After riding for an hour or so, alone in the woods, thinking up a good lie to tell about where I had been, and what I had been doing, I heard horses neighing, and presently I came upon my regiment, just starting out to hunt me up.
— from How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 by George W. (George Wilbur) Peck

I’ve an idea they’ve a stronger claim on me, but that’s not a point I can urge.
— from The Protector by Harold Bindloss

"If one could be a fly, now, and perch in comfort, upside down, upon the ceiling—" "One would get a vast deal of tobacco-smoke into one's lungs," put in Mrs. Carnby, "and a vast store of unrepeatable anecdotes into one's memory.
— from The Transgression of Andrew Vane: A Novel by Guy Wetmore Carryl

A third time the old mouse came, and then instead of going to the same spot, as I had expected, she ran off in an opposite direction and disappeared among the dry weeds; a fourth was carried to the same place as the third; and in this way they were all removed to a distance of some yards from the nest, and placed in couples, until the last and odd one remained.
— from The Naturalist in La Plata by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson