at one's elbow

"Yes," said I, shortly, and hoping to be rid of him, for to have a babbling guide at one's elbow on occasions of this kind is fatal to intelligent enjoyment.

To have a woman always at one's elbow who sighs like the east wind, and weeps like a cataract, as Gabrielle had taken to do of late, was vastly irritating.

But the fact that the men were unable to speak any language we understood prevented it from becoming irksome, and one was soon able to become nearly oblivious of the clanking sword at one's elbow.

How good that celery should be there at one's elbow.

It is one of those nights when the most distant of sounds would seem to be even at one’s elbow; and now this sound draws nearer and nearer, and, in addition, a word or two in smothered tones.