"Factotum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up such a sharp fire, and made such a noise, that presently Jabez, the coachman and general factotum, was dancing with rage in the yard below—rage at the noise they were making and the litter he foresaw he would have to sweep up before "the master" saw the place, and added rage at the calm unconcern with which they ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... past two years still hovered, like a vulture, above him. What he was going to do, how he could hope to combat the obstacles which had arisen was more than he could tell. He had gone into the West, believing, at worst, that he would be forced to become the general factotum of his own business. Now he found there was not even a business; his very foundations had been swept from beneath him, leaving only the determination, the grim, earnest resolution to succeed where all was failure and to fight to ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... doors, bailiff out of doors, and general factotum every where to the Vincent interest—for he had managed to monopolize every place worth having, from the agent's book to the cellar-man's key—the said Simon deposed, that on the night in question, he heard the house-dog barking furiously, and went out to quiet him; but found no thieves, nor knew ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... bargain,—and are to have it signed this day at his Shop: two copies, one of which I mean to insert along with this, and give up to your or E.P. Clark's keeping. For, as you will see, I have appointed Clark my representative, economic plenipotentiary and factotum, if he will consent to act in that sublime capacity,— subject always to your advice, to your control in all ultra- economic respects, of which you alone are cognizant of the circumstances or competent ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... in his capacity of major-domo and general factotum to Sir Arthur, had opened the door, and at the same moment Sir Arthur himself came downstairs. ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... matters of international policy, was employed at Hanover, at Berlin, at Vienna, in the public and secret service of ducal, royal, and imperial governments, and charged with all sorts of delicate and difficult commissions,—matters of finance, of pacification, of treaty and appeal. He was Europe's factotum. A complete biography of the man would be an epitome of the history of his time. The number and variety of his public engagements were such as would have crazed any ordinary brain. And to these were added private studies not less multifarious. "I am distracted beyond all account," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... increased as he proceeded, and he bustled round and round the kitchen as lightly as a girl. David, the indoor factotum, having lost himself among the quart pots of Budmouth, there had been nobody left here to prepare supper, and Bob had it all to himself. In a short time a fire blazed up the chimney, a tablecloth was found, the plates were clapped down, and a search made for ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... Here's your father been a sailor, same as I've been a sailor, and I've drilled up Pan-a-mar o' purpose to be useful to you in the same ship. Why, it's like wasting a season in the garden. I meant him to be your Jack factotum, as the skipper used to call it, and you never heard him say he didn't ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... then storming away at his factotum Wool for some misdemeanor, the nature of which Capitola did not hear, for upon her appearance he suffered his wrath to subside in a few reverberating, low thunders, gave his ward a grumphy "Good morning" and sat ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Miss Vane, and you and you and you—and, oh yes, I'll take in Madame Ybanca too; she makes an even dozen. I shan't include myself, because I rather think I had better act as referee and general factotum until ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... of the woman's face which had for an instant gazed at me through the narrow window beside the door. I reminded myself of the surprise on the features of the decorous male factotum when he had learned that I was not the man expected by his master, and I went over word for word, as nearly as I could, each sentence whispered by Wildred and his servant ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... the Baron's protests; and upon the appearance of Dugald M'Culloch, fisherman and factotum to the millionaire, accompanied by three burly satellites, vain, he perceived, would be the most desperate resistance. He plead the privileges of a foreign diplomatist, threatened a descent of the German army upon Lincoln Lodge, guaranteed an intimate acquaintance with the American ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... was not afraid to tell the truth Fouchette had in the course of time ingratiated herself into the favor of Sister Angelique, and finally, as has been shown by her transfer to the governing regions, became the factotum of the ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... "Coogan was Major Cragiemuir's factotum, and Ah Moy, who had spent many a weary hour opposite the house in K Street waiting to catch a glance of Janet Cragiemuir, knew him by sight. Coogan presented a ticket and demanded his 'wash.' Sam Yen reached feebly for the pink slip of paper, peered up and down the rows of bundles ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... coming she had been the sole motive power of the house; but it was really a sort of democracy, and was managed by the majority of its inmates. An element of demagoguery tampered with the Irish vote in the person of Jerry, nominally porter, but actually factotum, who had hitherto, pending the strikes of the different functionaries, filled the offices now united in Lemuel. He had never been clerk, because his literature went no further than the ability to write his name, and to read a passage of the constitution in qualifying for the ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... before Green, and urged on that factotum so wildly as to leave him no time to change his corduroys and 'skitty-boots' in which he had been gardening; he therefore turned himself into a coachman as far down as his waist merely—clapping on his proper coat, hat, and waistcoat, ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... abbey until 1791, when he found a home with Niseron, cure of Blangy, Burgundy; seldom left Gregoire Rigou, whose factotum ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... But I promise you that you shall surely come in for your share of it. Now listen to my plan of operations. You Kaempe—[Enter SCHMOCK.] Stop! Who is that? Thunder! The factotum of the Coriolanus! Our ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... difficult, in fact, to decide whether the inner nature of Ward was more truly expressing itself when he was firing off some train of scholastic paradoxes on the Eucharist or when he was trilling the airs of Figaro and plunging through the hilarious roulades of the Largo al Factotum. Even Dr. Pusey could riot be quite sure, though he was Ward's spiritual director. On one occasion his young penitent came to him, and confessed that a vow which he had taken to abstain from music during Lent was beginning to affect his health. Could Dr. ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... and Kasper, who was only drumming with his fingers upon the window-panes, seemed very glad to see us. That little man had flaxen hair and a snub nose. Sperver had made him his factotum; it was he who took to pieces and cleaned his guns, mended the riding-horses' harness, fed the dogs in his absence, and superintended in the kitchen the preparation of his favourite dishes. On grand ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... good-bye, knowing the young people were safe, in charge of Long Sam and old Ephraim, the tried and trusted factotum of the Norris family. ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... effusiveness was over-powering at such times as Mr. Brellier paid a visit to the Towers. He followed both Brellier and his niece wherever they went like a shadow. Jokingly one day, Merriton had made the remark: "Borkins might be your factotum rather than mine, Mr. Brellier; indeed I've no doubt he would be, if the traditions of the house had not so long lain in his hands." He was rewarded for this remark by a sudden tightening of Brellier's lips, and then ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... of her. What he did say was that he was tired of his aimless life in London, and liked his uncle too well to look forward with any pleasure to succeeding him, and that he should like to have a small property to manage without aid of bailiff, steward, agent, or factotum of any kind. "I could go over whenever I liked, or you needed me, and you could come to me to see that I wasn't making ducks and drakes of the property," he said. "And it is an experiment, I grant; but you have always been awfully generous ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... She had resumed some intercourse with Lakamba, not personally, it is true (for the dignity of that potentate kept him inside his stockade), but through the agency of that potentate's prime minister, harbour master, financial adviser, and general factotum. That gentleman—of Sulu origin—was certainly endowed with statesmanlike qualities, although he was totally devoid of personal charms. In truth he was perfectly repulsive, possessing only one eye and a pockmarked face, with nose and lips horribly disfigured ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... to me the more probable inasmuch as the statements of the country-folk around me were all of a nature to confirm my hopes. Favier (The author's gardener and factotum. Cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapter 4.—Translator's Note.), the very man for this sort of information, was the first to put me on the track. He told me that, when people want to move a Cat from one farm to another at some distance, they place the ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... right, Mr. Cowperwood," said Jaspers, getting up. "I guess I can make you comfortable, after a fashion. We're not running a hotel here, as you know"—he chuckled to himself—"but I guess I can make you comfortable. John," he called to a sleepy factotum, who appeared from another room, rubbing his eyes, "is the key to ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... this time was on a very remarkable footing. Madame de Warens was at its head, and Claude Anet, gardener, butler, steward, was her factotum. He was a discreet person, of severe probity and few words, firm, thrifty, and sage. The too comprehensive principles of his mistress admitted him to the closest intimacy, and in due time, when Madame de Warens thought ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... days, which is to be the master—which I take to be the most important of all marriage settlements. And, unless I am very much mistaken, it will be the right one—the lady. My little heroine, Jerry Carroway, is engaged as their factotum, and every auspice is favorable. But without your consent, all is knocked on the head; for the cottage is yours, and the tenant won't go out, even under temptation of five guineas, without your written order. Mistress Anerley, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... you over to the baniya {factotum}; he'll show you to your room. I'm vexed that my wife is not here; of course she didn't know when to expect me; and Mrs. Watts is an old friend of hers. 'Tis a relief in one way; for Mr. Watts is a shrewd fellow—he's head of our factory at Cossimbazar, and ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... Hoskins, ostler, and general factotum of "The Bull" inn, be aware of this fact, who, being thus early at work, and seeing me lost in contemplation, paused to address ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... January, 1753, "for his present, the cap and bells he gave me, with which you reproached me so much. I wrote him a very respectful letter, for I asked him for leave to go. What do you think he did? He sent me his great factotum Federshoff, who brought me back my toys; he wrote me a letter saying that he would rather have me to live with than Maupertuis. What is quite certain is, that I would rather not live with either one ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... mystery. M. du Hautoy was a finical dandy whose minute care of himself had degenerated into mincing affectation and childishness. He took an interest in his cough, his appetite, his digestion, his night's rest. Zephirine had succeeded in making a valetudinarian of her factotum; she coddled him and doctored him; she crammed him with delicate fare, as if he had been a fine lady's lap-dog; she embroidered waistcoats for him, and pocket-handkerchiefs and cravats until he became so used to wearing finery that she transformed ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... was a good deal going on at Les Chouettes, when Angelot came down from the moors that morning. He was not surprised, after old Joubard's report, to see his uncle's outdoor factotum, a bullet-headed creature with scarcely anything on but his shirt, leading the last of several horses into the shadowy depths of the stable. Opposite, the cook looked out smiling from the kitchen, where she lived with her solemn ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... he began, "I have just had a letter from old man Lander; you remember he was dad's legal factotum ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... captain and half-owner of the brigantine 'Pizarro', trading between the port of London, and the coast of Mexico. The second was his clerk, factotum, and confidant; half-sailor, half-landsman; able to take the helm in dangerous weather, if need were; and able to afford his employer counsel in the most intricate questions of trading ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... own that she is the only human being whom I am afraid to face. I can recollect her fits of anger as a child, and the reconciliations, which used to be still more violent and painful: and so, instead of going myself, I sent my factotum, Ulick Brady, to her; who rode back, saying that he had met with a reception he would not again undergo for twenty guineas; that he had been dismissed the house, with strict injunctions to inform me that my mother disowned me for ever. This parental anathema, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from next door, who acted as house-keeper, cook, and general factotum to the establishment, brought me shaving water next morning, but I had to go without a bath. When I entered the kitchen I found no one there, but while I consumed the inevitable ham and egg, Amos arrived back for breakfast. He brought ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... "universal scratcher" in the meadows, inclined so as to let the brute creation of all heights enjoy that luxury: Bunch the butler, a female child of tender years but stout proportions: Annie Kay the factotum: the "Immortal," a chariot which was picked up at York in the last stage of decay, and carried the family for many years half over England—all these things and persons are told in divers delightful scraps of autobiography and ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... "My steam factotum, that, Sir, doing all I have to do, My ploughman and my reaper, and my jolly thrasher, too! Steam's yet but in its infancy, no mortal man alive Can tell to what perfection modern farming ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... which Fiesco should seek to quiet the suspicion of the Dorias. If this particular invention was upon the whole unfortunate—the matter will be discussed further on,—the same cannot be said of the Moor Hassan, who becomes Fiesco's factotum and ends his career on the gallows. The rascally Moor is the most picturesque figure and the most telling ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Gryce's custom, especially when engaged upon a case of marked importance, to receive this, his recognized factotum, in his own home. No prying ears, no watchful eyes, were to be feared there. He was the absolute master of everything, even of Sweetwater, he sometimes thought. For this young fellow loved him—had reason to; and when Sweetwater played the violin, ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... new carpet or mattress was going to be needed, or when at the close of the year it began to be evident that my family accounts, like poor Dora's, 'wouldn't add up,' then I used to say to my faithful friend and factotum Anna, who shared all my joys and sorrows, 'Now, if you will keep the babies and attend to things in the house for a day, I'll write a piece and then we'll be out of the scrape.' So I became an author,—very modest I do ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... jury is often more useful to them than a biased judge, and efforts are made by them to contaminate juries, or at least prejudice them in their favor. A prominent Iowa attorney, the legal and political factotum of a large railroad corporation, for years made it a practice to supply jurors with passes. In one instance, when it was shown in court by the opposing counsel that all jurors in the case on trial had accepted ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... who had an extraordinarily lively gipsy-like face, coal-black piercing eyes, with which he scanned Nejdanov as soon as he entered the room. Markelov was already known to him. This was Pavel, Solomin's factotum. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... for some time that she is engaged in the pleasurable occupation of what is known as keeping company with your factotum, but thought it wise ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... afterwards, Josephine Ramot, in company with Loupart, called 'The Square,' and his factotum, the ruffian 'Beard.'" ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... generally. The idea of restricting their usefulness to any one family, would strike dismay through a whole community. Nobody would be so unprincipled as to think of such a thing as having their services more than a week or two at most. Your country factotum knows better than anybody else how ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... go out alone," he said gently. "It is not safe. If you want to walk, Perfetta shall accompany you." Perfetta was a widowed cousin, too humble for social aspirations, who was living with them as factotum. ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... Valentino came with his retinue and the gentlemen of his household, among whom was ever conspicuous by his great size and red ugliness the Captain Ramiro del' Orca, who now seemed to act in many ways as Cesare's factotum. This captain, for reasons which it is unnecessary to detail, ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... I wish you wouldn't constitute yourself my nurse, servant, mentor, guardian, keeper, and personal factotum!" Sudden rage left him inarticulate, and he shot an ugly look at her. "Can't you let ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, And thus supply'd in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies. I also engrav'd several things on occasion; I made the ink; I was warehouseman, and everything, and, in short, quite a factotum. ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... and outward bearing. The one had absorbed the natural refinement of her mother, who had come of an old Huguenot family long ago settled on English soil; the other was moulded in the robust and coarse type of her father. Bessy was by preference the household factotum not to say the drudge of the family, with a turn for puddings, poultry, and the management of servants. Lucy clung to her mother, and books (though both were constant students of The Family Herald), and was nothing if not ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... murderous intentions towards Mrs. Becky as Monsieur Fiche said (since Monseigneur's death he has returned to his native country, where he lives much respected, and has purchased from his Prince the title of Baron Ficci), and the factotum objected to have to do with assassination; or whether he simply had a commission to frighten Mrs. Crawley out of a city where his Lordship proposed to pass the winter, and the sight of her would be eminently disagreeable to ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... two or three boys soon hurried round, and Peter was relieved from his charge, and courteously led into the servants' hall by Momont, the grey-headed old butler and favourite servant of the Marquis, and Jacques Chapeau, the valet, groom, and confidential factotum of Larochejaquelin. Peter was soon encouraged to tell his tale, and to explain the mission which had brought him and his two companions to Durbelliere, and under ordinary circumstances the having to tell ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... constantly of his mother. Do you know her? She lives on the old place, which was a farm of the better class, I take it, his father having been the local judge, tax collector, and general consulting factotum of his county. It is at Pine Ridge Centre, which, if I remember rightly, is not far from your town. I should like you ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Miss Austen might, have sat by the Prince Regent; and scrap-work screens on which faded portraits and landscapes were half eclipsed by quotations from Elegant Extracts. From the drawing-room windows, in my mother's earlier days, might often have been seen the figure of an old head gardener and factotum, George Diggins by name, bending over beds of geraniums, who was born in the reign of George II, who had passed his youth as a charcoal burner in woods not far from Ugbrooke, the seat of the Catholic ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... were carrying around the table huge platters of food. One was Alyrus, the Moor, who was not only a porter, but a general factotum. His duties were many and various, from sweeping the floors and keeping their highly-colored mosaics clear and shining, to accompanying his master to business, as he had done this morning, and assisting the man who served at table. He was sent, also, with Virgilia when she went to pay a visit to ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... to quiet him, we had to send for his factotum or scout, an old black fellow.—Yale Lit. Mag., Vol. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... this occasion. He was a tall, pleasant-looking man, something over forty, with a tendency to baldness. I believe he instructs prisoners who cannot read or write in those useful arts. But his general duty is to play factotum to the chaplain. He takes the singing class, leads the music in chapel, plays the harmonium (the chaplain always calls it the organ), acts as parson's clerk, and reads the lessons when his superior's throat is hoarse with raving. He has a clear and powerful ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... celestial matrimonial bureau a partner might have been selected for him, but he had never been able to discover her. It was his one failure as a detective. He was a self-sufficing person, who preferred a gas stove to a domestic; but in deference to Glover Street opinion he admitted a female factotum between ten a. m. and ten p. m., and, equally in deference to Glover Street opinion, excluded her between ten p. m. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... Mill Valley he lived alone, save for Lee Sing, the Chinese cook and factotum, who knew much about the strangeness of his master, who was paid well for saying nothing, and who never did say anything. After the satisfaction of his nights, a morning's sleep, and a breakfast of Lee Sing's, James Ward crossed the bay to San Francisco on a midday ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... could be raised, and my debts were to be paid. In this dilemma I recollected that I once had a guardian, and that I had never settled accounts with him. Crawley, who continued to he my factotum and flatterer in ordinary and extraordinary, informed me, upon looking over these accounts, that there was a mine of money due to me, if I could but obtain it by law or equity. To law I went: and the anxiety of a lawsuit might have, in some degree, supplied the place ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... widow, the wife of Mahomet, who had been her steward and factotum, and whom he married when she was forty and himself only twenty-five, and with whom he lived till her death, "loving her truly and her alone," himself now a man of fifty; he had begun his mission as a prophet before she died, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... communication as possible between the plantation and the lonely cottage; and if he had overheard some of the confidences between Chloe and Tulee, he probably would have been confirmed in the wisdom of such a prohibition. But Tom was a factotum that could not be dispensed with. They relied upon him for provisions, letters, ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... pretty and spacious. We needed abundant room, for, besides my mother, the five children, and the female servants, accommodation was required for the governess, and a man who held a position midway between porter and butler and deserved the title of factotum if any one ever did. His name was Kurschner; he was a big-boned, square-built fellow about thirty years old, who always wore in his buttonhole the little ribbon of the order he had gained as a soldier at the siege of Antwerp, and who had been taken into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gardener and general factotum at Colonel Van Dyne's. The Poketown school-teacher hurried away, and left Janice and Marty sitting together in ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... of that performance of Antigone on the amateur stage in the Spanish palace was very great. A young man, half lay, half ecclesiastic, a dubious sort of poet, secretary, factotum, accustomed to write not the most sincere poetry, and to execute, perhaps, not the most creditable errands, of the Pope's dubious nephew, Duke Braschi—a young man named Vincenzo Monti, was present at this performance, or one of the succeeding ones; and from that moment became the author ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... fifteen years ago begin to wear a superannuated aspect. Dalton's atoms are in process of disintegration; Kirchhoff's theorem visibly needs to be modified; Clerk Maxwell's medium no longer figures as an indispensable factotum; "absolute zero" is known to be situated on an asymptote to the curve of cold. Ideas, in short, have all at once become plastic, and none more completely so than those relating to astronomy. The physics ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... old watchman and factotum of the monastery. He had a general commission to keep a sharp eye upon the young ladies who were allowed to go out into the city. A pair of horn spectacles usually helped his vision,—sometimes marred it, however, when the knowing gallants slipped a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... so many artists in their dealings with foreign princes, but he was irritable, turbulent, restless, intractable. He was a chivalrous defender of poorer brethren in art, and he was never a respecter of persons. His feuds with Betzki, the Empress's faithful factotum, were as acrid as the feuds between Voltaire and Maupertuis. Betzki had his own ideas about the statue that was to do honour to the founder of the Empire, and he insisted that the famous equestrian figure of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... terrific, significant, fortification, magnificent, artificial, beneficial, verify, simplify, stupefy, certify, dignify, glorify, falsify, beautify, justify, infect, perfect, effect, affection, defective, feat, defeat, feature, feasible, forfeit, surfeit, counterfeit, affair, fashion; (2) factor, factotum, malefaction, benefaction, putrefaction, facile, facsimile, faculty, certificate, edifice, efficacy, prolific, deficient, proficient, artifice, artificer, beneficiary, versification, unification, exemplification, deify, petrify, rectify, amplify, fructify, liquefy, disaffect, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Penny was Chloe Elliston's one concession to convention—excess baggage, beyond the outposts, being a creature of fear. Upon another piece, Big Lena, the gigantic Swedish Amazon who, in the capacity of general factotum, had accompanied Chloe Elliston over half the world, stared stolidly at ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... don't think I'd of took the trouble to answer him, but just then his bank sign caught my eye. It was painted in black letters an' stuck out over the sidewalk. I stopped an' looked past him through the open door where his bookkeeper-payin'-an'-receivin'-teller-cashier, an' general factotum was busy behind the cheap grill. Then I looked at Bronson an' the only thing I noticed was that his eyes was brown, an' he was smilin'. 'Young man,' I says, 'have you got any ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... another in sunshine and in storm, and you shall be blessed even unto the fourth generation. . . . Now, all is in order. . . . Is this your witness?" and he nodded affably toward Marcelle. "Shall we have one other? William Jenkins, my factotum, has been privileged to assist on many such occasions. ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... followers, determined to wreak her vengeance. On June 14, 1885, she succeeded in giving him slow poison, which led him to his death amidst long-drawn agonies eight days later. This ought to have been the death of Mahdism as well, but superstitions die hard in that land of fanatics. The Mahdi's factotum, an able intriguer named Abdullah Taashi, had previously gained from his master a written declaration that he was to be Khalifa after him; he now produced this document, and fortified its influence by describing in great detail a vision in which the ghost of the Mahdi handed ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Elna, } Spaniards. Bishop of Sancta Sista, } Bishop of Trani, an Italian. A Neapolitan abbot. Sigr Ramiro del Orca, Governor; he is the factotum. Don Hieronymo, a Portuguese. Messer Agabito da Amelio, Secretary. Mesr Alexandro Spannocchia, Treasurer, who says that the duke since his departure from Rome up to the present time has spent daily, on the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... in the good old-fashioned days The feminine factotum rarely Was honoured with a crown of bays When she had won it fairly; She did emerge at times like one For manual work a perfect glutton, Blue-stocking half, half Amazon, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... Charlotte, and Georgy, made a little circle about him. His own man, and a clerical-looking person from Gunter's, assisted at the airy banquet. Very little was eaten by any of the guests, and it was a relief to every one when the clerical personage and Captain Paget's factotum retired, after serving tea and coffee with ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... purpose my factotum, Bombay, prevailed on Baraka, Frij, and Rahan—all of them old sailors, who, like himself, knew Hindustani—to go with me. With this nucleus to start with, I gave orders that they should look out for as many Wanguana (freed men—i.e., men emancipated from slavery) ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... was habitually considered rather a young fellow, and he was a master of the revels among the children; so that there was not a more popular being in the sphere in which he moved than Mr. Simon Bracebridge. Of late years he had resided almost entirely with the Squire, to whom he had become a factotum, and whom he particularly delighted by jumping with his humour in respect to old times, and by having a scrap of an old song to suit every occasion. We had presently a specimen of his last-mentioned talent; ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... adjoining household, however, it was still worse. George, a light-colored "boy" of twenty-five, the "factotum" of his mistress, was the husband of our cook, Letty. I had succeeded in taking Letty through several chapters in the New Testament, and this had ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... his assistant retired. "Looks like a rural dean or a chancery judge, and was obviously intended by Nature to be a professor of physics. As an actual fact he was first a watchmaker, then a maker of optical instruments, and now he is mechanical factotum to a medical jurist. He is my right-hand, is Polton; takes an idea before you have time to utter it—but you will make his ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... brought with him from Ghent two Flemish valets, an old woman, and a young apprentice; the latter, a youth with a gentle, pleasing face, served him as secretary, cashier, factotum, and courier. During the first year of his settlement in Tours, a robbery of considerable amount took place in his house, and judicial inquiry showed that the crime must have been committed by one of its inmates. The old miser had his two valets and the secretary put in prison. The young man was ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... The factotum at White Plains was the German Max, whom Dillingham had brought over from the Savoy in London, where he was a waiter. Max became the center of many amusing incidents. One ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... it. He at once called a special session of Congress, and a new tariff bill was framed under the direction of Sereno E. Payne, a Stand-Pat Republican member of Congress, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and Nelson W. Aldrich, Senator from Rhode Island, and guardian angel and factotum for the Big Interests. For several months these gentlemen conducted the preparation of the new bill. Payne had already had experience in putting through the McKinley Tariff in 1890, and the Dingley Tariff in 1897. Again the committee-room ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... returned the Girl, smiling to herself at his effort. But at the moment that she was reaching for a bottle back of the bar, a terrific whoop came from the dance-hall, and ever-watchful lest the boys' fun should get beyond her control, she called to her factotum to quiet things down in ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... Jerusalem, whose house appears to have been the resort of the brethren as early as the period of Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison. As the cousin of Barnabas he was naturally selected to be the attendant and secular factotum of Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. For some reason, faint-heartedness, lack of interest, levity of disposition, or whatever it may have been, he very quickly abandoned that office ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... acquaint the marine who, for the sum of ten shillings a month, acted as the budding Nelson's factotum to make the necessary preparations for his new chums. By the time he returned, a substantial lunch had been set before ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Louis, all over cobwebs and dust and mortar; then found me in his own room on a ladder writing on a picture; and half an hour afterwards lying on the grass in the court with the dogs and the children, in my slippers and without my hat. He had had some doubt whether I was the painter or the factotum of the family; but you would have died at his surprise when he saw me walk into dinner dressed and sit by Lady Hertford. Lord Lyttelton was there, and the conversation turned on literature: finding me not quite ignorant added to the parson's wonder; but he could not contain himself ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... about the quarters. It was found the intruders had obtained admission through the basement door at the back, which was never locked, for the sentry on Number 5 had orders to call Bitzer at 5:30 A. M., to start the fires, milk the cow, etc.,—Hogan, Ray's factotum, being roused about the same time. The marauders had gone up the narrow stairway into the kitchen, first lashing one end of a leather halter-strap about the knob of Bitzer's door and the other to the base of the ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... Lincoln's extraordinary experiences in the multifarious West produced a factotum, his revilers asserted that he looked to one minister for financial instructions, to another for military guidance, etc. But it is true that by tradition, as the premier in fact, the secretary of state is supposed to write the first drafts at least of the presidential speeches ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... cook is away already—the chambermaid discontented and going to-morrow. As for that uncouth boatman and factotum, I find him hard to manage—he will neither take offence, nor listen to ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... Colomb opposed it, and the master yielded. Servants, in those days, were intrinsically the same as in ours, but they differed in manner. The old familiarity had not gone out, but existed as it still does among the French. Those who recollect Dr. Parr will remember how stern a rule his factotum Sam exercised over him. Sam put down what wine he chose, nay, almost invited the guests; at all events, he had his favourites among them. And in the same way as Sam ruled at Hatton, Colomb was, de facto, the master of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... stout middle-aged dame, and stanch Congregationalist, recommended by the good women of the parish, is installed in the kitchen as maid-of-all-work. As gardener, groom, (a sedate pony and square-topped chaise forming part of the establishment,) factotum, in short,—there is the frowzy-headed man Larkin, who has his quarters in an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... pointer, and he received me with all the hospitable cordiality with which a man welcomes a friend to another one's house. I have already introduced him to the reader as a brisk old bachelor-looking little man; the wit and superannuated beau of a large family connection, and the Squire's factotum. I found him, as usual, full of bustle; with a thousand petty things to do, and persons to attend to, and in chirping good-humour; for there are few happier beings than a busy idler; that is to say, a man who is eternally ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... whatever he chanced to be composing. His peremptory requests were generally preferred in writing, addressed "For the Lusty Knight, Sir Slosson Thompson, Office," and delivered by his grinning minion, the office factotum. Sometimes they were in verse, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... difficult. One who was proposed declined to go with a lady, for he "would have to be braver than she"; others were daunted by the sound of Mongolia; but finally, through the kind help of Captain Reeves, the American military attache, I got hold of my invaluable Wang, interpreter, cook, and general factotum in one, and faithfullest of Chinese. Dr. Morrison, the famous Times correspondent, gave me much-needed encouragement at just the right moment. He had long hoped to do it himself, he said, and of course I could do it; and speaking ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... heavy shadow over the house, and that Ellen was striving to do as usual, but breaking down when alone. Just then Parson Frank appeared. Anne had run away from him while on a farming inspection, when the debate over the turnips with the factotum had become wearisome. He looked grave and sorrowful, quite unlike his usual hearty self, and came to me, leaning over my chair, and saying, 'This is sad work, Edward'; and, on an anxious venture of an inquiry for Ellen, 'Poor little maid, it is very sore work with her. She is a ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from such thieves. "Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers that, with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shakescene in a countrie ... but it is pittie men of such rare wit should be subject to the pleasures of such rude grooms." The reference to "Shakescene" and the "Tygers heart," which is a quotation from III Henry VI,[3] ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... we drew near Peterhouse, and found sober Peter himself, and his brother-in-law, the facetious factotum Tom Purdie, superintending, pipe in mouth, three or four sturdy laborers busy in laying down the turf for a bowling-green. "I have planted hollies all round it, you see," said Scott, "and laid out ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... was taking a walk in the park when a letter was brought to her by old Wilson, the groom, cowman, and general factotum. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... vicarage factotum could not imagine what made his charge so anxious to be off. She actually took the whip out of his hand and gave a flick to the pony, who swerved and started off in a way which would have made his mistress clamorously nervous under any other circumstances. Catherine ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... worse for washing, and a black velveteen jacket and waistcoat. This young gentleman was very much freckled; wore his hair, which was dark and wiry, up at one side, down at the other; had a short thick nose; full lips; and, when close to him, smelt of cigars. Such was Mr. Plimmins, Mr. Plaskwith's factotum, foreman in the shop, assistant editor to the Mercury. Mr. Plaskwith formally went the round of the introduction; Mrs. P. nodded her head; the Misses P. nudged each other, and grinned; Mr. Plimmins passed his hand through his hair, glanced ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was being imposed on him by the notorious Conn. He himself, though he could scarcely afford it, was keeping his cuttings for him, in spite of tempting offers from other quarters, even of a shilling a sack. But of course he didn't see why an outsider foisted upon him by a philanthropic factotum should benefit by this goodness of his. He discoursed to me in moved terms of the sorrows and privations of his tenants in their two tiny rooms upstairs. And all the while Quarriar preserved his attitude of drooping dignity, saying no syllable ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... as the studio, but it was undoubtedly there that pursuit must begin. She knew nothing of his way of living at that retreat, but she imagined that he must have appointed some successor to George Pennicut as general factotum, and it might be that this person ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... to acknowledge the fine style of Belletti's Largo al Factotum (though the gay barber's song always requires the stage) and the admirable orchestra performance of Weber's ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... jail the old man was led directly into the boys' cell. He was weary from his exertion, and sank into a chair and his head fell on his breast. In a moment he was fast asleep. The interpreter, who seemed to be general factotum to Serano, shook him ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... drifting dead leaves, and a steel-grey sky; and the Dolphin Hotel at Southampton was glorified by the presence of Lady Maulevrier and suite. Her ladyship's suite was on this occasion limited to three servants—her French maid, a footman, and a kind of factotum, a man of no distinct and arbitrary signification in her ladyship's household, neither butler nor steward, but that privileged being, an old and trusted servant, and a person who was supposed to enjoy more ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... our fast here, and then drove for another mile or so where a path leaves the road, and the pilgrim has either to proceed on horseback or on foot. We had to go on foot, and a very long and tiring walk it proved to be. Besides Dr. S. and his factotum, Lazo, we took another man with us, a wretched puny individual, but seemingly possessed of more endurance than any of us. He led us by a short cut over rocks, and up slippery breakneck walls of cliffs, over which our guide skipped nimbly, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... was no other than Albert Smith's brother Arthur—one who was not only the right-hand, as it were, of the Ascender of Mont Blanc, and of the Traveller in China, but who (behind the scenes, and unknown to the public) was the veritable wire-puller, prompter, Figaro, factotum of that farceur.among story-tellers, and of that laughter-moving patterer among public entertainers. Arthur Smith, full of resource, of contrivance, and of readiness, possessed in fact all the qualifications essential to a rapid ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... Raynham, and perfectly aware of her brilliant future, up to which she had, since Ripton's departure, dressed and grimaced, and studied cadences (the latter with such success, though not yet fifteen, that she languished to her maid, and melted the small factotum footman)—Miss Letty, whose insatiable thirst for intimations about the young heir Ripton could not satisfy, tormented him daily in revenge, and once, quite unconsciously, gave the lad a fearful turn; for after dinner, when Mr. Thompson read the paper by ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by descent, though he had never seen the land of his ancestors. His grandfather bad been ennobled, but only belonged to the lesser order of the noblesse, being exempted from imposts, but not being above employment, especially in diplomacy. He had acted as secretary, interpreter, and general factotum, to a whole succession of ambassadors, and thus his little loge, as he called it, had become something of a home. His wife had once or twice before had to take charge of young ladies, French or English, who were confided to the embassy, and she had a guest chamber for them, a small room, but ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 22d of September, in the year 1842,—Mr. Brindlock came into his counting-room some two hours before noon, and says to his porter and factotum, as he enters the door, "Well, Roger, I suppose you 'll be counting this puff of a southeaster the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... they tried, and I am sure he must have had you in his eye when he felt so sure of my success in life. Could you, would you teach me to farm, and I will keep your books, write your letters, manage your household, be your factotum, if you will allow me. I have studied agricultural chemistry, and if you would permit me to learn from you the practical details of farming operations, I might really be ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... This note is addressed to Jenger in Vienna, a chancery official and a musical amateur, connoisseur, factotum, and distinguished pianist. The date is not known. The Opferlied he refers to, is undoubtedly the 2d arrangement, Op. 121-b, which according to the Leipzig A.M. Zeitung was performed as Beethoven's "most recent poetical and musical work," ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... poet was Richard Furness[70], parish clerk of Dore, five miles from Shalfield, a secluded hamlet. He was then styled "The Poet of the Peak," of sonorous voice and clear of speech, the author of many poems, and factotum supreme of the village and neighbourhood. Two volumes of his poems have been published. He combined, like many of his order, the office of parish clerk with that of schoolmaster, his schoolroom being ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... thirty-five. The great objection to her appearance was the somewhat indefinite character of her shape, which seemed to blend too many of its charms into one. The fourth person, in the fare, was Biddy Noon, the Irish servant and factotum of Mrs. Budd, who was a pock-marked, red-faced, and red-armed single woman, about her mistress's own age and weight, though ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... just finished dinner, was enjoying some good claret in the cabin, with his wife and her friend—a cheerful moment, when conversation 'is most agreeable,' when Tom, the captain's general factotum, burst in on them and began, without saying a 'by your leave', to bottle half a hogshead of small beer. After requests and protests, equally unavailing, this functionary found himself, says Fielding, threatened "with having one bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... sound of the night-bell at Jan's window as he lay in bed. For Jan had caused the night-bell to be hung there since he was factotum. "Where's the good of waking up the house?" remarked Jan; and he made ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... never afforded the gleam of solution. He heard a shout of a laugh. Above the local accents that held a cadence of the Gaelic speech he heard the sharp clipping Northern accent of his own gardener and general factotum. He had brought the man with him when he first came to Connacht, half as a mild form of colonisation, half through a suspicion of local honesty. He now saw the man's shaggy head over the Rectory garden wall, and outside it ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... obvious impatience. Formerly he had been used to dawdle over his letters, getting through a good portion of the forenoon with them and conversations with Waters about Buckinghamshire news. Now, even with that omniscient factotum by his side, his progress was slow, simply because he was hurried. He made dives here and there, without system, without settlement. At last, looking at his watch, he jumped up; it was ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... Anstey's new story will delight the multitudinous public that laughed over "Vice Versa."... The boy who brings the accursed image to Champion's house, Mr. Bales, the artist's factotum, and above all Mr. Yarker, the ex-butler who has turned policeman, are figures whom it is as pleasant to meet as it ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... Lamb family was left without its mainstay. John Lamb the elder was past work, already, we may believe, passing into senility; and John Lamb the younger, who appears to have been prospering in the South Sea House, had presumably set up his bachelor home elsewhere. Salt bequeathed to his clerk and factotum a pension of L10 a year, and various legacies amounting to about L700. The old home in the Temple had to be given up, but whither the family first removed is not known. Four years later they were living in Little Queen Street—now ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... feathers," a sneer which points either to his celebrity as an actor or to his preparation for loftier flights by fitting pieces of his predecessors for the stage. He was soon partner in the theatre, actor, and playwright; and another nickname, that of "Johannes Factotum" or Jack-of-all-Trades, shows his readiness to take all honest work which ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... his waistcoat as he sidled to his place. Generally he would arrive just as the rest of the house were filing out; when, having lurked hidden until Mr. Seymour was out of the way, he would enter into private treaty with Herbert, the factotum, who had influence with the cook, for Something Hot and maybe a fresh brew of coffee. For there was nothing of the amateur late-breakfaster about Chapple. Your amateur slinks in with blushes deepening the naturally healthy ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... were composed by him. The first Parisian representation of the opera took place on October 26, 1819. Garcia was again in the cast. By that time, in all likelihood, all of musical New York that could muster up a pucker was already whistling "Largo al factotum" and the beginning of "Una voce poco fa," for, on May 17, 1819, Thomas Phillipps had brought an English "Barber of Seville" forward at a benefit performance for himself at the same Park Theatre at which more than six years later the Garcia company, the first ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... America. Franklin succeeded in contriving a mould, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied the deficiencies of the office. The autobiography says: "I also engraved several things on occasion; I made the ink; I was warehouse man and everything, and in short quite a factotum." Nevertheless, he was dismissed before long by his incompetent employer, who, however, was glad to re-engage him a few days later on obtaining a job to print some paper money for New Jersey. Thereupon Franklin contrived a copperplate press for ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... their newly acquired property was a sort of reconnoitre visit. They had come from Town for a month's holiday, bringing with them Thatcher—little Mollie's nurse—as general factotum. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... period was converted to Catholicism largely through the efforts of Madame de Warens, a spritely married lady living apart from her husband; in 1731 he took up residence in his patroness's house, where he lived for nine years a life of ease and sentiment in the ambiguous capacity of general factotum, and subsequently of lover; supplanted in the affections of his mistress, he took himself off, and landed in Paris in 1741; supported himself by music-copying, an occupation which was his steadiest means of livelihood throughout ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the old grey-headed factotum was almost detested. They could receive orders from the rector, and yield to him cheerful and hearty obedience; but to be under the control of a stingy, canting old hypocrite like Ralph Wilson was hard to be borne. The Bible, that was so often in his mouth, might ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... Trimalchio, and she measures her money by the peck. And only a little while ago, what was she! May your genius pardon me, but you would not have been willing to take a crust of bread from her hand. Now, without rhyme or reason, she's in the seventh heaven and is Trimalchio's factotum, so much so that he would believe her if she told him it was dark when it was broad daylight! As for him, he don't know how rich he is, but this harlot keeps an eye on everything and where you least expect to find her, you're sure to run into ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... began to talk gloomily of the death of his old Bernard Street landlady, who had become his housekeeper and factotum in the new Chelsea house and studio, which he ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dispatched Gwenny in all directions to hunt for Bill Thomas in vain, we at last elicited from her that "may-be she was gone with Mr Dawson." Then it came out, to our infinite amusement, that Dawson was in the habit, occasionally, of impressing our factotum Bill to carry bat, stumps, and ball down to the marsh, and there commencing private practice on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... to Enid Crofton the very last words uttered by Piper, the clever, capable man who, after having been Colonel Crofton's batman in the War, had become their general factotum in Essex:—"Don't you go and be startled, ma'am, if you see the very spit of Dandy in this 'ere village! As me and your new lad was cleaning out the stable-yard this morning, a young gentleman came in with a dog as ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... he favored both parents, inheriting the strong, sturdy frame of his Scotch father, with the dark features and piercing black eyes of his mother. At present, he occupied the position of clerk or general factotum to Mr. Gurney; his quickness and ability to grasp the requirements of business, with the general activity of his movements, made him invaluable, and Mr. Gurney trusted him like a son. Amongst other duties, Hugh frequently attended auction sales, to watch for bargains ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... I asked the Negro factotum about the hire of horses, and presently a man came in from the bar who, he said, could supply my needs. This man, the very type of a Western pioneer, bowed, threw himself into a rocking-chair, drew a spittoon beside him, cut a fresh quid of tobacco, began to chew ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... shop in spite of the luminous gloaming—he encountered the smile of Barty. Paul, who was sensitive and proudly reticent, grew red. He knew well enough that his apparent admiration of Sylvia Norman had attracted the notice of Bart and of the red-armed wench, Deborah Junk, who was the factotum of the household. Not that he minded, for both these servants were devoted to Sylvia, and knowing that she returned the feelings of Paul said nothing about the position to Aaron. Beecot could not afford to make enemies of the pair, and had no wish to do so. They were coarse-grained and common, ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... and this prince had gathered around him in our land the most desperate of the French royalists, whose hopes, hatreds, schemes, and unending requests for British money may be scanned by the curious in some thirty large volumes of letters bequeathed by their factotum the Comte de Puisaye, to the British Museum. Unfortunately this correspondence throws little light on the details of the plot which is fitly called by the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... will make of me, on that day, a major-domo, a sort of inspector-general, or factotum—something between a captain of the guard and manager or steward. I will look after the people, and will keep the keys of the doors. You will give your orders, of course; but will give them to no one but to me. They will pass through my lips, to reach ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Our excellent factotum, Sabz Ali, awaited us with a capacious landau, and informed us that the heavy baggage had gone on in the ekkas. So we set forth at once on our 42-mile drive to Abbotabad without "reposing for a ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... Here lies Factotum Ned at last; Long as he breathed the vital air, Nothing throughout all Europe past In which Ned hadn't some ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the places in the county "The Towers" was the favorite with the young people. There even before Margaret was installed the Major kept open house with his major domo and factotum "George Washington"; and when Margaret came from school, of course it was popular. Only one class of ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... named Durieu, and his wife had followed the fortunes of their young mistress. Durieu was the factotum of the chateau, and his wife was the housekeeper. He was helped in the cooking by the sister of Catherine, Laurence's maid, to whom he was teaching his art and who gave promise of becoming an excellent cook. An old gardener, his wife, a son paid by the day, and a daughter ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... The factotum seemed utterly out of patience. "What! Master Jack back again! That is very naughty, sir, after all you promised. The police will have to come and take you to school; your ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... very unwise thing to do, and that it would be altogether more prudent in every way to secure the services of some white man, well acquainted with the country, and the ways and language of the natives, to act as a sort of general overseer and factotum, and this view Grosvenor at length somewhat ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood |
