Trush Hob "Hob-Trush Hob, wheer is thoo?" Gin Hob mun hae nowt but a hardin' hamp, Nanny Button-Cap The New Moon A Setterday's mean I see t' mean an' t' mean sees me, New mean, new mean, I hail thee, Eevein' red an' mornin' gray Souther, wind, ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... have enough fuel to make port or not, there is a wild yell from the bridge that the rudder is jammed at hard-a-starboard and can't be moved. She, of course, at once fell off into the trough of the sea, and the big green combers swept clear over her at every roll, raising merry hob. All the boats were smashed to kindling-wood; chests, and everything on deck not riveted down, went over the side. In that sea you could no more manoeuvre by your engines alone than you could dam Niagara ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... the unendurable. Of his own motion he saw nobody except in his practice. He studied hard, even to weariness and faintness, contrived strange experiments, and caught, he believed, curious peeps into the house of life. Upon them he founded theories as wild as they were daring, and hob-nobbed with death and corruption. But life is at the will of the Maker, and misery can not kill it. By degrees a little composure returned, and the old keen look began to revive. But there were wrinkles on the ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... became general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly on the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness and daring in hob-and-nobbing with the hangman, under the unprecedented circumstances of the shepherd's party, won their admiration. So that it may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made themselves so busy in exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... warms hothouse bedrooms of the rich, but that which burns but once or twice a year. How the coals glow between the bars, how the red light shimmers on the black-lead bricks, how the posset steams upon the hob! Milk or tea, cocoa or coffee, poor commonplace liquids, are they not transmuted in the alembic of a bedroom fire, till they become nepenthe for a heartache or a philtre for romance? Ah, the romance of it, when youth ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... who has seen the farce of Hob in the Well, performed, will remember to have seen a specimen of this kind of prize fighting, for which as well as wrestling, the people of Somersetshire have for ages been renowned. In Scotland they excel at the backsword—the Irish too are admirable hands—but neither have the temper of the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... the King's English, sees double, reels, heels a little, heels and sets, shews his hob-nails, looks as if he couldn't help it, takes an observation, chases geese, loves a drap, and cannot sport a right line, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the Flemish derivation is possible for these two names, it will not explain Hanson, which sometimes becomes Hansom (Epithesis And Assimilation, Chapter III). According to Camden, there is evidence that Han was also used as a rimed form of Ran, short for Ranolf and Randolf (cf. Hob from Robert, Hick from Richard), very popular names in the north during the surname period. In Hankin and Hancock this Han would naturally coalesce with the Flemish Hanke. This would also explain the names Hand for Rand, and Hands, Hance for Rands, Rance. Mobbs is the same as Mabbs ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... cousin! And there I sat hob and nob with him for half an hour in the 'Lake George' public-house. If Desborough had come in, he'd have hung me for being found in bad ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... turned out, and tried my best to hate myself for letting it worry me. Somehow I was able to attribute the fiasco to an inborn sense of shyness that has always made me faint-hearted, dilatory and unaggressive. No doubt if I had gone about it roughshod and fiery I could have played hob with the excellent jeweller's peace of mind, to say the least, but alas! I succeeded only in approaching at a time when there was nothing left for me to do but to start him off in life with a mild handicap in the shape of a dining-room set ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... it is understood, will be a candidate for a seat in the C. S. Senate. And I have learned from several members of the Louisiana legislature that he will be defeated. They charge him with hob-nobbing too much with Northern friends; and say that he still retains membership in several clubs in ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... about six other chairs in the room. One old-fashioned settle. One small table. Clock. Decanter of water, half a dozen toddy tumblers. Matches, etc. The only light is a ruddy glow from the fire. Kettle on hob. Moonlight from R. of window when shutter is opened. Practical chandelier from ceiling or lights at side of mantelpiece. DOCTOR'S coat and muffler on chair up L., his cap ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock
... a strong wind would smash to fragments,—yet when you accidentally swat it off the mantelpiece to the floor it bobs up without a crack. Then you grow bolder and more curious and jump on it with both feet in your hob-nailed boots, and to your astonishment it not only does not ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... discourse, he should eat nothing but hay; he was born for the manger, pannier, or pack-saddle. He has not so much as a good phrase in his belly, but all old iron and rusty proverbs: a good commodity for some smith to make hob-nails of. ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... "Hob-nail boots. I find the imprint of the same boots in both places. One man apparently did all of this," was ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... devils and goblins, men of air, of fire, of water, naturally mingle with men of earth; where flying horses and talking fishes are utterly realistic; where King and Prince meet fisherman and pauper, lamia and cannibal; where citizen jostles Badawi, eunuch meets knight; the Kazi hob-nobs with the thief; the pure and pious sit down to the same tray with the pander and the procuress; where the professional religionist, the learned Koranist, and the strictest moralist consort with the wicked magician, the scoffer, and the debauchee-poet ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... talked colloquially wrote in stilted parody of Dr. Johnson's stately periods, so the uncouth address in print to the populace of the nursery was doubtless forgotten in daily intercourse. But the conventions were preserved, and honest fun or full-bodied romance that loves to depict gnomes and hob-goblins, giants and dwarfs in a world of adventure and mystery, was unpopular. Children's books were illustrated entirely by the wonders of the creation, or the still greater wonders of so-called polite society. Never in them, except introduced purposely as an "awful example," ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... the new country were too busily employed in fighting for a foothold, in getting food and clothing, in keeping body and soul together, to have any time for the fine arts. Most of the New England divines tried their hands at limping and hob-nail verse, but prior to the Revolution, American literature is remarkable only for its aridity, its lack of inspiration and its portentous dulness. In these respects it may proudly claim never to have been surpassed in the history of mankind. In fact, American literature, ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... fell off the mantelpiece, the canisters fell off the shelf; the kettle fell off the hob. Tommy Brock put his foot in a ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... produced by one of Mr. Mew's sedatives. The sofa had been wheeled from the bedroom to the sitting-room, and placed in a comfortable corner by the fire. There were preparations too for a cup of tea, to be made and consumed at any hour agreeable to the watcher; a small teakettle simmering on the hob; a tray with a cup and saucer, and queer little black earthenware teapot, on the table; a teacaddy and other appliances close at hand,—all testifying to the grateful attention ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... part. Just imagine! one is of some enamelled cloth that was left over from the new carriage cushions; it is very shiny and elegant; and the other, truly, is of soft tanned leather, and just as pretty as it can be. Then he has hob-nailed, copper-toed boots, and a hat that ties under his chin. Poor little man, he has lost his curls, too, and ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... clean-swept wooden floor, on which shone a keen-eyed little fire from a low grate. Two easy chairs, covered with some party-coloured striped stuff, stood one on each side of the fire. A kettle was singing on the hob. The white deal-table was set for tea—with a fat brown teapot, and cups of a gorgeous pattern in bronze, that shone in the firelight like red gold. In one of the ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... My 'call' is for scene nine, so after the second act of the drama, I go to my dressing-room and arrange my 'make-up' for the Cubanised Yankee. Agreeably to the Cuban notion of American costume, I don a suit of dark-coloured winter clothing, together with a red flannel shirt, heavy hob-nailed boots, and an engineer's broad-peaked cap. Similarly, I apply cosmetic to my hair, which I comb flat and lank; I rouge my cheeks and nose plentifully with crimson colour, attach a thick tuft of hair to my chin, and with the aid of burnt ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... sure it goes wrong with me, for since the cessure of the wars, I have spent above a hundred crowns out a purse. I have been a soldier any time this forty years, and now I perceive an old soldier and an old Courtier have both one destiny, and in the end turn both into hob-nails. ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... would fill his children with terror of him now, and with hatred afterwards. Of the last-mentioned result of severity, I know at least one instance. At present, the father to whom I refer disapproves of whipping even a man who has been dancing on his wife with hob-nailed shoes, because it would tend to brutalize him. But he taunts and stings, and confines in solitude for lengthened periods, high-spirited boys, and that for faults which I should consider ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... horned moon,' murmured the boy. 'I want to see my stars come out before Hob comes to call me home, and the goats are getting up already. Moon, moon, thou mayst go quicker. Thou wilt have longer time to-morrow—and be higher in the sky, as well as bigger, and thou mightst let me see my star to-night! Ah! there is one high in ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cave. And he slept so sweetly 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 ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... attention! When you're again on the job— When, in your rage for invention, You with the language play hob— Most of your dope we will pardon, Though of the moth ball it smack; But—cut out the "sinister garden," Chop ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... replied 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. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 'who tried to take down her fortune into her stomach. She was near death, and she was all day stretched in her bed at the corner of the fire. One day when the girl was tinkering about, the old woman rose up and got ready a little skillet that was near the hob and put something into it and put it down by the fire, and the girl watching her all the time under her oxter, not letting on she seen her at all. When the old woman lay down again the girl went over to put ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... of his wits, so I made sure he had seen the bogle that my granam used to frighten us with. 'Father, father,' says I, as soon as I could speak, 'what's happened? ha' ye seen it?' He did not say a word, but sat down in the big rocking-chair by t' hob-end, when he tilted his head back, and began swingin' back'ard and for'ard, moaning all the while as if he waur in great trouble. I looked at him, as well as I could, for I had lighted a whole candle a while before. I sat down, too, and not ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... HOB'BEMA, MEINDERT, a famous Dutch landscape painter, born at Amsterdam; lived chiefly in his native town, and died in poverty; his fine, subdued pictures of woodland life and scenery are ranked amongst the masterpieces of Dutch landscape painting, and are the valued possessions of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob compounded some hot mixture in a jug and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter and the two young Crachits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... thought that penetrated to her mind as she crouched on the straw hassock behind the pew, and shared unseen in the blessing of peace. No one saw her as the hob-nailed shoes trooped out of church, and soon she was entirely alone, kneeling still in her hiding-place, and whispering half-aloud the omitted morning prayer, whose heartfelt signification had, she felt, been neglected ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very comfortable and felt so warm. There was a bright fire; Bouncer was stretched on the rug; the kettle boiled on the hob; breakfast was laid; the sun shone in at the lattice window. And now Mary, looking out into the garden, remembered what Susan had said about the trees, for they did indeed look beautiful. Every branch and every twig was incrusted ...
— The Goat and Her Kid • Harriet Myrtle
... great green earth to roam, Where sights of awe the soul inspire; But oh, it's best, the coming home, The crackle of one's own hearth-fire! You've hob-nobbed with the solemn Past; You've seen the pageantry of kings; Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last The peace and rest of ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... oblong garret; but 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 candlesticks were of silver also, and ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... attire, who made his appearance whenever the brigand, a ferocious-looking ruffian, was absent. The lady made piteous appeals to the audience for sympathy, greatly exciting the feelings of many of them, though Tom and I were much inclined to laugh when we saw the brigand and the lover hob-nobbing with each other behind a side scene, which, by some mischance, had not been shoved forward enough. At length the young count and the brigand met, and had a tremendous fight, which ended in the death of the ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... States? Shall the South not exult in the fact, that the industry and persevering intelligence of the North, has placed her mechanical skill in the front ranks of the civilized world—that our mother country, whose haughty minister some eighty odd years ago declared that not a hob-nail should be made in the colonies, which are now the United States, was brought some four years ago to recognize our pre-eminence by sending a commission to examine our work shops, and our machinery, to perfect their own manufacture of the arms requisite ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... on quite long enough," said George Cannon, as he stooped to poke the morsel of fire in the old-fashioned grate, which had a hob on either side. On one of these hobs was a glass of milk. Hilda had learnt that day for the first time that at a certain hour every evening George Cannon drank a glass of warm milk, and that this glass of warm milk was an important factor in his daily comfort. He now took the glass ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: "rather ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... blackened or roughened, they radiate better. A bright kettle gives off fewer rays of heat than a black one, and so far, is better to keep water hot in. But then, on the other hand, it yields more heat to the air, or the hob or hearth that it stands upon—if colder than itself. The bright kettle gives off heat in one way and the black in another. I don't know at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... case, the traveller in the valleys must be prepared to "rough it" a little. I was directed to bring with me only a light knapsack, a pair of stout hob-nailed shoes, a large stock of patience, and a small parcel of insect powder. The knapsack and the shoes I found exceedingly useful, indeed indispensable; but I had very little occasion to draw upon either my stock of patience or insect powder. The French are a tidy ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... disorder had grown beyond control or opposition: the populace had shaken off all regard to their former masters; and being headed by the most audacious and criminal of their associates, who assumed the feigned names of Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, Hob Carter, and Tom Miller, by which they were fond of denoting their mean origin, they committed every where the most outrageous violence on such of the gentry or nobility as had the misfortune to fall ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... no: they did not murder and rob; But give them a word, they returned a blow,—old Halbert as young Hob: Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed, Hated or feared the ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... that she is always wanting to go to Cambridge, independent of the selfish desire to get a visit out of you by it. I want her to get started, now, before children's diseases are fashionable again, because they always play such hob with visiting arrangements. With love to you all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... peace. So, taking the whole clause, we may paraphrase it by saying that the preparedness of spirit, the alacrity which comes from the possession of a Gospel that sheds a calm over the heart and brings a man into peace with God, is what the Apostle thinks is like the heavy hob-nailed boots that the legionaries wore, by which they could stand firm, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 marry ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... his lands—boundaries that vanished day by day, as the lands widened, with now a whole farm added, and now a single field. Could he leave Arden, and the kingdom that he had created for himself, to roam in sandy deserts, and hob-and-nob with Kaffir chiefs under the ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... up 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 sin ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... had lost nearly all his teeth from premature decay. But he had an eye gleaming with intelligence and life, and an expression at once patient and hopeful. He had balanced his misshapen frame on the top of the old wall, over which one shriveled leg dangled, as if by the weight of a hob-nailed boot, that covered a foot large enough for ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... her tiny grate when she came in, and when her lamp was lighted under its home-made shade of crimson Japanese paper, its cheerful air, combining itself with the singing of her little, fat, black kettle on the hob, seemed absolute luxury to a tired, ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... through your dining-room windows. You were hob-nobbing with Captain Blackbeard. You looked rosy and well. You smiled. You drank off the champagne ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... 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 ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... Mr. Henderson!" Frank exclaimed triumphantly. "Another man came out of the wood here—a man with roughly-made boots with hob-nails. That man came out first; that is quite evident. The tracks are all in a line, and Julian's are in many places on the top of the other's. They were both running fast. But if you look you will see that Julian's strides are the longest, ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... child begins to stir, kick and move in the womb, and then the woman is troubled with a loathing for meat and a greedy longing for things contrary to nutriment, as coals, rubbish, chalk, etc., which desire often occasions abortion and miscarriage. Some women have been so extravagant as to long for hob nails, leather, horse-flesh, man's flesh, and other unnatural as well as unwholesome food, for want of which thing they have either miscarried or the child has continued dead in the womb for many days, to the ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... you in 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
... was 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, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... girls moved as though the temperature was sixty degrees instead of being over a hundred. All these women and girls were beautiful, all had charm, all were more or less ravishing—simply because for days we had been living in a harsh masculine world—a world of motor- lorries, razors, trousers, hob-nailed boots, maps, discipline, pure reason, and excessively few mirrors. An interesting item of the laundry was a glass-covered museum of lousy shirts, product of prolonged trench-life in the earlier part of the war, and held by experts to surpass ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... ready, was pressing out the crust of a final apple-pie with a rolling-pin. A great pot boiled on the fire, and through the open door of the back kitchen a boy was seen seated on the fender, emptying the snuffers and scouring the candlesticks, a row of the latter standing upside down on the hob to ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... "Well, I don't mind," says Giglio, louder still. The King and Queen luckily did not hear; for her Majesty was a little deaf, and the King thought so much about his own dinner, and, besides, made such a dreadful noise, hob-gobbling in eating it, that he heard nothing else. After dinner, his Majesty and the Queen went to ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... has been here," he was saying, half diffidently, still searching deep in her eyes. "He's played hob. And he's likely to return at ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... at the chimney-jamb! And hob-nailed boots on the hearth below, And the house cat curls in a slumber calm, And the eight-day clock ticks loud and slow; When the harsh broom-handle jabs the ceil 'Neath the kitchen-loft, and the drowsy ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... do you recreate yourselves, My boy, HOBBY O? (bis) We spout with tavern Radicals, And drink with them hob-nobby O! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... in that wilderness of a house. There was an old nursery, that had been used for all the little lords and ladies long ago, with a pleasant fire burning in the grate, and the kettle boiling on the hob, and tea-things spread out on the table; and out of that room was the night-nursery, with a little crib for Miss Rosamond close to my bed. And old James called up Dorothy, his wife, to bid us welcome; and both he and she were so hospitable and kind, that ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... 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 with ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... pleasantly on the hob, and a tray glimmered in the firelight on the little table, as the woman had left it; and it was not until he had poured himself out a cup of tea that he saw on the white cloth an envelope, directed to him, inscribed "By hand," in the usual ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... by the campfire. The others of their party, with the exception of Mrs. Shafto and the bear, were listening to the fiddle and the thudding of the hob-nail boots of the lumberjacks as they danced away the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... 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 quit ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... saw that night was-the light of their lanterns, and the last thing I heard was the march of their hob-nailed boots. The first thing I heard in the morning, just as day broke, was the neighing of the horses, and the subdued voices of the men as ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich |
