United States or Turkey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The voyage of Cook roused the Russian government to further exertions; and they accordingly fitted out an expedition to explore the sea between Asia and America: the command of it was given to an Englishman of the name of Billings, who had served as a petty officer under Captain Cook.
"When you go through the west gate into the big pasture, look out for a big Hereford bull in there," Colonel Billings called after them. Ted nodded and waved his hand, and they were off. Colonel Billings certainly did have a splendid ranch. They rode for miles within the fences before they came to the west gate. "Think we better go any farther?" asked Ted, when they had come this far. "Yes.
"Yes," said Stephen, wearily. And he added, outs of force of habit, "Can you give me a room?" "I reckon," was the cheerful reply. "Number ten, There ain't nobody in there but Ben Billings, and the four Beaver brothers, an' three more. I'll have a shake-down for ye next the north window." Stephen's thanks for the hospitality perhaps lacked heartiness.
Billings is adjutant and cooped up in the office all day," was the reply of Mrs. Raymond, who could readily find reason for taking exception to the remarks or theories of her next-door neighbor and social rival. There were five ladies in the group, all under thirty, two of them under twenty, only one unmarried, none of them avowedly interested in either of the two officers slowly approaching.
Whether Daniels applied this treatment for the insane to Billings, or whether Billings, with an equal right to adjudge Daniels insane, had applied the same treatment to him, could not be determined without violation of the parole; but when they had finished supper and reached the deck, sounds of conflict came up from the galley hatch, unheard and uninterrupted by those forward.
During that period, Master Thomas Billings had been under the especial care of his mother; and, as may be imagined, he rather increased than diminished the accomplishments for which he had been remarkable while under the roof of his foster-father.
There was a look in Orlando's eyes which was a reflection from a remote past, from ancestors who had settled their troubles with the first weapon and the best opportunity to their hands. "The furrin element in him," as Jonas Billings called it, had been at full flood ever since he had bade his mother good-bye. A storm of anger had been raised in him.
There was broken country between it and the Mercutian invaders, and the rays of the single light which they were using could not reach it directly. Such, briefly, was the situation as I found it that evening of the 10th. In Billings we were sixty-five miles north of the Mercutian landing place. What power for attack and destruction the enemy had, we had no means of determining.
Yet there was none of the sycophant or fawner in Billings; ordinarily I do not wax enthusiastic about men, but this man Billings comes as close to my conception of what a regular man should be as any I have ever met.
In commenting on the reasons for the broadening and deepening of his humour with the passage of time, Mr. Clemens once remarked to me: "I succeeded in the long run, where Shillaber, Doesticks, and Billings failed, because they never had an ideal higher than that of merely being funny. The first great lesson of my life was the discovery that I had to live down my past.
Word Of The Day