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Having approached to within a few yards of the island, which was a low rock, with no other vegetation on it than a few bushes, we lay on our oars and gazed at the birds with surprise and pleasure, they returning our gaze with interest. We now saw that their soldier-like appearance was owing to the stiff, erect manner in which they sat on their short legs "bolt-upright," as Peterkin expressed it.
"I don't believe there's a word of truth in it," I declared hotly. "There is," he returned hoarsely, trembling so his voice faltered "I am a thief." He sat bolt-upright in his chair, staring at me like a man who had suddenly become insane. His declaration was so sudden and amazing, that for some moments I knew not what to reply, then a feeling of pity took possession of me.
I see you so plainly, attending to the children, covering up Midget, with sensible speeches, and father sitting at his desk smoking, the mayor beside him, and mammy bolt-upright on her sofa, by wretched light, one hand lying on the arm-rest, or holding Musée Français close before her eyes. God grant that at this moment everything at Reinfeld is going as smoothly as this.
This queer, quaint hand is no new acquaintance; how many a time have I looked upon it as the ne plus ultra of caligraphy! But here is one I'm not so sure of. Who could have written this bolt-upright, old-fashioned superscription, not a letter of which seems on speaking terms with its neighbor?
I can see Lloyd George now as he sat bolt-upright with one knee crossed over the other, waiting for the moment when the chairman should call on him. His face was pale and his eyes were rather dull. He looked a little overwrought. He was feeling the tension; so much was obvious.
When Hatty stepped into the room, she saw Aunt Barbara sitting bolt-upright in a stuff, straight-backed chair, and looking not much in the humor for little visitors. “Aunt Barbara, mother thought perhaps you would like some one with you this morning, and so I have brought in my Sunday books, and will sit here, if you like,” said Hatty, in a cheerful tone.
Gwynn maintained himself bolt-upright, chin pointed high, with a general rigidity of attitude that made one fear he had swallowed the poker as a preliminary to the interview, and was bearing himself in accordance with the unyielding fact. The result was highly effective, and gave Mr. Gwynn a kingly air not likely to be wasted on impressionable ones such as the President and General Attorney.
She sat bolt-upright on the front of the most impersonal French-gilt chair in the drawing-room and asserted that Phil Dunleavy, with his safe ancestry of two generations of wholesalers and strong probabilities about the respectability of still another generation, was her ideal of a Christian gentleman.
Above and below the still and placid pool and but a few miles distant, the pine-fringed, rocky hillsides came shouldering close to the stream, but fell away, forming a deep, semicircular basin toward the west, at the hub of which stood bolt-upright a tall, snowy flagstaff, its shred of bunting hanging limp and lifeless from the peak, and in the dull, dirt-colored buildings of adobe, ranged in rigid lines about the dull brown, flat-topped mesa, a thousand yards up stream above the pool, drowsed a little band of martial exiles, stationed here to keep the peace 'twixt scattered settlers and swarthy, swarming Apaches.
For some time longer I sat in the cuddy. Had my double vanished as he had come? But of his coming there was an explanation, whereas his disappearance would be inexplicable. . . . I went slowly into my dark room, shut the door, lighted the lamp, and for a time dared not turn round. When at last I did I saw him standing bolt-upright in the narrow recessed part.
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