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More "Valet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me, "Yes, Sa, I do same whole camp one night, saddles, horses, bridles, whole lot camp outfit while you sleep." He has been butler to two distinguished generals, so I feel it must be rather a drop for him to valet a mere cold-weather tourist, but he does not show it, which is a point in his favour. It was a little awkward though the other day when he began to beat up to find my profession; I forget what he said exactly. It was something like, "Sahib General?" and I said, "No, no," as if Generals ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... packed his own bags, dispensing with the services of the valet, and with more than one sigh of regret glanced about at the luxury which he was soon to quit. The great bed with its snowy billows of comfort; the reading-lamp on the little table with the motley collection of books borrowed from ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... not. He said last night that he would like his bath about six, and the steward I sent to valet him went to his room and found it as you say. I have had the ship searched high and low, and from stem to stern, and there is no sign of him. I have had every one questioned, and no one has seen anything ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... no better. The stout old gentleman—an editor and an F.Z.S., if you please—who used to get Michael, my valet, to let him see me from the private window, just glares at me over the top of his newspaper and mutters, "Hah! my fine bird, you're coming off your perch head-first before many months are over." And the newspaper cameraman, who used to take my portrait whilst Michael ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... presents, for the last. He was glad that it wasn't too late for him to enjoy it. Here, suddenly, intervening in the midst of a prosaic drudgery, a tepid and meaningless period, was a magnificent relief. By God, would he take advantage of it! Would he! There was a knock at the door, and the hotel valet hung a freshly pressed suit in the closet; the shoes into which he intended to change were in a perfection of readiness; laid out were a heavy blue silk shirt and a dull yellow tie. Lee got these various carefully selected articles ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... days past, all passengers in St. James' Street have been amused with seeing two carts at Charles's door filling, by the Jews, with his goods, clothes, books, and pictures. He was waked by Basilico yesterday, and Hare afterwards by his valet de chambre, they bein(g) told at the same time that the execution was begun, and the carts were drawn up against the door. Such furniture I ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... the notably successful editor of "The American Boy," has given for the first time the history of the Louisiana Purchase in entertaining story form. The hero is introduced as a French drummer boy in the great battle of Hohenlinden. He serves as a valet to Napoleon and later is sent with secret messages to the French in San Domingo and in Louisiana. After exciting adventures he accomplishes his mission and is present at the lowering of the Spanish flag, and later at that of the French and the raising ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... and it is supposed that, like Kidd, Ben suffered execution. Bridgar, suddenly freed from all danger, as suddenly regained a sense of his own importance. He made drafts on the Company and set out from Quebec in such state as befitted his dignity, with secretary and interpreter and valet. He rode hurriedly along the old post-road between Boston and New York, filling the countryside with the story of his adventures. Then he took ship to England; but there his valour suffered a sudden chill. The Company had refused ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... two cars drew up, and the traveller stepped out upon the platform, followed by his secretary and his valet. I went forward to meet him. "Good morning, Mr. van ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... not bad-looking and not unamiable girl, unfortunately dowered with the silliness of her father and the nullity of her mother combined and intensified. There is some pretty bad stock farce about M. Bringuesingue and his valet, whom he pays to scratch his nose when his master is committing solecisms; and about Edmond's adroitness in saving the situations. The result is that the Bringuesingues throw their not unwilling daughter at Edmond's head. To do him the only justice he ever deserves, he does not like ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... southward. "I was accompanied," he says in his diary, "by Major Jackson. My equipage and attendants consisted of a chariot and four horses drove in hand, a light baggage-wagon and two horses, four saddle-horses, besides a led one for myself; and five, to wit, my valet-de-chambre, two footmen, coachman, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... Mr. George McManus's "Bringing Up Father" series are excellent examples. Particularly in the McManus pictures do we get funny, logical, and, above all, generally natural—in the sense of its being probable—comedy action. Take as an example the one which is sub-titled "It's a pity the valet left—he would have been such a nice playmate for Father." "Father," as we know, is the very much hen-pecked husband of a socially impossible woman who holds her place among the "400" only by reason of her husband's ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... of her death had arrived," says Brantome, "Mademoiselle sent for her valet, Julian, who could play the violin to perfection. 'Julian,' quoth she, 'take your violin and play on it until you see me dead—for I am going—the Defeat of the Swiss, and play it as well as you know how; and when you shall reach the words "tout est perdu," ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... shutters. It seemed as if he was accomplishing a duty in placing himself at the service of the two women. If he happened occasionally to neglect the tiresome job, he apologised with the humility of a valet the following day. On Thursdays he assisted Madame Raquin to light the fire, to do the honours of the house, and displayed all kinds of gentle attentions ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... applause. At Christmas, 1741, he brought out at Goodman's Fields a Christmas Farce, written by himself, entitled "The Lying Valet," wherein the great actor took the part of "Sharp." It was thought the most diverting farce ever performed. "There was a general roar from beginning to end. So great was his versatility that people were not able to determine whether he was best in tragedy ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... it," thought Casanova, "since last I stood thus measuring sword with sword?" But none of his serious duels now recurred to his mind. He could think only of practice with the foils, such as ten years earlier he used to have every morning with his valet Costa, the rascal who afterwards bolted with a hundred and fifty thousand lire. "All the same, he was a fine fencer; nor has my hand forgotten its cunning! My arm is as true, my vision as keen, as ever..... Youth and age are fables. Am I not a god? Are we not both gods? If anyone could ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... returning home from a party to his own lodgings, on passing through the piazza, he stumbled against something heavy that lay in his grass—hammock, which usually hung there. He called for a light, when, to his horror, he found the body of his old and faithful valet lying in it, dead and cold, with a knife sticking under his fifth rib—no doubt intended for his master. The speaker was Bolivar. About midnight, Mr Treenail returned, we shook hands with Mr——-, and once more shoved off; ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... What excuse shall I make?"—"O" says Douse, "order your carriage and go to Boreham, and then you know you will be from home, and that will be a sufficient excuse." A beam of pleasure sparkled in the Captain's eye, and he at once adopted the faithful groom and valet's advice. He then wrote to Sir John Methuen Poore, the Lieutenant, and honestly told him that, as he was not concerned in Dyke's keeping up the price of his wheat, he should not attend at Salisbury, as he was going to Boreham, where he had particular business. Boreham was near Warminster, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... copies of Cymbalum mundi, en francais, contenant quatre Dialogues poetiques, antiques, joyeux, et facetieux, par Thomas Duclevier (Bonaventure Desperiers, Valet de chambre de la Reyne de Navarre) (Paris, Jehan Morin, 1537, in-8) reveals the fact that the printer, Jean Morin, was imprisoned on account of this work. Therein it is recorded that he presented the copy ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... room everything that he needed had been laid out in readiness for him, and he dressed mechanically with a feverish haste that struggled ineffectually with a refractory collar stud, and caused him to execrate heartily the absent valet and his enigmatical errand. Another ten minutes was lost while he hunted for his watch and cigarette case which he suddenly remembered were in the coat that he had left at the little house. Or had he searched genuinely? Had he not rather been—perhaps unconsciously—procrastinating, ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... said Miss Fanny, 'see what is involved in this! Can we ever hope to be respected by our servants? Never. Here are our two women, and Pa's valet, and a footman, and a courier, and all sorts of dependents, and yet in the midst of these, we are to have one of ourselves rushing about with tumblers of cold water, like a menial! Why, a policeman,' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Butscha. But the seething of the Breton's heart and brain received a violent application of cold water when he entered the courtyard of the pretty house occupied by the poet and saw a groom washing a carriage, and also, through the windows of a handsome dining-room, a valet dressed like a banker, to whom the groom referred him, and who answered, looking the stranger over from head to foot, that Monsieur le baron was not visible. "There is," added the man, "a meeting of the council ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... "No valet, no people," he muttered, "this fish then is no noble, and yet, by his mien, no bourgeois. Luggage scanty, dress fine. What is he? Gambler of Paris? Swiss? Italian? No, he speaks French, but without the Court accent. By that he is none of our people—that ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... never did he behold it in heaven. But Darius giving laws to the Medes and the Persians, or the conqueror of Bactria with king-cattle yoked to his car, was not a whit more sublime, than Beau Brummel magnificently ringing for his valet. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... affairs of a marshal of France; he paid his debts, and the marshal was his domestic; all the court had come to that; the duties which brought servants in proximity to the king's person were eagerly sought after by the greatest lords. Bontemps, his chief valet, and Fagon, his physician, as well as his surgeon Marachal, very excellent men, too, were all-powerful amongst the courtiers. Louis XIV. had possessed the art of making his slightest favors prized; to hold the candlestick at bedtime (au petit coucher), to make one in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... disclose the whole combination of springs and wheels whereby they are moved." A similar transparency of motive and purpose, of individual traits and spontaneous action, belongs to the Bible. From the hand of Shakspeare, "the lord and the tinker, the hero and the valet, come forth equally distinct and clear." In the Bible the various sorts of men are never confounded, but have the advantage of being exhibited by Nature herself, and are not a contrivance of the imagination. "Shylock," observes a recent critic, "seems so much a man of Nature's making, that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... I conjure you to restore me my affianced husband," his cold and trembling hands would have signed his release; but no voice broke the stillness of the chamber, and the door was opened only by Villefort's valet, who came to tell him that the travelling carriage ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... cried our new acquaintance. 'What ancient, ancient words from so young a head! You are, I'll warrant, five years younger than a scatterbrain like myself, and yet you talk like the seven wise men of Greece. Wilt take me as a valet?' ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... five hours afterwards to breakfast, between eleven and noon. The chambermaid is at the door, or on the stairs, or on the landing, talking with somebody's valet: she runs in on hearing or seeing you. Your servant is laying the cloth in a most leisurely style, stopping to look out of the window or to lounge, and coming and going like a person who knows he has plenty of time. You ask for your ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... his chance," said Bedelle to himself in gloomy pride. Yes, Al had had his chance, that one chance that comes unwittingly to every man—Al who might have toured the world with him as his majordomo, or his confidential valet. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... at last!" said Miss Verepoint, querulously. "The valet told us you were expected back this morning, so we waited. Where on earth have you been to, running away like this, ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... The valet, an Alsacian, who talked to me in German—perhaps with the notion of paying me a compliment—informed me that he was entirely at my own service. He showed me a beautiful escritoire in the work-room, with ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... curious that, though we are both so intensely interested in the problem, we have never before discussed it," remarked Walter. "I am so anxious to hear your views upon one or two points. What, for instance, do you think of Barker, the dead man's valet?" ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... time since," began the countess in her low, unsympathizing tones, "to watch the imperial household, so that nothing might transpire within it that came not to the knowledge of your majesty. I have lately watched the movements of the emperor's valet." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... London., which is unnecessary, as I have been able to carry out all your arrangements as you would wish. A carriage, with four horses, will be kept in readiness, so that it can be brought to any point you may direct at half an hour's notice. I presume you and I, with Wilson [that's his valet], are sufficient to carry off the girl—young lady, I mean, even if there be any papa or brother in the case, who would be the better for a little knocking down; but if you like more assistance, I can lay my hand on two or ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... power are like Doctor Balouard of the Italian Comedy, who does not want to be served by anyone but the dolt Harlequin, and who is afraid of having too shrewd a valet. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... sickening, yet he dreaded still more the summons. He was not long alone; the door opened; he started, grew pale; he thought it was his grandfather; it was not even Mr. Rigby. It was Lord Monmouth's valet. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... ceiling. There were sliding doors of polished wood on each side of it. A great stairway filled the point of the triangle. I was shown to my room, which was as big as a ball-room, it seemed to me, and grandly furnished; no castle of my dreams had been quite so fine. The valet of the count looked after me, with offers of new linen and more things than I could see use for. He could not speak English, I remember, and I addressed him in the good French ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... dressed, and went out to his club to dine, hating the faces of the servants of the house, just able to bear with the attentions of his valet. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sympathies and manners which began to characterize the Swedish nobility in the eighteenth century, and which continued to assert themselves almost to the end of the nineteenth. But in English that form would not have the same significance, and nothing in the play makes its use imperative. The valet, on the other hand, would most appropriately be named Jean both in England and here, and for that reason I have retained this form of ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... was waiting for him had long been his accomplice; together they had concocted the criminal plan to which Simon fell a victim, and as a reward for his villainy, Cyprien had been made intendant instead of valet. ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... valet verba:—i.e. all the words which have been, are, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A sufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter's progenitor who selected this name seems to have possessed A PURE ANTICIPATED COGNITION of the nature ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... sitting-room; for since he had been promoted in the bank and had been admitted to a fashionable club, he had moved into bachelor apartments suitable to his improving fortunes and social position. He had also committed himself to the keeping of an English man-servant—he did not like to call him his valet, lest the appearance of ostentation and Anglomania should prejudice him with his business associates. But somehow the new dignity of his own surroundings seemed to lend something bordering on probability to the conjecture that this once acting-governor of New York, Rip Van Dam, ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... and between them they conquered the farmer, though his old mother was on the prudent side. This was Friday, and Mrs Jane was to leave home on Tuesday; and on Saturday afternoon, Robert Featherstone, Colonel Lane's valet, whom Jenny thought such a gentleman, was to come ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... prosecuted his experiments in the hope of discovering the secret. Several years thus passed, but without success; until again accident stood his friend, and helped him to a knowledge of the art of making white porcelain. One day, in the year 1707, he found his perruque unusually heavy, and asked of his valet the reason. The answer was, that it was owing to the powder with which the wig was dressed, which consisted of a kind of earth then much used for hair powder. Bottgher's quick imagination immediately seized upon the idea. This white earthy powder might possibly be the very earth of which he was in ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... reign, are not well known, because, with the exception of the four murderers, the deed was witnessed only by a little boy, to whom Domitian had given the care of the images of the gods in the bedroom. The names of the conspirators are Saturius, the head valet de chambre, Maximus, a freedman of a lower class, Clodianus, an orderly, and Stephanus, who was the head of the party. He was led to commit the crime in the hope that the embezzlements of which he was guilty in his management of the property of Flavia Domitilla, niece of ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... can't say how, a strong feeling of suspicion was aroused in my mind against the old reprobate when he brought me an ornament I had ordered and was so visibly disturbed on giving it to me; and then he inquired particularly for whom I wanted the ornament, and also questioned my valet in the most artful way as to when I was in the habit of visiting a certain lady. I had long before noticed that all the unfortunates who fell victims to this abominable epidemic of murder and robbery bore one and the same wound. I felt sure that the assassin had by practice grown perfect ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... their house was left to servants. Burly neighbouring squires rode up and knocked with their riding-whips at Rossatorc door to remonstrate with Robert Molyneux, for his father's sake or for his own, but met no answer. All the servants were gone except a furtive-eyed French valet and a woman he called his wife, and these were troubled with no notions of respectability. After a time people gave up trying to interfere. The place got a bad name. The gardens were neglected and the house was half in ruins. No one ever saw Mauryeen Holion's face except it might be ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... countenance, and yet ten to one he would in the end deprive me of the credit of keeping my promise, by taking its performance upon himself. That I might be my own master, therefore, I chose as my valet the most tractable fellow at my disposal, one Nicolas, a lank, knock-kneed jack of about my own age, who had hitherto made himself of the least possible use, with the best possible intentions, between ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Lordship the Bishop for the hope of the house, the young Comte Victurnien d'Esgrignon, was an elderly Oratorian who must be paid a certain salary, although he lived with the family. The wages of a cook, a waiting-woman for Mlle. Armande, an old valet for M. le Marquis, and a couple of other servants, together with the daily expenses of the household, and the cost of an education for which nothing was spared, absorbed the whole family income, in spite of Mlle. Armande's economies, in spite ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... and last victim of the Adirondack wilderness disappeared very recently—May 24th. His name was Alphonso W. Green, a wealthy amateur artist. When last seen he was followed by his valet, who carried a white umbrella, a folding stool, a box of colours, and several canvases. After luncheon the valet went back to the Gilded Dome Hotel to fetch some cigarettes. When he returned to where he had left his master painting a picture of something, which he thinks was a tree, but which may ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... contemporary crazes. Madame is a woman of fashion, though she looks rather conscious of her clothes, and is always behind the mode. She scoffs, however, at the ignorance affected by her neighbors. Her plate is of modern fashion; she has "grooms," Negroes, a valet-de-chambre, and what-not. Her oldest son drives a tilbury, and does nothing (the estate is entailed upon him), his younger brother is auditor to a Council of State. The father is well posted up in official scandals, and tells you anecdotes of Louis XVIII. and Madame du Cayla. He invests his ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... had returned suddenly to the house in Jermyn Street, a relative had hastily obtained for him the necessary servants; his former valet was at the front; they were all new to him and to his ways, and he had no housekeeper. Dulcie did the housekeeping—could she take that place in his house? No, she knew that she was too young, and everyone else would have said she was too pretty. Only as a nurse would it ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... Vronsky's valet came in to ask him to sign a receipt for a telegram from Petersburg. There was nothing out of the way in Vronsky's getting a telegram, but he said, as though anxious to conceal something from her, that the receipt was in his study, and he turned ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the Empress's presence the peasant Ivan, who had introduced us, handed us over to the Tsar's chief valet, an elderly grey-bearded man in the Imperial livery, a man whose name we understood was Tchernoff, and who had been valet of the old Emperor ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... and his worthy assistant, Bertrand, and see what can be done. As Danton himself said to me the other evening at the Cordelliers Club, 'in times of revolution authority falls into the hands of rascals!' Bertrand was a good valet, but he knows no more of statescraft than my coachman does. However, what we want is not a statesman but a friend, and I think Bertrand may prove to be that. My carriage is waiting below; ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Catt, make your preparations; call the servants, and show them what they have to do. In the mean time, I will make my toilet; I must not appear before the worthy ambassador in such unworthy guise." The king rang hastily, and his valet, Deesen, entered. "Deesen," said he, gayly, "we will imagine ourselves to be again in Sans-Souci, and about to hold a great court. I must do then, what I have not done for a long time—make grande toilette. I will wear my general's uniform, and adorn myself with the order of the Black ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... remains like this," said Stoss, after his valet had carefully and skilfully seated him in the chair, "we can reach Hoboken some time on Tuesday. But only if the weather does remain like this. The captain tells me that when we are running under full steam, as now, we make ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... had retired into his chamber, it was some time before he read the letter Sandford had given him. He first walked backwards and forwards in the room—he then began to take off some part of his dress, but he did it slowly. At length, he dismissed his valet, and sitting down, took the letter from his pocket. He looked at the seal, but not at the direction; for he seemed to dread seeing Lady Elmwood's handwriting. He then laid it on the table, and began again to undress. ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... three years' service as waiter in English hotels, where he learned the language, he might not have risen to this. He would have tried, for he was a willing and kindly soul, though he was not a 'valet de place' by profession. There seemed in fact but one of that useless and amusing race (which is everywhere falling into decay through the rivalry of the perfected Baedeker,) left in Leipsic, and this one was engaged, so ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... those small towns on the Harlem, sheltering so many Italians, for, like a hen with a brood of chicks, Rourke kept all his Italians gathered close about him. Jimmie, curiously, was the one who was always selected to run his family errands for him, a kind of valet to Rourke, as it were—selected for some merit I could never discover, certainly not one of speed. He was nevertheless constantly running here and there like an errand boy, his worn, dusty, baggy clothes making him look like a dilapidated bandit fresh from a sewer. On ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... nevertheless, glad to have their daughters taught for a few hours in the week; and you may suppose that Emilie Schomberg did not lead an idle life. For remuneration she fared, as alas teachers do fare, but ill. The sum which many a gentleman freely gives to his butler or valet, is thought exorbitant, nay, is rarely given to a governess, and Emilie, as a daily governess, was but ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... pushed his way through the crowd. The valet's full voice was no longer shouting out names, but close to the door the count and countess were still talking, for they were detained by ladies coming in. At length he joined them, while the gentlemen who were still on the garden steps stood on tiptoe so as to watch the scene. Nana, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... the morning of October the 11th, Robertson's valet roused him from bed with word that a man had been accidentally shot. Slipping a pistol in his pocket and all unsuspicious of trickery, Robertson dashed out. It happened that the most of his men were at a slight distance from his fort. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... for Dublin, he would, I dare say, have turned out Shaw or Grattan. Henry IV. is a dangerous example for sovereigns that are not, like him, splendid chevaliers and consummate captains. Louis XIV., who was never seen but in a full-bottomed wig, even by his valet-de-chambre, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... course given various explanations. But why, says M. Despois, should Marinette, who appears to be fond of cards, not call people by names derived from her favourite game? She calls Gros-Rene in another place beau valet de carreau.] ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... composition; but she is very young yet, not more than seventeen—and nobody knows what she really is—she does not know herself. These are the parties who meet in the cabin of the yacht. The crew consists of ten fine seamen, the steward and the cook. There is also Lord B.'s valet, Mr. Ossulton's gentleman, and the lady's-maid of Miss Ossulton. There not being accommodation for them, the other servants ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... romance you like around that. He has had his romance or tragedy or something, you may be sure. But he's no ordinary man, whatever he may be doing in Paradise Park. I have heard that he's surrounded with books and pictures in his cottage. He's got a Chinaman for a valet, and an Indian for his man Friday, and their mouths are as tight as his. What's more, he must be all right in the main things, for his foreman and cowboys stick to him through thick and thin, and say nothing. I tell you, Miss Gaylord, I'd like to be a friend ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... "My valet will smarten you up," he said. "Here, Fritz, take Mr. Brooks into my room and look after him, will you. I shall be in the hall when you ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The club valet assured me that he had received no call for trunk or bag, but that Roger had assuredly not entered the house for five days. I went into his rooms, but they told me nothing, and I, worse luck, should have been lost in his collar, so I glared angrily at the drawers of linen, wired for my own ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... Vacuum malplenajxo. Vagabond sentauxgulo, vagisto. Vagary kaprico. Vagrant vagisto. Vague malpreciza. Vain (fruitless) vana. Vain (conceited) vanta. Vain, in vane. Vainly vane. Vale valeto. Valet lakeo, servisto. Valiant brava. Valid legxa. Valise valizo. Valley valo. Valorous brava. Valour braveco. Valse valso. Value (appraise) taksi. Value (esteem) sxati. Value valoro. Valuable multekosta. Valuation takso, taksado. Valueless senvalora. Valve ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... late, having attended a banquet last night. After having my coffee and rolls in my bedroom, I went to my dressing-room to be shaved. As I did so, I paused for a moment, drew the snuff box from the pocket of my white evening waistcoat, which my valet had hung in a closet the night before, and took a pinch of snuff from it. I then replaced it in the pocket and entered the dressing-room adjoining, where Noel, my man, was waiting for me. He proceeded to shave me as usual, and I began to dress. ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... Grace of Osmonde's valet began to look anxious. He had attended his master ten years and had never seen him look as he did in these days. His impression was that his Grace did not sleep, that he had not slept for several nights. Lexton ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was the substance of what he remembered as he lay ill in bed. Stretching out his hand he pressed the bell. His valet appeared, crossing the room like a cat; a Swede, who had been with Swithin many years; a little man with a dried face and fierce moustache, morbidly sharp nerves, and a queer devotion to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... door, rushed to the Queen's bedside, and dragged her to the opposite door, with a petticoat just thrown over her. Behold, the door was fastened on the other side! The ladies knocked violently, the King's valet opened it, and in a few minutes the whole family were in safety in the King's apartments. M. de Miomandre, the brave guardsman, who used his musket to guard the Queen's door instead of to defend himself, fell wounded; but his comrade, M. de Repaire, at once ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... well dressed as usual, looking as neat and as smart in his dark cut-away coat with the invariable red carnation in his buttonhole, but the boy's quick eye caught the marks of a certain wear and tear in the face which neither his bath nor his valet had been able to obliterate. The thin lips—thin for a man so fat, and which showed, more than any other feature, something of the desultory firmness of his character—drooped at the corners. The eyes were ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and banishment. I had just received the order, and was crying out against the injustice, and lamenting my hard fate, as I sat down to dinner. Latterly, aware of what my enemies would attempt, I had been accustomed to live much alone. My faithful valet Pedro was my only attendant. I was eating my dinner with little appetite, and had asked for some wine. Pedro went to the beaufet behind him, to give me what I required. Accidentally I lifted up my head, and there being a large pier-glass opposite to me, I saw the figure of my valet, and ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... they lived happily ever after. People have not stopped writing and talking about it yet, although it is many centuries since it happened. It is true that once in a very great while a girl marries her father's chauffeur or her brother's valet and finds later that she has acted wisely; but these are rare exceptions to the general rule, for the result usually is unhappiness. Such marriages are always the occasion for big headlines in the paper, usually a double set of them, for, ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... for how could one who has never had to consult the pleasure or wishes of aught save self be able to study his? No! it is now too late to think of marriage, and what, therefore, is to be done? In this emergency, a severe attack of rheumatism confines him to his chamber for many days. His valet is found out to be clumsy and awkward in assisting him to put on his flannel gloves; the housekeeper, who is called up to receive instructions about some particular broth that he requires, is asked to officiate, and suggests ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... earned. Congenial society does not readily seek him out, and the sympathetic appreciation his starving soul craves is still as far as ever. Inevitable disappointment of hero-worship also quickly comes. When he calls at the door of the idolized Pushkin late in the morrow, he is told by the valet that the great man is deigning to be asleep at this late hour. "Ah, your master has been composing some heavenly song all night!" "Not at all; he has been playing cards till seven in the morning!" And to complete his doom, his tender susceptible heart begins to flutter ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... judge he would have his joke when the life of a human being was hanging in the balance. Even on his own deathbed he could not resist the impulse. On hearing that his friend Lord Erne was also nearing his end at the same time, he called for his valet: "James," said Lord Norbury, "run round to Lord Erne and tell him with my compliments that it will be a dead-heat ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... this she sought the Prince's head valet, and made herself so charming to him that he lost his head altogether, and was more than willing to fulfil ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... nobleman" is welcomed everywhere, feted, petted, and allowed almost any privilege he chooses to claim—and he is far from being very modest in this respect; and by and by he is found out to be an impostor, probably the valet of some gentleman of rank in Europe. Then society holds up its hands in holy horror, and vows it always did suspect him. The men in society are weak enough in this respect; but the women ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... for a moment, wondering vaguely which of them was dead, which only fainting. Then, just as she was kneeling to raise her mother to a better position, the door opened and two men, one of them Giacomo, Carron's valet, entered in ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... turning to a man who acted as his valet and cook, "rouse the camp. Quietly—as you hear. Let no man act however, till my voice is heard. You'll know it when ye ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... been in his own country a valet, in Prussia a soldier, then he came to Russia to be a tutor, not knowing very well what the word meant in our language. He was a good fellow, astonishingly gay and absent-minded. His chief foible was a passion for the fair sex. Nor was he, to use his own expression, ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... you could only see the number of offices I fill. I'm nurse, doctor, valet, messenger, and on cross days general vent for ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... Windsor Castle, to be tried upon their arrival in England. As I may as well dispose of them at once, they were all sentenced to death by Sir William Scott, who made a very impressive speech upon the occasion; and most of them were hanged on the bank of the Thames. The polite valet of the Marquis de Fontanges hired a wherry, and escorted Mademoiselles Mimi and Charlotte to witness the "barbares" dangling in their chains; and the sooty young ladies returned, much gratified with their ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the train this afternoon there was another chap who swung off just ahead of me, and I noticed him particularly because he was so different from anything you'd expect to drop off the four-sixteen. Tall and well-set-up, dressed like the mirror of fashion, smooth and polished—and followed by a valet, if you please, carrying his grips and a bag of golf clubs! Imagine a sight like that in Hambleton! I thought he'd made a mistake in his station, until I saw him walk right across the platform to where Adams, the ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... Harry much thought. There was nobody more personally, fanatically proud than Boden toward his well-to-do friends. His clothes indeed were a matter of tender anxiety in the Duddon household, and Tatham's valet and Victoria's maids did him many small services, some of which he repaid with a smile and a word—priceless to the recipient; and some he was never aware of. When his visits to Duddon first began, the contents of his Gladstone bag used ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... house, an engine to pump the water, and a second range in the laundry. One man is kept busy all the time attending to these matters and cleaning the windows. I pay my butler eighty dollars a month; my second man fifty-five; my valet sixty; my cook seventy; the two kitchen maids twenty-five each; the head laundress forty-five; the two second laundresses thirty-five each; the parlor maid thirty; the two housemaids twenty-five each; my wife's maid thirty-five; my daughter's maid thirty; the useful ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... doubt that you've been mighty curious since that morning. Perhaps you read the tale in the newspapers. I know of only one man who would return the Nana Sahib's ruby. Sentiment; for I believe the poor devil was really fond of me. A valet. With me for ten years. He was really my comrade; always my right-hand on my exploration trips; back-boned, fearless, reliable in a pinch, and a scholar in a way; though I can't imagine how and where ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... and to eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a "grilled sole" for the first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as "fried flatfish" we liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon, to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished, was a rather convenient person to have about. Hephzy fumed a good deal at first; she declared that she felt ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages—twenty times repeated—of a ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... is I—Constant!" said the faithful valet de chambre. "I heard in the antechamber your majesty's groans and cries; I rushed in and saw you writhing on the easy-chair. A bad dream seemed to torment your majesty, and I therefore ventured ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... waiting on them with such a constant prescience of their needs as only a highly trained body-servant can possess. For the truth was that he had begun life as a bishop's footman, and had risen to be valet to a cardinal, before he had taken to the road after robbing his master of some valuable jewels; but his hair was now growing grey at the temples, and his nerve was not so good as it had been, and as he had escaped hanging till ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... spared to render the picture a resemblance, its height is Napoleon's exact height, according to Constant, his valet, viz. five feet two inches and three quarters, French, or five feet five inches and a half, English; the uniform is that of one of the regiments of Chasseurs, every detail has been dictated by an old officer of the regiment; and his celebrated hat has been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... His faithful valet Hopwood had been dispatched to London in order to learn chauffeur's work; for Toffy had decided, after working the matter out to a fraction, that a considerable saving could be effected in this way. His debts to the garage were being ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... he encountered Cleon, M. Platzoff's valet, as he was lounging slowly down the village street on his way to The Jolly Fishers. Mr. Deedes scrutinised the dark-skinned servant narrowly in passing. "The face of a cunning, unscrupulous rascal, if ever I saw one," he muttered to ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... it in his greatcoat, so accurately was the seat adapted to him. His wife and daughter, perhaps, thought somewhat slightingly of him, for he had no literary tastes, and had never been at a theatre since he took his bride from one. He was valet to Lord Slapper at the time, and certain it is that his lordship set him up in the "Bootjack," and that stories HAD been told. But what are such to you or me? Let bygones be bygones; Mrs. Crump was quite as honest as her neighbours, and Miss had five hundred ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and natural supposition was that Sir Philip had been murdered for the sake of plunder; and this supposition was borne out by the fact to which his valet deposed, namely,— ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pleasant one for travelling—"frosty, but kindly." About one o'clock there might have been seen standing before the door the roomy yellow family carriage, with four post-horses. All was in travelling trim. In the rumble sat Mr. Aubrey's valet and Mrs. Aubrey's maid—Miss Aubrey's, and one of the nursery-maids, going down by the coach which had carried Sam—the Tally-ho. The coach-box was piled up with that sort of luggage which, by its lightness and bulk, denotes lady-travelling: inside were Mrs. and Miss ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... us as "muy honrado;" not from his last place, but from one before. He was a well-dressed, sad-looking individual; and at the same time we took his wife as washerwoman, and his brother as valet to our attache, thus having the whole family under our roof, wisely taking it for granted that he being recommended as particularly honest, his relations were "all honourable men." An English lady happened to call on me, and a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... and then, ignoring the tray piled high with its accumulation of mail which his valet had placed on the table, he drew his lounging-robe about him and picked ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... attraction always possessed by the intermixture of love and war, and by the blending of arms with amours in the conventional style of historic fiction. The lowest depth is reached when the reminiscences of an Emperor's valet, to whom he is still a kind of hero, are served up with that succulent dressing of vivid particularity which is swallowed with relish because it brings down a great man to the level of the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... borne part way up the stairs—a man who was so entirely helpless that he had to be carried to and from the table. He was a large, heavy man, and his valet had with the greatest difficulty managed to bear him on his back halfway up the stairs, where he had paused to take breath. In the meantime, the pressure from behind had become so tremendous that it had forced him to his knees; and he and his master were taking up the whole width of the stairway, ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... into the gentleman's house, and he is neat and tidy at all times for messages. We have seen many of them in our young days; and even the waif has been picked up by a good master, and began in the stables and worked his way up to be a respected valet in the same household, and often and often told the story of his waif life in the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Bay Blue Book. And now my daughters, who smoke cigarettes, object loudly to my pipe smoke! Autre temps autres manieres. And no man is a hero to his children. He has a hanged-sight more chance with his valet—if in these days he can afford ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... ferocious. Why not? Ingenious, sensitive spirits, used as lap-dogs and singing-birds by men and women whom they felt to be their own flesh and blood, they had, it may be, a juster appreciation of the actual worth of their patrons than had our own Pitt and Burke. They had played the valet: and no man was a hero to them. They had seen the nobleman expose himself before his own helots: they would try if the helot was not as good as the nobleman. The nobleman had played the mountebank: why should not the mountebank, ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... large family fortune. In February 1666, satisfied with the efficiency of Sainte-Croix's preparations and with the ease with which they could be administered without detection, the marquise poisoned her father, and in 1670, with the connivance of their valet La Chaussee, her two brothers. A post-mortem examination suggested the real cause of death, but no suspicion was directed to the murderers. Before any attempt could be made on the life of Mlle Therese d'Aubray, Sainte-Croix ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... Mademoiselle de la Valliere. He had already dispatched four letters, and not an answer to any one of them had been received, when, on the very morning fixed for the marriage ceremony, which was to take place in the chapel at the Palais Royal, Raoul, who was dressing, heard his valet announce M. de Malicorne. "What can this Malicorne want with me?" thought Raoul; and then said to his ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... presence at the chalet. But there was no such confusing testimony to destroy his composure when he received Maurice. Besides, he had ample time to collect himself; for he was walking in the park when his valet announced that the young viscount was awaiting him in the library. He had looked forward to the return of Maurice to Brittany as soon as the latter heard of Madeleine's mysterious disappearance. M. de Bois knew that it would be ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... queen. The young king was already dressed, with the exception of his shoes and doublet. He seemed greatly astonished at being thus roused in the middle of the night, and overwhelmed his valet-de-chambre, Laporte, with questions, to all of which the latter replied—"Sire, it is by order of her majesty." The bed-clothes were thrown back, and the sheets were seen worn threadbare and even into holes. This was one of the results of Mazarine's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Twichell thirty-three years earlier, and at "Bay House," the residence of Vice-Consul Allen, where he was always a welcome guest, he could have the attentions and care and comforts of a home. Taking Claude, the butler, as his valet, he sailed January 5th, and presently sent back a letter in which he said, "Again I am leading the ideal life, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in the Russian capital was startled to hear of the sudden deaths in rapid succession of both the Prince's children by his former wife, a son and a daughter. Then, after a brief interval, followed the tragic death of the Prince himself, who was found in bed one morning by his valet, with his throat cut. ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... his first Home Rule Bill, in 1886, Lecky opposed it as strongly as Froude himself. Lecky was quite logical, for the question whether the Union had been wisely or legitimately carried had very little to do with the expedience of repealing it. Fieri non debuit, factum valet, may be common sense as well as good law. But Froude was not unnaturally triumphant to find his old antagonist in Irish matters on his side, especially as Freeman was a Home Ruler. Froude's attitude was never for a moment doubtful. He had always held that ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... "Mr. Rockamore's valet, sir, and his father's before him. I loved him as if he were my own son, if you will pardon the liberty I take in saying so, and when he came to this country I accompanied him. He was always good to me, sir, a kind young master and a real friend. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... stopped by signal. There was no need to hurry, as he belonged to the class of persons that catch trains. This class, when it spends a holiday at a country-house, dares to leave its packing-up, when it comes away, to its valet or lady's-maid pro tem., and knows to a nicety how low it is both liberal and righteous ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... integrated branch, which Granger estimated would be only 20 percent black, and would probably provide additional opportunities for promotions, but in the end it could not mask the fact that a high proportion of black sailors were employed in food service and valet positions. Nor was it clear how changing the familiar crescent insignia, symbolic of the steward's duties, would change the image of a separate group that still performed the most menial duties. Long-term reform, everyone agreed, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... passage in a vessel bound to Smyrna, his own country. This vessel was captured by a French privateer; he was landed, and, not being considered as a prisoner, allowed to act as he thought proper. In a short time he obtained the situation of valet and barber to a "millionaire," whom he contrived to rob of a few hundred Napoleons, and with them to make his escape to his own country. Demetrius had now some knowledge of the world, and he felt it necessary that he should become a True Believer, as there would ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... lawyer or to the detectives, they at once would guess from where the clew came and that James Blagwin was still alive. So that plan was abandoned. Then he wondered if he might not convey the tip to some one who had access to his bedroom; his valet or a chambermaid who, as though by accident, might stumble upon the will. But, as every one would know the anonymous tipster could be only Blagwin himself, that plan also was rejected. He saw himself in a blind alley. Without ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... removed, and formed a couch like the one below it. On the other side of the apartment was a toilet-room, with all conveniences required for washing and other purposes, including a water-cooler. In this compartment the traveller takes his servant, and often a cook, for the valet cannot meddle with culinary matters; and they sleep on the floor wherever they can find a place. A reasonable additional price is charged for accommodations ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... even though the newspaper was before their eyes, and the cry of "Mysterious Death of a Nobleman" came ringing up from the street. But there stood the brief paragraph: "Lord Argentine was found dead this morning by his valet under distressing circumstances. It is stated that there can be no doubt that his lordship committed suicide, though no motive can be assigned for the act. The deceased nobleman was widely known in society, and much liked for his genial manner and sumptuous hospitality. ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... ci-devants, and cannot endure the republicans—simple enough; if he wants a throne he must needs strangle Liberty. Keep the matter a secret between us. This is what I will do; I will stay here till to-morrow and be blind; but beware of the agent; that cursed Provencal is the devil's own valet; he has the ear of Fouche just as I have ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... dread they bore him to his carriage, which Sam drove rapidly away. By the time he reached his residence he was in almost a fainting condition, and was carried to his bed. The waiter, who also acted in the capacity of valet at times, gave the old man stimulants, as he said to the clerk, "Go for Dr. Devoe: Sam dribe you. Bring ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... younger days he was in the army, where he earned fame as an expert swordsman, his fame in that respect spreading throughout the countryside. Years after he had retired from the service, while sitting in his study one forenoon intently perusing a religious work, his valet announced the arrival of a stranger who wished to see him. The servant was ordered to show him into the apartment, and in stalked a strong muscular-looking man with a formidable Andrea Ferrara sword hanging by his side, and, making a low obeisance, he thus addressed ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... "The master's valet, your worship," answered Ephraim. "Who else could it be? He's a rascal, your worship! He's a drunkard and a blackguard, the like of which Heaven should not permit! He always took the master his vodka and put the master to bed. Who else could it be? And I also venture ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... to Jane Mohun to see how much like a dinner at Rotherwood this contrived to be, with my lady's own footman, and my lord's valet waiting in state. She agreed mentally with her sister that the other guest was a very fine-looking man, with a picturesque head, and he did not seem at all out of place or ill-at-ease in the company in which he found himself. Lord Rotherwood, with a view, perhaps, to prolonging Adeline's ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... donabatur. Hoc recondebat in vase terreo, quod pependerat supra lectum suum. Uno dierum jacens in lecto, et habens bacalum in manu sua, hc apud se dicebat: Quotidie mihi datur vasculum mellis, quod dum indies recondo, fiet tandem summa aliqua. Jam valet mensura staterem unum. Corraso autem ita floreno uno aut altero, emam mihi oves, qu foenerabunt mihi plures: quibus divenditis comam mihi elegantem uxorculam, cum qua transigam vitam meam ltanter: ex ea ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... high, shrill and mutually minatory terms with his Stepmother; so that once, after some such shrill dialogue between them, ending with "You shall repent this, Sir!"—he found it good to fly off in the night, with only his Tutor or Secretary and a valet, to Hessen-Cassel to an Aunt; who stoutly protected him in this emergency; and whose Daughter, after the difficult readjustment of matters, became his Wife, but did not live long. And it is farther certain the same Prince, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... American general say things which represented him as opposed to the independence of the colonies. It was asserted that Washington in his retreat from New York left his servant Billy behind, and that these papers were found in a handbag which the valet carried. As it was well known in the army that Billy had never been captured, Washington did not then think it needful to deny having written these letters; but when they were brought forward again by his enemies during the last years of his Presidency, he was alarmed ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... explained it, even if he had been so condescending as to attempt to do so. There was a bold young prince—Prince Rupert, of course—who went into Wonderland in search of adventures. He reached Wonderland by leaping from the castle of Drachenfels into the Rhine. Then there was one Snaps, the prince's valet, who did not in the least want to go, but went, and got terribly frightened by the Green Demons of the Chrysolite Cavern, which made us all laugh—it being such a pleasant thing to see somebody else scared nearly to death. Then there were knights ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Rossetti's wing was harmful rather than advantageous to him, for it prejudiced people against him; and his connection with Rossetti, which was that of a spiritual son with a spiritual father, was misrepresented. He was spoken of as Rossetti's secretary, even as Rossetti's valet. On the other hand, so young a man could not but derive benefit from the society of so refined an artist, who had no thought nor ambition outside his art. And, in a practical way, Rossetti also benefited him. When he first came to Rossetti's house he was under ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... Grandmother's Review," addresses him fifty times as "my dear Robarts;" nor is there any other wit in the article. This is surely a mere assumption of superiority from his Lordship's rank, and is the sort of quizzing he might use to a person who came to hire himself as a valet to him at Long's—the waiters might laugh, the public will not. In like manner, in the controversy about Pope, he claps Mr. Bowles on the back with a coarse facetious familiarity, as if he were his chaplain whom he had invited to dine with him, or ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... two or three ragged, super-annuated soldiers, dozing on a stone bench, the successors of the Zegris and the Abencerrages; while a tall, meagre valet, whose rusty-brown cloak was evidently intended to conceal the ragged state of his nether garments, was lounging in the sunshine and gossipping with the ancient sentinel on duty. He joined us as we entered the gate, and offered his services to ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... further adjuration, but went to work at a great rate; while Mr Tapley, installing himself without any more formalities into the functions of his valet and general attendant, divested himself of his coat, and went on to clear the fireplace and arrange the room; talking to himself in a low voice ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Miss Ward quietly, 'that this individual, who calls himself Mr Newton, and whose conversation I overheard after entering the apartment, is in reality John Blomfield, ci devant valet to Lord Lilburne, the eldest son of the Earl of St Elmer, in whose family I have the honour to be governess. His lordship shewed toleration and kindness unprecedented towards the ungrateful young ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... following day, or on the day after, and intended at once to go abroad. "He is off for that place nigh to Italy where they have the gambling-tables," said the butler, on the following morning, to the valet who declared his ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... Verde Islands, from Verde Islands to the Falklands north of Cape Horn, round Cape Horn, up the west coast of South America, touching at Masafuera and Juan Fernandez, and thence, without pause, to the west coast of North America. At Cape Verde, Gray hired a valet, a colored boy, Marcus Lopez, destined to play an important part later. Crossing the equator, the sailors became hilarious, playing the usual pranks of ducking the men fresh to equatorial waters. So long did the ships rest at the Verde Islands, taking in fresh provisions, that ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... between my teeth, "who will tell me about Dalens?" For Larive had told me nothing except what a valet might learn. From whom had he learned it? From some servant or peasant. I must have some witness who had seen Dalens with Madame Pierson and who knew all about their relations. I could not get that Dalens out of my head, and not being able to ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... line iv purple light that marked th' walls iv Boobenastofein. It was thin four o'clock P.M., an' th' column halted while th' bugles blew th' cheery call to tea. Eager hands unshipped th' marmalade an' opened th' caddies, bread was toasted on th' small stoves carrid be ivry officer's valet, th' pickets an' scouts were dispatched f'r plum cake an' f'rgettin' f'r a moment th' thriles iv th' campaign, th' rough warryors indulged in that repast that has done so much to make Englishmen what they are. At siven, havin' taken all precautions, havin' placed ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... under an elm tree and an observer noted that his appearance was "truly noble and majestic." This was milder praise than that given a little later by a London paper which said: "There is not a king in Europe but would look like a valet de chambre by his side." New England having seen him was henceforth wholly on his side. His traditions were not those of the Puritans, of the Ephraims and the Abijahs of the volunteer army, men ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... few hours in the week; and you may suppose that Emilie Schomberg did not lead an idle life. For remuneration she fared, as alas teachers do fare, but ill. The sum which many a gentleman freely gives to his butler or valet, is thought exorbitant, nay, is rarely given to a governess, and Emilie, as a daily governess, ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... forced to go to work as a valet. The daughters tearfully support themselves as milliners. Reuben Hinman long ago spent the ten dollars received from ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... inspected the house and grounds, McHenry and Llewellyn sat at the wine. Polonsky had a curious and wisely chosen household. His butler was a Javanese, his chef a Quan-tung Chinese, his valet a Japanese, his chambermaid a Martinique negress, and his chauffeur an American expert. These had nothing in common and could not ally themselves to cheat him, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... journey, but who proved in other respects very poor travellers. He also secured the services of that now well-known hero, Bombay, captain of Speke's faithfuls, and five of his other followers, Uledi, Grant's valet, and the bull-headed Mabruki, who had in the mean time lost one of his hands, but, notwithstanding, was likely to prove useful. They were the only remains of the band to be found, the rest having died or gone elsewhere. These six still retained ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... as we have already said, were but little loved by the populace great and small, in the vicinity of the cathedral. When Claude and Quasimodo went out together, which frequently happened, and when they were seen traversing in company, the valet behind the master, the cold, narrow, and gloomy streets of the block of Notre-Dame, more than one evil word, more than one ironical quaver, more than one insulting jest greeted them on their way, unless ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the letters of Ulric von Hutten than of the harangues of Demosthenes, and in whose house water was the only drink. Afterwards I followed various callings, but all without success. I became a pedlar, a strolling player, a monk, a valet, and at last, by resuming my clerical garb, I became secretary to the Bishop of Seez and edited the catalogue of the precious MSS. contained in his library. This catalogue consists of two volumes in folio, which were placed ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... obviously too sensible to be disregarded, and Isidore at once proceeded to summon his valet, Monsieur Jasmin, for the purpose of ordering the horses and packing up for the journey. In the corridor he came upon the very person he sought, and, perhaps somewhat curtly, ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... made ready the princess asked the woman in whose house she lived whether she knew any of the emperor's attendants, and found to her satisfaction that her cousin was his majesty's chief valet. The doctor then bade the woman inform everyone she met that on hearing of the emperor's illness a celebrated surgeon had hastened to attend him, and had undertaken to cure him entirely; declaring himself prepared to be burnt alive in ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... warmer climate. It was an utter impossibility for her to accompany him. He shrank from any other companion, therefore had set forth with only his faithful John, who had been an old servant in the family before he was born, as valet. He went first to Egypt, where he had remained as long as the heat would permit, then had gone northwest to the Italian lakes and Switzerland, whence he had now come to spend a ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... accustomed St. George to his valet's gift of the Articulate Simplicity. Rollo's thoughts were doubtless contrived in the cuticle and knew no deeper operance; but he always uttered his impressions with, under his mask, an air of keen and seasoned personal observation. In his first interview ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... you restore the monasteries or take back the lands; a consecrated change becomes a new departure; accept it and turn it to the best advantage. These are things to which the theory of the Church concerning lay baptism is strictly applicable. Fieri non debet, factum valet. If in our narrow and unsympathetic strivings after precision we should remove the hallowed imperfections whereby time has set the glory of his seal upon the gospels as well as upon all other aged things, ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... house I call "Fair Rosamond's bower" because it would take a clue of thread to go through it without getting lost. One room has five doors opening into the house, and no windows. The stairs are like ladders, and the colonel's contraband valet won't risk his neck taking down water, but pours it through the windows on people's heads. We sha'n't stay in it. Men are at work closing up the caves; they had become hiding-places for trash. Vicksburg ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... female, is powerless against the charms of aristocracy. The "foreign nobleman" is welcomed everywhere, feted, petted, and allowed almost any privilege he chooses to claim—and he is far from being very modest in this respect; and by and by he is found out to be an impostor, probably the valet of some gentleman of rank in Europe. Then society holds up its hands in holy horror, and vows it always did suspect him. The men in society are weak enough in this respect; but the women ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... last of the above-mentioned plants, Baptista Porta ascribes the most wonderful powers, his words being: Planta quæ non solum edentibus, sed et genitale languentibus tantum valet, ut coire summe desiderant, quoties fere velint, possint; alios duodecies profecisse, alios ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... opened and Pembroke's valet came in. He handed a card to me, and I read upon it, "Count von Walden." I cast it ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... was necessary to recover the corpse of the dead. I attached the valet securely by the loins to the end of the pulley-rope, and I lowered him slowly, and watched him disappear in the darkness. In the one hand he had a lantern, and held on by the rope with the other. Soon I recognized ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... soft and smooth, like a night-moth or the black bat that haunts ruins, Lebeau, the confidential valet, watched him and silently encouraged him; for they had arrived at the decisive moment that the gang had for months expected, with alternate hopes and fears, with all the trepidation, all the uncertainty ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... se quisque id quod quisque potest et valet edit, ferro ferit, tela frangunt, boat caelum fremitu virum, ex spiritu atque anhelitu nebula ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... me: her mouth was full of long, white, shining teeth; and I knew that I was in the house of the ogre. I could not speak, but turned and left the house, with the shadow at my heels. "A nice sort of valet to have," I said to myself bitterly, as I stepped into the sunshine, and, looking over my shoulder, saw that it lay yet blacker in the full blaze of the sunlight. Indeed, only when I stood between it and the sun, was the blackness at all diminished. I was so bewildered—stunned—both ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... are of the lawyer species; men intended for Official business, in which the Prince himself is now to be occupied. The Prince has four lackeys, two pages, one valet. He wears his sword, but has no sword-tash (PORTE EPEE), much less an officer's uniform: a mere Prince put upon his good behavior again; not yet a soldier of the Prussian Army, only hoping to become so again. He wears a light-gray dress, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... was Jean, valet to the Harris family. Jean was born near Paris and could speak French, German, and several other languages. His hands and arms were full to overflowing of valises, hat boxes, shawls, canes, etc., that told of a full purse, but which are the very ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... a bit—though his headache was no longer so acute; or else he was growing accustomed to it—and ringing for the valet-de-chambre ordered his petit dejeuner. Before this was served he spent several thrilling minutes under an icy shower and emerged feeling more on terms with himself and ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... danger he was in of becoming the property of designing people. But he hated to take pains. He would ever run away from his accounts; as now, poor fellow! he would be glad to do from himself. Had he not had a woman to fleece him, his coachman or valet, would have been his prime-minister, and done ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... LEVEE, Or ratify some Acts of Parliament: Then we probably review the household troops - With the usual "Shalloo humps" and "Shalloo hoops!" Or receive with ceremonial and state An interesting Eastern Potentate. After that we generally Go and dress our private VALET - ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... man could be a hero to his valet with half the exertion which it takes to be a Somebody to an old grammar-school mate ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... who had a small fortune and a great many children. This inhuman relation, coveting the wealth of his infant ward, formed a design against the life of the helpless orphan, and trusted the execution of it to his valet-de-chambre, who was tempted to undertake the murder by the promise of a considerable reward. He accordingly stabbed the boy with a knife in three different places, on the right side of his neck; but, as he was not used to such barbarous attempts, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... nearness of vanity to humility, for at least he had to admit that they were failures. But it would have been spiritual pride in Mr. Brummell if he had tied on all the cravats, one on top of the other, lest his valet should discover that he had ever tied one badly. For in spiritual pride there is always an element of secrecy and solitude. Mr. Brummell would be satanic; also (which I fear would affect him more) he would be badly ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... as at every other meal—despite the new husband's expressed desire to have his wife to himself—his valet was present as butler, watching over the dyspeptic's diet, and seeing that the wine was right. Neither master nor man trusted anybody else to do this. It was a large crumple in Deb's rose-leaf, Manton's ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... hours afterwards to breakfast, between eleven and noon. The chambermaid is at the door, or on the stairs, or on the landing, talking with somebody's valet: she runs in on hearing or seeing you. Your servant is laying the cloth in a most leisurely style, stopping to look out of the window or to lounge, and coming and going like a person who knows he has plenty of time. You ask for your wife, supposing ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... amongst horses from his boyhood, for his father had been a horsebreaker, and when he had run away from home and enlisted, he had satisfied ambition by becoming a driver of artillery. Then he had been wounded, and had turned batman for awhile. He had gone to the General as valet, but his stable love had broken out again, and he had gravitated by force of nature to the place of coachman. Polson's mind did not go back to a time when he did not remember Duncan, and to Irene he was like a fixed part of the scheme of nature. He had one defect ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... what happened, how they found him, and about that geek chamber-valet being arrested," von Schlichten said. "Did you ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... shield he gives alike to bear, As to a valet; hence proceeds the peer, Gladdening the fearful pilgrim every where, Who joys to think, henceforth his way is clear. So far an end does bold Astolpho fare, He is to Memphis' tombs already near, — Memphis renowned for pyramids; in sight, He marks ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... I drove on up the Great North Road, that straight, broad highway which you who motor know so well. Simmons, Bindo's new valet, was suffering from neuralgia; therefore I had left him in London, and, sitting alone, had ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... (of whom I shall presently speak somewhat more at large) who gave me information of his residence. "You will find there (added he) all sorts of old books, old drawings, pictures, and curiosities." What a provocative for an immediate and incessant attack! I took my valet with me—for I was told that Mr. Von Fischheim could not speak a word of French—and within twenty minutes of receiving the information, found myself in the dark and dreary premises of this same bibliopolist. He lives on the first floor; ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the parson as a turncoat and sneak, who should thus deny his convictions. Yes, there is no doubt that you may make yourself agreeable to unworthy folk by unworthy means. A late marquis declared on his dying bed, that a two-legged animal, of human pretensions, who had acted as his valet, and had aided that hoary reprobate in the gratification of his peculiar tastes, was "an excellent man." And you may remember how Burke said, that, as we learn that a certain Mr. Russell made himself very agreeable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... for his self-denial! He did nothing for himself or others, and Mrs. Condiment and Capitola had a hot time of it in serving him. Mrs. Condiment had to do all the cooking and housework. And Cap had to perform most of the duties of Major Warfield's valet. And that was the way in which ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... appear to put something into your drink while you're not looking. A few moments later you'll act as though you were suddenly taken ill, and go to your room. Have your valet later let the word out that you're very ill, and send word by space-video for an ambulance to meet the ship. Just before landing, let him say you've died. The ambulance can take you wherever it's natural your body would be taken, and you ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... significantly touched upon—no longer by the historian seeking causes and setting forth the sequence of events, but by a shrewd observer interested in depicting his own part in the great game of life. Cellini haunted the private rooms of popes and princes; he knew the chief actors of his day, just as the valet knows the hero; and the picturesque glimpses into their life we gain from him, add the charm of colour and reality ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... time I was graduated, and went with two of my servants—my chamberlain and my valet—to travel in foreign countries. During four years I flitted upon careless wing amid the beauteous gardens of the distant strand, if you will permit this form of speech in one whose tongue was ever attuned to poesy; and indeed I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his curiosity in the surge of his indignation. Such an invasion was an unprecedented outrage upon the gentle tenor of his life. The business of the morning toilette was sacred. To interrupt it carried a subtle suggestion of anarchy. Where was his valet? Where was Charles, who should have guarded the door like the custodian of ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... men may discuss the mysteries of faith to the last day without avail; "we stand here on the solid ground of history, evidence, and fact." Expressing his innermost thought, that religion exists to make men better, and that the ethical quality of dogma constitutes its value, he once said: "Tantum valet quantum ad corrigendum, purgandum, sanctificandum hominem confert." In theology as an intellectual exercise, beyond its action on the soul, he felt less interest, and those disputes most satisfied him which can be decided by appeal to ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... part of the powder he used to hide in a secret place cut into the step of his chariot. He thought that, if attacked at any time by robbers, they would not search such a place as that. When he anticipated any danger, he would dress himself in his valet's clothes, and, mounting the coach-box, put the valet inside. He was induced to take these precautions, because it was no secret that he possessed the philosopher's stone; and many unprincipled adventurers were on the watch for an opportunity to plunder him. A ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... schemes, no doubt—for overturning the religion of the country, and that for his part he did not approve of being concerned with such doings, and that he was going to give his master warning next day. So, as we were drinking and discoursing, up drove the chariot of the Scotchman, and down got his valet and the driver, and whilst the driver was seeing after the horses, the valet came and sat down at the table where the gentleman's coachman and I were drinking. I knew the fellow well, a Scotchman like his master, and just of the same ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... attend them, their rooms, and their clothes. Think of that! Don't do anything like that, even if you are a hundred times a millionaire. Of course you won't—you who read this—because not one out of ten thousand young Americans can afford to have a valet in college—thank heaven! ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... fortunes first. For stout Choiseul would discern in the Dubarry nothing but a wonderfully dizened Scarlet-woman; and go on his way as if she were not. Intolerable: the source of sighs, tears, of pettings and pouting; which would not end till 'France' (La France, as she named her royal valet) finally mustered heart to see Choiseul; and with that 'quivering in the chin (tremblement du menton natural in such cases) (Besenval, Memoires, ii. 21.) faltered out a dismissal: dismissal of his last substantial man, but ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... in charge of the institution in much tribulation. "Here is Mrs. Sheppard, from one of the most influential families on Fifth Avenue, offering anything for a nurse. Her brother is dying with consumption, she says. He has a valet in attendance, but the physician in charge says he needs a trained nurse, for he wants constant watching. He is liable to die at any moment. We haven't a nurse unemployed. Do you feel ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... maladie, dont elle trespassa, jamais elle ne cessa, ainsi causa tousjours; car elle estoit fort grande parleuse, brocardeuse, et tres-bien et fort a propos, et tres-belle avec cela. Quand l'heure de sa fin fut venue, elle fit venir a soy son valet (ainsi que les filles de la cour en ont chacune un), qui s'appelloit Julien, et scavoit tres-bien jouer du violon. "Julien," luy dit elle, "prenez vostre violon, et sonnez moy tousjours jusques a ce que vous me voyez morte ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Paris for Nancy and the eastern frontier, I left a portmanteau and a rug in a hotel where I had become friendly with the manager and the assistant manager, with the hall porter, the liftman, and the valet de chambre. I had discussed the war with each of these men and from each of them had heard the same expressions of horror and dismay. The hall porter was a good-humoured soul, who confided to me that he had a pretty wife and a new-born babe, who reconciled him to the disagreeable side ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... a luxurious suite of rooms in a high-class hotel and keep an excellent chauffeur and valet. I give myself every comfort that money can buy. But there is one thing which I crave and which ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... I lay tossing and fretting, despite the consolatory influence of the champagne, and the rude but kindly attentions of my voyageur valet. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... a proposal. He had never brought his theories home into his own personalities. To be a Radical peer in the House of Lords, and to have sent a Radical tailor to the House of Commons, had been enough, if not too much, to satisfy his own political ideas. To himself and to his valet, to all those immediately touching himself, he had always been the Marquis of Kingsbury. And so also, in his inner heart, the Marchioness was the Marchioness, and Lady Frances Lady Frances. He had never gone through any process ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... inclinet ad polum Septentrionalem, fortius ibi gelare solet, et frequentius, ac diutius quam ad partes nostras, vnde et quasi omnes habent ibi stupas, in quibus manducant, et operantur. [Sidenote: Hyeme praecipue iter faciunt per terram.] Nec valet a nostris partibus ingredi ad illam nisi tempore gelicidij, quod ad introitum eius sunt tres dictae, de via molli, aquatica, et profunda, in qua dum viator putaret se stare securum, profunderetur in lutum ad tibias, ad genua, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... direction at Guy's hotel, but he had to wait some time before obtaining it; and other things delayed him en route, so that it was nearly two hours before he reached the modest lodgings, au quatrieme, where the discharged valet was hiding ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... have consisted in letting Dal's old housekeeper weep on her beautiful shoulder. It was somewhat of a comedy, hearing about it, when one happened to know them all, better than they knew each other. But to return to practical details. He has had a fully trained male nurse and his own valet to wait on him. He absolutely refused one of our London hospital nurses, who might have brought a little gentle comfort and womanly sympathy to his sick-room. He said he could not stand being touched by a woman; ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... me that of John L. Sullivan's. It is said that the famous bruiser was in like grievous plight. His wife beat him, and he had to sue for a divorce on the ground of cruelty! There is something deliciously pathetic about the insignificance of a great man to his wife—his valet feels small at least on pay-day. "The Schoolmaster Abroad" is a rampant divinity with a ferocious ferule; at home he is a meek person in slippers. The policeman who stands majestically at the cross-roads, waving the white glove ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... negligence and disorder of Balthazar's dress, so degrading to a man of his station, was not the least bitter to a woman accustomed to the exquisite nicety of Flemish life. At first Josephine endeavored, in concert with Balthazar's valet, Lemulquinier, to repair the daily devastation of his clothing, but even that she was soon forced to give up. The very day when Balthazar, unaware of the substitution, put on new clothes in ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... jock that year. I've seen many a good boy on a hoss, but I think Joe's the best judge of pace I ever see. One day he's comin' from the weighin'-room, still in his silks. His valet's with him carryin' the saddle. I ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... ends from the yacht, including our little brass bedsteads, which the people here firmly believe to be pure gold, A wild daughter of the Cove, a descendant of the family that gave it its extraordinary name, was engaged as a general servant. Daddy's valet and the cook had wept when they saw the place, and Father informed them that they were rubbish and might go back with the Snowbird, which presently sailed off for the scraping it appears to be ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... be) and ready to get basins of water, looking-glasses, shaving materials and all luxuries for the others. The ladies were heard to enquire why he did not bring them early tea and hot water, but, on the whole, he combined the duties of valet ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... of the late Mr James Leach. I remember accompanying him as "valet de sham"—as the old gentleman was pleased to style me to inquiring friends—to Wakefield. The occasion was the annual visit of inspection which a deputation from the Board of Guardians was making to the asylum there. I recollect Mr Richard Hattersley telling me on the platform ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... him off to his uncle's court to graduate in knighthood. The young adventurer sought the court of Philip well equipped for his new duties, his father, William de Lelaing, having furnished him with four fine horses, a skilful groom, and a no less skilful valet; and also with some good advice, to the effect that, "Inasmuch as you are more noble than others by birth, so should you be more noble than they by virtues," adding that, "few great men have gained renown for prowess ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... invited him to breakfast the next day at the Cafe de Paris, but he was now engaged in a matter which did not allow him to receive his cousin at the present moment. Gazonal, like a true Southerner, recounted all his troubles to the valet. ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... was appropriated to the domestics, whom Mr Glowry always chose by one of two criterions,—a long face, or a dismal name. His butler was Raven; his steward was Crow; his valet was Skellet. Mr Glowry maintained that the valet was of French extraction, and that his name was Squelette. His grooms were Mattocks and Graves. On one occasion, being in want of a footman, he received a letter from a person signing ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... analogies tending to an opposite conclusion. "Ista similia non sunt, Cato.... Illa sunt similia; hebes acies est cuipiam oculorum: corpore alius languescit: hi curatione adhibita levantur in dies: alter valet plus quotidie: alter videt. Hi similes sunt omnibus, qui virtuti student; levantur vitiis, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... Casanova, "since last I stood thus measuring sword with sword?" But none of his serious duels now recurred to his mind. He could think only of practice with the foils, such as ten years earlier he used to have every morning with his valet Costa, the rascal who afterwards bolted with a hundred and fifty thousand lire. "All the same, he was a fine fencer; nor has my hand forgotten its cunning! My arm is as true, my vision as keen, as ever..... Youth ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... Ward quietly, 'that this individual, who calls himself Mr Newton, and whose conversation I overheard after entering the apartment, is in reality John Blomfield, ci devant valet to Lord Lilburne, the eldest son of the Earl of St Elmer, in whose family I have the honour to be governess. His lordship shewed toleration and kindness unprecedented towards the ungrateful young man, on account of his respectable parentage, and the excellent abilities and aptitude for ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... dispatched four letters, and not an answer to any one of them had been received, when, on the very morning fixed for the marriage ceremony, which was to take place in the chapel at the Palais-Royal, Raoul, who was dressing, heard his valet announce M. de Malicorne. "What can this Malicorne want with me?" thought Raoul; and then said to ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... telephone, he gave the information to his late lawyer or to the detectives, they at once would guess from where the clew came and that James Blagwin was still alive. So that plan was abandoned. Then he wondered if he might not convey the tip to some one who had access to his bedroom; his valet or a chambermaid who, as though by accident, might stumble upon the will. But, as every one would know the anonymous tipster could be only Blagwin himself, that plan also was rejected. He saw himself in a blind alley. Without ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... three went to the Casino. The order had been given to Sir Francis Letchmere's valet that he was to bring over to the Salle de Jeux any telegram or 'phone message ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... triumph. The most highly-bred women may occasionally brush and put away clothing. Now suppose that what I have said above about the way in which spirits perceive our actions should be true. George Pelham may have seen the project of the action in his step-mother's mind, and not its execution by the valet. It may be objected that he ought to have supposed she would not do it herself. Why? I do not see it. Perhaps he knew that his step-mother was capable, occasionally, of ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... (our two boys intimately), and he always shuddered at hurting anything, and was peculiarly gentle and kind towards children and animals, and if anything rather timid; so that all who knew him said he never could have had a chance in his own country. His valet, who is a very respectable Englishman, and has been with him ever since his twelfth year, says that he never knew a kinder or more amiable disposition. The Queen fears that people who do not know him well have ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... air of extreme dignity and says pityingly to me, 'You see, oh Lady, he is quite new, quite green.' Achmet, who had never seen a garment or any article of European life two years ago, is now a smart valet, with very distinct ideas of waiting at table, arranging my things etc. and cooks quite cleverly. Arab boys are amazing. I have promoted him to wages—one napoleon a month—so now he will keep his family. He is about a head taller ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... commence 'a les m'epriser! I am so glad that you have quitted your calm, to treat them as they deserve. You don't tell me if his opposition in the council hindered your intercession from taking place for the valet de chambre. I hope not! I could not ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... "Will Low's valet," explained the Post Mistress. "Sometimes it seems to be a dream, all this. These men who sat around my big blazing stove spinning cyclone yarns while they waited for the brakeman to fling in the mailbag, ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... Empire, rather," said the Tin Woodman, politely including the entire party in a royal wave of his arm. "It will give me great pleasure to entertain you in my castle, where there is room enough and to spare. And if any of you wish to be nickel- plated, my valet will do it free of ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... land, which was governed by a prince renowned for justice, and the greatest lover of the arts and sciences who ever saw the light of this world. As I have remarked above, he had with him a servant of his who came from Urbino, and had lived many years in his employment, rather as valet and housekeeper than anything else; this indeed was obvious, because he had acquired no skill in the arts. [2] Consequently, while I was pressing Michel Agnolo with arguments he could not answer, he turned round sharply ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... meanwhile, was pirouetting sublimely before the long mirror in his dressing-room, while his valet, a sour-faced individual, looked on in great but gloomy interest. The Marquis was superbly dressed in a Louis Seize costume—an exact reproduction of the one worn by that monarch on his wedding-day—and he presented a very fine figure. In features, expression, colouring, and manner it would have ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... really unreflecting thoughtfulness to every sentiment which is half her emotion. If such a woman could exist, and she could not, she would be that, precisely that. But just as we are beginning to believe, not only in her but in the play itself, in comes the spying lady's maid, or the valet who spies on the lady's maid, and we are in melodrama again, and among the strings of the marionettes. Where are the three stages, truth, philosophy, conscience, which Dumas offers to us in his preface as the three stages by which a work of dramatic art reaches perfection? ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... have considered, and called to his memory, the first rudiments of Philosophy, that a dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter, non valet consequentia; As it is not enough to say, the Black-a-Moore is white, because his teeth are white; for he may be blacke, though he hath white teeth; and so it is not enough to say, that the Cacao is stopping; and therefore the Confection, ...
— Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma
... shoulder, and dark of eye, with face shining to match the spring in the air and that fair face beside him; laden also with another lady on the back seat, beside whom, upright and stiff, with folded arms, sat Henri, costumer, valet, cook, and groom. It was in the latter capacity that Henri was now posing. The role of groom was uppermost in his orderly mind, although at intervals, when his foot chanced to touch a huge luncheon-basket with which the cart was also laden, there were betraying signs of anxiety; it was then ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... not help exhibiting much feeling, when he related this little event to me. I must not fail to mention that all the house seemed, for the moment, infected with the happy disease of the mistress. General Ruffin's valet de chambre was in love with Dorothee, our chamber-maid; the porter was pining for a little black eyed grisette, who sold prints and pastry, in a stall opposite; and the ostler was eternally quarrelling with the chef de cuisine, who repelled him from ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... which he is not the principal hero. But with the Spaniards, with Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzman d'Alfarache[251] and the rest, the picaro holds a place in literature which is peculiarly his own. Faithless, shameless, if not joyless, the plaything of fortune, by turn valet, gentleman, beggar, courtier, thief, we follow him into all societies. From hovel to palace he goes first, opens the doors and shows us the characters. There is no plot more simple or flexible, none that lends itself better to ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... VALET DE CHAMBRE. In the sweat of our brows, in the depths of humiliation, licking the dust from the boots of our masters, and prostrate before them, we have yet always felt our rights as men: let us drink the health ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... just been to call Signor Montoni's valet, that he might tell him they were arrived, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Kachi was Dola, his uncle, supposed to be employed by me in the quadruple capacity of interpreter, carrier, Kachi's valet, and cook, in which latter art, after Shoka fashion, he was quite an adept, his fame having spread all over Bias. He was, therefore, a treasure not lightly to be abandoned, and yet, now that I wanted ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to do as he chose. His disappearance would mean nothing to his small circle of casual friends, and when he was settled elsewhere he could notify the only two men who were concerned with his whereabouts—his valet, Valois, and the agent handling the estate. He thought of beginning a letter to John, but hesitated, and when Enright returned he found him with ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... Lloyd," I said, in response to her disclaimer, "if you cannot help me, perhaps I can help you. I have reason to think that possibly Louis, your late uncle's valet, did not tell the truth in his testimony at the coroner's inquest. I have reason to think that instead of going around the house to the back entrance as he described, he went around the other side, thus passing ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... Then I got to be a professor of gymnastics, so as to make better use of my talents; and then I was a sergeant fireman at Paris, and assisted at many a big fire. But I quitted France five years ago, and, wishing to taste the sweets of domestic life, took service as a valet here in England. Finding myself out of place, and hearing that Monsieur Phileas Fogg was the most exact and settled gentleman in the United Kingdom, I have come to monsieur in the hope of living with him a tranquil life, and forgetting even the name ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... Marquis, "William is there. He is my valet. His father was my father's valet, and his grandfather was my grandfather's valet. I cannot leave ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... was a noise of hoofs below us, clattering on the pavement. Half-a-dozen horsemen were issuing from the House of the Wolf, the ring of their bridles and the sound of their careless voices coming up to us through the clear morning air Bezers' valet, whom we knew by sight, was the last of them. He had a pair of great saddle-bags before him, and at sight of these we uttered a glad exclamation. "He is going!" I murmured, hardly able to believe my eyes. "He ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... day; or, when their blue coats were well worn out, they would make rare scarecrows. Here is a fellow, now, comes down the walk; the stoutest raven dared not come within a yard of that copper nose. I tell you, there is more service, as you will soon see, in my valet of the chamber, and such a lither lad as my page Lutin, than there is in a score of these old memorials of the Douglas wars, [Footnote: The cruel civil wars waged by the Scottish barons during the minority of James VI., had the name from ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... them, which makes them both the more healthy and dine more pleasant; not so rich garments nor so frequent changes, but as warm and as comely, and so frequent change, too, as is every jot as good for the master, though not for the tailor or valet-de-chambre; not such a stately palace, nor gilt rooms, nor the costlier sorts of tapestry, but a convenient brick house, with decent wainscot and pretty forest-work hangings. Lastly (for I omit all other particulars, and will end with that which I love most in both conditions), not whole ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... bell, which was answered by a man having the appearance of a confidential valet. To him ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for their march, and had already taken all the previous measures for their departure, when an accident happened, which our hero did not fail to convert to his own advantage. This was no other than the desertion of Renaldo's valet, who, in consequence of a gentle chastisement, which he had richly merited, thought proper to disappear, after having plundered his master's portmanteau, which he had forced open for the purpose. Ferdinand, who was the first person that ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... was to be replaced had already cost her and Harry much thought. There was nobody more personally, fanatically proud than Boden toward his well-to-do friends. His clothes indeed were a matter of tender anxiety in the Duddon household, and Tatham's valet and Victoria's maids did him many small services, some of which he repaid with a smile and a word—priceless to the recipient; and some he was never aware of. When his visits to Duddon first began, the contents of his Gladstone bag used to provide merriment in the servants' ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Of "Bonaventure de Periers, Valet de Chambre de la Royne de Navarre," there are three little volumes of tales in prose, in the quaint or the coarse pleasantry of that day. The following is not given as the best, but as it introduces a novel etymology of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was treasonable to strike a herald, or to counterfeit the character of one. Yet Louis "did not hesitate to practise such an imposition when he wished to enter into communication with Edward IV of England.... He selected, as an agentfit for his purpose, a simple valet. This man... he disguised as a herald, with all the insignia of his office, and sent him in that capacity to open a communication with the English army. The stratagem, though of so fraudulent a nature, does not seem to have been necessarily called for, since all that King Louis ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... before I managed to scrape acquaintance with this restless personage. I soon found out that my friend with the shirt-frill was the confidential servant, butler, valet, factotum, what you will, of a sick gentleman, a Mr. Oswald Strange, who had recently come to inhabit the house opposite, and concerning whose history my new acquaintance, whose name I ascertained was ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... ought to follow. Pity and remorse, at intervals, made him shrink with dismay from the picture of wretchedness which the unfortunate Theodora presented to his view. There was something so iniquitous and unmanly in betraying the unsuspecting and lovely victim, that the feelings of the valet, though far from being refined, revolted from the participation: once or twice he had even resolved to acquaint Theodora with the premeditated plot, but these momentary impulses of his better feelings were soon checked ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... could be sure 'twas malice, I'd skiver you, heels and elbows, on my sword, and roast you alive on that fire. Is not it a hard thing, my darlin' Puddock, I can't find out.' He was still holding the little valet by the collar, and stretching out his right hand to Puddock. 'But I am always the sport of misfortunes—small and great. If there was an ould woman to be handed in to supper—or a man to be murthered by mistake—or ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... place I drew. I knew that he was not due on the stage for another ten minutes. Mr. Richard Belsey, his valet, was tidying up the room as ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... mastiff which guarded the house and yard, but had never any particular attention from his master. One night, as his master was retiring to his room, attended by his valet, an Italian, the mastiff silently followed him upstairs, something which he had never been before known to do, and to his master's astonishment, came into his bedroom. He was at once turned out; but the poor animal ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... uncle," said Philippe, whose phraseology had a flavor of his affinities in Paris, "you love this girl, and you are devilishly right. She is damnably handsome! Instead of billing and cooing she makes you trot like a valet; well, that's all simple enough; but she wants to see you six feet underground, so that she may marry Max, ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Christmas, 1741, he brought out at Goodman's Fields a Christmas Farce, written by himself, entitled "The Lying Valet," wherein the great actor took the part of "Sharp." It was thought the most diverting farce ever performed. "There was a general roar from beginning to end. So great was his versatility that people ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... these extravagant fancies, such as her wish to have a blue tilbury to drive into Rouen, drawn by an English horse and driven by a groom in top-boots. It was Justin who had inspired her with this whim, by begging her to take him into her service as valet-de-chambre*, and if the privation of it did not lessen the pleasure of her arrival at each rendezvous, it certainly augmented the bitterness of ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... John Davis, Dorinda's son, he gave 200 acres of land, Lot 17 in the Second Concession of the Township of Whitby and also L50 or $200. John, after the death of his master whose body servant and valet he was, entered the employ of Mr., afterwards Chief, Justice Powell; but he had the evil habit of drinking too much and when he was drunk he would enlist in the army. Powell got tired of begging him off and after a final warning left him with the regiment in which he ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... that he might the better mop his brow and youthful, almost cherubic face. What time he did so, a pair of bright little blue eyes were very busy with Mr. Caryll's carriage, from which Leduc, Mr. Caryll's valet, was in the act of removing a portmantle. His mobile mouth ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... place like all furnished apartments, and moved towards the fire on which there were set to heat curling-tongs of all sizes, while in the contiguous laboratory, separated from the room by a curtain of Algerian tapestry, the Marquis de Monpavon gave himself up to the manipulations of his valet. Odours of patchouli, of cold-cream, of hartshorn, and of singed hair escaped from the part of the room which was shut off, and from time to time, when Francis came to fetch a curling-iron, Jenkins caught sight of a huge dressing-table laden with a thousand little instruments of ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... it is the haunted room, where the ghostly monk whom Byron introduces into "Don Juan," is said to have his lurking-place. It is fitted up in the same style as Byron's, and used to be occupied by his valet or page. No doubt, in his lordship's day, these were the only comfortable bedrooms in the Abbey; and by the housekeeper's account of what Colonel Wildman has done, it is to be inferred that the place must have been in a most wild, shaggy, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... that he needed sympathetic companionship, the companionship of a woman, of course. Social invitations had begun to come to him now that he was alone and that his financial connections were so obviously restored. He had made his appearance, accompanied only by a Japanese valet, at several country houses, the best sign that he was once more a single man. No reference was made by any ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... away, and their house was left to servants. Burly neighbouring squires rode up and knocked with their riding-whips at Rossatorc door to remonstrate with Robert Molyneux, for his father's sake or for his own, but met no answer. All the servants were gone except a furtive-eyed French valet and a woman he called his wife, and these were troubled with no notions of respectability. After a time people gave up trying to interfere. The place got a bad name. The gardens were neglected and the house was half in ruins. No one ever saw Mauryeen Holion's face except ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... un valet infame, ils p'en'etr'erent dans la retraite de la noble dame et lui d'erob'erent le reste de son tr'esor... en vain lutta-t-elle de toutes ses forces pour sauver le contenu de son coffre, les larrons diaboliques furent les plus forts. Si Ketty avait eu les moyens de faire ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... that, though we are both so intensely interested in the problem, we have never before discussed it," remarked Walter. "I am so anxious to hear your views upon one or two points. What, for instance, do you think of Barker, the dead man's valet?" ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... Irishman retired, leaving Barnes to be "done" by the silent, swift-moving valet. Dabson was young and vigorous and exceedingly well-trained. He made short work of "doing" the visitor; barely fifteen minutes ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... I caused one of my servants to sleep in the same room with me. I saw and heard nothing, either on that night, or any of the nights following, until the next Friday; when I had again the same vision, with this difference, that my valet seemed to be lying at some distance from me on the pavement of the Strada Stretta. The vision continued to be repeated on every Friday night, the commander always appearing in the same manner, and uttering the same words: 'Take my sword to Tetefoulques, and have a hundred masses ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... very severe injuries to his head. The doctor wished to telegraph for a nurse from London, but Sir Edward had a horror of them, and having recovered consciousness shook his head vehemently when it was suggested; and so it ended in Milly's nurse volunteering to assist his valet in nursing him. Poor little Milly wandered about the house with Fritz at her heels in a very woe-begone fashion. What with the anxiety in her heart lest her uncle should die, and the absence of her nurse—who could spare little time now to look after her—she ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... completely worn out by his mental sufferings. He awoke late, and, glancing at his watch, saw to his horror that it was already eleven o'clock. Cursing himself as he realized that this was the hour at which Madame de Corantin generally went out, he rang the bell. How he longed for his trusted valet, enlisted two months back. Now he had only a hotel servant to send on messages. When the man arrived he dispatched him instantly to find out whether Madame de Corantin had sent him any message, and began to dress hurriedly. The servant did not return, ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... before he left Ireland he had stood for Dublin, he would, I dare say, have turned out Shaw or Grattan. Henry IV. is a dangerous example for sovereigns that are not, like him, splendid chevaliers and consummate captains. Louis XIV., who was never seen but in a full-bottomed wig, even by his valet-de-chambre, is ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... very pleasant one for travelling—"frosty, but kindly." About one o'clock there might have been seen standing before the door the roomy yellow family carriage, with four post-horses. All was in travelling trim. In the rumble sat Mr. Aubrey's valet and Mrs. Aubrey's maid—Miss Aubrey's, and one of the nursery-maids, going down by the coach which had carried Sam—the Tally-ho. The coach-box was piled up with that sort of luggage which, by its lightness and bulk, denotes lady-travelling: ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... been sent away. As for the valet, Leonard, who is Daubrecq's confidential man, he'll wait for his master in Paris. They can't get back from town before one ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... when I had made a mistake. She hurriedly arranged my hair, and this done, held up before me a little pocket-mirror of Venetian crystal, rimmed with silver filigree-work, and playfully asked: 'How dost find thyself now? Wilt engage me for thy valet ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... his valet, who does the cooking; and my hand—my sailorman—wanted to go and visit his wife ... and that left me to see after the yacht. D'you see? I had the choice of keeping Tomkins ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... what I said in the opening of my article. [(In the "Natural History Review" 1861 page 67—]"The proof of his claim to independent parentage will not change the brutishness of man's lower nature; nor, except in those valet souls who cannot see greatness in their fellow because his father was a cobbler, will the demonstration of a pithecoid pedigree one whit diminish man's divine right of kingship over nature; nor lower the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... to obtain for the brothers an invitation from Lady Eleanor to quarter themselves at Penford-bourne. Once he had settled them there, he obtained, through Frank Masterton's valet, a puritanical knave called Gabriel Jones, complete information as to their plans, which he was thus ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... not unfounded, and his guardian had sent forth to gather all possible information regarding the lad and his interesting young friend. The discreet and ingenious Mr. Morgan, a London confidential valet, whose fidelity could be trusted, had been to Chatteris more than once, and made every inquiry regarding the past history and present habits of the Captain and his daughter. He delicately cross-examined the waiters, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a man and his dog had arrived at the Granby Hotel, at Harrowgate, and been sent away roomless to the other and less patrician establishment, because, while he had a dog, he had not a servant; when, five minutes after such dismissal, came carriages and lackeys and an imperious valet, asking for his grace the Duke of A————, who had walked on before with his dog, and who, oh, everlasting thought of remorse! had been sent away to bring the other establishment into fashion,—a vague reminiscence of that story, I say, flashed upon the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for something to drink. That good man was a sergeant of police at Vienna, though now filling the office of valet-de-chambre to the commissary. But though not old, I perceived that his hand trembled in giving me the drink. This circumstance reminded me of Schiller, my beloved Schiller, when, on the day of my arrival at Spielberg, I ordered him, in ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... confidence came to my room with a strange tale. A stranger had arrived, an elegant young gentleman of foreign appearance, who had not yet given his name, but who must be a person of importance, if bearing and address go for anything. He came on horseback, attended by his valet, and his first word, after some directions in regard to his horse, was a request to see the landlady. When told she was ill, he asked for the clerk, and to him was about to put some question, when an exclamation from the doorway interrupted ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... accompanied on that journey to Yorkshire by the pretty dark-eyed girl who was his daughter Lola, and by his valet, a very silent, stiff-necked, morose individual, whose personality did not attract me. He seemed, however, to be an exceptionally efficient person, so far as his duties were concerned, and on our arrival ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... vipers! there is nothing upright nor grateful in them: never was there a drop of even Scotch blood in their veins. Indeed, we have a clue to their bedchamber still hanging on the door, and I suspect that an Italian fiddler or French valet has more than once crossed ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... giving her a wide berth, and goes upstairs, where he remains for some minutes in conversation with his valet. Then, coming down, he remounts and rides ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... really feel myself as if recalling a distant dream. We, I remember, went in Lord Byron's own carriage, with post-horses; and he sent his groom with two saddle-horses, and a beautifully formed, very ferocious, bull-mastiff, called Nelson, to meet us there. Boatswain[53] went by the side of his valet Frank ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... the grandson of a waiter, who had gone out to India a gentleman's valet, and returned a nabob. Lord Mowbray's two daughters— he had no sons—were great heiresses. Lady Joan was doctrinal; Lady Maud inquisitive. Egremont fell in love with neither, and the visit was a failure. Lord Marney declined ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... thinks I'm their servant—their valet," said Aaron to himself, and a curious half-amused, half-contemptuous look flickered on his face. It annoyed him. The falsity occasioned by the difference in the price of the tickets was really humiliating. Aaron had lived long enough to know that as far ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... a hotel of some pretension was in the rue d'Anjou. There were a large antechamber, two salons, and an inner room, where he wrote, and finally had his bed. His town servants were his German valet, Bastien, who served during the last visit to America, a footman, and a coachman. Cooper wrote: "When I show myself at the door Bastien makes a signal of assent, intimates that the general is at dinner; but I am at once ushered into the bed-room. Here I find ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... room his luggage was brought into the apartment. First came a portmanteau of white leather whose raggedness indicated that the receptacle had made several previous journeys. The bearers of the same were the gentleman's coachman, Selifan (a little man in a large overcoat), and the gentleman's valet, Petrushka—the latter a fellow of about thirty, clad in a worn, over-ample jacket which formerly had graced his master's shoulders, and possessed of a nose and a pair of lips whose coarseness communicated to his face rather a sullen expression. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... pocket-handkerchief which then came into his possession was supposed to have been found in the pocket of the second-hand waistcoat; and Jekyll always maintained that, as it was not considered in the purchase, it remained the valet's property, and did not pass into the lawyer's rightful possession. This was the only handkerchief which Lord Kenyon is said to have ever possessed, and Lord Ellenborough alluded to it when, in a conversation that turned upon the economy which the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... was born at Selkirk (?) in the year 1798. His parents were peasants, and Peter in early life became valet to Mr. Williamson, brother of Sir Hedworth Williamson. He afterwards became gamekeeper to the Marquis of Londonderry, and in that capacity acquired a reputation as an unerring shot, and a man of unusual ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... hand a second time, "I perceive that I have to do with a man of honor and a man of feeling. Well, I landed on this island, and they made me a god. From that day to this I have been anxious only to shuffle off my unwelcome divinity, and return as a mere man to the shores of Europe. Better be a valet in Paris, say I, than a deity of the best in Polynesia. It is a monotonous existence here—no society, no life—and the cuisine—bah, execrable! But till the other day, when your steamer passed, I have scarcely even sighted a European ship. A boat came here once, worse luck, ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... bald, pudgy—and fifty-seven. Besides all this, he was a bachelor, and one jolly one, at the time when this narrative opens. He lived in apartments pretty well downtown, where he was looked after with scrupulous care by a Japanese valet and an Irish "cook-lady." Mr. Hamshaw was forever discharging his valet and forever re-engaging him. Sago persistently refused to leave at the hour set for his departure, and Mr. Hamshaw finally came to discharge ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Viceroy's two nephews, Don Cinthio and Don Charmante, as being men of men of mere terrestial mould. The girls are, however, secretly assisted in their amours by Scaramouch, the doctor's man, who is himself a rival of Harlequin, Cinthio's valet, for the hand of Mopsophil, duenna to the young ladies. Harlequin, hoping to find his way to his mistress, gets to Bellemante's chamber but when she appears conceals himself. The doctor, however, who has been hastily summoned to the bedside of his brother, reported dying, returns ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... of music, yet all the greatest musicians were unusually ready to recognise each other's greatness. Haydn himself seems to have been entirely free from petty jealousy. His admiration of the famous Porpora was such, that he resolved to gain admission to his house, and serve him as a valet. Having made the acquaintance of the family with whom Porpora lived, he was allowed to officiate in that capacity. Early each morning he took care to brush the veteran's coat, polish his shoes, and put his rusty wig in order. At first Porpora growled at the intruder, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... slept in the train, but I'm hungry. I've not had anything since ten o'clock this morning. There was no time to get anything at Victoria. I was told that the next train for Dulwich started in five minutes. I left my valet to take my trunks home; he will bring my evening clothes on here for the concert. Can you let me have a ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... world, and think to solve that dualism, as they call it, by denying that nature can have spiritual functions or spirit a natural cause; but nothing can be simpler if we make, as we should, existence the test of possibility. Ab esse ad posse valet illatio. Nature is a perfect garden of ideals, and passion is the perpetual and fertile soil for poetry, myth, and speculation. Nor is this origin merely imputed to ideals by a late and cynical observer: ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... man's biggest and busiest days. Influenza was rife. Mr. Pope was a bachelor, and his valet inconsiderately took the "flu." Mr. Pope's nephew said the valet must go away till he fully recovered, or Mr. Pope would be sure to take it. "What shall I do?" said Mr. Pope, in dismay. "Oh, I'll get you a good man for the ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... Cosmo e Massi, and a lady of easy virtue called Franceline, who seems to have had a numerous host of relatives and friends to provide for at the public expense. Towards the latter end of the duke's life, it was even said that the seal of the finance department was in the hands of his valet-de-chambre, who, in his master's frequent absences, was in the habit of issuing drafts upon the receiver-general. As the valet- dechambre was described as an idiot who did not know how to read, it may be believed that the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in the Faubourg St. Germain for my possessions. It was closed: the distant relative who inherited after him being an heir with no Parisian tastes. The care-taker, however, that gentle old valet like a woman, who had dressed me in my first Parisian finery, let us in, and waited upon us with food I sent him out to buy. He gave me a letter from my friend, which he had held to deliver on my return, in case any accident befell the marquis. He was tremulous in his mourning, and ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... every one," was the reply; "Likewhich the Delphy Inums. An' I've put enough sweet peas in to supply Covint Garden market, bearin' in mind as 'ow you sed you couldn't have enough on 'em. Sir Morton Pippitt's Lunnon valet came along while I was a- doin' of it, an' 'e peers over the 'edge an' 'e sez, sez 'e: 'Weedin' corn, are yer?' 'No, ye gowk,' sez I! 'Ever seen corn at all 'cept in a bin? Mixed wi' thistles, mebbe?' An' then he used a bit of 'is master's ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... father. Still it astonished us all not a little, notwithstanding the high opinion we entertained of him, when we heard that the butler was to be intrusted with the guardianship of Richard abroad. Such a thing could not have happened in any other family, but so it was arranged; and partly as valet, partly as confidential companion and treasurer Maitland started with his ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... Mr. Sedley Crayden's confidential servant and valet for the last eight months of his life. During that time he wrote a great deal in a manuscript that he kept always beside him, except when he drowsed or slept, at which times he invariably locked it in a desk drawer ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... Lewis was not easy to convince. At last he said that there was nothing to be done, and gave orders to set out. But the queen in a fury turned upon him, and exclaimed: "Now I know you for what you are!" Lewis told his valet to wait his return; but as they crossed the garden, where the men were sweeping the gravel, he remarked: "The leaves are falling early this ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... pass my time here [he says] with extreme regularity and quietness, not knowing, even to speak to, a single individual in Rome; and the direction to my valet when I start on my perambulations, 'al Campidoglio,' 'al Foro,' forms the largest part of my daily utterances.... In a fit of desperation I took to writing a kind of political philosophy, in default of my ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... moment, and as he did so, kept gazing, with a look of abstraction, in the face of his valet. At length— ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... Strett, the valet, had been in, drawn the bath in the adjoining dressing-room, placed the crystal and silver cigarette-box at his side, put a match to the fire, and thrown open the windows to the bright morning air. It brought in, on the glitter of sun, all the shrill crisp morning ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... could tell him. She had simply gone,—where and why he was soon to learn. As he waited and fumed, a peasant approached and handed him a letter, which proved to be from Bressau, his former French valet. It contained the astounding information that the empress had arrived in St. Petersburg that morning and had been proclaimed sole ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... if you like, my lad," he replied with a smile; "but as we are to be chums through this voyage, we cannot afford to be very particular, especially as the accommodation is so limited. There, I will be your valet now; you shall be mine if I am ill. Here are your keys, purse, and pocket-book. I took everything out of your wet things. There," he continued, "tell me which is the key, and I will get out clean linen and another suit. Then I'll tell my servant ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... ere going to bed, the all-powerful banker had given his orders to his valet, who, at seven in the morning, brought in to him the notorious Louchard, the most famous of the commercial police, whom he left in a little sitting-room; there the Baron joined him, in a dressing ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... to be brought at the peril of life for every mouthful, Kane turned up every morning clean-shaved and neatly groomed, shoes duly polished, neat khaki, fitting like a glove and brushed to perfection, nails polished, and hair parted as nicely as if he were dressed by his valet in his New York apartments. How did he do it? We never knew. He kept no servant; he took his regular turn in the ditches, in the mud, or torrid sun, or smothering rain. No night alarm came that did not find Kane first ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... visitors are no better. The stout old gentleman—an editor and an F.Z.S., if you please—who used to get Michael, my valet, to let him see me from the private window, just glares at me over the top of his newspaper and mutters, "Hah! my fine bird, you're coming off your perch head-first before many months are over." And the newspaper ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... Boy," has given for the first time the history of the Louisiana Purchase in entertaining story form. The hero is introduced as a French drummer boy in the great battle of Hohenlinden. He serves as a valet to Napoleon and later is sent with secret messages to the French in San Domingo and in Louisiana. After exciting adventures he accomplishes his mission and is present at the lowering of the Spanish flag, and later at that of the French and ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... his Grace of Osmonde's valet began to look anxious. He had attended his master ten years and had never seen him look as he did in these days. His impression was that his Grace did not sleep, that he had not slept for several nights. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... them, since his first trip there with Twichell thirty-three years earlier, and at "Bay House," the residence of Vice-Consul Allen, where he was always a welcome guest, he could have the attentions and care and comforts of a home. Taking Claude, the butler, as his valet, he sailed January 5th, and presently sent back a letter in which he said, "Again I am leading the ideal life, and am ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his lordship found it necessary to keep a secretary, to aid him in his politics not only to write but to think; and I afterward learned, from his valet, that he had allowed a hundred a year to one who had left his service that very day. His lordship was doubtless therefore well satisfied with the meeting of this morning, in which he not only recovered his diamond repeater but ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... joy over repentant sinners. You must come back to Paris with me again. I had an evening to spare there, last summer, for investigation of theaters; and as there was nothing at any of them that I cared much about seeing, I asked a valet-de-place at Meurice's what people were generally going to. He said, "All the English went to see the Lanterne Magique." I do not care to tell you what general entertainment I received in following, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... love-letters reduced all sorts of people to the same level. I don't remember whether Lord Bacon has left us anything in that line,—unless, indeed, he wrote Romeo and Juliet' and the 'Sonnets;' but if he has, I don't believe they differ so very much from those of his valet or his groom to their respective lady-loves. It is always, My darling! my darling! The words of endearment are the only ones the lover wants to employ, and he finds the vocabulary too limited for his vast desires. So his letters are apt to be rather tedious except ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the last auditor had entered the church; the deep tones of the organ began to swell through the sacred pile, yet still the archbishop came not! The heart of the princess beat quicker and quicker with vague apprehension; when a valet, dressed in cloth of silver, trimmed with crimson velvet, approached her carriage precipitately. "Madame," said he, "the archbishop is in the church; he entered by the portal of the cloister; he is already in the sanctuary; the ceremony is ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... complains, in one of his letters from the country, that "jurisconsults and divines, nay his own valet, had taken to rhyming; and he was afraid the very cattle might begin to low in verse;" apud De Sade, Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... was an operation which occupied some time if carefully performed. It is stated in the "Life of Mrs Elizabeth Thomas," published in 1731, of Mr Richard Shute, her grandfather, a Turkey merchant, that he was very nice in the mode of that age, his valet being some hours every morning in starching his beard, and curling his whiskers, during which time a gentleman, whom he maintained as a companion, always read to him upon some useful subject. In closing, we have to state that cardboard boxes ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... impossible not to feel interested with her. They dined together. O'Donahue completely established himself in her good graces, and it was agreed that on that day week the gentlemen should embark for Hamburg, and proceed on to Petersburg, Joey to go with them as their little valet. ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... the second she said that the escort was only composed of eight persons, who could he worsted by five men; that in the third she said that if he could not save her from the men who were taking her away, he should at least approach the commissary, and killing his valet's horse and two other horses in his carriage, then take the box, and burn it; otherwise she ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... you think, sir, that when a button's knocked off another one comes up like a mushroom in the night; but you take my word for it, sir, buttons don't come up so how, and it's never having no troubles like that to a gentleman that means having a good valet. I don't say nothing about holes in socks or stockings, because when it gets to that a gentleman ought to give 'em away. No, sir, it won't do. Every man to his trade, and I'm fretting to get back to my work, for it wherrits me to have other people meddling with my jobs. I don't believe I shall ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... is a good instance of the nearness of vanity to humility, for at least he had to admit that they were failures. But it would have been spiritual pride in Mr. Brummell if he had tied on all the cravats, one on top of the other, lest his valet should discover that he had ever tied one badly. For in spiritual pride there is always an element of secrecy and solitude. Mr. Brummell would be satanic; also (which I fear would affect him more) he would be badly dressed. But he would be a perfect presentation ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... weaknesses, but these are forgotten in the excitements of the chase, for the main theme is the tracking down of a coarse capitalist who defrauded the hero of his fortune and did something very low against England. With the assistance of a new character in fiction, a super-valet, justice is done and we are all (except the coarse capitalist and his son) extremely happy. Mr. MACKAIL has invented some excellent scenes and he carries them off with gaiety and spirit. In his second book (and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... thy long swinging steps for a twenty-mile walk; he couldn't take them for a dozen yards. His hands may be small enough, and white enough, and ringed enough for a lady, but he can't make a penny's worth with them. I've heard it said that if he goes to stay all night with a friend he has to take his valet with him—can't dress ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... companion, whose dark and recessed eyes were noticeably bright, too, could not be more than half his weight, and Theydon would not have been surprised if told that this diminutive person was a dancing master. Naturally he classed both as acquaintances of his valet, encountered by chance on the ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... had caught my fancy. The decadence was too tragic to prose about, the decadent too human to moralise on. I had left the chamber of the—shall I say de jure King of England?—a sentimental adherent of the cause. But this business of the bagpipes touched the comic. To harry an old valet out of bed and set him droning on pipes in the small hours smacked of a theatrical taste, or at least of an undignified fancy. Kings in exile, if they wish to keep the tragic air, should not indulge ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... Prince Friedrich had at one time got into quite high, shrill and mutually minatory terms with his Stepmother; so that once, after some such shrill dialogue between them, ending with "You shall repent this, Sir!"—he found it good to fly off in the night, with only his Tutor or Secretary and a valet, to Hessen-Cassel to an Aunt; who stoutly protected him in this emergency; and whose Daughter, after the difficult readjustment of matters, became his Wife, but did not live long. And it is farther certain the same Prince, during this his ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... taught for a few hours in the week; and you may suppose that Emilie Schomberg did not lead an idle life. For remuneration she fared, as alas teachers do fare, but ill. The sum which many a gentleman freely gives to his butler or valet, is thought exorbitant, nay, is rarely given to a governess, and Emilie, as a daily ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... pursuit. Lady Mabel seemed bewitched, and no longer saw with her own eyes. Was Mrs. Shortridge a simple gull or something worse? "Perhaps," thought Moodie, "Colonel Bradshawe is right;" for an eaves-dropping valet had given his ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... with me in the Rover, the old seadog, himself a rover, proceeded, went ashore and took up a soft job as gentleman's valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I've on me and he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I'm game for that job, shaving and brushup. I hate roaming about. There's my son now, Danny, run off to sea and his mother got him took in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... errands, to waiting on Thorny and being right-hand man to Miss Celia. He had a little room in the old house, newly papered with hunting scenes, which he was never tired of admiring. In the closet hung several out-grown suits of Thorny's, made over for his valet, and, what Ben valued infinitely more, a pair of boots, well blacked and ready for grand occasions when he rode abroad, with one old spur, found in the attic, brightened up and merely worn for show, since nothing would have induced him to prick beloved ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... hear. I was to dine the other day at a great nabob's, that must be nameless, who, between ourselves, is strongly suspected of—being very rich, that's all. John, my valet, who knows my foible, cautioned me, while he was dressing me, as he usually does where he thinks there's a danger of my committing a lapsus, to take care in my conversation how I made any allusion direct or indirect to presents —you understand me? I set out double charged with my fellow's ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... goes," he said, "you are what I want." Ashe felt inclined to bow. "Whoever takes on this job has got to act as my valet, and you look like a valet." Ashe felt less inclined ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... of Derby to dine with the commissioners. He was accompanied by a servant in plain livery, who—so soon as his master had made his bow to the English envoys—had set forth for a stroll through the town. The modest-looking valet, however, was a distinguished engineer in disguise, who had been sent by Alexander for the especial purpose of examining the fortifications of Ostend—that town being a point much coveted, and liable to immediate attack by the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was to catch the late train at Grantley Thorpe, where it stopped by signal. There was no need to hurry, as he belonged to the class of persons that catch trains. This class, when it spends a holiday at a country-house, dares to leave its packing-up, when it comes away, to its valet or lady's-maid pro tem., and knows to a nicety how low it is both liberal and righteous to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... trade would have warranted. He suddenly asked some minister who was with him how much the egg at the end of the bell-rope should cost? 'J'ignore,' was the answer.—'Eh bien! nous verrons,' said he, and then cut off the ivory handle, called for a valet, and bidding him dress himself in plain and ordinary clothes, and neither divulge his immediate commission or general employment to any living soul, directed him to inquire the price of such articles at several shops in Paris, and to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... his snug hunting lodge, and, in the mind I am in, I shall remain the next six months, that is, if when the term for renting this said lodge expires, I can find a place to which I can bring my sister Emily, Here there is hardly room enough for myself and Philips, who is still my factotum, valet, groom, and I know not what besides; however, he is content, and so am I. Heartily sick of town, and its conventualities, and tired of being courted and feted, not for myself, but my fortune, I care not, if I never see it again. I am weary, ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... to us, we may distinguish the Clouet family of four generations. The senior Jehan, born in Flanders in 1420, came to France in 1460 as painter to the Duke of Burgundy. His son, also, named Jehan, figures in the Royal accounts in 1528 as valet and court painter to Francis I., and was known as Maitre Jehan or Jehanet. To him, an artist of great simplicity and charm, are attributed 126 and 127, R. wall, portraits of his royal master. Sons of the junior Jehan were ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... were T.W. Robertson, the playwright, and his friend and companion, E.P. Hingston. His literary executors were Horace Greeley and Richard H. Stoddard. In his will, he bequeathed among other things a large sum of money to his little valet, a bright little fellow; though subsequent denouments revealed the fact that he left only a six-thousand-dollar house in Yonkers. There is still some mystery about his finances, which may one day be revealed. It is known that he withdrew 10,000 dollars from the Pacific ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... own good sense will suggest what measures I took next. I went in the shape of a loafer to Sir George's house, managed to pick up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that his master had cut his head the night before, and, finally, at the expense of six shillings, made all sure by buying a pair of his cast-off shoes. With these I journeyed down to Streatham and saw that they exactly fitted ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... one more thing in the church which they paused to note; that is, the tomb of Fulke Greville, the first Lord Brooke, who was stabbed by a valet, in 1628. Greville was "servant to Queene Elizabeth, conceller to King James, and frend to Sir Philip Sidney," as the inscription tells us; and it would seem that the greatest emphasis and respect was even then given the fact ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... opinion on the inutility of learning, and the sentiments elsewhere advanced respecting the measure of cultivation and knowledge which is suitable to a man of rank, were all intended to convey Moliere's own opinions himself on these subjects. We may here trace in him a certain vein of valet-de-chambre morality, which also makes its appearance on many other points. We can easily conceive how his education and situation should lead him to entertain such ideas; but they are hardly such as entitle him to read lectures on human society. That, at the end, Trissotin ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... darkness: but the age of banditti, as well as of chivalry—at least in Germany—appears to be "gone." We sallied forth from the wood unmolested; gained again the high road; and after discerning some lights at a distance, which our valet told us (to our great joy) were the lights of BADEN, we ascended and descended—till, at midnight, we entered the town. On passing a bridge, upon which I discerned a whole-length statue of St. Francis, (with the infant Christ in his arms) ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Liszt's valet met her and her daughter as soon as they were out of Russia, took them to Ratibor, where they were received by Lichnowsky, who conducted them to Liszt. After a few days at this place of meeting, they went to Graz, where they spent a fortnight in another of ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... viewed only from the outside. His description of his bedroom—it was much larger and grander in the letter than any bedroom that really existed at Fryston—of the servants in livery, the menu of the dinner-table, and of the valet who made unlawful and undesired investigation of the contents of his pockets when he intruded himself upon him in the morning, all bespoke the absolute novice. I do not think, however, that he was a greater novice ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... know not whom, for it is an old faded yellow manuscript scrap in our drawer—thus rebukes an Englishman's aspiration to be "independent of foreigners:" A French cook dresses his dinner for him, and a Swiss valet dresses him for his dinner. He hands down his lady, decked with pearls that never grew in the shell of a British oyster, and her waving plume of ostrich-feathers certainly never formed the tail of a barn-door ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... so condescending as to attempt to do so. There was a bold young prince—Prince Rupert, of course—who went into Wonderland in search of adventures. He reached Wonderland by leaping from the castle of Drachenfels into the Rhine. Then there was one Snaps, the prince's valet, who did not in the least want to go, but went, and got terribly frightened by the Green Demons of the Chrysolite Cavern, which made us all laugh—it being such a pleasant thing to see somebody else scared ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... than taking the form of a shadowy hearse-and-four, and driving round and round Castle Puddifant at midnight. And old Lady Wadham's ghost, what a sufferer that woman is! She merely desires to remark that the family diamonds, lost many years ago, were never really taken abroad by the valet and sold. He only had time to conceal them in a secret drawer behind the dining-room chimney-piece. Now she can get no nearer expressing herself than producing a spirited imitation of the music of the ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... struck by the change in his appearance. His eyes were hollow and bright, his cheeks were sunken, his lips looked dry; moreover, he moved a little nervously and his foot slipped as he got out of the carriage, so that he nearly fell. In the crowd, the footman asked his valet questions. Was he ill? What had happened to him? Was he consuming himself with grief? No, the valet thought not. He had been much better in Paris and had seen some old friends there. What harm was there ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... feeding habits. The behaviour of these people appeared to intensify the amusement of their child. The two solemn young men who remained continued to chat before Percival as they would have chatted before the valet of either. He began to sound the spiritual anguish of a pariah. Also to feel truculent and, in his own phrase, "Westy." With him "Westy" meant that you were as good as any one else "and a shade better than a whole lot if it came to a show-down." He was not a little mortified to find how easy ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... say is, of course, nothing more than otiose compliment; sometimes they are merely introducing the subject of their want of money in an artistic manner in the hope of anything from a soldo to a promise to take them into service as valet, courier, coachman, or whatever it may be—a sort of shaking of Fortune's bag to see what will come out. Sometimes they really do want to learn English and some of them even make attempts to pick up a few ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... distress, the negligence and disorder of Balthazar's dress, so degrading to a man of his station, was not the least bitter to a woman accustomed to the exquisite nicety of Flemish life. At first Josephine endeavored, in concert with Balthazar's valet, Lemulquinier, to repair the daily devastation of his clothing, but even that she was soon forced to give up. The very day when Balthazar, unaware of the substitution, put on new clothes in place of those that were stained, torn, or full of holes, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... of those heroic moods that were peculiarly alarming to his valet. He was so abnormally good-tempered, and seemed so exceedingly elated about something, that it was probable he might suddenly, in Price's pathetic phrase, turn ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... interior of the country. In General Montero's case it enabled him to rise from the ranks. Pedrito, the younger, incorrigibly lazy and slovenly, had drifted aimlessly from one coast town to another, hanging about counting-houses, attaching himself to strangers as a sort of valet-de-place, picking up an easy and disreputable living. His ability to read did nothing for him but fill his head with absurd visions. His actions were usually determined by motives so improbable in themselves as to escape the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... industrialism for this race of ours, that the Negro had been going daily to dinner parties, eating terrapin and indulging in champagne; and returning home at night, sleeping on beds of eiderdown; breakfasting in the morning in his bed, and then having his valet to clothe him daily in purple and fine linen—all these 250 years of his sojourn in this land. And then, just now, the American people, tired of all this Negro luxury, was calling him, for the first time, to blister his hands with the hoe, and to learn to supply his needs ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell
... Man in the Iron Mask was really a person fort peu de chose, 'of very little account,' and that the Regent d'Orleans was of the same opinion. This corroborates my theory, that the Mask was merely the valet of a Huguenot conspirator, Roux de Marsilly, captured in England, and imprisoned because he was supposed to know some terrible secret—which he knew nothing about. See The ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... found—in Holzhausen's book—a description of the most revolting lice plague (phtheiriasis) from which, according to his valet, Constant, even the emperor was not exempted. As a matter of course under the circumstances—impossibility of bodily cleanliness—this vermin developed in a way which baffles description. Suckow, a Wuerttembergian first lieutenant, speaks ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... awoke with the pain gone. I got up, had a fire in my dressing-closet, and had Dalgleish to shave me—two trifles, which I only mention, because they are contrary to my hardy and independent personal habits. But although a man cannot be a hero to his valet, his valet in sickness becomes of great use to him. I cannot expect that this first will be the last visit of this cruel complaint; but shall we receive good at the hand of God, and ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... already rung for the Judge's valet, who now appeared, drew off his boots, supplied his slippers and dressing-gown, and led the way to his bath. In a quarter of an hour he reappeared, looking better, and he irresolutely turned again towards the dining-room, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... open, a valet announced the bride and groom and Giovanni entered proudly with the lovely Zuleika hanging upon his arm, her beauty heightened by her blushes and diffidence. She wore a magnificent robe of white satin that a Queen might have envied and ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... Castrillon, meanwhile, was pirouetting sublimely before the long mirror in his dressing-room, while his valet, a sour-faced individual, looked on in great but gloomy interest. The Marquis was superbly dressed in a Louis Seize costume—an exact reproduction of the one worn by that monarch on his wedding-day—and he presented a very fine figure. ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... you hear from me by any message at all, you're to come at once,—I'll just mention my first name. I'm registered at the Belmont as John Kelly of New Orleans—I couldn't hide my Southern accent. Tell them you're my valet, and show the key—I can trust you to get up to the room. If I call for you, pay the bill from that change, and don't let the grass grow ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... and a carriage caller. Swifty Joe's gettin' ambitious. Me gettin' mixed up with that Newport push has gone to Swifty's head like a four-line notice does to the pompadour of a second row chorus girl. First off he says it's a shame I don't have a valet. ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... matter—they don't matter! Besides, everybody likes you—only you're so terribly cautious that you never let them see the force and courage and all that wonderful sweet dear goodness that's in you. And as for your manners—heaven knows I'm no P. G. Wodehouse valet. But I'll teach you all ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... pro se quisque id quod quisque potest et valet edit, ferro ferit, tela frangunt, boat caelum fremitu virum, ex spiritu atque anhelitu nebula constat, cadunt ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... him, while three other good boys may serve him with food and drink. But every Saturday morning the climax of the week is reached, when three superlatively good boys give him a nice lathery bath with hot water and flea soap. The privilege of serving as Singapore's valet is going to be the only incentive I ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... is Francis Meekin—he's various medical letters to it. He was in one of the London hospitals with Gilbert Carstairs—he shared those rooms in Jermyn Street with Gilbert Carstairs. We found—easily—a man who'd been their valet, and who remembered their setting off on the hunting expedition. They never came back—to Jermyn Street, anyway. Nothing was ever heard or seen of them in their old haunts about that quarter from that time. And when ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... but in London the anxiety was frightful. There used to be all sorts of attempts on the part of low blighters to sneak him away from me. Young Reggie Foljambe to my certain knowledge offered him double what I was giving him, and Alistair Bingham-Reeves, who's got a valet who had been known to press his trousers sideways, used to look at him, when he came to see me, with a kind of glittering hungry eye which ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... replied Jason, who had been valet to Jimmie Dale's father before him. "I was going to bed, sir, at about ten o'clock, when a messenger came with a letter. Begging your pardon, sir, a young ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... to India must have a personal servant, a native who performs the duty of valet, waiter and errand boy and does other things that he is told. It is said to be impossible to do without one and I am inclined to think that is true, for it is a fixed custom of the country, and when a stranger attempts to resist, or avoid or reform the customs ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... "so," as the bridegroom explained, "it can be used either for morning or evening." The bride's corsage bouquet was of black pansies. After the ceremony Mr. and Mrs. Cne sped to their black wedding breakfast at the Cne apartment in Forty-third Street. There Cne's black valet served black coffee, black bread, black butter (dyed), black bass, black raisins, and blackberries. The breakfast room was in black and white, with ebony furniture and black rugs. The silver service, from coffee ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... Christ Church, performs the same duties for ten or twelve students as a butler and valet in a gentleman's family. There are no women bedmakers at any college except Christ Church, that duty being performed ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the back he Feels fit for scourge or brand, No scurril scribes that lackey The lords of Lackeyland, No penman that yearns, as he turns on his pallet, For the place or the pence of a peer or a valet, No whelp of as currish a pack As the litter whose yelp it gives back, Though he answer the cry of his brother As echoes might answer from caves, Shall be witness as though for a mother ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and though not so educated as his brother George, was not a livery-servant or footman,[51] but appears to have held a similar or superior position with Sir Thomas, to that which Bates, who kept his own man,[52] held with Catesby, a kind of secretary-valet of the time.[53] After Sir Thomas's death he served his eldest son Francis Tresham in the same capacity; while the sister Muriel Vavasour, who bore the same (then uncommon) Christian name as Lady Tresham, and ...
— The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605 • William Parker
... the serpent knight. "This valet, this groom, dared to kiss her? and I would think myself blessed but to touch her shoe-tie;" and he fell ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... never leave India. How I miss that treasure, Kareem! He has been with us since we were married, and there never was a more useful servant. Whether in camp or in my own bungalow, it is just the same; he rises to every emergency and cooks like a French chef. At a pinch he'll valet my husband. He has even in an emergency fastened the hooks of my blouse at the back; and when Honor was a child, played with her when she had the measles and kept her from crying herself into a fit. When other servants ran away from the cholera, he stayed and did everything but sweep ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... himself an indubitable right to love her. But she was still the same, and the sight of her affected him the same way, physically reviving him, stirring him, and filling his soul with rapture. He told his German valet, who ran up to him from the second class, to take his things and go on, and he himself went up to her. He saw the first meeting between the husband and wife, and noted with a lover's insight the signs of slight reserve with which she spoke to her husband. "No, she does not love him and cannot ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... thus given measured 117 feet from north to south and about 40 feet from east to west giving room for the chancel only of the present church, this being dedicated in 1350. But in 1357 William Walsheman, valet to the Queen and now her sub-bailiff in Coventry gave further land, added a new aisle and increased the number of priests while the Black Prince in 1359 gave a small plot on which, perhaps, the tower and transept now stand. Within the next ten years Walsheman and Christiana his wife ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... With another glance at his ragged and disreputable garments, Harry smilingly admitted the desirability of the change, and followed Tiahuana into the chamber where Arima, now formally confirmed in his rank and position of chief valet and body servant of the new Inca, awaited his master. Ten minutes later, attired in white skin-tight pantaloons which were also stockings; a shirt of white wool, of so marvellously fine a texture that it was thin, soft, and light as silk; a fine white wool sleeveless tunic, the material ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... stables at Bicester the innkeeper had to find what assistance was wanted, and charge for it in the bill. And George Vavasor was no Sybarite. He did not deem it impracticable to put on his own trousers without having a man standing at his foot to hold up the leg of the garment. A valet about a man knows a great deal of a man's ways, and therefore George ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... he did, but nobody could see him. He said he belonged to Clexenteine, a village seven leagues from Epinal; and what is also remarkable is that, during the six months he was heard about the house, he did no harm to any one. One day, Hugh having ordered his domestic to saddle his horse, and the valet being busy about something else, deferred doing it, when the spirit did his work, to the great astonishment of all the household. Another time, when Hugh was absent, the spirit asked Stephen, the son-in-law ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... was Mr. Sedley Crayden's confidential servant and valet for the last eight months of his life. During that time he wrote a great deal in a manuscript that he kept always beside him, except when he drowsed or slept, at which times he invariably locked it in a desk drawer close ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... she has left. The Parisian shopkeepers had made everything for her from measures and models sent from Vienna. Napoleon had had these models shown him, and taking one of the shoes, which were remarkably small, he had sportively stroked his valet's cheek with it, and said, "See there, Constant; here's a shoe that will bring good luck with it. Did you ever ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... obtain for the brothers an invitation from Lady Eleanor to quarter themselves at Penford-bourne. Once he had settled them there, he obtained, through Frank Masterton's valet, a puritanical knave called Gabriel Jones, complete information as to their plans, which he ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... It disturbs and pesters my imagination. I supposed it to be from Edward, who has been at Bath; but my valet has just informed me he is returned. Perhaps it is from my sister; and if so, by its coming express, my mother is dead! I really fear it bodes me harm—I am determined to rid myself of this painful suspense. I will therefore step to Grosvenor-street. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... his reverse of fortune. "He had been called 'Your Majesty;' now he can hardly find any one to call him 'Sir.' He had coined money; now he has not a penny of his own. He had had two Secretaries of State; now he has but one valet. He had sat on a throne; but since that time he had laid on straw in a London prison." In fact, his state was so doleful, that the other ex-kings subscribed twenty sequins apiece to buy him some coats and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... been through Manderson's and his wife's. Nothing to be got there, I think. Very simple and bare, no signs of any sort—that I could see. Seems to have insisted on the simple life, does Manderson. Never employed a valet. The room's almost like a cell, except for the clothes and shoes. You'll find it all exactly as I found it; and they tell me that's exactly as Manderson left it at we don't know what o'clock yesterday morning. Opens ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... of Keno City was a livery-and-sales stable, and Kelley, with intent to punish himself, at once applied for the position of hostler. "You durned fool," he said, addressing himself, "as you've played the drunken Injun, suppose you play valet to a lot ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... alone in the room. He had never set up a valet; he had always waited on himself. Now, however, he was again at a loss. He was covered with railway dust and smoke, yet he saw no conveniences ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... height of honour where it now is: I see not one of these petty ballad-makers, or prentise dogrell rymers, that doth not bombast his labours with high-swelling and heaven-disimbowelling words, and that doth not marshall his cadences verie neere as they doe. Plus sonat quam valet. [Footnote: Sen, Epist. xl.] "The sound is more than the weight or worth." And for the vulgar sort there were never so many Poets, and so few good: but as it hath been easie for them to represent their rymes, so come they far short in imitating the rich descriptions of the one, and rare inventions ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... board, doing with a dress suit, anyhow? The fact was that O'Day was either here "on the quiet" to escape his creditors, while his friends were trying to patch things up for his return, or he was an English valet who had ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... news of the robbery produced on me. I fell back on my pillow, as if I had been shot. Your Ladyship should really be a little more careful in communicating these disagreeable surprises to a sensitively-organised man. Never mind—my valet is a perfect treasure; he brought me some drops of ether on a lump of sugar. I said, 'Alfred' (his name is Alfred), 'put me into my clothes!' Alfred put me in. I assure you it reminded me of my young days, when I was put into my first pair of ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... leave, to resign our commissions in the Company's service, and to settle down under our own vines and fig trees. Tim has already elected himself to the post of my butler, and Hossein intends to be my valet and ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... of irregular Baptism, the maxim holds: "Fieri non debuit; factum valet." Cf. Bp. Churton, The Missionary's Foundation of Doctrine, p. 129. The reason for this difference between the two ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... lady of Castle Brady used to sneer, because on these occasions a certain Tim, who used to be called my valet, followed me and my mother to church, carrying a huge prayer-book and a cane, and dressed in the livery of one of our own fine footmen from Clarges Street, which, as Tim was a bandy-shanked little ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hold military reviews, why do they organize maneuvers, distribute rewards to the military, and raise monuments to generals and successful commanders? Why do rich men of independent position consider it an honor to perform a valet's duties in attendance on crowned personages, flattering them and cringing to them and pretending to believe in their peculiar superiority? Why do men who have ceased to believe in the superstitions of the mediaeval Church, and who could not possibly believe ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... very foul in the winter) my uncle's man came to fetch me to London. There was a sale of my father's furniture. His books were sent off to his college at Cambridge by the Lowestoft carrier. Then the valet took me by wherry to Norwich, where we caught a weekly coach to town. That was the last time I ever sailed on the Waveney as a boy, that journey to Norwich. When I next saw the Broads, I was a man of thirty-five. I ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... next morning that a circumstance had occurred which rendered it indispensable to return without delay to their seat in Selkirkshire. This was the only explanation given, but it was afterwards discovered that Lord Napier's valet had committed the grievous mistake of packing up a set of neckcloths which did not correspond IN POINT OF DATE ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the passengers from South America had brought him to Paris, leaving him at four in the morning on a platform of the Gare du Nord in the embrace of Pepe Argensola, the young Spaniard whom he sometimes called "my secretary" or "my valet" because it was difficult to define exactly the relationship between them. In reality, he was a mixture of friend and parasite, the poor comrade, complacent and capable in his companionship with a rich youth on bad terms with his family, sharing with him the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... visit to Fersen, Count Fidler, Ernest Fielding, 'the prose Homer of human nature.' Finlay, Kirkman, esq. Fitzgerald, Lord Edward ——, William Thomas, esq., poetaster Flemish school of painting Fletcher, William (Lord Byron's valet) Flood, Right Hon. Henry, his debut in the House of Commons 'Florence,' the lady addressed under this title in 'Childe Harold' (Mrs., Spencer Smith) Florence, Lord Byron's visits to the picture gallery Foote, Miss, the actress (afterwards, Countess of Harrington), her debut in the 'Child of Nature' ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... speculator Madame Mercadet, his wife Julie, their daughter Minard, clerk of Mercadet Verdelin, friend of Mercadet Goulard, creditor of Mercadet Pierquin, creditor of Mercadet Violette, creditor of Mercadet Mericourt, acquaintance of Mercadet De la Brive, suitor to Julie Justin, valet Therese, lady's maid Virginie, cook Various other creditors ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... and before many seconds had elapsed they were in communication. His valet was there, still waiting for his master's return, for he had not yet come back. It appeared that he was getting rather anxious, for Mr. ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... his hostess, Miss Eliza Hart, her devoted friend and companion, and the three gentlemen—Mr. de Courcy Smyth, Mr. Farge, and Mr. Worthington—who shared with him the hospitalities of Cedar Lodge. He had dined here, upstairs, solitary; and Frederick, the German- Swiss valet, had just finished clearing the table and departed. Usually under such circumstances Iglesias would have taken a favourite book from the carved Spanish mahogany bookcase containing his small library; and, reading again that which he ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... means, Madam, that I marry Julia; and if you will believe me, in order to make the play complete at all points, you will marry Mr. Thibaudier, and give Andree to his footman, whom he will make his valet-de-chambre. ...
— The Countess of Escarbagnas • Moliere
... reluctantly coerced to bed, Lord Newhaven rang for his valet, told him what to pack, that he should not want him to accompany him, and then went to his sitting-room on ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... encounter, which lasted above a quarter of an hour and was very terrible. I was cast to the ground by a large stone that was cast out of a window; but by the assistance of the Sieur de la Bertichere and La Trape, my valet de chambre, I recovered, and resumed my post. All this time we advanced very little, for fresh platoons immediately succeeded those that fled before us; so that before we gained the great square, we had endured more than twelve battles. My cuisses being loosened, I was wounded in the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... That is treason here," answered Cousin Giles. "To his valet he certainly was not great, as Carlyle would say, though he was a very uncommon man. But we should not judge of people by what they appear, or even by what they are doing, so much as by the results produced by their doings. Now Peter contrived, certainly by no very romantic ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... that "no man ever was a hero in the eyes of his valet-de-chambre." I am curious to know whether the valet of the First Consul be an exception to this maxim. As to BONAPARTE'S public character, numerous, indeed, are the constructions put on it by the voice of rumour: some ascribe to him one great man of antiquity as a model; some, another; but many compare him, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... when Margaret was twenty-six years of age, she received from her brother a gifted poet as valet-de-chambre; this was Marot (1495-1544), between whom and the learned princess a poetical intercourse was maintained. Marot had imbibed the principles of Calvin, and had also drank deeply of the spirit of the Renaissance; but he displayed the poet more truly before he was either a theologian ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... they are moved." A similar transparency of motive and purpose, of individual traits and spontaneous action, belongs to the Bible. From the hand of Shakspeare, "the lord and the tinker, the hero and the valet, come forth equally distinct and clear." In the Bible the various sorts of men are never confounded, but have the advantage of being exhibited by Nature herself, and are not a contrivance of the imagination. "Shylock," observes a recent critic, "seems ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of mustache, broad of shoulder, and dark of eye, with face shining to match the spring in the air and that fair face beside him; laden also with another lady on the back seat, beside whom, upright and stiff, with folded arms, sat Henri, costumer, valet, cook, and groom. It was in the latter capacity that Henri was now posing. The role of groom was uppermost in his orderly mind, although at intervals, when his foot chanced to touch a huge luncheon-basket with which the cart was also laden, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... words she left the room, with those words into which she put all the indomitable energy of her character.... Boleslas did not essay to detain her. When, an hour after that horrible conversation, his valet came to inform him that dinner was served, the wretched man was still in the same place, his elbow on the mantelpiece and his forehead in his hand. He knew Maud too well to hope that she would change her determination, and there was in him, in spite of his faults, his folly and his complications, ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... between Mohammedans and other dark-complexioned people and held himself aloof from the former, thereby escaping any humiliating races with the heavy boots of the gunbearers and other followers of Allah. He made friends with little Ali, the monkey's valet, a small Swahili boy who looked like a chocolate drop in color, and like a tooth-powder ad in disposition. It was Ali's duty to carry the ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... things were highly important to Mr. Hepplewhite, for upon the absolute smoothness with which tea and dinner were served and the accuracy with which his valet selected socks to match his tie his entire happiness, to say nothing of his peace of mind, depended. His daily life consisted of a series of subdued and nicely adjusted social events. They were forecast for months ahead. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... stage stands empty a little while. In the meantime the wind has risen somewhat. Johanna enters by the avenue of trees from the right and goes past the pool toward the terrace. The windows of the drawing-room are illumined. Sala has seated himself at a table. The valet enters the room and serves him a glass of wine. Johanna stops. She is apparently much excited. Then she ascends two of the steps to the terrace. Sala seems to hear a noise and turns his head slightly. When she sees this, ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... again, everything he had told her, that he should never have told any one, would come back to him; ideas he had never whispered even to the painter whom he worshipped and had gone all the way to France to see. To her they must seem his apology for not having horses and a valet, or merely the puerile boastfulness of a weak man. Yet if she slipped the bolt tonight and came through the doors and said, "Oh, weak man, I belong to you!" what could he do? That was the danger. He would catch the train out to Long Beach tonight, and tomorrow he would ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... has produced to harmonize with the religions of respectable men. He has not been out of doors yet to-day; so he still wears his slippers, his boots being ready for him on the hearthrug. Surmising that he has no valet, and seeing that he has no secretary with a shorthand notebook and a typewriter, one meditates on how little our great burgess domesticity has been disturbed by new fashions and methods, or by the enterprise of the railway and hotel companies which sell you a Saturday to Monday ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... the same paragraph our Parson proclaims for all the world that 'no man is a hero to his valet,' and says that there are two or three living great men whom he would be sorry to see, since 'no human being can bear a too close inspection.' 'Here,' he declares, 'is a sad circumstance in the lot of a very ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... republicans—simple enough; if he wants a throne he must needs strangle Liberty. Keep the matter a secret between us. This is what I will do; I will stay here till to-morrow and be blind; but beware of the agent; that cursed Provencal is the devil's own valet; he has the ear of Fouche just as I have ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... of so stately a journey, and the grave faces of all the generations of St. John, which could not fail to impress him with the dignity of the family, and alarm him at the prospect of the injured frown of its representative. Across this gallery now, following the steps of the powdered valet, strode young Ardworth, staring now and then at some portrait more than usually grim, more often wondering why his boots, that never creaked before, should creak on those particular boards, and feeling a quiet curiosity, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him with a torrent of words]. Oh yes you are: it's no use denying it. What have you ever done? What good are you? You are as much trouble in the house as a child of three. You couldn't live without your valet. ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... himself, with his unfathomable sea-craft and his autocratic power, a regular old Viking such as you might read of in your history books, but would hardly expect to meet with in the flesh? And was there not a real Italian Count, elderly but impressive, who had dealings with no one but his valet, the latter being a nimble personage with a wicked eye who seemed to possess the faculty of starting up through the deck as if summoned by a species of wireless telegraphy? Best of all, was not Blythe's opposite neighbour at the Captain's table ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... the First Edition of Christabel presented to William Stewart Rose's valet, David Hinves, on November 11, 1816, which Coleridge had already corrected, is now in the possession of Mr. John Murray. The emendations and additions inscribed on the margin of this volume were included in the collected edition of Coleridge's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... is a hero to his valet, and unluckily Samuel Pepys, by way of a valet, chose posterity. All the trifles of temper, habit, vice, and social ways which a keen-eyed valet may observe in his master Samuel Pepys carefully recorded about himself, and bequeathed to the ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... she lifted her head, and looked full at me: her mouth was full of long, white, shining teeth; and I knew that I was in the house of the ogre. I could not speak, but turned and left the house, with the shadow at my heels. "A nice sort of valet to have," I said to myself bitterly, as I stepped into the sunshine, and, looking over my shoulder, saw that it lay yet blacker in the full blaze of the sunlight. Indeed, only when I stood between it and the sun, was the blackness at all diminished. I was so bewildered—stunned—both ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... his temper was vile, and his valet trembled. Then he went down into the restaurant scowling, and was ungracious to the polite and conciliating waiters, ordering his food and a bottle of claret as if they had done him an injury. "Anglais," they said to one another behind the serving-screen, pointing ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... hour of her death had arrived," says Brantome, "Mademoiselle sent for her valet, Julian, who could play the violin to perfection. 'Julian,' quoth she, 'take your violin and play on it until you see me dead—for I am going—the Defeat of the Swiss, and play it as well as you know how; and when you shall ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... laurel must be crown'd, Tho' past the pow'r of Hellebore insane, Which no vile Cutberd's razor'd hands profane. Ah luckless I, each spring that purge the bile! Or who'd write better? but 'tis scarce worth while: Nil tanti est: ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere quae ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi. Munus et officium, nil scribens ipse, docebo; Unde parentur opes; quid alat formetque poetam; Quid deceat, quid non; quo virtus, ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... was written, he directed it and sent it by his valet to post; nor could she see how that same valet intended going to post it at once, but was prevented, and then laid it aside for an hour, as he thought, and forgot it for two whole days; then, fearing his master's anger, said nothing about it, trusting that the delay might be attributed ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... time before to sell all my horses except the black Sardinian with the white spot on its forehead; and I now found myself obliged to part also with my valet de chambre and groom, whom I dismissed on the same day, paying them their wages with the last links of gold chain left to me. It was not without grief and dismay that I saw myself thus stripped of the appurtenances of a man of birth, and driven to groom my own horse under cover ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... stormy night when Lilla had felt the impact of some far-off gush of feeling, the newspapers published a despatch reporting the death of Lawrence Teck at the hands of savages. Four months passed, however, before Lilla received a letter from Parr, the valet. ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... In order that his valet might find him there he got into it, and when, a couple of hours later, he greeted her Majesty he found that sanguine mind looking eagerly ahead and concerning itself very little over things which ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... aqueduct, into a broad and bubbling basin. Gallant cavalieri and grave cittadini; soldiers of Dalmatia, and seamen of the galleys; dames of the city, and females of lighter manners; jewellers of the Rialto, and traders from the Levant; Jew, Turk, and Christian; traveller, adventurer, podesta, valet, avvocato, and gondolier, held their way alike to the common centre of amusement. The hurried air and careless eye; the measured step and jealous glance; the jest and laugh; the song of the cantatrice, and the melody of the flute; the grimace of ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hurried up to her; his face was covered with smiles, and he gave me a confidential nod en passant. Nothing else occurred except that a villainous looking fellow—something, to judge by his appearance, between a valet and a secretary—thrust his ugly head through the door three or four times. Whenever he did so the waiter smiled blandly at him. He did it the last time just as the lady was walking down the room. Seeing ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... prying, yet soft and smooth, like a night-moth or the black bat that haunts ruins, Lebeau, the confidential valet, watched him and silently encouraged him; for they had arrived at the decisive moment that the gang had for months expected, with alternate hopes and fears, with all the trepidation, all the uncertainty attending a business dependent upon such a puppet as this King. Notwithstanding the magnetism ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... a cigar what solace those innocent recreations were still able to afford him. When the novel no longer excited him and when he was saturated with smoke, he would send for his wife. After that, his valet would dress him. "She gets it worse than I do," the man declared in the servants' hall, "and minds it a deal more. I can give warning, and ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... least desires to obey a powerful chief. Serfs have been known to consider themselves dishonored when they became the property of a mere count after having been that of a prince, and Saint-Simon mentions a valet who would ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... de Periers, Valet de Chambre de la Royne de Navarre," there are three little volumes of tales in prose, in the quaint or the coarse pleasantry of that day. The following is not given as the best, but as it introduces a novel etymology of a word ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... things. The singing master had noticed his skill in playing the harpsichord, and offered to engage him as accompanist. Haydn gladly accepted at once, hoping to pick up much musical knowledge in this way. Old Porpora was very harsh and domineering at first, treating him more like a valet than a musician. But at last he was won over by Haydn's gentleness and patience, until he was willing to answer all his questions and to correct his compositions. Best of all he brought Haydn to the attention of the nobleman in whose house he was teaching, ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... Puff was reputed, in a certain set, a sayer of good things, but he was a modest wit, and generally fathered his bon mots on his valet Booby, his monkey, or ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... travel in the time. In this uncertainty the Governor-General in Kiev was petitioned to grant her a fortnight's extension of stay in her brother's house. No answer whatever was returned to this prayer, but one day at dusk the police captain of the district drove up to the house and told my uncle's valet, who ran out to meet him, that he wanted to speak with the master in private, at once. Very much impressed (he thought it was going to be an arrest), the servant, "more dead than alive with fright," as he related afterward, ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... of which he can give a meaning quite other than the milliner's, as where he asserts that the plaits of a rose-colored dress are "the lips of my unappeased desires," or describes March as a barber, powdering the wigs of the blossoming almond trees, and a valet, lacing up the rosebuds in their corsets of green velvet. Whatever he touches he leaves artificial, "enameled," yet charming. The verses added in the present edition are more pensive, even sombre. A life given to art wholly, without patriotism or religion or philosophy, does not prepare ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... describe the moral corruption of the Maltese when the island was surrendered to us. There was not a family in it in which a wife or a daughter was not a kept mistress. A marquis of ancient family applied to Sir Alexander Ball to be appointed his valet. "My valet!" said Ball, "what can you mean, Sir?" The marquis said, he hoped he should then have had the honour of presenting petitions to his Excellency. "Oh, that is it, is it!" said Sir Alexander: "my valet, Sir, brushes my clothes, and brings ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... three-cornered hat that he might the better mop his brow and youthful, almost cherubic face. What time he did so, a pair of bright little blue eyes were very busy with Mr. Caryll's carriage, from which Leduc, Mr. Caryll's valet, was in the act of removing a portmantle. His mobile mouth fell into ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... (Anec. p. 237) says that 'the fore-top of all his wigs were (sic) burned by the candle down to the very net-work. Mr. Thrale's valet, for that reason, kept one always in his own hands, with which he met him at the parlour door when the bell had called him down to dinner.' Cumberland (Memoirs, i. 357) says that he wore 'a brown coat with metal buttons, black waistcoat and worsted stockings, with a flowing bob-wig; they ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... they were in Paris (you go to Paris for tea-gowns to wear grouse-shooting in Scotland), and when his valet, scraping and bowing, informed Fitzhugh Williams, aged nine, that it was time to get up, and tub, and go forth in a white sailor suit, and be of the world worldly, Fitzhugh declined. A greater personage was summoned—Aloys, "the ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the fleet were intoxicated, and Forbin, the French commander, observing English ships of war coming towards the Firth of Forth, fled, refusing James's urgent entreaties to be landed anywhere on the coast (March 24). It was believed that had he landed only with a valet the discontented country would have ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... a Royal LEVEE, Or ratify some Acts of Parliament: Then we probably review the household troops - With the usual "Shalloo humps" and "Shalloo hoops!" Or receive with ceremonial and state An interesting Eastern Potentate. After that we generally Go and dress our private VALET - ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... came Rousseau, "the valet who did not become a cardinal." His influences are also later, and touched society far more widely. Voltaire had spoken to society; Rousseau spoke to the heart of the people. He was above all things a sentimentalist, this son of a Genevan clockmaker. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... to his hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain for my possessions. It was closed: the distant relative who inherited after him being an heir with no Parisian tastes. The care-taker, however, that gentle old valet like a woman, who had dressed me in my first Parisian finery, let us in, and waited upon us with food I sent him out to buy. He gave me a letter from my friend, which he had held to deliver on ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... employers' decanters. He is never under fifty, is round of form, short in the legs, broad of shoulder, and wears his gray hair cut close. He has had a long and varied experience; he has been buttons, valet, second man, first man, lord high butler, and then down the scale again to plain waiter. This has not been his fault but his misfortune—the settling of an estate, it may be, or the death of a master. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... you made me come here! Agnes has been so sniffy and condescending ever since this morning; but I have remarked that Uncle John's valet is only about forty and has a roving eye! so perhaps by to-morrow morning I shan't have my hair screwed off my head! But I feel for Agnes, only ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... first lieutenant, not being in the deuce's confidence, is working himself into the deuce of a sweat. What's worse, His Excellency hasn't turned up yet, nor His Excellency's suite: though a boat waited for 'em five solid hours yesterday. All that arrived was His Excellency's valet and about a score of valises, and word that the great man would follow in a shore-boat. Which ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... more goes to the finishing of a true Valet, than tying a Wig smartly, or answering a Dun genteely. I have sometimes such weighty Matters warring in my Brains, and a greater Conflict with my self how I shall manage 'em, than a Merchant's Cash-keeper, that's run away with two thousand Pounds, and can't ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
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