I had just mightily smote Darryl in a little clearing where he'd been treasure-hunting, and we were having a little laugh over my extreme sneakiness.
— from Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

A lame little old man emerged from behind a hut placed in one corner of a vegetable-garden, and shouted at him.
— from The Diary of a Superfluous Man, and Other Stories by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

No epithet ever fell to a lower level of mutual esteem than "Old Boy!"
— from The Willing Horse: A Novel by Ian Hay

The matter was one in which all present took considerable interest, and a little leaning over might easily have produced the effect which was spoken to.
— from The Most Extraordinary Trial of William Palmer, for the Rugeley Poisonings, which lasted Twelve Days by Anonymous

When I went to take a last look of Miss Elizabeth, I saw that the white rose which I had placed in her hand was gone;—he had taken it."
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 12, October, 1858 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

De Serres was a good farmer—most of his farming operations have not been improved upon; he founded the first experimental farm of which there is record at his home near Pradel and so became the first of a long line of modern experimenters in agriculture.
— from The Pears of New York by U. P. Hedrick

A library like ours must exercise the largest hospitality.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes

At three o’clock the waiting room of the office was full, and a long line of men extended down the stairs.
— from The Man Who Ended War by Hollis Godfrey

The intermediate coast, as also that which extends several leagues to the north of the point, is low and sandy; but at a few miles back it rises to a level land of moderate elevation, and is not ill clothed with small trees.
— from A Voyage to Terra Australis — Volume 1 Undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803, in His Majesty's ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland schooner by Matthew Flinders

The older authorities seemed rather more helpful than the newer ones, and Armitage concluded that the code of the manuscript was one of great antiquity, no doubt handed down through a long line of mystical experimenters.
— from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft