"Topping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nearly on a level with the red and yellow chimney-pots; they passed open spaces filled with cranes, old iron, and stacks of railway sleepers, pictorial advertisements, sky signs, great gasometers rising round and black in their iron cages over-topping or nearly the slender spires. A train steamed along a hundred-arched viaduct; and along a black embankment the other trains rushed by in a whirl of wheels, bringing thousands of clerks up from the suburbs to their ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... having nobly 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
... same axe with which he cut down the tree. This will protect him from all harm, even if the tree be one of the animated kind. The silk-cotton trees, which rear their enormous trunks to a stupendous height, far out-topping all the other trees of the forest, are regarded with reverence throughout West Africa, from the Senegal to the Niger, and are believed to be the abode of a god or spirit. Among the Ewespeaking peoples of the Slave Coast the indwelling god of this giant of the forest ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... was down there for a Saturday to Monday with my Missus. This absolutely topping weather, you know. We were coming back Monday evening. Yesterday. Very well. Monday morning we were sunning on the pier, she and I. I was reading the paper, she was watching the people and making remarks about them. If Paradise is doing in the next world what you best liked doing in this, ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... 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—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... weather conditions, especially cold winds, continued rainy or moist weather, which hinders pollination, lack of sunlight, or extremely hot weather. Such shedding can be partially controlled by pruning away the lateral branches as soon as formed and topping the plants after the third cluster of fruit has set, and by a reduction in the use of nitrogenous fertilizers. A failure to set fruit in the greenhouse is often due to lack of pollination, which must be remedied ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... has adversity made us familiar! When I bought a boat to bring hither I knew not the distinguishing term of a single halyard, save the "topping lift," and even that scant knowledge was idle, for I was blankly ignorant of the place and purpose of the oddly-named rope. Necessity drove me to the acquirement of boat sense, and now I manage my home-built "flattie"—mean substitute for ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... a raw wound where the landslide had swept, cutting deeper and deeper, until it choked the narrow ravine with an incalculable mass of sand, crushed trees, and a rubble of broken stone. It had dammed the Little Smoky, but soon topping the obstruction, the river now poured over the crest and filled the valley with a noise of rushing and shouting so caught up by echoes that Alcatraz seemed to be standing inside a ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... 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 even know he—he ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... 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, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... rest during the day, and are very fond of shade; provide them, therefore, if possible, with a plantation on some sloping ground fairly near water, where they can get shelter from sun and wind. I have found willows excellent for this purpose, as by topping they can always be kept at the required height. Such a spot will do admirably as jumping-off place, and here the birds may regularly be expected to rest after their night's wandering in search of food. The next step is to select the feeding ground, which should be some little distance ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... 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
... first taking air, Like lightning all the Whigs have run; Nay, they've left their topping square, To march off with our eldest son: They've left their 'states and wives to save their precious lives, Yet who can blame their flying, when 'Twas plain to them all, the great and the small, That the King ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... my back is turned for a minute? That poor baby dumped down on the floor, to crawl up to the hot stove, or do any other horrid thing he likes, while you go flacketting out, bareheaded, into the streets, after a topping jade like that? You can't have any high-flown acquaintances while you live in my house, I tell you now, once and for all. Are you going to take up that baby or not?" Mrs. Grubbling had been thus far effectually heading Glory off, by standing square in the parlor ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... 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 ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... in 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 Deputy-Provost named La Rappiniere came up, accosted ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... he. No one could take a story of bitter diplomatic fighting in Berlin and simmer it down to a public-palatable "peaceful and progressive meeting;" no one could quite so skillfully reduce the bloody fighting in India to a mild "enemy losses topping American losses twenty to one, and our boys are fighting staunchly, bravely,"— No one could write out the lies quite so neatly, so smoothly ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... seem unwise to expend very much upon alterations beyond those of paint and paper. With the prospect of a sale the owner had unwillingly consented to replace the gingerbread porch with one in better style, but refused to do more. The big window, with its abominable topping of cheap coloured glass, was ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... Smyrna is on the main road leading to the railway-station. The constables, topping a hill an eighth of a mile behind the fugitive, expected to see him turn in at the town house. But he tore past, his horse still on the run, the wagon swaying wildly as he turned the corner beyond ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... rope and long iron hook dangling from one of the stays of the mainmast, while Dan pulled down another that ran from something he called a "topping-lift," as Manuel drew alongside in his loaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harvey learned to know well later, and with a short-handled fork began to throw fish into the pen on deck. "Two ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... and blues and greens—withered moss and lichen and the verdigris of copper, and everywhere the rusty ocher of iron pyrites. The cliff-tops, though ragged, were of such uniform height as to suggest the boundaries of a great plateau, and now and again we caught glimpses of verdure topping the rocky escarpment, as though bush or jungle-land had pushed outward from a lush vegetation farther inland to signal to an unseeing world that Caprona lived and joyed in life beyond ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... placing two small spools on it side by side. Enclose the yard with a spool fence; standing the spools a short distance from each other, as in the photograph. Use spools of larger size for the gateway, topping them with two smaller ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... wonderful, it is unique, it stands quite alone, there is nothing resembling it in history, nothing resembling it in romance, nothing approaching it even in tradition. How sublime is their position, and how over-topping, how sky-reaching, how supreme—the two Great Unknowns, the two Illustrious Conjecturabilities! They are the best-known unknown persons that have ever ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... top of the street is the "Yellery Gate" through which our party passed into lovely park grounds topping a line of fine cliffs which lead to "Gallantry Bower." This is the name given to an enormous headland which falls into the sea with a sheer descent of nearly four hundred feet, and forms the western ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... sitting-room, and the third as 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 ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Harley said to Villa at the conclusion of one such singing, "it's fortunate for him that you are not an animal trainer, or, rather, I suppose, it would be better called 'trained animal show-woman'; for you'd be topping the bill in all the music-halls and ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... 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 hold, from us ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... now realize, have been years, we came in sight of the dun escarpment which buttressed the foothills of Sari. At almost the same instant, Hooja, who looked ever quite as much behind as before, announced that he could see a body of men far behind us topping a low ridge in our wake. It was the ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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 a note fell on the ear—the scream of hawk or eagle, the bitter ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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
... third place, having beheld Ajax, the old man asked: "Who is that other Achaean hero, valiant and great, out-topping the Argives by his head and ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... 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 ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... 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 match. Somehow I felt responsible for the ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... beside the grave and in 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
... 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, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pavilion. No,' he added, as the car turned into the drive, and they caught a glimpse of white flannels and blazers in the distance, and heard the sound of bat meeting ball, 'cricket seems still to be topping the bill. Come along, and I'll show you your room. It's next to mine, so that, if brooding on Life in the still hours of the night, I hit on any great truth, I shall pop in ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... rock, to his left the curve of the blocking boulder with the skeleton tree topping it, withered in the cleft that had first nourished, then denied it nourishment. It gleamed silver gray, attracting his attention. As he gazed his sharp ears caught the tiny crack of a brittle branch. Instantly he dropped to all fours ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... dirty, ridiculous business! Laying his arms on the table, he leaned his forehead on them. Full ten minutes he rested thus, till a managing clerk roused him with the draft prospectus of a new issue of shares, very desirable, in Manifold and Topping's. That afternoon he left work early and made his way to the Restaurant Bretagne. Only Madame Lamotte was in. Would Monsieur have tea ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ninety-eight runs; how the captain of the School eleven went in first to give his men pluck, and scored twenty-five in beautiful style; how Rugby was only four behind in the first innings; what a glorious dinner they had in the fourth-form school; and how the cover-point hitter sang the most topping comic songs, and old Mr. Aislabie made the best speeches that ever were heard, afterwards. But I haven't space—that's the fact; and so you must fancy it all, and carry yourselves on to half-past seven o'clock, when the School are again in, with five wickets ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... Topping the slope came a light-weight electric, driven by a man who, in his spruce uniform, might have passed at a glance for a very dusky European. The car had a limousine back, and as the chauffeur slowed down, out from ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... I was going to tell you, Mr. Sage, that one Cornet Modish had desired his friend, Captain Smart's, opinion in some affair, but did not follow it; upon which Captain Smart sent Major Adroit (a very topping fellow of those times) to the person that had slighted his advice. The Major never inquired into the quarrel, because it was not the manner then among the very topping fellows; but got two swords ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... was an information against Mr. John Lewis Topping, a dealer in tea and coffee, charging him with having thirty-seven pounds of vegetable powder in his possession. The article seized was produced to the ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... was 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 where they were soon unharnessed ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... the means. The young man who is caught down the bay in a sudden storm, alone in his boat, with wind and tide against him, has all the sensations of a Norway sea-king,—sensations thoroughly uncomfortable, if you please, but for the thrill and glow they bring. Swim out after a storm at Dove Harbor, topping the low crests, diving through the high ones, and you feel yourself as veritable a South-Sea Islander as if you were to dine that day on missionary instead of mutton. Tramp, for a whole day, across hill, marsh, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... an 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
... determined, never lets the understanding lay by the object, but all the thoughts of the mind and powers of the body are uninterruptedly employed that way, by the determination of the will, influenced by that topping uneasiness, as long as it lasts; whereby it seems to me evident, that the will, or power of setting us upon one action in preference to all others, is determined in us by uneasiness: and whether this be not so, I desire every one to observe ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... said that Brandon was a top sawyer. We must now call him Mr Brandon—he has purchased a pair of top boots, a swell top coat, and though now frequently top heavy, thinks himself altogether a topping gentleman. He is now to be seen more frequently in the skittle-ground, clasping a half-gallon, instead of a quart of beer. He decides authoritatively upon foul and fair play, and his voice is potential on almost all matters in debate at the Two Jolly Sawyers, near Lambeth Walk, just at the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Tower, and St. James's Palace, and Hyde Park, and Fleet-street! 'Sir,' said Dr. Johnson, 'let us take a walk down Fleet-street.' Do you remember, in Mr. Croker's book, Maurice? No, you don't I know, because you only looked at the pictures, and then read Pierce Egan's account of the Topping Fight between Bob Gaynor and Ned Neal, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... of the fires they saw a huge bulk topping the barrier. They saw the palisade belly and sway inward. They saw it burst as though built of straws, and an instant later Tantor, the ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... fought had been lost by them, and the time of their entire destruction was fast approaching. The squall which had for some time been brewing in the westward, now made its advent known by curling up the waves, topping them with foam and swelling out our sails to the utmost from the bolt-ropes. The chase kicked up her heels a little as it caught her up, and then went staggering away before it faster than ever. After her, however, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... light—at first a dim, spectral shadow, scarcely to be recognized; then, almost as suddenly, revealed in all its details—a boat of size, flying toward us under a lug sail, standing out hard as a board, keeling well over, and topping the sea swells like a bird on wing. 'Twas a beautiful sight as the craft came sweeping on before the full weight of the wind, out from that background of gloom into the yellow glare of the torch, circling widely so as to more safely approach the bark's quarter. LeVere called for men ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... short 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 meet some ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... 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 curious ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... shuttered tight as it always had been when she was away, and, as usual, the front door was simply chained on the outside. The girl turned with a happy sigh and looked about at the nodding flowers and the woods and the gleaming pool of the river below and up the shimmering mountain to the big Pine topping it with ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... said, "I 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 ...
— 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
... 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 partly of flint and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by a topping-lift, climbed upon the low cabin-house, and jumped down to the tiny poop where Jerome Capriata ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... 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 pack ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Shakspere's schooling, the Baconians point at the current ignorance of Stratford-on-Avon, where many topping burgesses, even aldermen, "made their marks," in place of signing their names to documents. Shakespeare's father, wife, and daughter "made their marks," in place of signing. So did Lady Jane Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntly, when she married the cultivated ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... fashion is) with 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 ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... colleague referred 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
... break them like that?" she asked. Bangs was topping a horse that strenuously refused to be conquered and as they looked on the animal ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... ascended 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 side shortening ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... building of her own life. And to this end the solitude, the evening quiet, the restful unrest of the forest and its wild creatures should surely have ministered? She moved forward and sat on the broad stone balustrade which, topping the buttressed masonry that supports it above the long downward grass slope of the park, encloses ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... feel the young rascal kicking already, like his father.—Oh, there is an elbow thrusting out: I think, in my conscience, he is palming and topping in my belly; and practising for a livelihood, before he comes ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... about four or five inches high, they weed it, and clean the ground all about it, and hill up every plant. They do the same again, when it is about a foot and a half high. And when the plant has, about eight or nine leaves, and is ready to put forth a stalk, they nip off the top, which they call topping the tobacco: this amputation makes the {189} leaves grow longer and thicker. After this, you must look over every plant, and every leaf, in order to sucker it, or to pull off the buds, which grow at the joints of the leaves; and at the same time you must destroy the large ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... short, but it had served to cut down their lead perceptibly. The sounds of pursuit were plainer even than at first and glancing over her shoulder as she reached the rim of the swale, she could see horsemen stringing down into the depression. Topping the ridge she was surprised to find the Texan only a short distance ahead. He was plying his quirt mercilessly but the animal moved slowly, and she could see that he limped. Swiftly she closed up the ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... exquisite whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black curling hair round the root: through the jetty springs of which the fair skin shewed as in a fine evening you may have remarked the clear light through the branchwork of distant trees over-topping the summit of a hill: then the broad of blueish-casted incarnate of the head, and blue serpentines of its veins, altogether composed the most striking assemblage of figure and colours in nature. In short, it stood an object of ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... Bruffin took his eyes from Dick, to see his wife leading towards them a pale-faced, tear-smudged girl, with a battered sun-bonnet flung back on her shoulders and a great halo of untidy red hair topping a graceful, weary figure habited in clothes which, in their present state, would have disgraced the ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... instances; pitch your first wort at sixty, giving two gallons of solid yest; your second at sixty-five, giving the same complement of yest; let your fermenting heat rise to eighty, then cleanse, first topping your tun with two pounds of bean meal flour, and half a pound of bay salt pounded and mixed with the flour; fill fine, and head your porter casks, as already directed to do with hogsheads; let your finings and heading be in that proportion with ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... 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
... "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
... batteries, which immediately opened on them cheerily; and 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, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... to the datto. On the morning of his visit to the Burnside he wore a white "Americano" suit and white shoes, as, indeed, did most of his followers, one of the men topping off this very conventional attire with a magnificent red, green, and purple turban which he did not once remove while aboard ship. The headgear of the Moros consists entirely of turbans, fezes, or soft tam-o'-shanters, the latter a compromise, I fancy, between the ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... hanging pirates at low-water mark. (See Notes I. i. 67 First Folio Edition). 3. Compare this storm with that in 'Pericles,'—'Do not assist the storm,' etc., with 'Per.' III. i. 51-60. 4. Explain 'To trash for over-topping,' I. ii. 98, which is a blending of two metaphors. Trash refers to the habit of hanging a weight round the neck of the fleetest of a pack of hounds, to keep him from getting ahead of the rest; and 'overtopping' to trees shooting ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... we shall watch your wings Topping the mountains, battling winds,—to dare Challenge the lammergeyer where she swings Down ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... 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 to the passer, and with balconies overhanging him. It has of course a bull-ring, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... that I sent an express for the medical gentleman, who promptly attended and administered a powerful dose of castor oil. Under the influence of this medicine he recovered so far as to be able, at eight o'clock, p.m., to bite Topping (the coachman). His night was peaceful. This morning, at daybreak, he appeared better, and partook plentifully of some warm gruel, the flavor of which he appeared to relish. Toward eleven o'clock he ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... had several—I fear more than several—drinks before leaving for home, with never a trace of antelope nor a thought of the rice cooking over the slow fire. The colonel remembered some hard cider that he had, and topping off on that, they set out. The weather was pretty warm, and on their way home they experienced some remorse over the hard cider. Now hard cider is an accumulative drink; it piles up interest like debt or unpaid taxes. And by the time those Englishmen ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... I had Topping (clerk of the Legation) telephone Conrad again. Once more we had the most definite assurances that nothing had happened and a somewhat weary renewal of the promise that we should have immediate information when ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... 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 weather—hardly any ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... I should have much opposition to encounter from the rivalry of the three learned professions, to say nothing of the gentlemen of the sword and of the buskin; but, thinks I to myself, 'faint heart never won fair lady,' so I at once set up a snuff-box, looked as tip-topping ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... British blockading ships memorable in the annals of hardship, hardihood, and suffering. Many invaluable lives perished from the inclemency of the weather; men were frozen to death at their posts. It is recorded of one devoted officer, Lieutenant Topping, that rushing on deck in anxiety for his ship, without giving himself time to put on his clothes, 'in fifteen minutes he fell upon the deck a corpse, stricken by the piercing blast and ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... than my eyes—I 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, then stop soft ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... the platoon commander, still quoting 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
... 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 ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... 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
... 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 the left, a pulverized ruin where houses had ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... Pete, topping the rise that hides the town of Concho from the northern vistas, turned and looked back. Far below, on a slightly rounded knoll stood the old herder, a solitary figure in the wide expanse of mesa and morning ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... more by your 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 [Gallows]. And ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... topping Dyer, Was cuckol'd by a Frier: He saw the Case, How bad it was, And feign'd to take a Journey, Saying softly, Madam, —— burn ye But stopping by the Way He saw the Priest full gay, Running fast to his House, To tickle his Spouse: 'Tis d——n'd vile, thinks the Dyer, But away went the Frier. ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... ornaments 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 ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... turned out, we got off better than we usually do in only a moderate sea, though we should have capsized to a certainty had the boat sheered. 'Twas, "Look out! Damme, look out! Here's a swell coming! Get her head to it or we'm over. Gude for us!" Some of the waves, rising and topping in the shallow water over the rocks, seemed to make the Cock Robin sit upright on her stern, like a dog begging, and the higher the seas rose the more we gloried in them. Sufficient for the moment was the wave thereof. We swore at each other in a sort of chant. I had to ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... Laura, well worth shading, though your figure is your trump card. I like these fitting bodices that give a woman a chance to show what shape she is. All you Selincourt women score in evening gowns. Yvonne has a topping figure, though she's an ugly little devil. She has an American complexion and her eyes aren't as good as yours. Where did you say you ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... groomed," he said. "Saw your old friend Magglin before breakfast. Good legs. Like to get taken on again, he says. Tail wants topping—too long. Lucky for him he didn't get before the magistrates. Doctor won't have him again. Very nice little nag, but too small for service. I told him that all he was fit for was to enlist; some sharp drill-sergeant might ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... chivied me. I mean to say, I felt myself taking it as one gentleman would take a rag from other gentlemen—not as a bit of a sneak who would tell the truth to save his face. A couple of chaffing old beggars they were, but they had found me a topping dead sportsman of their own sort. Be it remembered I was still uncertain whether I had caught something of that alleged American spirit, or whether the drink had made me feel equal at least to Americans. Whatever it might be, it was rather great, and I was ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... 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 by three or four hundred feet ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Topping his long stiff body, Marigold's ugly one-eyed head appeared, and, as if he was tremendously proud of ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... Mrs. Wyburn. I like her. She looked topping last night, too. But I dare say it'll be all right. Romer's a good ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... no inventory of the gardens. There was but a happy sense of green and gold, with blue topping all; of twinkling, fluent, tossing leaves and of the gray under side of elongated, straining leaves; a sense of pert bird-noises, and of a longer shadow than usual slanting before him, and a sense of youth and well-being everywhere. Certainly it was not a morning ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... swells To Tully's shop, or lounge with pump-room belles; May I no more to Sidney Gardens stray, If, Bath, I wrong thee in my hum'rous lay. Court of King Blad', where crescents circling rise Above each other till they reach the skies; And hills o'er-topping with their verdant green The Abbey Church, are in the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... In topping an abrupt little ridge, he had come suddenly into full view of a bark gunyah or shanty, in the triangular opening of which, beside a bright fire, sat a man and a big black hound. A billy-can swung over the fire on a tripod of stakes, and the man was engaged with his supper. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... afternoon. How they broke in full cry out of the fields up on to the free downs. How, with the fresh sea scent in their faces, they scoured the ridge that links Templeton with Blackarch, and Blackarch with Topping. How at the third mile they cried off inland, and plunged into the valley by Waly's bottom and Bardie's farm, through the pleasant village of Steg, over the railway, and along the fringe of Swilford Wood, to the open heath beyond. How half the hunt was ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... of speed with this dashing exhibitor. A glance which, when on the point of one of his most desperate leaps, he threw back at me, seemed to be a kind of challenge, and I rushed on at speed. The Irish hunter matchless at "topping" stone walls, but his practice has not lain much among rivers; and the English horse is sometimes his master at the deep and rapid streams which, running between crumbling banks, are perhaps the severest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... seemed to be, particularly unlucky; for as I drew near the very entrance, lightly of foot and warily, the moon (which had often been my friend) like an enemy broke upon me, topping the eastward ridge of rock, and filling all the open spaces with the play of wavering light. I shrank back into the shadowy quarter on the right side of the road; and gloomily employed myself to watch the triple entrance, on ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... rollers turning against a horizontal ring inside the tower at the top. It was operated by a bull wheel above the top of the tower, the turning ropes running down inside the mast to the foot block and thence horizontally to the operating motor. The topping and hoisting lines also followed this route. The top of the tower was guyed by four ropes to anchorages in the basement floor. The boom commanded a circle 170 ft. in diameter and could lift 150 ft. above the base ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... 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 of compo-cockney-gothic, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, Who to the ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... prominent, delicate chin; a large, humorous mouth, the full lips delicately chiselled; a high, delicate, perhaps rather narrow brow, rising above humorous grey eyes, rather deep-set. Then he had silky-soft smooth white hair, and, topping the occiput, a tonsure that might have passed ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... West, and is quite essential on the poorer soils of the East and North. It had better never be neglected. The crop will weigh more to the acre, by allowing it to stand as it grew, until thoroughly dry. The next larger crop is when the stalks are cut off above the ear (called topping) after it has become glazed. Still a little less will be the product when it is cut up at the ground, while the leaves are yet quite green. The two latter methods are adapted for the purpose of saving fodder in good condition for cattle. Intelligent farmers ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... elme, whose shade so mildely dym Doth nourish all that groweth under him: Cipresse that like piramides runne topping, And hurt the least of any by the dropping; The alder, whose fat shadow nourisheth Each plant set neere to him long flourisheth; The heavie-headed plane-tree, by whose shade The grasse grows thickest, men are fresher made; The ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... along the road from Treguier to Kervanda. We passed at a smart trot between the hedges topping an earth wall on each side of the road; then at the foot of the steep ascent before Ploumar the horse dropped into a walk, and the driver jumped down heavily from the box. He flicked his whip and climbed the incline, stepping clumsily uphill by the side of the carriage, one hand on the footboard, ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... May evening of his stay the horizon became a dust-cloud, the setting sun a ball of fire. Loomed the figure of a rider topping the heaving backs of his herd. All together they came lumbering down the slopes, all heading fiercely for the water. The rider plunged down a side-draw out of the main cloud. Clanking bells, shuffling hoofs, the "Whoop-ee-youp!" ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... just topping the eastern cliffs, cast its bright rays upon the long stretch of open garden beneath the wall. And, too, it picked out in clear relief for any curious eyes that chanced to be cast in that direction, the figure of the giant ape-man moving across the clearing. It was only chance, of course, ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... kitchen, lighted a candle, and stepped into the adjoining room. On the table was a neat pile of papers, and topping the pile was the president's letter. Being burdened by no false scruples, and thinking it might afford some clue to the judge's whereabouts, Mahaffy took it up and read it. Having mastered its contents he instantly ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... crossed the glassy bay and motored to pay a double-barrelled visit to the Military and Civil Governors. Topping the watershed, yet another pleasure shock. Through the sea haze Mitylene shines out like an iridescent bubble of light. Never had I seen anything so vivid in its colour and setting as this very ancient, very small, very brilliant city of Mitylene. Rio de Janeiro, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... and through the stream, and went his ways up the further bent, and Osberne sat down on a stone and abode him in no little wonder. The man was gone somewhat more than an hour, and then Osberne sees the sheep topping the crest of the bent, and pouring down into the dale, and the newcomer came next driving them down; and when they came to the stream they stood there and moved no more than if ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... 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
... no getting back the same night. This is topping, Ann." Tony's face had brightened considerably. "Suppose you and I go up to the Dents de Loup for the afternoon, and then have a festive little dinner at the Gloria. Will you? Don't have an attack of ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... vines is in all cases more or less weakening. The more foliage that is removed, the more weakening it is. Vines, therefore, which are making a weak growth from any cause whatever can only be injured by topping. If the vines are exceptionally vigorous, the weakening due to topping may be an advantage by making them more fruitful. The topping, however, must be done with discretion. Early topping in May is much more effective and less weakening than later ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... dream of galloping into action and firing with open sights at close range was an accomplished fact almost before we were aware of it. On one occasion, the whole Brigade, immediately at the close of executing a creeping barrage, limbered up, and topping the crest in front came face to face with the enemy, and dropped into action alongside our advancing infantry. The enemy machine gunners were lined up on a ridge some four hundred yards away, but ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... ill-spent life behind, And I'll take care o' your widows, Rube, as many as I shall find." A Stralsund man shot blind and large, and a warlock Finn was he, And he hit Tom Hall with a bursting ball a hand's-breadth over the knee. Tom Hall caught hold by the topping-lift, and sat him down with an oath, "You'll wait a little, Rube," he said, "the Devil has called for both. The Devil is driving both this tide, and the killing-grounds are close, And we'll go up to the Wrath of God as the holluschickie goes. O men, put back your guns again and lay your rifles ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... Jane plunged through 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 jumble of ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... more like the 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 shrine of the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... coat right enough, but it was slick with old grease across the chest, stained on one shoulder, and his breeches were linsey-woolsey, his boots old and scuffed. And his bush of unkempt hair was covered with a battered hat topping a woolen scarf wound about ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... 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 jostling heaps of corpses and dead horses ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... of a huge longitude, the enclosed lagoon thirty miles by ten or twelve, and the coral tow-path, which they call the land, some eighty or ninety miles by (possibly) one furlong. That part by which we sailed was all raised; the underwood excellently green, the topping wood of coco-palms continuous—a mark, if I had known it, of man's intervention. For once more, and once more unconsciously, we were within hail of fellow-creatures, and that vacant beach was but a pistol-shot from the capital city of the archipelago. But the life of an atoll, unless it be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dining in a private cabinet at 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 ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the jolly kind of girl I like," she explained. "I think we might have some topping times together, and wake up the school. Things are apt to get ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... The Old Curiosity Shop.' I have thought of Master Humphrey's Tale, Master Humphrey's Narrative, A Passage in Master Humphrey's Life—but I don't think any does as well as this. I have also thought of The Old Curiosity Dealer and the Child instead of The Old Curiosity Shop. Perpend. Topping waits."——And thus was taking gradual form, with less direct consciousness of design on his own part than I can remember in any other instance of all his career, a story which was to add largely to his popularity, more than any other of his works to make the bond between himself ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... vagrant and rowdy found easy excuse in sina Tona's eyes, when she would see him of a holiday—and what days were not holidays for that rascal?—with that fluffy flat silk cap of his topping off a brown face with just the suggestion of a mustache showing, a blue denim coat fitting close to his figure, and a black silk sash wound around his waist over a flannel shirt with black and green checks. Any woman would be ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the 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 ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... a prisoner brought from northern Acadia, now the companion of Madockawando's daughter, knew her duty to the strangers, and gave them food as rapidly as the hunter could broil it. The hunter was a big-legged, small-headed Abenaqui, with knees over-topping his tuft of hair when he squatted on his heels. He looked like a man whose emaciated trunk and arms had been taken possession of by colossal legs and feet. This singular deformity made him the best hunter in his tribe. He tracked ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... "Topping little place! Absolutely!" was the verdict he pronounced on the exterior of the cottage as he followed George in. "I've often thought it would be a rather sound scheme to settle down in this sort of shanty and keep chickens and grow a honey coloured beard, and have soup and jelly brought ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... 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 ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... 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 entrusted 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 ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... dwindled till they made only a hazy flare against the sky; but to the south the San Francisco lights, topping hills and sinking into valleys, stretched miles upon miles. Starting from the great ferry building, and passing on to Telegraph Hill, Joe was soon able to locate the principal places of the city. Somewhere over in that maze of light and shadow was the home of his ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... Walpole used to call his 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 to ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... pity that suffused his soul, the lively play of his comic fancy. Endowed with a keen sense of humour, he read Mark Twain and W. W. Jacobs with gusto. As a relaxation from historical studies he would sometimes devour a bluggy story, and as he read would shout with laughter at its grotesque out-topping of probabilities. He tried his own hand at sensational yarns. I recall one of them, rich in gory incidents, with a villain who is constantly leaping from a G.W.R. express to elude his pursuers. Among his papers I found the manuscript of a detective ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... co-tenants; and this inference was confirmed by 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 ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... contents of a dozen small vials 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 ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... Vernon's accident, and its probable consequences, engrossed his every thought. Another rocket served to show him he was taking the right direction; and at so rapid a pace did he proceed, that the enlivening sounds of voices became more and more distinct, when, topping the brow of the hill, a blue light, most opportunely lighted up, disclosed to him at a very short distance on the opposite side of the valley, a substantial gentleman's house, in front of which a motley and mixed medley of some couple of hundred people or more—some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... 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, round which ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... wanted to enter. He was not exactly in a condition to be seen, especially if the person should prove to be an American officer. His fur parka, topping those khaki trousers and puttees of his, would seem at least to tell a tale, and might complicate matters considerably. Quickly seizing his blouse, he crowded his way far back into the depths of a furry ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... git up here in the headwaters of the Platte until years after, but from what I ketch they had some right stirrin' time in here, 'twixt cattle rustlin' and sheep crowdin'. Ole Jim knows the whole story, but he don't broadcast none." Topping a swell of the meadow lands another stream basin was encountered. "Hit's a little Ranty," explained Landy. "That's a dam downstream aways en the B-line waters a couple o' hundred acres." In these meadows there were cattle—cows and calves and ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... Oh, dear, how awful mother looks! Rowena is a brute to look so cross. P'raps the Spider will have to go, and I shall be finished, and done with lessons. Topping!" ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... "Oh, it 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 ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... they drank the ripping coffee, smoked the topping cigarette, and if they happened to be men of stomach ventured on a clinking cigar. Moreover, they were made welcome. Agar was like a vain woman who loved to see a full saloon. And he paid for his pleasure in more honourable coin than many a vain woman has laid down since daughters of Eve commenced ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... doubt, 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 he ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... bend in the river, Rochemaure the Black came into sight: a withered stronghold topping an isolated rock of black basalt six hundred feet above the stream. It is a grewsome place: the ruin of a black nightmare of a basalt-built castle, having below and around it a little black nightmare of a basalt-built town—whereof the desperately steep and crooked streets are ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... topping old barbarian, this leader of cut-throats," Barlow admitted to himself; but in his mind was a horror of the fate meant for the girl. And somehow it was a sacrifice for him, he knew, an enlargement of the love that had shown in the soft brown eyes. As he listened ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... Topping the brow of a little hill the wagon came to a smooth downward grade where the road met the quaint old bridge that spanned Little Bill Creek, beside which stood the antiquated flour and feed mill that had given Millville its name. The horses were able to maintain their brisk trot across ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... known 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 ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... have only served to rouse its temper. Its seas have grown bigger with every mile from the Pole, and wilder with every mile towards the Horn. Now they are so enormous that even the truck of the tall Yankee clipper staggering along to {123} leeward cannot be seen except when both ships are topping the crest. Wherever you look there seems to be an endless earthquake of mountainous waves, with spuming volcanoes of their own, and vast, abysmal craters yawning from the depths. The Victoria begins ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... gulp, to see a slim, black-clad girl, with one of those appalling piles of fluffy hair topping her head, whisking past behind him. Now he noticed that the restaurant was divided in half by a screen which ran the length of the building, and that one side—the side he had seen through the window—was for men, and the other for women. The tables on the men's ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... 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
... very bad of me. I was trying on Miss Marie's dress, and she slapped my face; and I spoke out before I thought, and was saucy; and she said that she'd bring me down, and have me know, once for all, that I wasn't going to be so topping as I had been; and she wrote this, and says I shall carry it. I'd rather she'd ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 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 and ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... sheep-wash. One year two millions of pounds were raised in the State, and, as it was mostly sold for sheep-wash, it lasted several years, and discouraged the growers. Tobacco always grew readily, but it was too rank and strong. They used Eastern methods, topping and suckering, and as the plant had here a very long season to grow and mature, the leaf was thick ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... Tanks—"Napoleon," they called him. A great brain he had. Before the war he knew his Chelsea well, and the Cafe Royal and all the set who went there. And there was a (p. 063) dear young Highlander also, a most gentle, shy youth. He was very happy one day; he had a "topping" time. He was out with the Tanks, and he killed a German despatch-rider and rode ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... not remember 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 side, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper |
