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Hansom   /hˈænsəm/   Listen
Hansom

noun
1.
A two-wheeled horse-drawn covered carriage with the driver's seat above and behind the passengers.  Synonym: hansom cab.






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"Hansom" Quotes from Famous Books



... of incident and excitement as any novel Mr. Hume has written since "The Mystery of the Hansom Cab." ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... Supposed Mistress Richard Crashaw Song, "Love in fantastic Triumph sate" Aphra Behn Les Amours Charles Cotton Rivals William Walsh I Lately Vowed, but 'Twas in Haste John Oldmixon The Touchstone Samuel Bishop Air, "I ne'er could any luster see" Richard Brinsley Sheridan "I Took a Hansom on Today" William Ernest Henley Da Capo Henry Cuyler Bunner Song Against Women Willard Huntington Wright Song of Thyrsis Philip Freneau The Test Walter Savage Landor "The Fault is not Mine" Walter Savage Landor The Snake Thomas Moore "When I Loved You" Thomas Moore A Temple to Friendship ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... the next three days, thinking that Mr. Prendergast would come to him, or send for him; but Mr. Prendergast did neither the one nor the other. Mr. Prendergast took his advice instead, and putting himself into a Hansom cab, had himself driven to ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... said, with a groan. "I suffer from heart attacks, and the crossing has altogether upset me. If you could remain with my niece while our luggage is examined, and send her afterwards to the Milan Hotel, you would do a real favor to a sick man. I could myself take a hansom there without waiting for a moment, and get to bed. Nothing else will ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... it be admitted that in all ages artists have had their grooves, like other men, and have reproduced themselves and their own best effects. But, as this is inevitably true, how careful they should be that the effects are really of permanent value and beauty! Realistic hansom cabs, and babies in strange raiment, and schoolgirls of the last century, and Masters of Hounds, are scarcely of so much permanent value as the favourite types and characters which Lionardo and Carpaccio repeat again ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... him that the hansom was there. He moved into the hall with the intention of sending it away; no party for him to-night—when, to his amazement he saw Clare coming slowly down the stairs, her ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... easy, but not too easy." I was late; I was in a hurry; I had very little time to think, but at a venture I dispatched a reply: "Will do what I can." It was not till I had dressed and was rolling away to dinner that, in the hansom, I bethought myself of the difficulty of the condition attached. The difficulty was not of course in letting her off easy but in qualifying that indulgence. "I simply won't qualify it," I said to myself. I didn't admire her, but I liked her, and I had known her ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James

... They step into the blazing entrance, and go thence to the stairway which leads to the celebrated public ballroom. They are stifled by the odor of dust, escaping gas, and human flesh. Alas! there are in every village in France doctors in hansom cabs, country lawyers, and any quantity of justices of the peace, who, I can assure you, regret this stench as they take the fresh air in the open country under the starry heavens, breathing the exquisite perfume of new-mown hay; for it is ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... over the Pullman floor. This is done by sewing the human pocket shut. We landed at Twenty-third Street, in good shape, early in the morning of the day before yesterday. When we reached the Pennsylvania cab-stand some one had taken the hansom, so we had to hire a carriage. They are building another hansom, and then there will be plenty of hansoms for all. At the hotel Johnny claimed I had a drag because I drew a room with a window in it. Breakfast was hardly ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.

... not so strong as to prevent me from gloating over the victory in which I had just assisted. I thought of the notorious extortioner who had fallen to our unscrupulous but not indictable wiles; and my heart tinkled with the hansom bell. I thought of the good that we had done for once, of the undoubted wrong we had contrived to right by a species of justifiable chicanery. And I forgot all about the youth whose battle we had fought and won, until I found myself ordering his breakfast, and ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... moment that they got out at Euston Square she seemed a trifle bewildered, and could only do implicitly as her husband bade her—clinging to his hand, for the most part, as if to make sure of guidance. She did indeed glance somewhat nervously at the hansom into which Lavender put her, apparently asking how such a tall and narrow two-wheeled vehicle could be prevented toppling over. But when he, having sent on all their luggage by a respectable old four-wheeler, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... said he, "I'll give you a tow to the nearest repair shop, and a word from me will expedite the business. Meanwhile, you must jump into a hansom and appeal to the sympathies of Miss—Vanrenen, ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... completely, and as they drove together in a hansom through the mysterious movement of the lamp-lit London streets, toward her lodgings, she plunged enjoyingly into certain theories of her religion, which embraced Arnold and Aristotle and did not exclude Mr. Whistler, and made wide, ineffectual, and presumptuous grasps to include all beauty ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... not ill, but Judy is—I am going down to Little Staunton. I have telegraphed to them to expect me by the train due at 9.40, and it is time for me to go. Is that you, Susan? Please would you order a hansom ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... leaving any message for Hyacinth, jumped into a hansom, giving the man the address of his club in Pall Mall. On the way he changed his mind, and drove to the National Gallery. As he went up the steps his spirits rose. He thought he recognised Miss Verney's ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson

... evening in a great city with some friends reading and discussing poetry and philosophy. We had occupied ourselves with Wordsworth, Shelley, Browning, and especially Whitman. We parted at midnight. I had a long drive in a hansom to my lodgings. My mind, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images and emotions called up by the reading and talk, was calm and peaceful. I was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking, but letting ideas, images and emotions ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... to myself that it would have given me pleasure to have had some part in his chastisement, and as we plodded westward through the empty streets I pictured him driving home in a hansom, trying to gather his scattered wits and to discover some reason why a quiet, respectful waiter should have assailed him without cause. Poor muddled Talcott! He did not know that his betrayer had been distilled in far-off Scotland, and had lain away in vats ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... sympathy and no reproach. Mr. Ford's client did not lean back, the tension of his mind was too great. He sat stiffly, and gazed vacantly before him, half seeing and half transforming into other visions whatever lay before the hansom, as it wound its way through the streets. Now for a moment a four-wheeled cab, loaded with schoolboy luggage, occupied the field of view, and idle memories of his own boyhood flitted over it. Then, crawling behind a dray, some strange associations ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... however, did not wait to witness that interesting ceremony. He went back to his hansom round the corner, and drove at once to Arthur Wardlaw's house ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... thousand years hence the New Zealand dramatist may represent the Archbishop of CANTERBURY as walking about London in his lawn sleeves with coronation cope and mitre, or Cardinal HERBERT VAUGHAN as wearing his scarlet hat and robes, and riding in a Hansom cab, having been unable to pick up his own Cardinal's train. All this were hypercriticism, but that the name of ALMA TADEMA, R.A., is a public guarantee for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various

... Hugh Ritson hailed a hansom in the Broad Sanctuary, and drove to Hendon. The bar of the Hawk and Heron was full of carriers, carters, road-menders, and farm-laborers, all drinking, and all noisy. But, despite this evidence of a thriving trade, the whole place had a bankrupt appearance as of things going to ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... o'clock Andrew paid his bill hurriedly and ran downstairs. Lord Randolph had come to the window in his greatcoat. His follower waited for him outside. It was possible that he would take a hansom and drive straight to the House, but Andrew had reasons for thinking this unlikely. The rain had somewhat abated. Lord Randolph came out, put up his umbrella, and, glancing at the sky for a moment, set off ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie

... But I've been enough at sea in my time to know this much at least—that no coast in the world is dangerous except by dint of reckless corner-cutting. Captains of great ships behave exactly like two hansom-drivers in the streets of London; they think they can just shave past without grazing; and they DO shave past nine times out of ten. The tenth time they run on the rocks through sheer recklessness, and lose their vessel; and then, the newspapers always ask the same solemn question—in childish good ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... his talk. But at last, both of us becoming somewhat anxious, we called a halt and questioned the driver, who confessed that he had no idea where he was. As good, or ill, luck would have it, there just then emerged from the fog an empty hansom-cab, and finding that its driver knew more than ours, I engaged him as pilot, first to Browning's house, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... this one, by any chance? In a hansom—which I believe you drove away in—one can reach this place from the Marlow Theatre in a quarter ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... home in those fantastic purlieus which Mr. Stevenson's fancy discovered near the Strand. The impossible Young Man with the Cream Tarts, the ghastly revels of the Suicide Club, the Oriental caprices of the Hansom Cabs—who could foresee that the public would taste them! It is true that Mr. Stevenson's imagination made the President of the Club, and the cowardly member, Mr. Malthus, as real as they were terrible. His romance always goes hand in hand with reality; and Mr. Malthus is as much an actual ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... carelessly, taking out a cigarette case and choosing a cigarette with exaggerated precision. When he had lighted it he tipped the porter, and strolled back to the entrance, on the chance of finding the carriage still there, but it had gone, and he called a hansom, paused a moment with his foot on the step, then finally directed the man to drive ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... Bernard Shaw deliberately mystifies them. I cannot imagine what they mean; it seems to me that he deliberately insults them. His language, especially on moral questions, is generally as straight and solid as that of a bargee and far less ornate and symbolic than that of a hansom-cabman. The prosperous English Philistine complains that Mr. Shaw is making a fool of him. Whereas Mr. Shaw is not in the least making a fool of him; Mr. Shaw is, with laborious lucidity, calling him a fool. G. B. S. calls a landlord a thief; and the landlord, instead of denying or resenting ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... is not a happy one. Sitting in the hansom that is taking him all too swiftly to his destination, he dwells with terror on the girl—the undesired ward—who has been thrust upon him. He has quite made up his mind about her. An Australian girl! One knows what to expect there! ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... was sent for a hansom cab, and Sarrasin and his wife were soon spinning on their way to St. James's Park. They had ample time to get there before the appointed moment, and nothing would be done until the appointed moment came. They drove to St. James's Park, and they dismissed ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... streets and roads we traversed in our morning's walk from Victoria are still intact, the storms of rebuilding that have submerged so much of my boyhood's London have passed and left them, and I have revived the impression of them again and again in recent years as I have clattered dinnerward in a hansom or hummed along in a motor cab to some engagement. The main gate still looks out with the same expression of ancient well-proportioned kindliness upon St. Margaret's Close. There are imposing new science laboratories in Chambers Street indeed, but the old playing ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... centuries? How can I denounce a man for skinning cats, if he is only now what I may possibly become in drinking a glass of milk? A splendid and insane Russian sect ran about taking all the cattle out of all the carts. How can I pluck up courage to take the horse out of my hansom-cab, when I do not know whether my evolutionary watch is only a little fast or the cabman's a little slow? Suppose I say to a sweater, "Slavery suited one stage of evolution." And suppose he answers, "And sweating suits this stage of evolution." ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... game was up, flung Blazer away from him, and bolted through the barrier. The Inspector rushed after him; but Blazer, who apparently had not had enough of Mr. Biggleswade's calf, outstripped him, and pinned the fugitive on the very step of a hansom. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... lifted his hat and smiled a basketful of surprised and delighted smiles down at a gentleman who was passing in a hansom. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... happened in the night; it is too awful, and I have to keep my thoughts rigorously away from it. I feel lightheaded and queer, couldn't eat any breakfast, and have twice vomited with blood. While dressing to go out, a hansom rattled up noisily over the cobbles, and a minute later the door opened, and to my great joy in walked the very ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... cabs in London are more comfortable than the hansoms were. But the old hansom was very good for seeing in the streets, as the driver was behind and not in front of you. The four-wheel horse cabs seem very slow to us now, but they carried more luggage than the taxi-cabs can. Some of us think that the old omnibuses and cabs were more ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... much to please a woman in him, (If he please to bestow it so) as ever These eyes yet lookt on. Next, I pittied him, And so would any young wench, o' my Conscience, That ever dream'd, or vow'd her Maydenhead To a yong hansom Man; Then I lov'd him, Extreamely lov'd him, infinitely lov'd him; And yet he had a Cosen, faire as he too. But in my heart was Palamon, and there, Lord, what a coyle he keepes! To heare him Sing in an evening, what a heaven it is! And yet his ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]

... still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab drove up to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. He was a remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached— evidently the man of whom I had heard. He appeared to be in a great hurry, shouted to the cabman to wait, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... being the case, I'm going back with them also to their lodgings in a four-wheeler. Sarah Ann, go and fetch a four-wheeler this instant, and don't stand gaping. Mind, a four-wheeler, girl, and don't bring a hansom on no account near the place. Yes, ladies, it's my duty to go with the poor ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... in a state of suppressed nervous excitement, but it was still too early to begin our vigil, so we remained for an hour or so in his chambers, discussing all the possibilities of the singular business which we had met to solve. At last the roaring stream of hansom cabs and the rush of hurrying feet became lower and more intermittent as the pleasure-seekers passed on their way to their stations or their homes. It was nearly twelve when Mortimer led the way to the lumber-room which overlooked the ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... quietly. It was to be at St. Saviour's, near King's Cross, and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the St. Pancras Hotel. Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were two of us, he put us both into it, and stepped himself into a four-wheeler, which happened to be the only other cab in the street. We got to the church first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited for ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... rumors as to her lodger's identity were thickest and when Kitty's heart had begun to fear that his despondency was returning, his nightly prowls having been resumed, that a hansom cab stopped in front of ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... whether my suspicion was plausible or absurd. I went into the hall, rang the bell, slipped a light-weight coat over my evening dress and put on a hat. When Sanders appeared, I said: "I'm going out for a few minutes—perhaps an hour—if any one should ask." A moment later I was in a hansom and on the way ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... ground as if he had been shot, seized the Captain's hand, and attempted to drag him along. He might as well have tried to drag Vesuvius from its base, but the Captain was willing. A hansom-cab chanced to be in front of them as they dashed into the road, the driver smoking and cool as a cucumber, being used to such incidents. He ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... and me to roam around London at will. Mrs. Jimmie loathes the top of a "'bus" and absolutely draws the line at "The Cheshire Cheese." She lunches at Scott's and dines at the Savoy, while Jimmie and I are never so happy as in the grill-room at the Trocadero or in a hansom, threading the mazes of the City, bound for a plate of beefsteak pie at "The Cheshire Cheese" or on top of a 'bus on Saturday night, going through the Whitechapel region, creepy with horrors of "Jack ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... he took a hansom and went to look for some rooms; he would not return to those he had left on the previous afternoon, for the sympathetic landlord had helped him to pack up the wedding clothes and had admired the wedding gift. Arthur felt that ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... all that as well as if I had heard every word of it," he said, when he had led me helpless into the Hansom cab he came in, and had slammed down the flood-gates in front of us. "You must never think twice of what old women say" (Mrs. Strouss was some twenty years younger than himself); "they always go prating and finding mares'-nests, and then they ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... saved a goodish bit, I should think. Just come home with me now and look at a horse I can let you have cheap. I bought him only a few weeks ago, thinking he'd do for a Hansom, but I was wrong. He's got bone enough for a waggon, but a waggon ain't a Hansom. He ain't got go enough for a Hansom. You see parties as takes Hansoms wants to go like the wind, and he ain't got ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... with me to-morrow at the hotel," said Archibald to Morgan, as he got into a hansom an hour later. "We'll spend the afternoon together. There are some points about my book I want to settle. 'Plain Thoughts of a Practical Thinker!' Splendid title! Morgan, you're indeed a genius. 'An attempt to investigate ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. I've had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom, Watson and I ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... my ambitions is to drive in a hansom cab. Another is to have a latch-key. Both will soon be gratified. I am ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... their hansom and bowled silently down the dry grey road. All June was in flower in the pink pyramids of the chestnut-trees, and was already beginning to bleach the colour out of the long coarse grass in the open spaces of ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... in a car; but the cars were two blocks away. "Kindly permit me to see you safely home," he said. "You have had a terrible fright, and are in no condition to walk." At all events, she was in no condition to rebel, and was glad to sink back into the cushioned corner of the hansom. "I'll have to trouble you for the street and number," said he, apologetically, as he stepped calmly ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... Nancy said. She had tucked the child in a hansom, and they were driving slowly through the lower end of Central Park to restore Sheila's roses before she ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... that way. Then the door was opened, and Lord Fawn was announced. It was not at all unusual with Lord Fawn to call on the widow at this hour. Mount Street is not exactly in the way from the India Office to the House of Lords; but a Hansom cab can make it almost in the way. Of neglect of official duty Lord Fawn was never guilty; but a half hour for private business or for relaxation between one stage of duty and another,—can any Minister grudge so much to an indefatigable ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... Poor Charlie's brow was covered with blood, and as he himself expressed the terrible sensation of "feeling a pistol ball bobbing about in his brain," arrangements were hastily made for having him consigned to relatives. Accordingly his lodgings were sought after and easily found by the excited hansom driver who had taken them ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... a hansom pulled up close to where I was walking, and a friend of Toole's jumped out, and, seizing my hand, he said, "I say, Furniss, you travel about a lot, lecturing and all that kind ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... umbrella, and from under it, the next moment, he saw the Captain waving two fingers at him out of the front of a hansom. When he returned to his hotel he found on his table a letter superscribed in Gordon Wright's hand. ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... My hansom here completely stuck; No chance to catch my train, worse luck! I sit and wonder: Why should the roads be up in May? Who muddles matters in this way, With ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various

... vermicelli to the soup, Minnie and Katty were still turning out jellies and blanc-manges, and Sappy the footman was still cleaning the plate. Mr. Tortoshell was sitting uneasily by the window endeavouring to read "The Times," and young Tom was flying home from the City in a Hansom's cab at the rate ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... and we were safely seated in a "Hansom's Patent," and on our way to Hughes's—one of the politest men of the George Fox stamp we have ever met. Here we found forty or fifty persons, who, like ourselves, were bound for the Peace Congress. The Sturges, the Wighams, the Richardsons, the Allens, the Thomases, and ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... the funniest building I ever saw," he exclaimed. "It looks as if it was built up of sentry-boxes, and Hansom's cabs, and dovecots, and windmills, and pig-sties, and all sorts of other things. It was built, I see, by Ivan the Cruel, and it is said that he was so pleased with its strangeness that he put out the eyes of the unfortunate architect, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... really kept a house to which they should pay special attention. The police had to take the matter up, but they found it difficult to get sufficient evidence to prove their case. Finally, one night, after one of the supper-parties, a hansom cab driver who had been ordered to call for one of the guests arrived at the house drunk and created a scene. It was the opportunity for the police and they laid a ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... walked up and down him on his knees, crying, 'I'll teach you to complain to the justices.' But one or two gentlemanly madmen, who soon found out that I am not one of them, have complained to me that the attendants wash them too much like Hansom cabs, strip them naked, and mop them on the flag-stones, then fling on their clothes without drying them. They say, too, that the meat is tough and often putrid, the bread stale, the butter rancid, the vegetables stinted, since they can't be adulterated. And as for sleep, it is hardly ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... many gas lamps and the dark roofs of Broadway and the Avenue where they crossed a few blocks off, and the bunches of light on the Madison Square Garden, and to the lights on the boats of the East River. From below in the streets came the rattle of hurrying omnibuses and the rush of the hansom cabs. If Mr. Caruthers was surprised at this late visit, he hid it, and came forward to receive his caller as if ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... becoming famous, when the inhabitants of that part of London began to realize that they had a great man in their midst, and grew accustomed to seeing a romantic figure in a cloak and slouch hat hail a hansom and drive off to ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... beyond the usual. Dick took advantage of her coming to excuse himself for a little while. He had promised Dora immediate information concerning his mother's coming, and he was now all eagerness to tell her of the new happiness in his home. He had telephoned for a hansom, and the drive through the Park to the colonel's was quickly accomplished. Soon, the girl he loved was a sharer in his joy over the reunion ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... projected in by the guard, panting and irritable. You know perfectly well how it has happened; he got up too late, spluttered over the hot coffee, chivied the cabman all the way, charged through the porters on the platform, and here he is. Naturally he discovers that he left his waterproof in the hansom; he searches in vain for his pipe; he fumes and frets, and swears he is the most unfortunate wretch on earth. The song birds, the flowers, the fields, the clear atmosphere touch him never a whit, and the chances are that he continues through the livelong ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... a hansom cab westward through Cockspur Street. One, a large individual of a bovine placidity, wore the Queen's uniform, and carried himself with a solid dignity faintly suggestive of a lighthouse. The other, a narrower ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... garden, Mr. Carr stepped into a hansom, and was conveyed to Grafton Street. He found Lord Hartledon knitting ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... brim flattened by use, and huge capacity, looked like an emblem of greater days, and, pulling out an old pair of very thin lavender kid gloves smelling strongly of Russia leather, from habitual proximity to the cigar-case in the pocket of his overcoat, he stepped into a hansom. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... it in a hurry. Ever try to poke up one of them box jugglers? They took their time about it—and me lookin' for trouble every tick of the clock! But I got an O. K. on it after awhile, and for a quarter I hired a wagon helper to drag the bundle out and chuck it into the hansom. Then I climbs in and we made the boat just as the bell rang. She was pullin' out of the slip when Tolliver rushes out about as calm as a bulldog chasin' ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... Oxford Street and so down Regent Street. Once our friends stopped and stared into a shop window, upon which Holmes did the same. An instant afterwards he gave a little cry of satisfaction, and, following the direction of his eager eyes, I saw that a hansom cab with a man inside which had halted on the other side of the street was now proceeding slowly ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle

... the stairs, he felt as though he were just escaped from a wrestling-match. He followed Cuningham into the omnibus with nerves all on edge. He hated the notion, too, of taking an omnibus to go and dine in St. James's Square. But Cuningham's Scotch thriftiness scouted the proposal of a hansom. ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and yet, as he told himself, he hadn't done so badly. Anyhow, there was nothing for it but to wait till Monday. Now he would go home, change his clothes, and get some dinner. He hailed a hansom. ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... upon a casual rencontre with the young gentleman in question, whom we saw descending from a hansom at the steps of the Flag, Pall Mall, I opined that dark thoughts of Hoby had entered into Clive Newcome's mind. Othello-like, he scowled after that unconscious Cassio as the other passed into the club in ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... badinage to express its barren and unsustaining character; but to the English poor chaff is as sustaining as grain. The phrase that leaps to their lips is the ironical phrase. I remember once being driven in a hansom cab down a street that turned out to be a cul de sac, and brought us bang up against a wall. The driver and I simultaneously said something. But I said: "This'll never do!" and he said: "This is all right!" Even in the act of pulling back his horse's nose from a brick wall, that confirmed ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... I think I mentioned, in the heart of the city, and, unless you prefer Shanks's pony, must perforce take a hansom to your hotel, or, if you have much luggage, two hansoms, for four-wheelers are almost unknown. In compensation, the Sydney hansoms are the cleanest and fastest you will ever have the good fortune to come across. Steam ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... Mr. FEARGUS HUME gives us a story much in advance of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. It is better in construction, its character sketches are more life-like, and its literary style is superior—therefore there is every chance of its not being so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various

... off the miles like water, We might carry a royal ransom; And I think of her waiting, waiting, And long for a common hansom. ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... his top-coat, hat and stick; tipping the child from sheer force of habit, he desired a gigantic porter, impressively ornate in hotel livery, to call a hansom. Together they passed out into the night, he and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... the light skipped a man and a girl, so little aware of him that they stopped, laughingly, wrestling for an umbrella, then disappeared, and the street was like a forgotten tomb. A hansom swung by, the hoofbeats sharp and cheerless. The rain dripped. Nothing else. Mr. Wrenn ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... and took a hansom for the ferry,— Larry with me, chaffing away drolly with his old zest. He crossed with me, and as the boat drew out into the river a silence fell upon us,—the silence that is possible only between old friends. As I looked back at the lights of the city, something beyond the sorrow ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... people of our means, a great deal of money in telegrams, and I counted on the receipt of news from Rapallo immediately after the junction of the discoverer with the discovered. The interval seemed an age, but late one day I heard a hansom rattle up to my door with a crash engendered by a hint of liberality. I lived with my heart in my mouth and I bounded to the window—a movement which gave me a view of a young lady erect on the footboard of the vehicle and eagerly looking up at my house. At sight ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... century book, but dad looked like a clown in a circus. One of dad's calves made him look as though he had a milk leg, cause the padding would not stay around where the calf ought to be, but worked around towards his shin. We went to Marlboro House in a hansom cab, and all the way there the driver kept looking down from the hurricane deck, through the scuttle hole, to see if we were there yet, and he must have talked with other cab drivers in sign language about us, for every driver kept along with us, looked at us and laughed, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... hansom, all Teddy's belongings in the shape of luggage being left in the cloak-room at the terminus, and the two jumping in were driven off as rapidly as the crowded state of the streets would allow, to Tower ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson

... the hands of rigorous trustees. The income supported Mr. Hadden in splendour for about three months out of twelve; the rest of the year he passed in retreat among the islands. He was now about a week returned from his eclipse, pervading Sydney in hansom cabs and airing the first bloom of six new suits of clothes; and yet the unaffected creature hailed Carthew in his working jeans and with the damning bundle on his shoulder, as he might have claimed acquaintance ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... said Patty. "It's perfectly proper to go to the circus with your uncle—'specially in vacation. We've got it all planned. I'm to go into town with Waddy. I heard her say she had an appointment at the dentist's—and he'll be at the station with a hansom—" ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... earth with perfect cheerfulness. They made some plans, and after the agony of parting till the next day, each went home to write the other a long letter. In the course of the afternoon Rennes passed through Arlington Street four times in a hansom and twice on foot. Agnes was always at one of the windows innocently observing the weather. He thought her the loveliest thing created. He pitied, with benevolence, all other men, and he spent an hour at his solicitor's office, without begrudging ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... looked like a long riband of polished silver, flecked here and there by the dark arabesques of waving shadows. Far into the distance curved the line of flickering gas-lamps, and outside a little walled-in house stood a solitary hansom, the driver asleep inside. He walked hastily in the direction of Portland Place, now and then looking round, as though he feared that he was being followed. At the corner of Rich Street stood two men, reading a small bill upon a hoarding. An odd feeling of curiosity stirred him, ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... An electric hansom, which had sailed up the street in an eminently respectable manner, had suddenly and without apparent reason begun to act in an altogether disreputable way. It had veered round, rushed over the crossing, and made ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... said Hugh Scarlett to himself, seeing no bars, but half conscious of a cage. "I will get out," he repeated, as his hansom took him swiftly from the house in Portman Square, where he had been dining, towards that other house in Carlton House Terrace, whither his thoughts had travelled on before him, out-distancing the trip-clip-clop, trip-clip-clop ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... explained, "is of no use to me—of no more use than a hansom cab. I have to keep a car in order to slip about quietly. Now in what part of London shall we look for a gambling hell, Mr. Walmsley? I know of eleven. Name your own street—somewhere ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... evening, because she was very particular about my dress, and I remember she sent me upstairs again before we started, because I hadn't got the right pair of shoes on—rather a tight pair—however, I put them on. And there was a hansom outside the hall, and it was our last dance together, and he said, "Shall we sit it out, Miss Bagot?" Well, of course, I was only too glad to, and we sat it out in the hansom, driving all round Surbiton, and what your grandmother would have said I don't know, ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne

... up his impressions as his hansom turned into the Bayswater Road. The day was just beginning to break; the stems of the trees bordering the park were black bars against the pure, colourless light, and their mingling foliage a frayed black ribbon stretched across the sky. One might have conceived the picture the original ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... with shafts of yellow radiance reflected on wet asphalt from the numerous lamps. There was little traffic. An omnibus clattered by, and a tottery cab, both looking rain-soaked. Near the statue of Peel stood a hansom, the forlorn horse crooking his knees and hanging his hopeless head. The Town Hall colonnade sheltered a crowd of people, who were waiting for the rain to stop, that they might spend their Sunday evening, as usual, in rambling about the streets. Within the building, which showed light through ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... said Stafford. He didn't thank Howard for the offer; no thanks were necessary. "The thing is so sudden that I have not made any plans. I suppose there's something I can do to earn my living. I've no brains, but I'm pretty strong. I might drive a hansom cab or an omnibus, better men than I have done worse. Leave me alone, old man, to have a pipe and think of it." Howard lingered for an hour or two, for he felt that though Stafford had dismissed him, he had need of him; and when he had gone Stafford took ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... poet, "I entreat you to have mercy on a compatriot! Permit me, at least, to seek Soho in your company—do not, I implore you, leave me homeless and helpless in a strange land! I notice an eccentric vehicle which instinct whispers is an English 'hansom.' For years I have aspired to drive in an English hansom once. It is in your power to fulfil my dream with effulgence. Will you consent to instruct the acrobat who is performing with a whip, and to take a seat in ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... out of the office-boy. He says nothing, apparently does nothing. But that evening, as you are going home in the Tube, a burly working-man treads heavily on your gouty foot. In Ladbroke Grove a passing hansom splashes you with mud. Reaching home, you find that the cat has been at the cold chicken and the butler has given notice. You do not connect these things, but they are all alike the results of your unjust behaviour to your office-boy in the morning. Or, meeting a ragged little ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse

... many people question whether or not he was the original and the other man the plagiarism. However, there was no longer to be any doubt of it, for his captors had him fast this time; and, presently, we saw him taken off in a hansom, well ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... morning and evening and to do much of my Embassy work at the same disadvantage. I have attempted to solve the difficulty by engaging by the week one of those archaic old horse chaises called fiacres. London has placed a hansom in the British Museum with the other obsolete and historic styles of equipages, but frugal Paris has kept her out-of-date vehicles on exhibition in active use on the boulevards. These conveyances, so recently looked down upon for their slow pace as compared with the speed of taxis, are ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... a great thing for people in our line. But you'll see me much better from the box and I'll send you Gabriel Nash." She got into the hansom her host's servant had fetched for her, and as Nick turned back into his studio after watching her drive away he laughed at the conception that they ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... now dispatched to blow her whistle for a hansom, and almost before we realized it we found ourselves rolling smoothly to the hotel where father was ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... three Curacoas—say yourself, Hoskin, and Burney the ever Great. (Consider this an invitation.) Our boys had got the thing up regardless. There were two huge sows—O, brutes of animals that would have broken down a hansom cab—four smaller pigs, two barrels of beef, and a horror of vegetables and fowls. We sat down between forty and fifty in a big new native house behind the kitchen that you have never seen, and ate and public spoke till all was blue. Then we had about ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Opposite St. George's Hospital he suddenly became aware of Sir James Chide on the other side of the road. At sight of him, Marsham waved his hand, quickening his pace that he might come up with him. Sir James, seeing him, gave him a perfunctory greeting, and suddenly turned aside to hail a hansom, into which he jumped, and was carried ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... an account of Bobbie's heroic sacrifice of the day before; and as Bobbie himself was following in a hansom cab, with the other uncle, it was quite safe to relate the whole story without ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... around apprehensively. There were no reporters yet in sight, and thankful to have escaped notice I paid for my breakfast and left. At the cab-stand I chose the least dilapidated hansom I could find, and giving the driver the address of the Gilmore residence, in the East end, I ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... its own loveliness, and lies upon the sighing and expectant city like the substance of a dream made visible. It has the magic to transmute you to this substance yourself, so that while you dawdle afoot, or whisk by in your hansom, or rumble earthquakingly aloft on your omnibus-top, you are aware of being a part, very dim, very subtile, of the passer's blissful consciousness. It is flattering, but you feel like warning him not to go in-doors, or he will lose you and all the rest of it; for having tried it yourself you know ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... whistles, and a hansom came rattling down the road. The two got into it in silence. Gregory gave through the trap the address of an obscure public-house on the Chiswick bank of the river. The cab whisked itself away again, and in it these two fantastics ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... the house—I went up in a hansom, for I was bareheaded—my mother was giving the biggest kind of a ball. I had no end of trouble trying to sneak ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... began to be troubled. What had I better do? Would there be a hue and cry—"Mysterious Disappearance of an Author," and all that? He had last been seen lunching and dining in my company. Hadn't I better get a hansom and drive straight to Scotland Yard? They would think I was a lunatic. After all, I reassured myself, London was a very large place, and one very dim figure might easily drop out of it unobserved, now especially, in the blinding glare of the near Jubilee. Better ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm

... of suspense and despair, to see Frank Danton's friendly face, and to listen to his friendly voice, commanding as one who had the right. Rose had her hat and shawl on directly, and, with baby in her arms, followed him down stairs. A hansom stood waiting. He helped her in, gave the cabman his orders, took his place beside ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... off on our shopping expedition, she demurred at taking a hansom, although she loves driving in them; but she said 'buses were so much more amusing. "People in 'buses say such funny things," she said, and so they do. The old lady in particular who, when the horse got his leg over the trace without hurting himself ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss

... the shabby throng, found a cab, sprang in and gave his order to the driver. A row of taxicabs stood by the curb. He took an old-fashioned hansom from choice. It seemed to link the present moment of his life to the memory of some wonderful hours he had spent, with Nan by ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... all, closed at this time—a fact indicated by the shutting of one of the halves of the big front door, where a char-woman was sweeping the steps under the board which announced that offices were to be let. I waited nearly a quarter of an hour, and then at last a hansom stopped and deposited Hewitt and another ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... very well; but Lady Tilchester had given me the address of the latest and most fashionable dressmaker, and I got into a hansom and ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... and I did a thing I had never done before, though I had often read of it in the novelettes. I waved my umbrella and I got into a hansom cab. ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit

... explain that, on the morning after the accident, I had taken a hansom to the Devonshire Mansion with the intention of paying a professional visit to Alresca. I was not altogether certain that I ought to regard the case as mine, but I went. Immediately before my hansom, however, there had drawn up another hansom in front ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... don't know how unhappy I am. Thanks, yes, a hansom, please. Mrs. Blunt, are you going to ask Mr. ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... his cruel fiat, I slipped out, hurried down-stairs into the Strand, jumped into a hansom, and was driven at top speed to Hamilton Terrace, bent upon giving instant effect to a scheme I had long ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... began as a labourer, then was a clerk; Drove a hansom in London by way of a "lark;" Enlisted, deserted, and finally fled Abroad, and was thought by his friends to ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... "Take this hansom, drive home, have some breakfast, and get an hour's sleep. It is quite on the cards that we may be afoot to-night again. Stop at a telegraph-office, cabby! We will keep Toby, for he may be of ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle



Words linked to "Hansom" :   equipage, carriage, rig



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