"Jamb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most careful of investigators, and, when the medium's trap is located in the door-jamb, will pound the walls, and insist on the carpet being taken up, when they will get upon their hands and knees and make a most searching examination of the floor. They are the closest and most critical of investigators, but they are very ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... the enemy possesses an equipment which is within range of that of the air-craft and the force to which it belongs, communications may be nullified by the enemy throwing out a continuous stream of useless signals which "jamb" the intelligence ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... luncheon, and he passed in briskly, meaning to ring the bell and give orders to have the meal served at once. But, as he stepped across the low sill somebody rose in the room's cool shadow and confronted him, and he fell back catching at the jamb for ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... impossible,' he said in the same language, and simultaneously he tried to shut the door in my face. I shoved my foot against the jamb and prevented him. At the same instant my own servant and I—as, if there was to be trouble, I thought it best to keep the others out of it—applied our utmost force to the door and succeeded in snapping ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... thoughtfully, looked hard at Butsey and paid. Laloo followed them to the door, leaned against the jamb and gazed down ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... in a book this evening when Jellia Jamb, the favorite servant-maid of the palace, came to say that the Shaggy Man ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... where the trees stood upon the hill tops, she watched him with an interest that was not tinged with the vague suspicion of an hour ago. She saw that as he stood lounging in the doorway, his hands upon his hips, one shoulder against the rude door jamb, he had to stoop his head a little, and knew that he was a taller, bigger man than she had realized ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... his linguistic acquirements to the learning of Iroquois I shall not say. It is at least possible. The two are inseparable. The last time I went to see them, no one answered my knock on the door-jamb. I raised the curtain that serves for a door, and looked in. Mrs. Ben Wah was asleep upon the bed. Perched upon her shoulder was the parrot, no longer constrained by the bars of a cage, with his head tucked snugly in her neck, asleep ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... when my friend re-entered his home and crossed the bloodstained floor of the dining-room to go to his bedroom, the cardboard Virgin, with a trade advertisement on the back, was still peeping round the door-jamb to which she was nailed, with the words "Please to shut the door" printed ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... paused a minute and reached behind the door jamb, bringing out a water-soaked bit of plank. "One of our best men picked this from the water. You had been clinging to it. I thought you might like to have it in ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... scrambled shakily to his feet, and stood clutching the door-jamb and eying Gervais, terror writ large on his chalky countenance. Yet there was more than terror in his face; there was the look you see in the eyes of a trapped animal that watches its chance to ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... the companion and fell to scraping the snow away from it. 'Twas like scratching at mortar between bricks. But I worked hard, and presently, with the point of the hanger, felt the crevice 'twixt the door and its jamb, after which it was not long before I had carved the door out of its plate of ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... cloak, and wraps the hood of it close over his head, and foldin' himself up in it, he went and laid down without ondressin'. The lawyer took a stretch for it on the bench, with his gig cushions for a pillar, and I makes up the fire, sits down on the chair, puts my legs up on the jamb, draws my hat over my eyes, and folds my arms ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... he stealthily retraced his steps to the gate, shut it with a sharp snap, cleared his throat, and mounted the porch with slow, loud, deliberate steps. When he reached the open door, he knocked upon the jamb without looking into the room. There was a jerking, dragging sound for a moment, and then the old man's ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... recollected that darkness and coolness were convertible terms within the tropics. Advancing through this room you entered, by a pair of folding doors, on a very handsome dining room, situated in what I believe is called a back jamb, a sort of outrigger to the house, fitted all round with movable blinds, or jealousies, and open like a lantern to all the winds of heaven except the west, in which direction the main body of the house warded off the sickening beams of the setting sun. And how sickening ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... blustered in at first with intent to demand his due in no uncertain terms, apparently Maitland's bearing, coupled with the inherent contempt and hatred of the nighthawk tribe for the minions of the law, had won his sympathies completely. Lounging against a door-jamb, quite at home, he genially puffed an unspeakable cigarette and nodded approbation ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... accompanied them downstairs, I heard a door at the end of the passage open, and turning I saw Carlotta's pretty head thrust past the jamb, and her eyes fixed on the visitors. I motioned her back, sharply, and my aunt and Dora made an unsuspecting exit. The noise of their departing chariot wheels was music to ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Worthy, leaning against the door-jamb. "She don't look overly well; I reckon that's why she quit workin' at the hotel. She's dyin' to git a letter from some'rs; she comes reg'lar every day an' goes ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... Bevard tugged at his own, which had unaccountably got stuck in its holster. But this second shot missed. And even as Grantham's bullet snicked a long splinter from the door-jamb, the ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... the woman, suddenly making a pounce at the kneeling old man; "we don't want a noon-mark thar, cl'ar away from the jamb, ye fool! We want it whur the shadder o' the jamb 'll ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... they came prematurely, they must go to the Little Cabin for awhile. The Colonel shot the bar across door and jamb for the second time that day. Mac stirred and lifted himself on his elbow, but ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... and looked with friendly smile at his domestic, who stood squeezing herself between the edge of the door and the jamb—her habit when embarrassed. Mrs. Hopper had served him for three years; he knew all her weaknesses, but thought more of her virtues, chief of which were honest intention and a moderate aptitude for plain cooking. A glance about this room would have proved to any visitor ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... similar cut out was made over the window. Two flat pieces of spruce were prepared for door jambs and two shorter ones for window jambs. Auger holes were put through, so as to allow an oak pin to be driven through the jamb into each log, and the doorway and ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... gain that passage unseen by the mob! He would gain it. With a swift movement, his mind made up, he took a step forward. He tightened his grasp of the girl's waist, and, seizing with his left hand the end of the bar which the assailants had torn from its setting in the window jamb, he turned to lower himself. One long step would ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... long way back to Ballure, Mrs. Cregeen," said Philip, popping his head in at the door jamb. "May I stay to a ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... dispatched him at one blow. He then cut off his head and threw it bleeding into the bed with the terrified woman; took the little infant from its mother's breast, and holding it by its legs, dashed its head against the jamb, and left the unhappy widow and mother to mourn alone over her murdered family. It has been said by some, that after he had killed the child, he opened the fire and buried it under the coals and embers: But of that I am not certain. I have often heard ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... corridor. Thus guided by its rays he passed out slipperless, till he reached the door of St. Cleeve's room, where he applied the dangling spider's thread in such a manner that it stretched across like a tight-rope from jamb to jamb, barring, in its fragile way, entrance and egress. The operation completed he retired again, and, extinguishing his light, went through his bedroom window out upon the flat roof of the portico to which it ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... would have shut the door in our faces, with the words, "I will see if my lady is at home;" but John was prepared for him. He put his foot between the door and the jamb, and his two hands against the door, driving it to the wall with the man behind it. There he held him till we were all in, then closed the door, and said to him, in a tone I had never heard ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... dey wa'n't naer nigger on de plantation w'at wouldn' rudder take forty dan ter go 'bout dat kitchen atter dark,—dat is, 'cep'n Tenie; she didn' pear ter mine de ha'nts. She useter slip 'roun' at night, en set on de kitchen steps, en lean up agin de do'-jamb, en run on ter herse'f wid some kine er foolishness w'at nobody couldn' make out; fer Mars Marrabo had th'eaten' ter sen' her off'n de plantation ef she say anything ter any er de yuther niggers 'bout de pine-tree. But somehow er nudder de niggers foun' ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... whilst young that the vacoua answers this double purpose; but the tree is twelve or fifteen years before it arrives at maturity, and the leaves may be annually cut: no other use is made of the fruit than to plant it for the production of other trees. A double row of the tall jamb-rosa, or rose apple, makes the principal divisions in some plantations, forming agreeable, shady walks; and from the shelter it affords is preferred for surrounding the coffee trees, which require the utmost care to protect them ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... the doorway, her hands holding the jamb on either side. In her haste the big white handkerchief around her throat had been twisted awry. Sinclair looked over the heads of Mason and Denver Jim into the suntanned face that had now paled into a delicate olive color. Her very lips were pale, and her great black eyes were flashing ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... I'll see mother now." She stopped at the door and leaned against the jamb a little faintly, then turned toward him. "It was fine of you to come, Chad. I know you don't ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... spent several days in the making and putting up of some very unusual and attractive window curtains and portieres; painting the stones that framed the fireplace, the crude window-casings and door jamb; and in draping certain corner recesses which were to achieve dignity as clothes closets. They were scrubbing the floor when Percival passed on ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... older man. "She has gone through the run. Guess we'll get one by-and-by long enough to jamb. Now, if you'd run out those wing-frames I was stuck on, she'd have took them straight through, ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... if the tail-block be fastened too low on the wreck, the ropes will dip in the water, and perhaps foul the rocks. If the whip does not run free in the block it will jamb and the work will be stopped; and, if the signals are not attended to, the coastguardsmen may begin to act too soon, or, on the other hand, waste ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... not going to sell it, of course." She was leaning back against the jamb of the door as she spoke, the shawl hanging loose, her delicate white hands in her lap. It was an idle answer to an idle question, for her mind ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... clapboard structure. Then Neale passed from room to room, searching for Allie. Two of the engineers were kneeling at a chink between the logs, aiming and firing in great excitement. Campbell had sustained a slight wound and looked white with rage and fear. Baxter was peeping from behind the rude jamb of a window. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... minutes Ling Foo stared at the oblong blackness; then with a hysterical gurgle he ran to the door, slammed and bolted it, and leaned against the jamb, sick and faint, yet oddly relieved. He would not now have to account to the police for the body of an unknown ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... bending with feeling that was now convulsive and now restrained. Sometimes she moaned audibly or whispered "Amen." Across the richly-spread table Susannah saw the preacher kneeling in a full flickering glare of the pine fire, one hand upon the brick jamb, the other covering his eyes, as if to hide from himself all things that were seen and temporal in order that he might speak face to ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... knees before the trunk, and was getting on with her task. Pelle came up and stood leaning against the door-jamb, looking at them. "That's right! Just give him a coating of paint that will last till he gets home again!" he said, laughing. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... wondering, listening, interested, as they went out into the hall to see the little dark hole which might with ingenuity be converted into a bath-room, and while he leaned back against the door-jamb, hands in his pockets, he studied the face of ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... leaps! The solid forest gives fluid utterances; They tumble forth, they rise and form, Hut, tent, landing, survey, Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade, Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable, Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition house, library, Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter, turret, porch, Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, waggon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet, wedge, rounce, Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... made of heavy bolted planks and was set on hinges in a jamb of other planks and boards that closed the reservoir end of the tunnel water-course. A similar barrier and big door was ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... I made no noise, and slowly made my way forward to see if there was a light in Captain Riggs's room. Before I had gone far I heard a murmur of voices, and then saw a sliver of light from the jamb of a door. There was a conversation going on in the captain's room, but I could not distinguish the voices. I went on to the forward end of the superstructure and discovered a port-hole in the captain's cabin partly open, and by going up three steps ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... modestly standing at the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln was reminded of a story, and by New Year's he was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capital. His favorite seat was at the left of the open fireplace, tilted back in his chair with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb."(2) ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... this to Frona Welse, and—ah! would you!" (thrusting her knee between the door and jamb) "and leave ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... the house, the man still appeared, leaning against his door-jamb, and as if waiting for Shamus's return, whom, upon this second occasion, he eyed ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... drawn in the cold light of early morning. The woman bobbed her head in some uncertainty, then spoke in her own language to her husband who thrust himself into the doorway and leaned a heavy, flanneled shoulder against the jamb. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... servitor took a lamp and went to the door. He drew the bolts softly, prepared to make a cautious emergence, with a recollection of his warm reception before. He was to have a great surprise, for there stood Simon Mac-Taggart leaning against the jamb—a figure of dejection! ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... chips of concrete knocked off the jamb of the door here! Must have been some tall mace-work where you're standing, Beta! If we could know the complete story of this expedition, its probable failure to reach New York, its entrapment here, the siege and the inevitable tragedy of its end—starvation, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... the doorway. It was too low for him, and he had to bend his knees oddly. He stood there as in a frame, one shoulder leaning against the jamb, his head and ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... shiny door, sunk deep into the wall, was wide open, and beyond it was one of glass, frosted over like our windows on a snapping cold morning, and under my feet was a checkered marble floor. I found the knob of a bell sunk into the door jamb, and pulled it a little, feeling half-scared to death. Then I just stepped in and waited in front ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... his voice quivering with excitement, and threw a circle of light on the jamb of the window at the spot where the upper and lower ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... and leaning for support against the jamb, kept her piercing eyes on his face, though his would not meet their gaze; while Morton rolled great frightened orbs from one to the other, as from within came unconscious Molly's gleeful babble, and the baby's sweet ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... gallery; but in the third both rushed simultaneously to the door. It sprang back from its rusty fastenings, and they were but in time to seize the bar which passed through a staple in its middle, and pull it inward until it pressed hard against the jamb on the right. There was no other way to secure it, and for three hours Alexander and Mrs. Mitchell dragged at it alternately, while the other attended to the windows. By this time Alexander had ceased to wonder if he should see another morning, or much to care: the storm ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... door-jamb and looked down the long road which wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... in its passion. He leaned against the jamb of the open door and folded his arms mockingly, as if inviting ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... ventilation; Latisan was smoking his pipe and reading a newspaper which he had picked up in the tavern office. His stare, directed at Craig over the top of the newspaper, was inhospitable when the Comas man stopped and leaned against the door jamb. ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... of a nice little jamb here," said Switzer. "They are running right enough now. But when did you return?" he continued, dropping into a confidential tone and turning his back upon the others. "Do you know I have not ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... keep goin'," she went on as she tugged open the door, which the damp weather had caused to swell and stick to the door-jamb. ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... says Nelly, 'it was the shadow of the jamb or yourself you saw in the light of the candle, or the ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... suited for the interior decorations of the architect. But they are unluckily what the quarrier would term rubbly,—traversed by an infinity of cracks and fissures; and it is rare indeed to find a continuous mass out of which a chimney-jamb or lintel could be fashioned. The serpentine was wrought here considerably more than a century and a half ago, and exported to France for the magnificent Palace of Versailles; which, though regarded by the French nation, says Voltaire, as "a favorite ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... why, he had fetched tools specially from the kitchen; and he was convinced that that step that had broken beneath her weight had been as sound as the others. It was inexplicable. If these things could happen, anything could happen. There was not a beam nor a jamb in the place that might not fall without warning, not a plank that might not crash inwards, not a nail that might not become a dagger. The whole place was full of life even now; as he sat ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Jellia Jamb!" exclaimed the Scarecrow, as the green maiden bowed her pretty head before him. "Do you understand the language of the ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... passed and he had heard nothing. Instead, she dropped her hands from the door-jamb and gave such unmistakable evidences of intended flight, that but one alternative remained to him; ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... every. Ill o't, bad at it. Ill-taen, ill-taken. Ill-thief. the Devil. Ill-willie, ill-natured, niggardly. Indentin, indenturing. Ingine, genius, ingenuity; wit. Ingle, the fire, the fireside. Ingle-cheek, fireside (properly the jamb of the fireplace). Ingle-lowe, ingle-low, flame of the fire. I'se, I shall, or will. Itsel', ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... negro groaned and crouched closer to the chimney jamb. The storm roared without, and the rain fell with a steady pouring sound, as the superstitious hunters filled their pipes and gathered ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... man humiliated is vastly more undignified than a little one. He forgot the sting of his face in the bitter consciousness that he had made a fool of himself. He stumbled blindly into the living room, knocking his head against the door jamb because he forgot to stoop. He dropped into a chair behind the stove, thrusting his big feet back helplessly on either side ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... watching the man, as long as she could see him, and long after, with her left hand lifted to the jamb of the door, higher than her head. Then from the distance where he passed from sight over the brow of the hill, another figure of a man appeared, and slowly made its way down to the cabin. As she knew while he was still far ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... asked the question he knocked his pipe against the jamb to clean it out, and then quickly turned his head, for an inner door opened and Denas peeped out and then came forward and put her arm around his neck ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... and went over to the bathroom. He steadied himself against the door jamb and kicked the wadded sweater out of sight beneath the dresser. He went into the bathroom and turned on the water. He ran his hands over his face and thought about shaving, but he couldn't face the work involved. He managed ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... in the door, smoking, one forearm resting on the jamb, his wide shoulders nearly ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... journey between Pozieres and Le Sars were good, as were the next three, at the beginning of the second journey. Then came a confused blur of superimposed ground-patterns, and at the last five results blank as the brain of a flapper. A jamb in the upper changing-box had led to five exposures on ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... darkly prepared to find something wrong, and he felt belittled when the mixture exploded sweet and strong, and the car didn't even brush the door-jamb, gouged and splintery with many bruisings by fenders, as he backed out of the garage. He was confused. He shouted "Morning!" to Sam Doppelbrau with more ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the canvas and easel against the corner of his house, knocked out his pipe on the heel of his boot and cautiously peered around the jamb of the door to find his unwelcome guest sitting on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette. He straightened sheepishly, not knowing whether to grin or to scowl. Neither of ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... said Ted. "It was dark, and there was only the faintest kind of light outside from the stars. The room was perfectly dark. I was sitting on Farley's back holding him down. He had thrown the door open, and we were in the doorway, but there was a space between us and the door-jamb. ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... wait for her answer, but opening the closed window he swung himself from the floor by a grip on the door jamb, put his feet out and lowered himself to the running board. The brakes were on now as the train approached the ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... swept round to northward, calling to the flagship with her wireless. Von Spee, anticipating this move, at once set his wireless in operation, in order to jamb the British signals. Captain Luce soon picked up the Monmouth and the Otranto, and the three ships raced northwards towards the flagship, the Glasgow leading. At about five o'clock the Good Hope was seen approaching. The three ships ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... door and stood motionless by the jamb, waiting, ethereally white in the moonshine. Suddenly upon the gallery pillars flashed yellow light. She should have gone back to bed, but a thrill of unknown fear held her. By and by the yellow light went out with that quickness which tricks the hearing into believing that the vanishing ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... get the Idea," he said. "There'll be the deuce of a Row, and it's good for a half collumn on the first page of the evening papers. Result, a jamb that night at the performence, and a new lease of life for the Play. Egleston comes on, bruized and battered, and perhaps with a limp. The Labor Unions take up the matter—it's a knock out. I'd charge a thousand dollars for that idea ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Opal, not even fer a friend," and he grinned. "I've got you in the door and I'm goin' to jamb you hard. Five ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... bird twittering near by; my eye, through the open door, commanding green meads, two or three forest trees casting their boughs against the sky, a forest-clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the door-jamb a nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, bleak March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors wide open in an undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure of mosquito bars, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... masks of ivy. Here in a dark and lonely corner, with a pixie ring before it, she came to a narrow door, very brown and solid, looking like a trunk of wood at a little distance. This she opened, without a key, by stooping down and pressing it, where the threshold met the jamb; and then she ran in very nimbly, but I was forced to be bent in two, and even so without comfort. The passage was close and difficult, and as dark as any black pitch; but it was not long (be it as it might), and in that there ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... in the doorway, deathly sick and clinging to the jamb for support. In putting on his hat he had slipped the bandages, and the wound was bleeding afresh. Dyckman yelped like a stricken dog, overturning his chair as he leaped up and backed away into a corner. Only Mr. Duxbury Farley and his attorney were wholly unmoved. The lawyer had taken his fountain-pen ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... at the Secretary. He was beating a tattoo on the pad before him and looking calmly at her—as impersonal as though she were a door-jamb; and she understood; however much he might be inclined to aid her, this was not the time for him even to appear interested. On another occasion, a deux, he would display sufficient ardour and admiration. At present it must be the impassive face and ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... were burnt into Northwick's memory, which now seemed to have the faculty of simultaneously reproducing them all. Northwick remembered his purple face, with its prominent eyes, and the swing of his large stomach, and just how it struck against the jamb as he whirled a second time out of the door. The other directors, some of them, stood round buttoned up in their overcoats, with their hats on, and a sort of stunned aspect; some held their hats ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... he could see inside—it was Helena's room, and the door to the hall was open. Again he knocked. Came then the sound of footsteps—and from the hall the Flopper's face peered cautiously around the jamb ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... the motion carried, and one day a coach and four, With the latest style of driver, rattled up to Eyer's door; And the sleek, well-dress'd committee, Brothers Sharkey, York and Lamb, As they crossed the humble portal took good care to miss the jamb. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... tell me," I said. "I know exactly what it will do, by instinct. Going uphill it will jamb the wheel so effectively that we shall have to carry the machine bodily. The air at the top of the hill will do it good, and it will suddenly come right again. Going downhill it will start reflecting ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... down to look at that room again in daylight, for I must know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream, and must act on ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... for five yards of cambric. When the strips of cloth are sewed together, stretch the curtain taut over the opening, tacking it at long intervals on the topmost level of the wood-work over the door and on the extreme edge of the door jamb next to the wall. If fastened in this manner, tacks will not ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... Bruton Street indicated a tall, thin house with four bell-pushes and four narrow brass-plates on its door-jamb. The deceitful edifice looked at a distance just like its neighbours, but, as the array on the door-jamb showed, it had ceased to be what it seemed, the home of a respectable Victorian family in easy circumstances, and had become ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... later, from the corridor, a slim hand was inserted between the door and jamb; the supple fingers became busy with the rubber band for a moment, released it. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... his companion's rifle, and steadying it against the jamb of the door, fired, dropping one of the foremost of the pursuers. Quickly reloading again, he fired and missed. The third shot struck another horse, and then taking up his own gun he began to fire rapidly, as rapidly as he could work the lever and yet make his shots tell. Hopalong drew his ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... leaning against the jamb of the door, his hands in his pockets, with a very cross look on his handsome face. But Victoria, devoted little sister though she was, was not to be put down by any cross looks when she knew she was ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... that afforded endless amusement to her husband, a short fat bald-headed man who went about clad in blue overalls and a blue cotton shirt. Coming to the back door of his house, that was within a stone's throw of the station, Henry Shepard stood with his hand on the door-jamb and watched the woman and the boy. Above the scolding voice of the woman his own voice arose. "Look out, Hugh," he called. "Be on the jump, lad! Perk yourself up. She'll be biting you if you don't go mighty careful ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... years old. I never saw her any more till I was eight and after I was eight years old I never saw her again in forty years. After my mama left me old Master Neal come here to El Dorado and had me bound to him until I was twenty-one. I stayed there till I was twenty-one. I slept by the jamb of the fireplace on a sack of straw and covered with saddle blankets. That was in the winter when snow was waist high. In summer I slept on naked floor and anywhere I laid down was my bed ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... dictates of my judgment, and, reckless of consequences, perhaps disdainful of them, I soon had the knob in my grasp. I gave a slight push to the door and, on seeing a crack of light leap into life along the jamb, pushed the door wider and wider till the whole ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... kinks and the sliver's badly pieced up—that's the drawing minder's fault—and a bad drawing minder means work for me. Your niece, Sarah, is a very good drawing minder, Mrs. Northover. Then you'll get ballooning, when the thread flies round above the flier, and that means too little strain on the jamb and the bobbin has got to be tempered. And often it's too hot, or else too cold, for hemp and flax must have their proper temperature. But to-day my machine is as good and kind as a nice child, that only asks to be fed and ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... Dismounting, he threw his horse's bridle over the hitching-post at the gate, and passed through a neat garden, now blooming with roses and sweet peas, to the open door of the house. He knocked with his riding-whip on the door jamb, to which summons a young lady, dressed in a neat calico gown and swinging in her hand a broad-leafed sunhat, replied. Seeing a stranger, she dropped a graceful "courtesy,"—which is one of the lost arts now-a-days,—and put up her hand to brush back from her face ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... be," Ross chuckled sourly. "Remember? Average. Here, let me." He rapped briskly on the wooden door jamb. They stood for a moment then he knocked again, louder, saying almost as though hopefully, "Maybe ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... 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 brain Sniffs the breath of the morning meal— ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... burst through the gate, in spite of the sentinel placed there by the general, and fired at the commandant with an aim that was near proving fatal, for the ball passed under his arm, piercing a very thick door entirely through, and lodging in the jamb. Had we lost the worthy man by such an accident, his death would have spoiled the whole relish of our present enjoyment. He complained, and received an apology for the soldier's behavior from his officer. Leave was immediately granted to the three French officers (left behind by Humbert at Killala) ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... out a hand against the jamb of the surgery door, to steady herself She heard the smack of a palm below and some one ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... From the ground up, see?" He turned at the first stair and leaned forward and down, one hand on the door-jamb. "Well, believe me he don't use me as no ground-dirt. An' when I'm takin' the screen off the big roll—see?—he comes up to me an' says I'm handlin' it rough an' it's a delicate piece of mechanism. 'Who're ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... to a door. It was solid, painted shut. The next door looked easier. He wrenched at the tarnished brass nob, then stepped back and kicked the door. With a hollow sound the door fell inward, taking with it the jamb. Brett stood staring at the gaping opening. A fragment of masonry dropped with a dry clink. Brett stepped through the breach in the grey facade. The black pool at the bottom of the pit winked a flicker of light back at him in ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... by three steps, and is filled by three doorways, set in a thickening of the wall, and surmounted by gables finished with crosses. The central entrance, higher, more widely splayed, and more deeply recessed than the others, has five orders and five triple shafts in the jamb, while they have three orders and three shafts, the innermost of which is triple and the others single. As usual in this style, the shafts are detached and not worked on the stones of the jamb. The mouldings of the capitals are carried through ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... strolling down a certain fashionable street when a loud explosion occurred in a near-by shop and a cloud of acrid grey smoke came rolling out. Being by nature as inquisitive as a chipmunk I was on the point of shoving my head round the door-jamb to see what was up when caution prompted me to turn round. Yes, there they were, of course, a tall, thin youth winding away at a cine-camera like an Italian at a barrel-organ, and beside him a heavy-weight Israelite, dancing a war-dance, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... wilderness, and clear to see, though but little used, and before nightfall, after they had gone a long way, they came to a house. It was not large nor high, but was built very strongly and fairly of good ashlar: its door was shut, and on the jamb thereof hung a slug-horn. The damsel, who seemed to know what to do, set her mouth to the horn, and blew a blast; and in a little while the door was opened, and a big man clad in red scarlet stood therein: he had no weapons, but was somewhat surly of ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... largish apertures facing the cardinal points. A western doorway, 6-2/3 feet from the ground, has inclined jambs and a semicircular head, all three hewn from single blocks, and the arch being rudely sculptured with a crucifix, each jamb with a bishop bearing a pastoral staff, and each corner of the sill with a nondescript crouching animal.[147] The sculpture on the graceful Tower of Brechin was, there as elsewhere, the repetition in stone of the illuminated page of the Celtic scribe, who in turn ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... thinkable. But over his first blind, incredulous rage there swept a passionate longing to be alone in the house —to sit in it and look about him and assure himself. Without thought of what he did, he touched the door-jamb reverently as he stepped across the threshold. He wandered from room to room, and even upstairs, feeling the groove in the oaken stair-rail familiar under his palm. Yes, it was his, this home of dead ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which he had descended before. With his boots tied together by their laces, and suspended from his neck, on either side, he went down the rope noiselessly. He found the iron door partially opened, as he reached the end of the corridor. A block of wood held it back from the jamb. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... wait to put away the machine. He bounded out like a four-year-old and came right in then, regardless of the fact that it was getting dark and he might run into the door-jamb ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Crimmins stationed himself outside O'Leary's where he could get an uninterrupted view of two streets. He stood hunched up against the jamb of O'Leary's door in the attitude of a corner loafer, with three parts of his body touching the wood—hip, shoulder, and cheek. For some time no one appeared in sight either useful or inimical to his plans, until Mr. James ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... full length, my feet propped up against the jamb of the door, I held out my hand to the boatswain, and helped him, not without difficulty, to hoist ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... keep cool and not to get warm; but the Navajo hogan also makes a good cold-country house in places where people really need a fire. Make the doorway by leaving an opening (Fig. 150) and chinking the logs along the opening to hold them in place until the door-jamb is nailed or pegged to them, and then build a shed entranceway (Fig. 153), which is necessary because the slanting sides of the house with an unroofed doorway have no protection against the free entrance of dust and rain or snow, and every section of this country ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... sunny door-jamb high, Swings the shell of a butterfly. Scrape of insect violins Through the ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... why did they not come? Was it possible that they had not heard him? He applied his mouth to the joint between the door and its jamb, and again shouted, "Talbot! Talbot! Talbot!" until his voice cracked with the strain he put upon it. Still no answer, no sound save the wail of the wind, the wash of the water, and the creaking of the ship's timbers. "Good ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... the stairs. On the landing he paused; and then advanced cautiously. The light streamed out from the open door of the front room, and there was always the possibility that—no, a glance from where he stood close against the wall at the edge of the door jamb, showed him that the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... thing," he said to Jake. "The guard-rail's heavy and I watched the smith make the clamps we fixed it with. One claw went over the rail, the other under the flange of the metal that formed the track, and sudden pressure would jamb the guard down. Then, not long before the accident, I ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... door, MacNair turned. "Good-by, Miss Elliston," he said gravely. "Beware of Pierre Lapierre." Chloe made no reply and as MacNair turned to go, he chanced to glance into the wide, expressionless face of Big Lena, who had stood throughout the interview leaning heavily against the jamb of the kitchen door. Something inscrutable in the stare of the fishlike, china-blue eyes clung in his memory, and try as he would in the days that followed, MacNair could not fathom the meaning of that stare, if indeed it had any meaning. MacNair did not know why, but in some inexplainable ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx |
