"Topping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the most famous artists, and lavished on all sides in order to dazzle the world. And finally, many years later, a last palace was added to all the others—that of Septimius Severus: again a building of pride, with arches supporting lofty halls, terraced storeys, towers o'er-topping the roofs, a perfect Babylonian pile, rising up at the extreme point of the mount in view of the Appian Way, so that the emperor's compatriots—those from the province of Africa, where he was born—might, on reaching the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... ante-chamber; afterwards, leading the way down a spiral staircase, which looked into the great hall of the castle, its only outlet, she had crossed this hall, and had taken Mary into the garden whose trees the queen had seen topping the high walls on her arrival: it was a little square of ground, forming a flower-bed in the midst of which was an artificial fountain. It was entered by a very low door, repeated in the opposite wall; this second door looked on to the lake and, like all ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... After topping the crevasse ridge we got on a better surface and came along fairly well, completing over 7 miles (geo.) just before 1 o'clock. We have risen nearly 250 feet this morning; the wind was strong and therefore trying, mainly because it held the sledge; ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... village and its neighborhood, and where regular pastor was none, he might be considered to have made the strongest impression upon his almost primitive and certainly only in part civilized hearers. His merits of mind were held of rather an elevated order, and in standard far over topping the current run of his fellow-laborers in the same vineyard; while his own example was admitted, on all hands, to keep pace evenly with the precepts which he taught, and to be not unworthy of the faith which he professed. He was of the methodist persuasion—a sect which, among those who ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... wears at balls, Or pumps, and boots with tops, mayhap, Why we might pass for Snip and Snap, And shoot like blazes! fly or sit, And none would stare, unless we hit. But no—to make the more combustion, He goes in gaiters and in fustian, Like Captain Ross, or Topping Sparks, And deuce a miss but some one marks! For Keepers, shy of such encroachers, Dog us about like common poachers! Many's the covey I've gone by, When underneath a sporting eye; Many a puss I've twigg'd, and pass'd her— I miss ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... undulating park, our friends now found themselves on large frozen fallows, upon whose uneven surface the heaviest horses made no impression while the shuffling rats of ponies toiled and floundered about, almost receding in their progress. Mr. Sponge was just topping the fence out of the first one, and Miss Glitters was gathering her horse to ride at it, as Watchorn and Co. emerged from the park. Rounding the turnip-hill beyond, the leading hounds were racing with a breast-high scent, followed by the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... myself aboard by a topping-lift, climbed upon the low cabin-house, and jumped down to the tiny poop where ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... to catch greased lightning as that long-armed beast," observed Higson, who did not, however, attempt to stop them. Spider quickly reached the main-topsail-yard-arm, but finding that the tempting trees were still utterly beyond his reach, up the topping-lift he swarmed, and in another instant was on the royal-yard. Thither the midshipmen followed, but Spider showed an inclination to defend his position, and sat grinning at them from the end of the yard, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... cryptically labelled with physicians' prescriptions; then some remnants of catsup and essence of beef and what was left in several bottles of mouthwash; after that a quantity of rejected flavouring extract—topping off by shaking into the mouth of the bottle various powders from small pink papers, relics of Mr. Schofield's influenza of the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... shaped and exquisitely green; above them loftier undulations take hazier verdancy and darker shadows; farther yet rise silhouettes of blue or violet tone, with one beautiful breast-shaped peak thrusting up in the midst;—while, westward, over all, topping even the Piton, is a vapory huddling of prodigious shapes—wrinkled, fissured, horned, fantastically tall.... Such at least are the tints of the morning.... Here and there, between gaps in the volcanic chain, the land hollows into gorges, slopes ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... scream?" she overheard Rose Butler say to Francie Sheppard, and Francie replied "Rather! I call her topping!" which, of course, was slang, and not fit for such an occasion; but then the girls were beginning to forget the elaborate ceremony of ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Settlement Cliffs; but how could there be so many? Those who had remained at the colony were only twenty-five, all told, and in this long line that still at a good pace was defiling down the hillside already more than fifty had come to view, with more and ever more still topping the rise. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... haute ecole stunt, Lady Hickle," burst out a lad who rode a fallen star in the shape of a discarded discreditable polo pony. "Simply topping—but the Devil's a nervy demon, you shouldn't ride him—he'll get away with you one of these fine days. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... rough work, all around, whether blinding and topping off the half-wild ponies or throwing them and tacking cold-wrought "cowboy" shoes to their flint-like feet, and more than one enthusiast came away limping or picking the loose skin from a bruised hand. Yet through it all the dominant note of dare-devil hilarity never failed. The solitude ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... apples caught in unprotected places. When the cold wave struck us, about November 20, my four-legged "I told-you-so's" had nearly completed their dwelling; it lacked only the ridge-board, so to speak; it needed a little "topping out," to give it a finished look. But this it never got. The winter had come to stay, and it waxed more and more severe, till the unprecedented cold of the last days of December must have astonished even the wise muskrats in their snug retreat. I approached their nest at this time, a white mound ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... this is a trouble to you I am sorry, but we are all working for the good name and good times of Grande Mignon, and I hope you won't mind. Good fishing to the Charming Lass, high line and topping full! May you wet your salt early and come home again to those who are ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the summit of a neighbouring point of land, and to its now seldom used churchyard the body of the poor sailor was conveyed. His grave was one of the first points of interest to us when our visit to the cape commenced; and many a time that season did I sit and watch the brown headstone topping the bleakest part of the sea-bluff, and as the great voice of the sea, dashing and foaming on the stony beach beneath, sang in its eternal melancholy grandeur, I fancied long, long histories of what might have ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... while with his free right hand he swung an ebony cane. His mustaches were turned straight upward from the corners of his mouth and the aggressive chin shot outward as he glanced right and left, talking meanwhile with his companions. The third figure was very tall, topping even the Archduke, who was by no means small of stature, by at least six inches; his hair, or as much of it as could be seen beneath the soft hat, was gray, and a long beard, almost white in the patches at either side ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... simple. I dug four holes in the ground and pegged a waterproof sheet in it, and got four dixifuls of hot water, so that each section of my platoon had a bath per platoon and water not quite cold. As there was a gentle zephyr wind blowing and a nice warm sun it was very pleasing. We have been having topping fine ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... peculiar mottled light green. All the domes, except the six yellow ones in the Court of the Universe, are of this light green. It forms a sharp contrast with the blue sky and a pleasing topping to ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... night, when the company grows thin, and your eyes dim with watching, false dice are often put upon the ignorant, or they are otherwise cozened, with topping or slurring, &;c.; and, if you be not vigilant, the box-keeper shall score you up double or treble boxes, and, though you have lost your money, dun you as severely for it as if it were the justest ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... last year's Valentine, and whither the fame of the last ten Scotch novels has not yet travel'd (marry, they just begin to be conscious of the Red Gauntlet), to have a new plasterd flat church, and to be wishing that it was but a Cathedral. The very blackguards here are degenerate. The topping gentry, stock brokers. The passengers too many to ensure your quiet, or let you go about whistling, or gaping—too few to be the fine indifferent pageants of Fleet Street. Confining, room-keeping thickest winter is yet more bearable ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... that rose breast high; and a flying-leap over a five-barred gate would have been an easy exploit, compared with clearing one of these monstrous barriers. I might add, also, from experience, that leaping a log is a feat of considerable danger. There is no room for "topping;" and should the iron hoof strike, there is nothing that will yield. On the other side, the rider has the pleasant prospect of a broken neck—either for himself or his horse. Not being in any particular hurry, I took the matter quietly; and wound my way through a labyrinth worthy of being ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... lessened, and a rising moon cast a ghost through the wrack, just enough to let us glimpse a figure topping a rise before us. That it was no one but Rolldown, still fleeing the mystery and bleating as he fled, made no difference to the blurred eyes of Miah; he dug his toes into the sand and flung forward in still hotter chase—after a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... hundred yards away—Pozieres had a fairly decent covering then. There was enough dead brushwood and twigs, at any rate, to hide the buildings of the place. A few pink walls could then be half seen behind the branches, or topping the gaps in ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... were content to take their bread and cheese by the cosy fireside of a public-house kitchen; this was followed by sundry publicans reserving a better room, in which a joint was served up for their "topping customers." One who got into trouble and lost his license, conceived the idea of opposing his successor, and started dining-rooms, sending out for beer as it was required, but not to his old shop. This innovation took, and when the railways began bringing in their streams of strangers, these dining-rooms ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... discovered at last a twinkling guide by which to shape his path in a northerly direction. It was a wild, rough country over which he passed. With slow and careful steps, his sagacious steed moved on, obedient to the rein, at one time topping the crest of a rugged hill, and then winding at a snail's pace down the steep declivity, or following the tortuous course of the streamlet through deep ravines, whose jagged and bush-clad sides frowned down upon them on either side, deepening ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... moorland way to Glenfernie House. He was looking from side to side, recovering old landscape in sweep and in detail. Bit by bit, as they came to it, Strickland gave him the country news. At last there was the house before them, among the firs and oaks, topping the crag. They came into the wood at the base of the hill. The stream—the trees—above, the broken, ancient wall, the roofs of the new house that was not so new, the old, outstanding keep. The whole rested, mellowed, lifted, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... now lying becalmed about half a mile to the south-east of the low eastern coast. Grey-coloured woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sand-break in the lower lands, and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others—some singly, some in clumps; but the general colouring was uniform and sad. The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock. All were strangely shaped, and the Spy-glass, which was ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Topping the next ridge ... the hill slopes steeply down to the hamlet of Chamvery, just below us. The battery which I mentioned just now is in the wood on this side of it to our right. The Zouaves' firing line is lying flat on the hillside a little way beyond the village, and behind ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... even beyond their triumphant and optimistic wont. Furthermore, his courses over the Continent had brought him into contact with many travellers more lately from home than himself, whose strange and topping tales—carried, indeed, in a direction the reverse of that taken by most such reports—had told him much of contemporaneous achievement behind them, and had filled him with a half-belief that no expectations founded on ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... you, I can't stay now. Will ye just ask Dick if he'll do me the kindness to step over to Yalbury to-morrow with my da'ter Fancy, if she's well enough? I don't like her to come by herself, now she's not so terrible topping in health." ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... lay in long curves of sand, like the dunes which might have fringed some forgotten primeval sea. Topping them they could see the black, craggy summits of the curious volcanic hills which rise upon the Libyan side. On the crest of the low sand-hills they would catch a glimpse every now and then of a tall, sky-blue soldier, walking swiftly, his rifle at ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... How do you like our new diggings? Some removal, this, isn't it? I must say the place looks nice. It's topping to be here at last. By the by, I suppose you'll be getting in Rotherwood soon? Or have ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... again, south again, across the seemingly illimitable plains, until, topping a range of bare brown hills, there lay spread before us the gleaming walls and minarets of that city where Paul preached to the Thessalonians. To the westward Olympus seemed to verify the assertions of the ancient Greeks that its summit touched the sky. To the east, outlined against the AEgean's ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... the same Bigness as the last; he is pied with black and white, has a Crimson Head, without a Topping, and is a Plague to the Corn and Fruit; especially the Apples. He opens the Covering of the young Corn, so that the Rain gets in, and ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... Robin Oig was an incident in the little town, in and near which he had many friends male and female. He was a topping person in his way, transacted considerable business on his own behalf, and was intrusted by the best farmers in the Highlands, in preference to any other drover in that district. He might have increased his business to any extent had he condescended to manage it by deputy; but except a lad ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... Saltersgate Inn lies the remarkable circular hollow among the hills known as the Hole of Horcum, and the bold bluff known as Saltersgate Brow rises like an enormous rampart from the smooth brown or purple heather. To the west lies the peculiarly isolated hill known as Blakey Topping, and, a little to the south, are the Bride Stones, those imposing masses of natural rock that project themselves above the moor. The Saltersgate Inn has lost the importance it once possessed as the stopping-place for the coaches between ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... how to grant suits, How to deny them, who t' advance, and who To trash for over-topping; new created The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em, Or else new form'd 'em: having both the key Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state To what tune pleas'd his ear: that now he was The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, And suck'd my ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... watch your wings Topping the mountains, battling winds,—to dare Challenge the lammergeyer where she swings Down the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... to, Anne and I have to do more than we should, and are a little bored with Life. George has the best time with the car, but we make him help in the house. When are you coming to Bell Hammer? George and I were there on Sunday, and it looks topping. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... rise of land. The shadow moved, however, and as we both stared in uncertainty, there came to our ears the far-off crack of a whip. We drew farther back against the bank, pausing to make sure there was no deception. One by one we could perceive those vague shadows topping the rise and disappearing. I counted ten, convinced they were covered wagons, and then the night wind brought to us the creaking of wheels, and the sound of a man's voice. Duval's hand gripped my arm, and to the signal we crept back beyond the crest, and then ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... fiery-red hair (as the fashion is not)—has looked very hard at me and fluttered about me at the same time, like a giant butterfly. After a pause, he says, in a Sam Wellerish kind of way: "I vent to the club this mornin', sir. There vorn't no letters, sir." "Very good. Topping." "How's missis, sir?" "Pretty well, Topping." "Glad to hear it, sir. My missis ain't wery well, sir." "No!" "No, sir, she's a goin', sir, to have a hincrease wery soon, and it makes her rather nervous, sir; and ven a young voman gets at all down at sich a time, sir, she goes down wery deep, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... have learnt, through the kindness of Mr. C.E. Doble, the editor of Hearne's Remarks and Collections, ed. 1885, that a passage in that book (i. 271), confirms my conjecture that Psalmanazar was lodged in Christ Church when at Oxford. Hearne says (July 9, 1706):—'Mr. Topping of Christ Church ... also tells me that Salmanezzer, the famous Formosan, when he left Christ Church (where he resided while in Oxon) left behind him a Book in MSt., wherein a distinct acct was given of the Consular and Imperial coyns by ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... Miss Viola Thesiger and was shown into the Canon's library. To my great relief the Canon wasn't in his library. It looked out on to a perfect garden with a thick green lawn, and an old red-brick wall, very high, all round it, and tall elms topping the wall, and long beds of wallflowers and tulips blazing away underneath it. I said to myself, "If I want atmosphere I've got it. Bruges is nothing to the Thesigers' garden in Canterbury Close." I'd time to take it all in, for Viola ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... climbed the hill above the town, and struck inland from the base of the peninsula, travelling north and by west. The road—a passably good one—led them across a dip of cultivated land, shaped like a saddle-back, with a line of forest trees topping its farther ridge. This was the fringe of a considerable forest, and beyond the ridge they rode for miles in the shade of boughs, slanting their way along a gentle declivity, with here and there glimpses of ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "Oh, shoot! I'm game to tackle it if you are. Far as I'm personally concerned, I know I can fly." His lips, too, set themselves in the line of stubbornness. And he added with perfect seriousness, "It ain't half as hard as topping a bronk." ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... broke, though here and there a silver birch drew a shaft of light upon their sombre background. Here were no English woodlands, no stretches of pale green turf, no vistas opening beneath flattened boughs, with blue distant hills and perhaps a group of antlers topping the bracken. The wild life of these forests crawled among thickets or lurked in sinister shadows. No bird poured out its heart in them; no lark soared out of them, breasting heaven. At rare intervals ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... car, eh?" said the boots, chewing vigorously at his straw as he stood, his hands deep in what are graphically known as "go-to-hell" pockets and his legs well straddled. "Hop over anything, what? Topping weather we're having—been like this for weeks. If you don't mind, old chap, you might wiggle her over this way a bit. Something else ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... reason for buying "painkiller" was that they, like other Indians, relished it as a cocktail on festival occasions; and many a time have I seen a group of Indians—like civilized society people—topping off cocktails (of painkiller) ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Mrs. Wyburn. I like her. She looked topping last night, too. But I dare say it'll be all right. Romer's ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... their insinuations, the growth of prejudice and envy. They told me that Waldegrave's sister had gone to live in the country, but whither, or for how long, she had not condescended to inform them, and they did not care to ask. She was a topping dame, whose notions were much too high for her station; who was more nice than wise, and yet was one who could stoop when it most became her to stand upright. It was no business of theirs; but they could not but mention their suspicions that she had good reasons for leaving ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... scarcely been thrown when two other balls thrown by Fred and another cadet went sailing over the barn. Then those in the contest seemed to acquire better skill, and soon nearly every one of them was topping ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... just beginning to fall when, topping a ridge, Connie caught the faint glimmer of a light at the edge of a spruce thicket beyond a strip of open tundra. Drawing back behind the ridge Connie motioned to the Indian to swing the dogs into a thick clump of stunted trees ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... screens were seen at once by the Boers, and the battalion was much troubled by a new gun stationed near Pepworth Hill, which opened fire shortly after they were erected. One shell from this howitzer topping the hill pitched within a yard of the guard tent underneath, which was full of men. No damage was done, however, beyond scattering the ammunition boxes and covering the men with mud. The screens were then taken down, and on the disappearance of the noxious objects ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... week. Several times we attempted to leave, but each time had to put back, fearing that the heavy seas we encountered outside would crush in the baidarka, which was carried lashed to the sloop's deck. It was not until early on the morning of April 12, just as the sun was topping the mountains, that ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... third year, the trees will require topping. As to the height at which a coffee tree should be topped, there is a great diversity of opinion. Some planters advocate topping as low as four and a half feet, others at six or seven feet; as a matter of fact the coffee tree will ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... of its isolation, the tower of the Metropolitan Building. Whatever artists may think of it—and there is division of opinion—that tower is, structurally, one of the wonders of the world. Rising seven hundred feet above the sidewalk, topping the Singer Building by ninety feet and being outclimbed only by the Woolworth Building (seven hundred and ninety-two feet), the tower is seventy-five feet by eighty-five at its base, and carries the building to its fifty-second story. Exactly ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... to see you, Charles," he cried in a round and jovial voice. "I have been telling my up-river good friends that I have the most topping fellow in all London for my guest, and you will have company ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... servants his family. With the privilege of parenthood went the power of the rod. There's no doubt about that: maid and man had it if it was earned. In his dairy instruction Tusser gives us a list of "ten topping guests unsent for," whose presence in the cheese will cause Cicely ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He could see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big and dreamy, gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... then that an inner door—a door which she had wanted to open, but had lacked courage—squeaked upon its hinges, and an ill-kept bundle of hair was thrust in, topping a weather-beaten face and a scrawny little body. Two faded, inquisitive eyes looked her over, and the woman sidled in, somewhat abashed, but too ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... matter of putting up the wire occupied several days—there were ten or twelve negro men engaged in cutting down trees, and in topping and ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... glistening after-deck strolled Peter, an eye-catching figure in the flooding moonlight. For, retiring to his stateroom from the table, he had divested himself of much raiment and encased his figure in a great purple bathrobe. He was a man who loved to be comfortable, was Peter. Topping the robe, he wore his new Panama. Varney looked around at the sound of footsteps, and was considerably struck by ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Topping his long stiff body, Marigold's ugly one-eyed head appeared, and, as if he was tremendously ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... appearance of being the entrance to a river. No land was visible to the north-east; and besides quantities of grass and branches of trees or bushes floating in the water, there was a number of long, gauze-winged insects topping about the surface, such as frequent fresh-water lakes and swamps. In order to form a judgment of how much fresh was mixed with the salt water, or whether any, I had some taken up for the purpose of ascertaining its specific gravity; but before the experiment could be made, the ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... in, and they shewed me away, clean up to the garret, just like meeting-house gallery. And so I saw a power of topping folks, all sitting round in little cabins, "just like father's corn-cribs;" and then there was such a squeaking with the fiddles, and such a tarnal blaze with the lights, my head was near turned. At last the people that sat near me set up such a hissing—hiss—like ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... runs off. The bush is still But half as tall as she, though it is as old; So well she clips it. Not a word she says; And I can only wonder how much hereafter She will remember, with that bitter scent, Of garden rows, and ancient damson-trees Topping a hedge, a bent path to a door, A low thick bush beside the door, and me Forbidding her ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... jail, and found that their impudence and assumption were met by keen reproofs, they gradually comprehended that Washington was not a man to be trifled with, and that in him was a pride and dignity out-topping theirs and far stronger, because grounded on responsibility borne and work done, and on the deep sense of a great and ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... away to sea many years before, and they hinted to one another that he might have been changed from black to white, and returned in the sloop. For some time every movement I made was closely watched. They were particularly interested in what I ate. One day, after I had been "boot-topping" the sloop with a composition of coal-tar and other stuff, and while I was taking my dinner, with the luxury of blackberry jam, I heard a commotion, and then a yell and a stampede, as the children ran away ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... scarcely see, screened as she was by her veil. But her firm handshake and the long unflinching gaze of her "How do you do?" told him why Freddy always spoke of his sister in tones which implied that she was as reliable as a man and a "topping pal." ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... nothing but a coon. I shall haul up my canoe somewhere about here; follow up the lake-shore a mile or so, with the idea of catching a deer in the edge of the water, come there to keep off the flies; then, perhaps, cross over to the Magalloway, down that, and over to this place; when, by way of topping off, I will show you, by that time, if you are about here so long, how trout ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... your father fight his battles over again, dear witch," he told Damaris, pacing the terrace walk topping the sea-wall beside her, one evening in the early November dusk. "His record is a very brilliant one and he ought to get more comfort out of the remembrance of it. Let's conspire, you and I, to make him sun himself in the achievements and activities of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... pursued, for the preservation of others, a course of exertion that has been rarely equalled either in its duration or difficulty, at last felt it right to provide for his own safety by laying hold on the topping-lift or rope that connects the driver boom with the mizen-top, and thereby getting over the heads of the infatuated men who occupied the boom, unable to go either backward or forward, and ultimately dropping ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... leaned back with her face to the hills and waited. The moon was just topping the great summits. She watched it with a curious feeling of weakness. It had not been a particularly agitating interview, but she knew that she had just passed ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Miss Bird to take them to the station to meet Walter in the afternoon. They were not allowed to go outside the park by themselves, and walked down the village on either side of the old starling, each of them over-topping her by half a head, like good girls, as she said herself. They wore cool white dresses, and shady hats trimmed with poppies, and looked a picture. When they reached the by-road to the station, Joan said, "One, two, three, and away," and they shot like darts from the side ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better. Doctor Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game, was kind enough to tell me I had a "topping" drive. I thanked him, but there was altogether too much "topping" connected with my play that forenoon to make my thanks enthusiastic. I determined to practice assiduously before attempting another ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... The sooner the better. If the post is open there is no object in wasting time." His face lit up with sudden animation. "I say! Could we manage it in a fortnight, should you think? Miss Ward is sailing by the 'Louisiana,' and it would be topping if I could go by the same boat. I might wire to-day about ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... that St. John's Eve I had been drifting in dreams while Leila had gone from golden splendors of chords which reflected the glow on westward-fronting windows into somber symphonies which had seemed to make vocal the turbulent soul of the city—for Dick Allport and I were topping the structure of that house of life that was to shelter the love we had long been cherishing. With Leila playing in that art which had dowered her with fame, I was visioning the glory of such love as she and Standish Burton gave each other while I watched ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... ride, everyone did ample justice to the things which were put before them. Even Aunt Betty, usually a light eater, consumed three eggs, two glasses of milk and a plate of fried bacon, topping them off with a cup of ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... the gentle slope of the draw he heard a quick, blunt sound, as though some one had struck a drum and immediately muffled the reverberations with the hand. He was too deeply immersed in himself to pay much attention to this. Topping the rise, the fresh vista of rolling mesa, the far blue hills, and a white dot—the distant Concho—awakened him to a realization of his whereabouts. Again he heard that peculiar, dull sound. He lifted his horse to a lope and swept along, the dancing shadow at his ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... words than your actions. If you wants what is not your own, try and do without it; and if you cannot do without it, take it away by insinivation, not bluster. They as swindles does more and risks less than they as robs; and if you cheats toppingly, you may laugh at the topping cheat ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wondered that we prisoners were all desirous enough to see these brave, topping gentlemen, that were talked up to be such as their fellows had not been known, and especially because it was said they would in the morning be removed into the press-yard, having given money to the head master of the prison, to be allowed the liberty of that better ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... break them like that?" she asked. Bangs was topping a horse that strenuously refused to be conquered and as they looked ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... laugh. "They, or rather a topping old dog-fox, took us an eleven mile point the other day, which was good enough in that country. Being in town I thought I would run down to this dance for old acquaintance' sake. Dare say one will ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... said, topping her hand with his, "why didn't you let me know sooner? Your letter an hour ago came out of a clear sky. You see, I didn't ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... ideal do you allude?" he asked cynically. "The League of Nations; or the triumph of Democracy, or the War to end War. They all sound so topping, don't they? received with howls of applause by the men who haven't had their boots off for a week." He thumped the sand savagely. "Cut the cackle, my dear girl; cut the cackle. This little performance was started by a few of the puppets who thought they had a winning hand, and the other ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... was a three-storied oblong house of white stone topping a terrace that started its climb from the sidewalk of Sixteenth Street. The doors at the head of the wide stone staircase were of bronze; and they were closed, and, Thorn surmised, efficiently barred. The windows at front ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... could see a lot o' factry fowk gooin to ther wark. Mondy's easy to tell, becoss th' lasses have all clean approns on, an' ther hair hasn't lost its Sundy twists, an' twines ther faces luk ruddier an' ther een breeter. Tuesdy, ther's a change; they're not quite as prim lukkin! ther topping luk fruzzier, an' ther's net as monny shignons as ther wor th' day before. Wednesday,—they just luk like hard-workin fowk 'at live to wark an' wark to live. Ther's varry few faces have a smile on 'em, an' th' varry way they set daan ther clogs seems to say, "Wark-a-day, ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... the really doubtful moments. We had to get in carefully, to sit craftily, and to paddle gingerly and firmly, without attempting to counteract the downward sweep of the current. All our energies and care were given to preventing those miserable curling little waves from over-topping our precious two inches, and that miserable little canoe from departing even by a hair's-breadth from the exactly level keel. Where we were going did not matter. After an interminable interval the tail of our eyes would catch the sway ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... tell anybody that. A little stop at St. Paul isn't worth making a fuss about. You'll come along into the city with me, and we will get a few of the boys together and give you a topping dinner." ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... Topping a little rise, the moon came out bright, and away ahead the silver ribbon of the Souchez gleamed for an instant; the bare poles that once had been Bouvigny Wood were behind us, and to the right, to ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... the city again from the Christians, after twenty-five years, and demolished it, for I prefer to remember it as it has been rebuilt and lies white by its bay, a series of red-tiled levels of roof with a few church-towers topping them. It is a pretty place, and remarkably clean, inhabited mostly by beggars, with a minority of industrial, commercial, and professional citizens, who live in agreeable little houses, with patios open ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... so-called "shore," a clump of peculiar form, or a tree topping over its fellows, is used as a landmark, and often guides the navigator of the Gapo to the igarita of ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Royal Highness at any rate, and a much more topping man than most of them. Well then;—His Serene Highness the heir of the Duke of Omnium has done me the inexpressible honour of asking me—to ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... account it a main point of their privileges, my lord," answered Lowestoffe; "and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the presence of the green fields his father loved and across the grave of Nance McGregor shout to them saying, "Your cause shall be my cause. My brain and strength shall be yours. Your enemies I shall smite with my naked fist." Instead he walked rapidly past them and topping the hill went down toward the town ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... that you were in London, I should have been very glad to have given you a letter of introduction to the Smiths. They are quite the topping people of ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... were not the same for everybody. But he marched away, back to the cubbyhole in which he had awakened. Angrily, he donned the heat-suit that had not protected him adequately before, but had certainly saved his life. He filled the canteens topping full—he suspected he hadn't done so the last time. He went back to the Project Engineer's office with a feeling of ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... immense volumes of water did not burst the deck in or smash one of the hatches, if the engines did not give up, if way could be kept on the ship against this terrific wind, and she did not bury herself in one of these awful seas, of whose white crests alone, topping high above her bows, he could now and then get a sickening glimpse—then there was a chance of her coming out of it. Something within him seemed to turn over, bringing uppermost the feeling ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... order that the parents of such children do bring them unto the Parish Church of East Peckham, where we desire that Mr. Topping, minister of the said Parish, would baptize them according to the sayd Directorie, they acquainting him with the day they ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... very dream of loveliness. We saw its outline rising above a rim of azure sea, with the mountains of Porto Rico standing out to the westward. The great palm groves on the shore led the eye upward to the green hills and the clouds topping the higher peaks. Gayly painted boats began to come near the Diana, and naked diving boys, slender shapes of brown mahogany, plunged into the sea to catch our pennies. Then we saw the red roofs of Charlotte Amalia, the little park ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that Mrs. Vigilance, during the whole period of our acquaintance, was particularly squeamish, or topping in her deportment. On the contrary, she had rather made herself remarkable for a modest and commendable reserve. But on the present occasion, she disappointed all reasonable expectation, by shrinking on one ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... my merry man," she added, "and eat your fill of this fair pasty, under the greenwood tree." Obeying her instructions with right good-will, and the lady likewise evincing no hatred of the viands, we made a cheerful meal of it, topping it with peaches ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... them,—"A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Even the shivering caroller, for "it is a poor heart that never rejoices," is yelling forth the "tidings of comfort and joy." The snow that descends, making park and common alike—topping palace and pigsty, now crowns the semi-detached villas, Victoria and Albert. They were erected from the designs of John Brown, Esq. and his architect (or builder), and are considered a fine specimen ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... front of the tennis-court called the Doe, at the door of which were gathered a number of the topping citizens of the town. The novel appearance of the conveyance and team, and the noise of the mob who had gathered round the cart, induced these honourable burgomasters to cast an eye upon the strangers; and among others ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... that as Cook expresses himself averse from having exploring ships sheathed in copper, owing to the difficulty of making repairs in case of accident far from proper facilities, and from the frequent mention of "heeling and boot-topping" in the Journal of the Endeavour, it is most probable that she was sheathed in wood. This assumption is correct, for there is no mention of copper sheathing in the Surveyor's books, nor at the time of her being repaired at the Endeavour River, nor at Batavia, when it is ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... a surge I saw a giant wave, topping all the others, and coming after them like a driver following a flock, sweep down upon the vessel, curling its great, green ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... knocked down with the rest, screamed—"Don't let go that rope! Hold on to it! Hold!" And sorely bruised by the brutal fling, they held on to it, as though it had been the fortune of their life. The ship ran, rolling heavily, and the topping crests glanced past port and starboard flashing their white heads. Pumps were freed. Braces were rove. The three topsails and foresail were set. She spurted faster over the water, outpacing the swift rush of waves. The menacing thunder of distanced seas rose behind her—filled the air with the ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... of the same day a man fell from the rigging; the usual alarm and rush took place; the lee-quarter boat was so crowded that one of the topping lifts gave way, the davit broke, and the cutter, now suspended by one tackle, soon knocked herself to pieces against the ship's side. Of course, the people in her were jerked out very quickly, so that, instead of there being only one man in the water, there were nearly a dozen swimming about. More ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... the waves with redoubled speed, leaning over until the water foamed over her gunwale and was knee-deep in her scuppers, an occasional billow topping over her foc's'le, and pouring down into the waist in a cataract of gleaming green sea and sparkling spray, all glittering with prismatic colours, like a ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... Tara he knew. "Very well. Why accuse me of incipient lunacy? I care, too. Always have done. Think how topping it would be, you and I together, exploring all the wonderland of our Game and Mummy's tales—Udaipur, Amber, Chitor, perhaps the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... with unceasing hatred and misery at herself and all others, at life, and death, at that which had been and that which was to come. She saw instead of her own face in the glass, the face of her dead Aunt Harriet, topping her own shoulders in her ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... the left bank with its black steeple, and close by it is the wild and pastoral hamlet of Schulau. Hitherto both the right and left bank, green to the very brink, and level with the river, resembled the shores of a park canal. The trees and houses were alike low, sometimes the low trees over- topping the yet lower houses, sometimes the low houses rising above the yet lower trees. But at Schulau the left bank rises at once forty or fifty feet, and stares on the river with its perpendicular facade of ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... in a far less breathless and tremulous fashion, but still between laughing and crying, "I meant to make you. And now, if you're ever sorry, or I'm ever too topping about anything, you can be perfectly free to say that you'd never have spoken if you hadn't seen that I wanted ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lines; and the course of the larger river in the direction of Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton High Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by the coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of the heather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit of Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, appear ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... sun was now topping the black desolations of the horizon, and the vision of the room was very faint. Plattner could see that the white of the bed struggled, and was convulsed; and that the woman looked round over her shoulder ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Thou art free. We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, Who to ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... out to-day," a boy captain of infantry, his arm in a sling, told me, as he climbed into a motor ambulance. "By Gad, I saw a topping sight near Villers Bretonneux. The Boche attacked in force there and pushed us back, and one of his old tanks came sailing merrily on. But just over the crest, near a sunken road, was a single 18-pdr.; it didn't fire until the Boche tank climbed into ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... down came a topgallant-mast .here, and a topsail-yard there, and a studdingsail t'other place-and such a squealing and creaking of blocks and rattling of the gearwhile yards braced hither and thither, and topping-lifts let go, and sheets let fly, showed that the Dons were in a sad quandary; and no wonder, for we could see the shot from the long 32-pounders on the walls, falling very thick all around several of them. However, at 4 P.m. we had worked up alongside of the Commodore, when the old skipper ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... whose myriad glow-worm lights actually do lend an additional charm) not a vestige is to be seen. Scarcely a lantern marks the existence of a living soul in the vast expanse below, but the moon, high in the heavens, plots out the entire landscape with a wonderful impressiveness, and the stars topping the forest trees to the rear and the heights which rise on the distant horizon lend their quota of romanticism, and, as if by their scintillations, mark the almost indiscernible towers of the old Abbey of Saint ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... comfortable as I could. I gave him a drink, a cigarette, and Mistakes with the Mashie. On the table at his elbow I had in reserve Faulty Play with the Brassy and a West Middlesex Directory. For myself I wandered about restlessly, pausing now and again to read enviously a notice which said that C. D. Topping's handicap was reduced from 24 to 22. ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... backed away. His little blinking eyes expressed both fear and rebelliousness. More than ever did he resemble a pig at bay. The black hat, set on top of his greasy cap and topping with its respectability his disreputable general outfit, added a bizarre touch to the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... casks, from somebody else's stores, Shall rep-per-esent our island shores, Their sides the ocean wide shall lave, Their heads just topping the ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... it, in order to get hold of some cotton; the French in suppressing family pamphlets, annulling the sacred contract of marriage, building iron-cast ships, cooking frogs, snails, and cats, making fancy coats, and topping off the human head with elegant hats and bonnets; the Austrians in the manufacture of shin-plasters for their soldiers, and the making and breaking of constitutions for ungovernable dependencies; the Prussians in the blasphemous necromancy of receiving ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... striking differences. The protagonist of the movement, Howe, was the very reverse of a separatist. He was passionately attached to Britain and British institutions, and he thought not in terms of his little province, but of the Empire. Over-topping all other politicians of his day in native power and breadth of vision, he was successful in working out the problem of responsible government by purely constitutional methods, without a symptom of rebellion, ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... "Topping!" agreed Dulcie, pausing in the act of tying her hair ribbon to consider the important question, "specially if we could get Miss Walters to let us send to Glazebrook for a few cakes. I believe ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... she announced. "Where did you get all this spread? You don't mean to tell me Antonio was allowed to go and buy it! It's too topping for words!" ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... O Thou, out-topping all we know or think, Far off yet nigh, out-reaching all we see, Hold Thou my hand, that so the top-most link Of the great chain may ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... Mr. Brewster, with bitterness, "I suppose, from your view-point, everything IS 'topping.' You haven't a cent to your name, and you've managed to fool a rich man's daughter into marrying you. I suppose you looked me up in Bradstreet before ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... a clear blue darkness, suffused with the misty light of stars. Looking back, Courant could see her upright slenderness topping the horse's black shape. When the road lay pale and unshaded behind her he could decipher the curves of her head and shoulders. Then he turned to the trail in front, and her face, as it had been when he first saw her and as it was now, came back to his ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... it possible for Catholics to sit on the judgment seat; but it left a foreign administration, which has excluded them, save in two or three cases, where over-topping eminence made the acceptance of a Judgeship no promotion; and it left the local Judges—those with whom the people have to deal—as partial, ignorant, bigoted as ever; while Repeal would give us an Irish code and Irish-hearted Judges in every Court, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the shelter of the trees and meandered along until it lost itself in the main street of Sihasset, a village large enough to support three banks and, after a fashion, eight small churches. In front, had the lounger cared to look, he would have seen the huge rocks topping the bluff against which the ocean dashed itself into angry foam. But the man didn't care to look—for in the little clearing between the wall of Killimaga and the bluff road was peace too profound to be wantonly disturbed by motion. And so he lay there lazily smoking ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... the way. When the Beagle was midway between these islands, they were both visible from the masthead. In the night, and during the early part of next day, it blew strong from south-east, causing a high-topping sea. Time being precious, we could not wait for a quiet day to land on Bedout; its position was therefore determined by observations with the sea horizon, and differs very materially from that given by ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... metropolis, that the ante-Hanoverian lady had used the place in her day as a nursery-hospital for the royal little ones. It was a square three-storied building of red brick, much beaten and stained by the weather, with an ivied side, up which the ivy grew stoutly, topping the roof in triumphant lumps. The house could hardly be termed picturesque. Its aspect had struck many eyes as being very much that of a red-coat sentinel grenadier, battered with service, and standing firmly enough, though not at ease. Surrounding it was a high wall, built ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... collecting curios he'd remember me. Then I tried to sell 'em to the Coastal Cargo Line—the very ships for the Newcastle and Thames river trade—and he said he couldn't think of it now that the submarine season was over. Then I offered 'em to young Topping, who thinks of running a line to the West Coast, but he said that he didn't believe in Fairies or Santa Claus ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... active figures among them, well fitted for the long forced marches for which both the Northern and Southern infantry is renowned; and two or three raw-boned giants, topping six feet by some inches; but not one powerful or athletic frame: in many trials of strength, in wrist and arm, I did not come across ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... am chasing the King, and some chase too, my word. I lost him this morning when my old bus broke down. But up to the present I have obtained a most excellent record. Topping day yesterday on the battlefield of Fricourt. I wouldn't have missed it ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... market, the grey tower of the old church, the high spire of the evangelical church, the low spire of the church of genuflexions, and the crimson chapels, and rows of little red houses with amber chimney-pots, and the gold angel of the blackened Town Hall topping the whole. The sedate reddish browns and reds of the composition, all netted in flowing scarves of smoke, harmonised exquisitely with the chill blues of the chequered sky. Beauty was achieved, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... outside and below the thumb. When the proper amount of grain is in hand (a bunch of stalks about an inch in diameter) the useless leaves, all arranged for one grasp of the right hand, are stripped off and dropped; the bunch of fruit heads, topping a 6-inch section of clean stalk or straw is handed to a person who may be called the binder. This person in all harvests I have seen was a woman. She binds all the grain three, four, or five persons can pluck; and when there ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... doesn't believe in losing time in anything. And he's going to take an afternoon off and come round and knock the stuffing out of Mr. Vance this very day. He can always get an afternoon off, for he's with Messrs. Mercer & Topping, and the firm has the greatest confidence in ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... was topping!" he hinnied. "I stuck on her skirt and jersey and tam o' shanter and took in everybody. I walked down the street, and up the drive to the school door, and prowled round the garden. There was a window open, so in I went and found exam questions all over the table. I thought I'd ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... Topping the brow of a little rise, he caught sight of the cabin, and, to his consternation, saw that smoke was pouring from the door and that within it ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... murmur was heard from the men. Over the high weather rail, a topping wave flung into their eyes a handful of heavy drops that stung like hail. There were low groans of indignation. A man sighed. Another emitted a spasmodic laugh through his chattering teeth. No one moved away. The little kassab wiped his face and ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Desire Beaurain's, one of the leading restaurants on the fashionable side of the Montmartre—Italiens Boulevard. Our dinner was what an Irishman might call a most 'illigant' affair. We had sipped several bottles of Sauterne, and tasted a few of Tavel, and we were just topping the entertainment with a solitary bottle of champagne, when I became suddenly aware of the presence of another party in the room—a fourth man—who sat him down at our table, and helped himself liberally to our liquor. From what I ascertained afterward from Jack Hobson and Emmanuel ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... could fix up a topping sort of squash rackets in that corner. Those cobbles are worn ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... glibly from an entirely imaginary mandate of the C.O., "that no retaliatory shell fire should be attracted here. Most serious for the whole Brigade, if this bit of parapet got pushed over. Now, there's a topping place about ten traverses away. You can lob them over from there ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... reined his horse back into the road and rode straight forward. The heads of men were just topping the rise, and a few moments later they and the horses they bestrode came into full view. It was a thankful thrill that shot through him now. The sun, almost sunk, sent a last golden shower across them and disclosed the dingy gray of their uniforms ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... our hero, and he soon found himself listening to the talk at an adjoining table. Topping, a young lawyer, Whitman Bunce, a man of leisure—unlimited leisure—and one or two others, were rewarming some of ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... she slaved in the manual labor of the great fields. Many were the hours she spent in the hot sun of the tobacco fields, riding the planter in the early spring, later hoeing the rich black soil close to the little young plants, in midsummer finding and killing the big green tobacco worms and topping and suckering the plants so that added value might be given the broad, strong leaves. Then later in the summer she helped the men to thread the harvested stalks on laths and hang them in the long open shed ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... ranch was a large one. The dwelling house and many outbuildings were upon a rich plateau topping a spur from the great mountain beyond. On one side, the land sloped to the valley of the Mismit, utilized for the sheep farming; and across the river, or run, rose grassy fields, climbing one above ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... carriage, to be convey'd and replanted where you please, being let down perpendicularly into the place by the help of the foresaid engine. And by this address you may transplant trees of a wonderful stature, without the least disorder; and many times without topping, or diminution of the head, which is of great importance, where this is practis'd to supply a defect, or ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... show-picture is a last year's Valentine, and whither the fame of the last ten Scotch novels has not yet travelled (marry, they just begin to be conscious of the "Redgauntlet"), to have a new plastered flat church, and to be wishing that it was but a cathedral! The very blackguards here are degenerate, the topping gentry stockbrokers; the passengers too many to insure your quiet, or let you go about whistling or gaping,—too few to be the fine indifferent pageants of Fleet Street. Confining, room-keeping, thickest winter is yet more bearable here than the gaudy months. Among one's books at one's ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... invigorating morning, and the sun with its rays was just topping the tips of the pines, when the girls rode forth to ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... hunting, overtop never; except perchance in the vocabulary of the wild huntsman of the Alps. Trash occurs as a verb in the sense above given, Act I. Sc. 2. of the Tempest: "Who t'aduance, and who to trash for over-topping." I have never met with the verb in that sense elsewhere, but overtop is evermore the appropriate term in arboriculture. To quote examples of that is needless. Of it metaphorically applied, just as in Shakspeare, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... was the weirdest stunt I have ever seen. All day the Germans had been sniping industriously, with some success, but after sunset they started singing, and we replied with carols. Then they shouted, 'Happy Christmas!' to us, and some of us replied in German. It was a topping moonlight night, and we carried on long conversations, and kept singing to each other and cheering. Later they asked us to send one man out to the middle, between the trenches, with a cake, and they would give us a bottle ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... knew that he had worked his head and shoulders out of our shelter, and was edging himself along at the rate of perhaps a foot a minute. Soon I realized that he had entirely gone; that, free of the saw-palmetto—a most difficult stuff in which to move silently—he was topping the bank. I could imagine how he glided now, alligator fashion, head downward to the water; and I could almost feel the moment he slid noiselessly into it. I waited for the owl call—"two times, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... to say, if he was now more reserved, there was a very good reason for it, for he played such havoc amongst the eatables that there was little time for talk. At last, after passing from the round of cold beef to a capon pasty, and topping up with a two-pound perch, washed down by a great jug of ale, he smiled upon us all and told us that his fleshly necessities were satisfied for the nonce. 'It is my rule,' he remarked, 'to obey the wise precept which advises a man to rise from table feeling that he could ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed himself, I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word looked at him. The moon was topping the crest of the hills and threw my shadow upon him, the last that ever fell upon ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... with his handsome Grecian face relieved against a dignified background as he sat on the stage among the Corporation of Harvard University. Motley I have only seen as he stood with iron-grey curls over a ruddy, strenuous countenance topping a figure of vigorous symmetry as he spoke with animation at a scholars' dinner. But George Bancroft, Justin Winsor, and John Fiske I knew well, the last being in particular one of my best friends. I could tell stories too, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... institutions, general suffrage, (and fully acknowledging the latest, widest opening of the doors,) I say that, far deeper than these, what finally and only is to make of our western world a nationality superior to any hither known, and out-topping the past, must be vigorous, yet unsuspected Literatures, perfect personalities and sociologies, original, transcendental, and expressing (what, in highest sense, are not yet express'd at all,) democracy and the modern. With ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... but you ought to hear him talk about his bankers. Topsails and topping-lifts! His bankers! Messrs. Pitchers Brothers ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... howling of jackals came closer and closer until, topping one long rise and descending into a hollow that was long enough and wide enough to be fully lit by the moon, they came to the place where the ambush had been laid. Instinctively Ahmed Ben Hassan knew that amongst ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... bear the strain of watching that little figure perched on the grey beast that looked like a wraith, like a warning. But she did not go, and she learnt to be glad to have shared with Francis the horror of the moment when the mare, out of control and mad with excitement, tried a fence topping a bank, failed, and fell with Christabel ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... owed a good deal of its defects to the atmosphere and the company amid which it was served. At any rate, the host of the Black Bear at Cumnor—he of Sir Walter Scott's "Kenilworth"—was never weary of praising the Three Cranes, "the most topping tavern in London" as ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... excellent! This is the crown of folly, topping all! Forgive me, Prince, when I gain breath to point Your comic blunder, you will laugh with me. Patience—I'll draw my chin as long as yours. Well, 't was my fault—one should be accurate— Jews, said I? when I meant Jews, Jewesses, And Jewlings! all betwixt the age Of twenty-four hours, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... upstairs, but when he turned round and saw Laura he suddenly puffed out his cheeks and goggled his eyes at her. "My word, Laura! You do look stunning," said Laurie. "What an absolutely topping hat!" ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... those two dark specks, far out-topping the scattered remnant of the flock. Up and up, until of a sudden the sheer Fall dropped its relentless barrier in the path of the fugitive. Away, scudding along the foot of the rock-wall struck the familiar track leading to ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant |
