In the brief moment I had to talk to them before I took my post on the ring of defenses, I indicated I was sickened by the methods men employed to live and trade on the river.

No sooner would I turn my head away from the counter before he would address me, at times quite sharply, in order to bring back my attention.

I could consult this personage on any weekday morning, though not before ten o'clock.

The clerk impressed this upon me: that I should not arrive in the hall before ten o'clock.

I've got to take Danny away from Clayton before I lose him altogether.

`` So help me, Crouch, I'd like to kill you where you stand, but, before I do, I'm going to hear you admit killing him.

There had been a good second or two during which my muffler had been blowing out, and now I was certain I'd seen her somewhere before.

The keys were still in it, and I was miles away before I remembered that my clothes and purse and everything were still in the little cabana where I'd changed ''.

It'll probably be at least an hour or two before I can check back with you.

Shortly before nine I drove my jalopy to the street facing the Lake and parked the car in shadows far enough away from the rendezvous corner but near enough to keep the corner in clear view.

In the bedroom before the husband and wife find their way to the bed, the lights go on: `` In dull domestic radiance I watch her staring face, still blind, Start wincing in obedience To dirty waters, counters, pots and pans, Waiting below stairs, in her mind ''.

I came up maybe fifty feet before I knew what was happening ''.

They saw it before I did, even with my binoculars.

My curiosity was sharpened a day or two before the interview by a conversation I had with a well-informed teacher of literature, a Jesuit father, at a conference on religious drama near Paris.

But before I try to diagnose it, I would offer other evidence.

You probably would not remember, since you never seemed to remember even the same moments as I, much less their intensity, one sunny midday on Fifth Avenue when you had set out with me for some final shopping less than a week before the wedding you staged for me with such reluctance at the Farm.

To you, for instance, the word innocence, in this connotation, probably retained its Biblical, or should I say technical sense, and therefore I suppose I must make myself quite clear by saying that I lost -- or rather handed over -- what you would have considered to be my innocence two weeks before I was legally entitled, and in fact by oath required, to hand it over along with what other goods and bads I had.

She helped him with the dishes, then he brought more water in from the spring before it got dark.

Mike kept walking and got within arm's reach before the man became suspicious and straightened from his lax slouch.

And he had a feeling -- thanks to the girl -- that things would get worse before they got better.

He had to make Jess talk, and he had to do it before Stacey Black got curious and came to investigate.

Fleischman with eight was to patrol the Leyte Gulf area, with his main task to get any kamikaze before they got to the ships.

`` According to Rose, he arrived here a couple minutes before nine and spotted Thor in the water, got a hooked pole from the pool-equipment locker and started hauling him out.

And you also got this little spark in your bird-brain that tells you to turn around before you drown yourself.

It was a dinner party, Lewis had been drinking during the afternoon, and long before the party really got under way, he was quite drunk, with the result that the party broke up even before dinner was over.

Her house stood on a rise of ground, and before she got into her car she looked at the houses below.

The two men sat for some time, savoring the pleasure of escape from peril and the relief such escape brings, before they got up and left the hotel, the doctor to go to the conference house and Alex to go to the main post office.

An aircraft with a load of small nuclear weapons could very conceivably be given a mission to suppress all trains operating within a specified geographic area of Russia -- provided that we had used some of our ICBMs to degrade Russia's air defenses before our bombers got there.

Jaggers' iron control over her ( `` she would remove her hands from any dish she put before him, hesitatingly, as if she dreaded his calling her back ) '' ) rests on his having once got her acquitted of a murder charge by cleverly contriving her sleeves at the trial to conceal her strength and by passing off the lacerations on the backs of her hands as the scratches of brambles rather than of human fingernails.

They got it over the side and clambered aboard only a few minutes before their schooner went under.

We've got one other call to make before I meet Alvarez ''.

He drove into the paved space before the garage and got out, slamming the car door.

The Birds got five hits and all three of their runs off Kunkel before Hartman took over in the top of the fourth.

The first incident occurred before the trial got under way when Judge H. Hobart Grooms told the jury panel he had heard reports of jury-tampering efforts.

Mrs. Reese entered 10 past bake-offs before she got into the finals.

Thereupon Hwang Pah said: `` If I knew thou art an Arhat, I would have doubled you up before thou got over there ''!!

A few drops of rain just before midnight, when Sarah Vaughan was in the midst of her first number, scattered the more timid members of the audience briefly, but at this hour and with Sarah on the stand, most of the listeners didn't care whether they got wet.

she got out of the coffee shop before the incident could be repeated.

And you wonder if that is why the little man lost his job and his car and stayed drunk about a year before he straightened out and moved to St. Louis, where he got to be a big unhappy success.

For eleven days they'd done the same thing, leaving the cottage quietly before breakfast, before Esperanza Beach got jammed with tourists and beach balls and show-offy lifeguards.

She had to get away from here before this demoniac possession swallowed up the liquid of her eyes and sank into the fibers of her brain, depriving her of reason and sight.

The wound in his scalp was examined, pronounced healing, and well doctored with simples, before they dished up the victuals.

One of Greg's bombs hung up, and he was miles from the target before he could get rid of it.

Greg had the stick forward and the throttle up before he heard the two `` Rogers ''.

He saw the most action, beat up more badmen with his bare fists, broke up the most gangs and sent more murderers to the gallows than any other U.S. marshal who lived before or after him.

he tells stories of the Thousand and One Nights, and conjures up before us the bazaars of Damascus.

The ingredients of Faulkner's novels and stories are by no means new with him, and most of the problems he takes up have had the attention of authors before him.

We had stopped before a shop window to assess its autumnal display, when you suddenly turned to me, looking up from beneath one of your wrong hats, and with your nervous `` ahem ''!!

When Harold Arlen returned to California in the winter of 1944, it was to take up again a collaboration with Johnny Mercer, begun some years before.

Mama tried to talk to them and keep them quiet while she tidied up the sitting room before the First Family returned.

For Adams had made up his mind before all the facts were available.

Both Willy Brandt's Social Democrats, who gained 22 seats in the new parliament, and the Free Democrats, who picked up 23, will insist on that before they enter the government.

But the Legislature should be granted the opportunity to complete its work before choosing up sides for the race.

Argiento had been trained so rigorously by the Jesuits that Michelangelo was unable to change his habits: up before dawn to scrub the floors, whether they were dirty or not ; ;

Tolek Alterman had returned from the colonies in Palestine and, before the national leadership, exalted the miracles of drying up swamps and irrigating the desert.

It was Giselle, the fille de chambre, come to clean the room, and while she stood before him with ears pricked up and regard all curiosity, explaining her errand, Alex could see from the corner of his eye the doctor doing all he could to calm the displeased bird.

Consider what you can afford to spend and what your goals are before setting up or revamping your employee benefit program.

Finish installing and connecting up your furnace and your water heater before you wall them in.

sometimes he would be up before dawn, clad as a garbage collector and hurling pails into areaways to exasperate us, and thereafter would hurry to the Bronx Zoo to grimace at the lions and press cigar butts against their paws.

( Some suspensions break up before they are near to the direction of shear, and some become asymptotic to it without breakup.