If my "Critics" pages had actually been on the press at the moment your questions came in, I should have telegraphed the publishers to yank off the plates and hold up the edition at my own expense until I should have had time to polish off your interrogations.
— from Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated by Thomas William Lawson

Here they expected splendid shooting, as a great many cock pheasants had already been seen running ahead.
— from A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day by Charles Reade

When Jesus came to give his message contemporaneous polygamy had all but ceased in Palestine.
— from The Bible and Life by Edwin Holt Hughes

We have known them to do clerk’s work for railways in the winter; but all work for men only willing to stick to it for a few months is extremely uncertain, and there can be no doubt that many cricket professionals have a bad time in the winter.
— from Cricket by A. G. (Allan Gibson) Steel

“‘You see,’ continued my cousin, pushing his advantage, ‘by adopting this method you would be able to select your own poor.
— from Novel Notes by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome

It never occurs to them that an honest man could possibly have any business on the street after dark.”
— from The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House by Hildegard G. Frey

He had to choose his future course, and there were many causes pushing him all but irresistibly into an attitude of rebellion.
— from The Story of Ireland by Emily Lawless

"But you smoke," went on Mr. Castlemaine, passing him a box of cigars.
— from The Man Who Rose Again by Joseph Hocking