carpet-beater

The host is smiling, and hob-nobbing, and talking up and down the table; but a prey to secret terrors and anxieties, lest the wines he has brought up from the cellar should prove insufficient; lest a corked bottle should destroy his calculations; or our friend the carpet-beater, by making some BEVUE, should disclose his real quality of greengrocer, and show that he is not the family butler.

The Book of Snobs 2006

Falkenberg played me a mean trick: he came home with a bunch of hazel twigs for a carpet-beater, that Fruen had asked me expressly to cut for her.

Under the Autumn Star 2003

Women have cleaned up things since time began; and if women ever get into politics there will be a cleaning-out of pigeon-holes and forgotten corners, on which the dust of years has fallen, and the sound of the political carpet-beater will be heard in the land.

In Times Like These 1915

Here shall I not have to be alvays ze Baron von Blitzenberg, oldest noble in Bavaria, hereditary carpet-beater to ze Court!

Count Bunker: being a bald yet veracious chronicle containing some further particulars of two gentlemen whose previous careers were touched upon in a tome entitled the Lunatic at Large 1907

He himself had volunteered a large quantity of miscellaneous information: about Bavaria, its customs and its people, more especially the habits and history of the Blitzenberg family; about himself, his parentage and education; all about his family ghost, his official position as hereditary carpet-beater to the Bavarian Court, and many other things equally entertaining and instructive.

The Lunatic at Large 1907

But one day Falkenberg played me a mean trick: he came home with a bunch of hazel twigs for a carpet-beater, that

Wanderers Knut Hamsun 1905

Here shall I not have to be alvays ze Baron von Blitzenberg, oldest noble in Bavaria, hereditary carpet-beater to ze Court!

Count Bunker 1905

He himself had volunteered a large quantity of miscellaneous information: about Bavaria, its customs and its people, more especially the habits and history of the Blitzenberg family; about himself, his parentage and education; all about his family ghost, his official position as hereditary carpet-beater to the Bavarian Court, and many other things equally entertaining and instructive.

The Lunatic At Large 1905

Once married, the German woman has done more than put romance behind her; she has taken a carpet-beater and driven it out of the house.

Three Men on the Bummel 1893

The master directed a brief glance at the second story whence floated the dull sound of the carpet-beater.

The Indian Lily and Other Stories Hermann Sudermann 1892