United States or Nauru ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Everything was changed. . . . Eighteen years ago when he had moved to Petersburg the street-boys used to catch marmots, for instance, on the spot where now the station was standing; now when one drove into the chief street, a hotel of four storeys stood facing one; in old days there was an ugly grey fence just there; but nothing neither fences nor houses had changed as much as the people.
In the present instance, he left the Black Bull grinding his teeth. Then he took to clanking his heels as he walked along in a way that drew forth the comments of several street-boys, to whom, in a spirit of liberality, he returned considerably more than he received.
"Pretty bobbish, thank you," returned the constable, for he was a good-natured man, and rather liked a little quiet chaff with street-boys when not too much engaged with duty.
These were bright street-boys, very clever in their uniforms, and courteous, but street-boys nevertheless; and they had not noted the man in the booth. A clouded, noisome thing, David Cairns heard. Doubtless it had passed through several grades of back-stair intelligence before it became a morsel for Cairns' particular informers.
What I required was something cheap and small and hardy, and of a stolid and peaceful temper; and all these requisites pointed to a donkey. There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather unsound intellect according to some, much followed by street-boys, and known to fame as Father Adam.
This was intended for the young negro lad, who stood in the door-way of the house and kept off the street-boys, who ventured to approach, by rolling his eyes and gnashing his white teeth at them. "Where can they be?" said one of the mounted men: "The rain won't keep off long to-day." "Certainly not," replied the other.
Naturally, a crowd of street-boys collected under the window, when he roared out, 'Now, what do these confounded boys want? I laughed and pointed to his own figure. 'Yes, yes! You are quite right, he said, and hastily put on a dressing-gown." Moscheles's associations were even at this early period with all the foremost people of the age, and he was cordially welcome in every circle.
Instead of the velvet and silk dresses, they gave her the coats of mail which she had woven to cover her, and the bundle of nettles for a pillow; but nothing they could give her would have pleased her more. She continued her task with joy, and prayed for help, while the street-boys sang jeering songs about her, and not a soul comforted her with a kind word.
A small train of street-boys followed the procession, cap in hand, and the clergyman finally entered a hospital for old women, near the church, the canopy and the lamp-bearers remaining without.
He would have observed imitation Japanese parasols at a penny among the ware of enterprising capitalists in the streets. He would have marked the very street-boys in wide, inexpensive straw hats of various and astonishing colours.
Word Of The Day