|
|
|
More "Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Dravot, his thumb on the map. “Up to Jagdallak, Peachey and me know the road. We was there with Roberts’s Army. We’ll have to turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then we get among the hills— fourteen thousand feet—fifteen thousand— it will be cold work there, but it don’t look very ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... fastening his dark basilisk-like eyes on the soldier, gazed a moment, as if to read his soul; then he jerked a thumb backward, over his own shoulder, and said, with ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... silent, spasmodic catching of the breath, but she was still much unnerved, and she approached the bed with obvious unwillingness, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Ste. Marie pointed to an unframed photograph which was fastened to the wall by thumb-tacks, and his outstretched hand shook as he pointed. Beneath them the other man still writhed and tumbled in ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder—so—at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well," he says, "I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... gathered at the station to see the man who had come back to get his sentence. They were a wild, uncouth-looking crowd from the adjacent farms. I could hear them ask, 'Where is he?' 'In there,' another would answer, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to our compartment. In threes and fours they would shuffle into our car and gaze with dull, stupid curiosity upon the prostrate man, as sheep gaze at a dead member of the flock. Dr. Scholtz, keen-eyed and watchful, stood on guard in the doorway. ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... said my father, pressing his finger and thumb on the wound at the back and palm of the ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... well to count the stitches frequently, that you may have them even, allowing 3 for the ribs and 7 plain, whenever you begin the fan, so that there will be 3 fans on each needle. When you have 4 or 5 rounds of fans, begin the thumb by bringing the silk forward, and knitting a stitch, which increases 1; then knit a plain stitch, and increase the same as before. This do every other row, till you have as many as you think enough—say 30 stitches; leave the 30 stitches, and go on with ...
— Exercises in Knitting • Cornelia Mee
... employed to give a soft black effect is to moisten the lobe of the thumb lightly with ink and press it upon the paper. The series of lines of the skin make an impression that can be reproduced by the ordinary line processes. As in the case of spatter work, superfluous ink ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... the spade. Once initiated into one branch of this duty, he had insisted on performing all the others; and it was sometimes a curious spectacle to see the honest fellow, busy about the interior of the building, during service, literally stopping one of his ears with a thumb, with a view, while he acquitted himself of what he conceived to be temporal obligations, to exclude as much heresy as possible. One of his rules was to refuse to commence tolling the bell, until he saw ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... doesn't come"—he paused, and snapped the finger and thumb that hung quiescent at his side—"well and good. I shall have lived. I shall have known what life is meant to be. I shall have been the happiest man ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... breath to us when spared out of sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery now on my mind, was thinking of all the sad business, with only a little girl in the back kitchen come in to muck up the dishes, there appeared a good knock at the garden door, and I knew it for the thumb of the Captain. I locked the young girl up, by knowing what their tongues are, and then I let your father in, and the candle-sight of him made ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... you got some little chap to put his eye close to the shaft, with the hope of seeing Niagara Falls, and set your lips to the hole in the edge, and blew his eye full of pencil-dust. This was mean; and it was also mean to get some unsuspecting child to close the end of an elderwood tube with his thumb, and look hard at you, while you showed him Germany. You did this by pulling a string below the tube, and running a needle into his thumb. My boy discovered Germany in this way long before he had any geographical or political conception ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... held out the lump of sugar between his thumb and finger, and shook it, Stephanie uttered the wild note again, and sprang quickly towards him; then she stopped short, there was a conflict between longing for the sweet morsel and instinctive fear of him; she looked at the sugar, turned her ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... pile of rocks behind us appears almost perpendicular, those green platforms which separate their summits are so many stages by means of which you may reach, through some difficult paths, that cone of hanging and inaccessible rocks, called the Thumb. At the foot of that cone is a stretching slope of ground, covered with lofty trees, and which is so high and steep that it appears like a forest in air, surrounded by tremendous precipices. The clouds, which are attracted round the summit of those ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... now in an attitude of repose, his legs crossed, thumb and forefinger stroking his chin. 'I couldn't very well turn aside to comment on my ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... wife, and sighed, "even if we had only one, and it were quite small, and only as big as a thumb, I should be quite satisfied, and we would still love it with all our hearts." Now it so happened that their wish was granted and a child was given them, but although it was perfect in all its limbs, it was no longer than a thumb. Then said they, "It is as we wished ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... dressed-up baggages with long earrings and a yeller handkercher round her head, a-telling fortunes; coming round the poor, silly gals with her long tongue and sly ways. She went in here, too.' Mr Robins guessed, though he could not see the jerk of the thumb in his direction. 'Mrs Sands told me so herself—the organist's listening was quickened to yet sharper attention—'she says she had quite a job to get rid of her, and thought she were after the spoons belike. But she says as she'd know ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... them lightly some five or six times or more, if great friends, and conclude this pressing of the hand with a sort of jerk, drawing quickly off each other's hand. In taking hold of the hand of your friend, you fit your thumb in the circle formed by his thumb and fingers, and every time you press his hand, and he presses yours, you separate the ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... like a wire, and serves as a handle to the bunch. Thus prepared, they are used as symbols of the Eatuas, or divinities, in all their religious ceremonies. I have often seen them hold one of these bunches, and sometimes only two or three feathers, between the fore finger and thumb, and say a prayer, not one word of which I could ever understand. Whoever comes to this island, will do well to provide himself with red feathers, the finest and smallest that are to be got. He must also have a good stock of axes, and hatchets, spike- nails, files, knives, looking-glasses, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... most interesting men.... Of these outstanding figures there are full length portraits—biographies, indeed, in ample detail strung on a long thread of politics, while very many minor characters have thumb-nail sketches. Few of the good anecdotes available, it would seem, have escaped Mr. Alexander, and good stories do not suffer at his hands."—The New ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... past fifty years of age, short and puffy in person, with a countenance which expresses very obviously the imbecility of his mind. His right hand is garnished with an extra diminutive thumb, the natural member being crooked and distorted. His mind, indexed by his face, seems to be a chaos of confusion; without acuteness, without dignity, and without good sense. He can neither read nor write; is guided by the last speaker; and his advisers, as might ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... said smartly, 'go and prepare two hundred pieces of cord, each about one foot long, and to the end of each piece tie a small chip of wood as long as the first joint of thy thumb, and about the size of a goose quill. Smear these pieces of wood over with pitch, and have the whole in ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... of my three longest fingers, my thumb and little finger not having been ordained by nature to meet the cordial grasp of men of this stamp, and having repeated his good-bye, he stalked out of the room in conscious dignity ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... stout and short, the muzzle sharper than that of the beaver, and the whiskers very long and stiff. There are, as in the beaver, two incisor teeth, and eight molar, above and below—twenty teeth in all. The limbs are short. The fore feet have each five fingers not webbed, the thumb being very small: the hind feet have the same number of toes; the great toe and three next toes being joined by a web which extends to their ends, and the little toe being free, but edged with a membrane on its inner side. The nails are compressed, long, crooked, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... body for the control of public building; and they came East to approve my statue, or rather the clay sketch for it. They were very solemn, and one, himself a sculptor, a graduate of the Beaux Arts, ran a suggestive thumb over Simon and did incredible damage. But, after a great deal of hesitation, and a description from the sculptor of what he thought excellently appropriate for such magnificence, they accepted my study. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the farm hands laughed and pointed with his thumb to the waiting-room. Uncle Jimpson tiptoed to the window and peered in. All that he could see was the back of a very imposing lady and the top of a large ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... the young men had a rag tied round his thumb, I asked him if he had hurt his hand. He replied that when he dived for the turtle it caught him by the thumb, and if his friends hadn't gone to his aid he might have drowned. He told it as though it would have been a great joke on him. We were all pretty well acquainted ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... 'The Person of the size of a thumb stands in the middle of the Self, as lord of the past and the future, and henceforward fears no more'; 'That Person of the size of a thumb is like a light without smoke,' &c. (Ka. Up. II, 4, 1; 13). And 'The Person not larger than a thumb, the inner Self, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... Prompt and Expert Medical Advice.—The recognition of syphilis in the primary stage does not follow any rule of thumb, and is as much an affair for expert judgment as a strictly engineering or legal problem. In the great majority of cases a correct decision of the matter can be reached in the primary stage by careful study and examination, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... listening to the reverberation of its own eloquence, the brand-new copy of the second edition of "The Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, with Notes and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper, 'C' Company, Second Regiment K.V." The colonel, with his thumb in the book, pokes the fire in the stove, and sits down again to drink his joy unalloyed. Watts is working on a saddle, but his arms and his hands are not what they were in the old days when his saddlery won first prize year after year at the Kansas City Fair. So he puffs and fusses ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... necessary. Fold a linen handkerchief, dip it in cold water, and bind it over the eyes at night on retiring, and you will experience relief. Pain in the eyeballs is also relieved, by gently rubbing the finger and thumb over the lids towards the nose. This was published some years since, and I have known it give relief and strengthen ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... the voice that'll wake 'em up in Congress." I felt just like the old feller in the Bible. The sperrit of prophecy was on me. And Jim he agreed with me. Jim's got the Shawnee organization right under his thumb, same as—'tween you and me—I've got H——. McGubbin's out and out for Holloway. "Holloway and Reform!" That's our cry this year. I seen Potter James and old Pete Whitehead over to Andrewville yesterday, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... waited until the strange trio entered the elevator and then sauntered downstairs, his hands in his pockets, his heart as light as air. Unconsciously he jingled the coins. A broad smile came over his face as he drew forth a certain piece. Holding it between his thumb ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of a Norman peasant boy. But they were also days of something worse to him—of effort misdirected, and of constant struggling against a system for which he was not fitted. In fact, Millet was an original genius, whereas the teachers at the School of Fine Arts were careful and methodical rule-of-thumb martinets. They wished to train Millet into the ordinary pattern, which he could not follow; and in the end, he left the school, and attached himself to the studio of Paul Delaroche, then the greatest painter of historical pictures in all Paris. But even Delaroche, ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... ordinary dinner-knife. Of course, every oyster did not produce a pearl; in fact, I have opened as many as a hundred consecutive shells without finding a single pearl. The gems are hidden away in the fleshy part of the oyster, and have to be removed by pressure of the thumb. The empty shells are then thrown in a heap on one side, and afterwards carefully stowed away in the hold, as they constitute a valuable cargo in themselves, being worth—at that time, at any rate (1864)—from ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... undertake that devilish mission, the monk would have instantly suspected me of double dealing, and sooner or later I should have met with an untimely end, as, alas! so many others had done. So completely had he placed me beneath his thumb that I was compelled to act as he dictated, in order to save my own life, for, as I have already explained, the "holy" man held the lives of those who displeased ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... doublet, but to the man within. "A trader!" he said curtly. "A trader carrying contraband brandy. A good commandant would send you back where you belong. No, no, monsieur, wait! I am not threatening you. Though you know as well as I that the thumb-screws are rather convenient to my hand should I care to use them. But there should be no necessity for that. Montlivet, I hardly understand your reluctance in the matter of this Englishman. We should be one in this affair, whatever our private concerns. Even Black Gown and I—and ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... crucifix; then she stretched forward her neck as one who is athirst, and gluing her lips to the body of the Man-God, she pressed upon it with all her expiring strength the fullest kiss of love that she had ever given. Then he recited the Misereatur and the Indulgentiam, dipped his right thumb in the oil and began to give extreme unction. First, upon the eyes, that had so coveted all worldly pomp; then upon the nostrils, that had been greedy of the warm breeze and amorous odours; then upon the mouth that had uttered lies, that had been curled with pride and ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... immemorial tombs, be not their greatest charm. We saw the toilet-case of an Etruscan lady,—that is to say, a modern imitation of it,—with her rings for summer and winter, and for every day of the week, and for thumb and fingers; her ivory comb; her bracelets; and more knick-knacks than I can half remember. Splendid things of our own time were likewise shown us; a necklace of diamonds worth eighteen thousand scudi, together with emeralds and opals and great pearls. ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... him with all due emphasis. "Just like all of the rest of your blundering sex. If the good Lord had stopped with the job of making Adam, his whole creation wouldn't have been worth the snap of my thumb and finger." ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... "There, then, is my thumb, young braggart," exclaimed Sir Gideon, "that I winna hinder ye in your choice; for to-morrow ye shall be exalted as Haman was; and let those ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... Torquay; another is Daddy's Hole. The Devil long hindered the building of Buckfastleigh Church, which stands on the top of a steep hill. A stone, at about the distance of a mile, has the marks of his finger and thumb. The stone circles, &c. on Dartmoor, are said to have been made "when there were wolves on the hills, and winged serpents in the low lands." On the side of Belstone Tor, near Oakhampton, is a small grave circle called "Nine Stones." It is said to ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... has introduced in his heaven no such angels as those; though he has plenty that scorn and denounce.) Lope de Vega, though a poet, was an officer of the Inquisition, and joined the famous Armada that was coming to thumb-screw and roast us into his views of Christian meekness. Whether the author of the story of Paulo and Francesca could have carried the Dominican theories into practice, had he been the banisher ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... Stanley, grinning foolishly. "I am your cousin James, but not so much of a cousin that I cannot be more than cousin, heh?" He laughed boisterously, and winking at Tod, thrust his thumb into that worthy's ribs. "Say, Tod, something more than cousin; that's ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... one of them took a purse out of his bosom and showed it to Sancho, by which he comprehended they were asking for money, and putting his thumb to his throat and spreading his hand upwards he gave them to understand that he had not the sign of a coin about him, and urging Dapple forward he broke through them. But as he was passing, one of them who had been examining him very ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... must prepare To seek at once their native air. The King as heretofore, we swear, Shall be beneath our thumb— ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... and killed three policemen in the process. When they had sated their anger a little and the traitor had lost most of his clothes and the thumb of his right hand, they dragged him to the junction where the Danube meets the Sava and held him under the gray waters with long poles, as if he was some ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... ranged from 40 to 70, and were a cheery crew, mainly from Wales. Their notions of military discipline were, as may be imagined, singular, and it is credibly reported that on one occasion, when General Fanshawe rebuked a navvy for not saluting him, the offender beckoned with his thumb towards a pal and exclaimed, ''Ere, Bill, come and 'ave a ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... jerk. In a young chicken, small feathers, commonly called pin feathers, are apt to remain in the skin after plucking. These may be pulled out by pinching each with the point of a knife pressed against the thumb and then ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... attire of red sashes and strings, this true patriot wore a long red tunic edged with blue, and had his head tied up in the regulation bonnet rouge of the French Revolution. Round his waist he had also girded on a blue cartridge-belt of cloth, with great thick Martini bullets jammed into the thumb holes. This we thought very curious at the time, as the Boxers were supposed to laugh at firearms. Elated by this little affair, we pushed on, and came upon other men working round our lines in small bands, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... made his way out of the paddock Garrison carefully tilted his bag of Durham into the curved rice-paper held between nicotine-stained finger and thumb, then deftly rolled his "smoke" with the thumb and forefinger, while tying the bag with practised right hand and even white teeth. Once his reputation had been ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... A cubit is the space from the point of the elbow to that of the little finger: a span is the space one can stretch over with the thumb ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, Pans, faunes, sylvans, Kitt-with-the-candlestick, tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, giants, imps, calcars, conjurers, nymphs, changelings, incubus, Robin Goodfellow, the spoorn, the man-in-the-oak, the hellwain, the fire-drake, the puckle, Tom Thumb, Hobgoblin, Tom Tumbler, Boneless, and such other bugbears, that we are afraid of our own shadows, insomuch that some never fear the devil but on a dark night; and then a polled sheep is a perilous beast, and many times ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... these he conceals in the palm of the hand by which he lifts the cup. The handle of the cup can be grasped between the outstretched fingers—(first and second)—and the ball is securely held by the muscle at the ball of the thumb. By bending the first and second fingers that hold the cup, its lip is brought in close proximity to the secreted ball. By a sharp or jerky movement forward to place the cup on the ground, and at the same time releasing ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... as green as sea water, at other times they are grey or nearly grey, most often they are hazel green. And your feet are like hands, and your ankle—see, I can span it between forefinger and thumb.... Your hair is faint, like flowers. Your throat is too thick, you have the real singer's throat; thousands of pounds lie hidden in that whiteness, which is mine—the whiteness, not ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... gentlest manner possible. It is bad manners to point at all, but, if it is absolutely necessary to do so, the forefinger is never employed, but the person or object is indicated, in a sort of shamefaced way, with the thumb. It is impolite to bare a weapon in public, and Europeans often show their ignorance of native etiquette by asking a Malay visitor to let them examine the blade of the kris he is wearing. It is not considered polite to enquire ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... the spike-like racemes contain more bright pink buds and shining seeds than flowers. Familiarity alone breeds contempt for this plant, that certainly possesses much beauty. The troublesome and wide-ranging weed called lady's thumb ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... moved to the window, put forth my hand to open the casement, and thrust it through the pane. The blood spurted from my wrist; and with an instantaneous quietude and command of myself, I pressed my thumb on the little leaping fountain, and reflected what to do. In that empty room there was nothing to my purpose; I felt, besides, that I required assistance. There shot into my mind a hope that Olalla herself might be my helper, and ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... blood in his veins. The fowler hastens to the slaughter. With his thumb, he stifles the beating of the captives' hearts, staves in their skulls. The little birds, so many piteous heads of game, will go to market, strung in dozens on a wire passed ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... care, even until this day. I have said that no man could read the inscriptions on the rings: they were all the same—the three as like as the leaves of a trefoil. They were all large enough for the largest man's thumb, and made of the purest crown gold: the shield was of a circular form, bearing in the centre the figure of a Knight Templar in full armour, with spur and shield, keeping watch before the Temple at Jerusalem; but what the characters ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... burst into a laugh. La Teuse, in the distance, threatened them with her broom. At the altar, Abbe Mouret was taking the sacrament. As he went from the Epistle side towards Vincent, so that the water of ablution might be poured upon his thumb and fore-finger, Lisa said more softly: 'It's nearly over. He will begin to ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... sketched him as he sat to-day on a bit of Spiraea which I brought in for him. When absorbed in reflection, he sits with his bill straight up in the air, as I have drawn him. Mr. A—— reads Macaulay to us, and you should see the wise air with which, perched on Jenny's thumb, he cocked his head now one side and then the other, apparently listening with most critical attention. His confidence in us seems unbounded; he lets us stroke his head, smooth his feathers, without a flutter; and is never better pleased than sitting, as he has been ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... have consistently advocated the doctrine of plunder. The law-abiding men of Belfast will never submit to the rule of law-breakers, many of whom have expiated their offences in the convict's cell. This debt-paying community will not consent to be under the thumb of men whose most successful doctrine has been the repudiation of legal contracts. The famous merchants and manufacturers of the true capital of Ireland decline to place their future fortunes in the hands of the unscrupulous and beggarly adventurers ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... ship the crew for the Golden Bough that night! That meant he needed sailors. And every man who was in debt to the Swede, or in any way under his thumb (and I suspect every man Jack of them was under his thumb in some fashion or other), quaked in his boots, and thought, "Will the Swede choose me?" For they knew ships, those men, and they knew the Golden Bough. Some of them ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... from their juice, strain it, wash the oysters, and put them back in. Put them in a saucepan with a little salt,—about half a teaspoonful to a pint of oysters,—and a little pepper, and a piece of butter as large as the end of your thumb. Let them simmer till the edges curl, just as before, and put them on squares ...
— A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl • Caroline French Benton
... and her eyes lingered upon his empty coat-sleeve. Lifting it distastefully between finger and thumb, she glanced up at him with a droop of her ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... beginning, and was now well advanced in middle age. One result of Pixie's sojourn in Paris had been an acquired faculty for making the best of herself: she put on her clothes with care, she wore them "with an air," she dressed her hair with neat precision, and then with a finger and thumb gave a tweak here, a pat there, which imparted to the final effect something piquant and attractive. To-day it appeared as if that transforming touch had been forgotten, and Bridgie, looking on, felt that pang of distress which all motherly hearts experience when ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... that morning she had carefully rebandaged his crushed thumb, which was not yet healed. Then she had gone away, as she assured him, for only a few hours. Now the sun was already high in the heavens, yet she did not return, though it was long past the time for the bandages to be renewed, and the drops to be given which sustained the life of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... microphone in the tip of his thumb picked up the nearly inaudible sounds; the speaker in his middle finger vibrated against his skull and brought him the answer ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... see?' said the Bishop, holding it out between his finger and thumb in Swithin's face. 'A bracelet,—a coral bracelet. I found the wanton object on the bed in your cabin! And of the sex of the owner there can be no doubt. More than that, she was concealed behind the curtains, for I saw them move.' In the decision ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... like to stay longer, Miss Sheldon, but I know you are very busy." Patience rose at last to go, Grace following her example. "Now that I have come to headquarters, been identified, had my thumb marks registered and become a unit in this great and glorious organization," went on the tall girl calmly, "I shall feel free to go forth and replace Mrs. Elwood's demolished china. I should like to put the new set on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... move on again in that remarkable pas de flexion that is so oddly tireless. It is a difference of method; probably the best thing for men who are Gallic, temperamental. A more lethargic army is better governed probably by rule of thumb. ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Strikes and Balls that may be called. The illustration, which represents the exact size of the Indicator, gives a good idea of its construction and mode of handling. It can be easily operated by the thumb or finger while held in the palm of the hand. It has been highly recommended by all League and Association umpires ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... her, his eyes averted. Hugh experimentally took his thumb. He looked down at the baby seriously. He burst out, "All right. I'll do it. I'll stay here one year. Save. Not spend so much money on clothes. And then I'll go East, to art-school. Work on the side-tailor shop, dressmaker's. I'll learn ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... map greased," the pop-eyed youth explained. Taking a pasteboard box from his pocket, he removed a heroin tablet therefrom and crushed it; the powder he held in the indentation between the base of his closed thumb and first finger, known as "the thimble"; then, with a quick inhalation, he drew the drug up his nostrils. "Have an angel?" he inquired, ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... thumb he points through the twilight at that sort of indelible darkness which makes the multitude, "Them others, it's not the same with them. There's those that want to change everything and keep going on that ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... was this Sancho, and his contorted face, with the missing eye covered by a black patch, worked demoniacally in the gathering darkness with each leaping flame of the ignited torches. The hand that clutched the knife was a thing of horror; two fingers and half the thumb remained from some drunken brawl to serve the Spaniard in future play for work or debauch; and the man, crouching low over his stone, made a picture of incarnate hate that had ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... like o' thee might do, for lustier fighter and mightier dwarf never was. Thus, but for thy witch-like witcheries, the which, Witch, witch do prove thee, but for this and the power and potency of thy spells, now might he crack out thy life 'twixt finger and thumb—" ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... merry with their children!" "What you say is very true," said the wife, sighing, and turning her wheel; "how happy should I be if I had but one child! and if it were ever so small, nay, if it were no bigger than my thumb, I should be very happy, and love it dearly." Now it came to pass that this good woman's wish was fulfilled just as she desired; for, some time afterwards, she had a little boy, who was quite healthy ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... another actor. In the foolish fashion of the day they fought a duel over it, and Ben killed the other man. For this he was seized and put in prison, and just escaped being hanged. He was left off only with the loss of all his goods and a brand on the left thumb. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... ought to be achromatic, i. e. consisting of the usual two pieces of crown and flint glass, that its curves are the most recommended, and that it is free from bubbles: to ascertain the latter, hold the lens between the finger and thumb of the right hand, much as an egg-merchant examines an egg before a strong gas flame, and a little to the right of it; this reveals every bubble, however small, and another kind of texture like minute gossamer threads. If these are too abundant, it should not be chosen; although the best ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... exaggerated reverence for the printed page. He was inclined to set Mallinson on a pinnacle, and scourge himself at the foot of it for his earlier distrust of him. He opened the book again at the beginning, and let the pages slip across beneath his thumb from cover to cover; 413 was marked on the top corner of the last; 413 pages actually written and printed and published; all consecutive too; something new on each page. He ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... truth-seeking, useless under the Pax Romana, became much worse than useless—perilous, that is, to life and limb. So quickly do we forget past torments, that some of us continue to yearn for those picturesque days of burnings and thumb-screwings. ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... a long cloud and stared at the fire; at the smoke mounting and the grey ash dropping; at David Faed dealing the cards and licking his thumb between each. Long Ede shifted from one cramped elbow to another and pushed his Bible nearer the blaze, murmuring, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... away," answered the boy, pointing with his thumb toward Indian Head. "The doctor said you would know it was all right by this here," he added, unbuttoning his coat and taking out the doctor's well remembered cane. "An' he don't want none of the ladies to come. ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... caps looking very comical on the top of their shambling steeds. Most of the caravans were in charge of Chinese, and they thronged about us if a chance offered to inspect the strange trap; especially the light spider wheels aroused their interest. They tried to lift them, measured the rim with thumb and finger, investigated the springs, their alert curiosity showing an intelligence that I missed in the Mongols, to whom we were just a sort of travelling circus, honours being easy between the buggy, ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... was listening in the dingiest of all the offices on the ground floor of a big building on the side away from the street—a man in a drab silk suit, who twisted a leather watch-guard around his thumb and untwisted it incessantly. There was a telephone beside him, and a fair-sized pile of telegraph forms, but beyond that not much to show what his particular business might be. He did not look aggressive, but he seemed nervous, for he jumped perceptibly when the telephone-bell ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... her seat with an affected yawn and stretch. In speaking she looked at her mother, and not at the painter to whom she had been sitting for nearly two hours. The young man in question stood embarrassed and silent, his palette on his thumb, brush and mahlstick suspended. His eyes were cast down: a flush had risen in his cheek. Miss Bella's manner was not sweet; she wished evidently to slight somebody, and the painter could not flatter himself that the somebody was Mrs. Morrison, the ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... moments of great anxiety, for instance, Cupples—it is very moist. It leaves a mark on any cold smooth surface it may touch. That bowl was moved by somebody with a rather moist hand quite lately.' He sprinkled the powder again. 'Here on the other side, you see, is the thumb-mark very good impressions all of them.' He spoke without raising his voice, but Mr Cupples could perceive that he was ablaze with excitement as he stared at the faint grey marks. 'This one should be the index finger. I need not tell ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... collapsed, Palus would leap back from him, sheath his sword, and saw the air with his empty left hand, fingers extended and pressed together, thumb flat against the crack between the roots of the index finger and big finger, twisting his hand about and varying the angle at which he sawed the air, so that all might see that he wished his fallen adversary ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Varronius, balanced it a moment, discarded it and chose another, feeling its point with his thumb. There was a squeak of pulleys as they loosed a leopard near the end of the arena. He charged the animal, leaping from foot to foot. He made prodigious leaps; there was no guessing which way he would jump next. He was not like a human being. The ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... quick, uncalculated movements the grace of a wild thing. George, in spite of his solid good qualities, possessed the mistaken playfulness of the innately vulgar. He advanced, the spider now held between his thumb and forefinger, a little nearer to her—a little nearer yet. There is a type of bucolic mind to which the causeless, palpitating fear of a woman is an ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... letting it escape. Trouble at such times he welcomes. A broken boot-lace, or a shirt without a button, is to him then as water in the desert. An only collar-stud that will disappear as if by magic from between his thumb and finger and vanish apparently into thin air is a piece of good fortune sent on these occasions only to those whom the gods love. By the time he has waddled on his hands and knees twice round the room, broken the boot-jack ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... struck dead with some sudden disorder," was a "great man, short of stature, fat," and waddled as he walked. He was "usually drawn at the top of his own bills, sitting in his arm-chair, holding a little bottle between his finger and thumb, and surrounded with rotten teeth, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... later he breathed his last. And I had clearly seen, for I sat beside him, how with his thumb he opened the seal of the ring he wore on his little finger, how he shook a white powder therefrom into the cup standing before him, how he stirred it slowly till it dissolved, and then sipped it up little by little; but I could not stay ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... will you stay for a little minute or two till she comes back again? Curly's gone for the doctor because Ph[oe]be's done something to one of her bones; and Janetta's tying up Julian's thumb because it's ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Home Rule controversy was emphasised Englishmen asked what sort of persecution Irish Protestants had to fear from a Parliament in Dublin, and appeared to think all such fear illusory unless evidence could be adduced that the Holy Office was to be set up at Maynooth, equipped with faggot and thumb-screw. Of persecution of that sort there never has been, of course, any apprehension in modern times. Individual Catholics and Protestants live side by side in Ireland with fully as much amity as elsewhere, but whereas the Catholic ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it, at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently appropriated with great refinement of manner,—taking it between her thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get out ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... such coincidence possible—besides"—Monsieur Bertillon took up a powerful magnifying glass—"look at these characteristic details!... Just look at the lines of the thumb, all out of shape!... The presentment of the thumb itself is not normal either; it denotes habitual movement in a certain direction: it is the thumb of a painter, of a potter!... Oh, it is all as clear as daylight—believe me—there ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... and if they weren't frightened if they had to pass through the wood, which by this time the train was running along the edge of. Could this be Red Riding Hood's wood, perhaps? Baby shuddered as this idea came into his mind. Or it might be the wood that Hop-o'-my-thumb and his six brothers had to make their way through, where the birds would pick the crumbs they dropped to show the path. It would be very "dedful" for seven little boys to be lost in a wood like that, and still worse for ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... she wore short frocks, and used to go with John to see the turkeys fed, and be so scared when they gobbled and strutted with rage at her scarlet bombazette;—how they used to pick up frozen apples and thaw them in the dish-kettle; how she pounded her thumb, cracking butternuts with a flat-iron, and John kissed it to make it well,—only it didn't! And then how they slid down-hill before church, and sat a long two hours thereafter in the square pew, smelling of "meetin'-seed," and dinted with the kicks of weary boys ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... York captain stood looking on. The New York man had tilted himself against a post and stood there holding one arm around it, supporting himself. He waved the other hand foolishly in time to the music, now and then snapping his thumb and finger. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... cool as springwater. Doak rubbed the beaded moisture with a thumb. "Pretty town," he ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... vital spirits, and appareled himself according to the season; but willingly he would wear a great long gown of thick frieze, lined with fox fur. Afterward he combed his head with the German comb, which is the four fingers and the thumb; for his preceptors said that to comb himself otherwise, to wash and make himself neat was to lose time in this world. Then to suppress the dew and bad air, he breakfasted on fair fried tripe, fair grilled meats, fair hams, fair hashed capon, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Uh—I'm going to see if they'll let me have a double compartment with some gym apparatus in it." He shifted his weight to the other foot and hung a thumb nervously in his belt, unable to keep ...
— DP • Arthur Dekker Savage
... raise storms and cause much damage to the shipping. The great anniversary of these storm-spirits is St. Peter's Day. The John Dory is St. Peter's fish, and it is said that the spots on each side of its mouth are the marks of the apostle's thumb and forefinger. It was called 'janitore,' or doorkeeper, because in its mouth was found the penny with which the temple-tax was paid. Now, St. Peter also was the doorkeeper of heaven, and from janitore to John Dory ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches success. For performance Nature has no mercy, and sacrifices the performer to get it done,—makes a dropsy or a tympany of him. If she wants a thumb, she makes one at the cost of arms and legs, and any excess of power in one part is usually paid for at once by some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home; He was perfumed like a milliner, And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose and took ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... to his own injuries, he felt all his teeth gently with thumb and finger, as if to try whether they ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... about five feet high light chestnut coller, smart active boy, and swagers in his walk. Susan is about 35 years old, dark chesnut coller and stout built, speaks rather slow and has with her four children, three boys and one girl—the girl has a thumb or finger on her left hand (part of it) cut off, the children are from 9 months to 8 years old. (the youngest a boy 9 months and the oldest whose name is Lloyd is about 8 years old) The husband of Susan (Joe Viney) started off with her, he is a slave, belonging ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... his eyebrows, jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and whispered—"I hear as how two Papishers slept ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... inch is equivalent to the distance across a twenty-five-cent piece, and a yard is from nose to thumb, as far as you can reach. Needlework is good for all of us; it rests and calms the mind. You can think peacefully over all the worries of Europe whilst you are stitching. Sewing generally solves all the toughest ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... "the original monument" and make a new monument in Jacobean style. He was straitly ordered to "repair and beautify the original monument"; he did repair it, and repainted the colours. That is all. I do not quote what Halliwell-Phillipps tells us {183a} about the repairing of the forefinger and thumb of the right hand, and the pen; work which, he says, had to be renewed by William Roberts of Oxford in 1790. He gives no authority, and Baconians may say that he was hoaxed, or "lied ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... congratulated myself not a little on the success of my scheme, for I knew that once in the water I should be safe, and could rejoin Jack and Peterkin in the cave. But my hopes were suddenly blasted by the captain crying out, "Hold on, lads, hold on! We'll give him a taste of the thumb-screws before throwing him to the sharks. Away with him into the boat. Look alive! the breeze ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... drew a bright bunch of keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and finger up and down it with a placid smile while she looked at the ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous
... was about fifty years old when he went to Paphlagonia, and visited a false oracle to detect the tricks of an Alexander who made profit out of it, and who professed to have a daughter by the Moon. When the impostor offered Lucian his hand to kiss, Lucian bit his thumb; he also intervened to the destruction of a profitable marriage for the daughter of the Moon. Alexander lent Lucian a vessel of his own for the voyage onward, and gave instructions to the sailors that they were ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... his arm, and run down-stairs with him; and she very graciously received and was immensely entertained with the distinguished young American, who should have been the Alexander of that Bucephalus—General Tom Thumb. This little lusus naturae, under the masterly management of Mr. Barnum, had made a great sensation in London—which, after the Queen had summoned him two or three times to Windsor, grew into a ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... figure from head to foot with quick and eager scrutiny. Spying the little volume of Keats on the grass where it had dropped from the slumberer's relaxed hand, he took it up gingerly, turning over its pages with grimy thumb and finger. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Osmund catch thee carrying so much as a thumb-nail of Sir William's carcase, he 'll wring thy neck as wry as the chapel weathercock. My lady goes nigh crazed with his ill humours. I warrant thee, Sir William's ghost gaily snuffs up the sport. I have watched him up and down the old stairs, and once i' the chapel; and he told me"—whispering ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... observed some odd-looking black lumps on the top of some tall stalks of grass, which rose above the level of the surrounding edges. I was tempted by curiosity to examine one of them. It was about the size of my thumb; and as I held it it broke, when what was my surprise to see emerge from it a whole army of ants, which began to attack me furiously! I brushed them quickly off, though their bite was not particularly severe. On examining others of the black lumps, I found ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... "That trace is a good deal thicker than what you use in England. I'll see if I can get him. Keep your thumb on the reel." ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... drop of sunlight the size of my thumb," said the priest, holding up his hand, "is worth more than mines of gold. With one such drop," he continued, turning to Ali 20 Hafed, "you could buy many farms like yours; with a handful you could buy a province; and ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... tempt the worldly-minded husband. To get a high idea of the natural attractions of Wilmington, therefore, read The Wandering Heir, thus advertised gratuitously. Wilmington lies, says the author of Peg Woffington, "between the finger and thumb of two rivers," and also upon the broad palm of the Delaware. The two minor streams which embrace it are entirely different in character: one is a picturesque torrent, named by the Dutch Brand-wijn (Brandywine), from the circumstance of a ship loaded with brandy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... was all brought out in sneers, and the latter in snuff-boxes. His whole mind could have been put into one of these. He had a splendid collection of them, and was famous for the grace with which he opened the lid of his box with the thumb of the hand that carried it, while he delicately took his pinch with two fingers of the other. This and his bow were his chief acquirements, and his reputation for manners was based on the distinction of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... conventionary was the first to break it. He raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumb and his forefinger, as one does mechanically when one interrogates and judges, and appealed to the Bishop with a gaze full of all the forces of the death agony. It ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... could not understand it. Seeing Sir Twickenham, however, in a leave-taking attitude, she uttered an easy "Oh!" to herself, and diligently recommenced spying at ports and harbours, and following the walnut thumb of Baynes on the map. All seemed to be perfectly correct in the arrangements. To go to London was Wilfrid's thought; and the rest were almost as much occupied with their own ideas. Captain Gambier received their semi-ironical congratulations and condolences ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pistols. He loaded them with great care, adjusting the caps by pressing them lightly to the nipple with his thumb. That done, he lighted a cigar, and for half an hour the muffled beat of his regular tread sounded on the carpet of the gallery. He finished his cigar, paused a moment in deep thought, and then entered the adjoining room, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... on the new Underground Railway; and saw the wonders of the Crystal Palace, especially on fireworks night. They told us of their visit to the Great Eastern, what a gigantic ship it was, what a marvel, and described its every feature. They talked of General Tom Thumb, of Blondin, of Pepper's Ghost, of the Christy Minstrels. Nowadays, a father will return from London and not even mention the Tubes to his children. Why should he? They know all about them and are surprised at nothing. The picture books and the cinemas ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... forward, craning his neck. He drew back, a look of stupefaction in his face. He held up his large thumb and ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... "I slipped my thumb on the press-button of the sword-stick and watched him. From time to time he made a dash at me with his knife, and when I prodded him back, he snatched at the stick. Again and again he nearly caught it, but I was just a little too quick for him, and he fell back, gasping and cursing, ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... Bonzig, leaning over the table, deftly put his thumb and forefinger between the boy's lips, and drew forth slowly a large white pocket-handkerchief, which seemed never to end, and threw it on the floor with ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... him, I had a most curious feeling of admiration for his genius. "Craig," I cried, "that's the thumb-print of an automobile." ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... found these little pebble-stones loose in the crumbly earth among the rootlets. Then, brought out from the shadow, the sunlight shone and glistened on the particles of sand that adhered to it. Particles adhered to my skin—thousands of years between finger and thumb, these atoms of quartz, and sunlight shining all that time, and flowers blooming and life glowing in all, myriads of living things, from the cold still limpet on the rock to the burning, throbbing heart of man. Sometimes I found them among the sand ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... population. The haddock, again, amongst marine animals, is supposed, throughout all maritime Europe, to be a privileged fish; even in austere Scotland, every child can point out the impression of St. Peter's thumb, by which from age to age it is distinguished from fishes having otherwise an external resemblance. All domesticated cattle, having the benefit of man's guardianship and care, are believed throughout England and Germany to go down upon their knees at one particular moment ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... back, appalled at the energy of the words used to him. "Shall a man have nothing of his own;—no sorrow in his heart, no care in his family, no thought in his breast so private and special to him, but that, if he happen to be a clergyman, the bishop may touch it with his thumb?" ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... in Leonard's right hand, and quietly slipped to the wrist of the left his forefinger and thumb, as physicians are said to do when a victim is stretched on the rack. "Pulse decreasing," he muttered; "wonderful thing, aconite!" Meanwhile Leonard read as follows, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... th' palace 'twas diff'rent. 'Well, who d'ye think I see to-day but th' Sultan. I tell ye I did. What is he like? He ain't much to look at—a skinny little man, Osman, that ye cud sthrangle between ye'er thumb an' forefinger. He had a bad cold an' was sneezin'. He wore a hand-me-down coat. He has a wen on th' back iv his neck an' he's crosseyed. Here's a pitcher iv him.' 'What, that little runt? Ye don't mean to say that's th' Sultan.—Why, he looks like th' fellow that stops ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... frogs had names of their own, of course, and we knew them all apart, although they looked just alike to other people. There was Prince Pouter, Brownie, and Goldilegs; Bright-Eye, Chirp, and Gray Friar; Hop-o'-my-Thumb, Croaker, Baby Mine, Nimblefoot, Tiny ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and develop as the mind unfolds and matures. Those who adopt the new method appear to think the limitations imposed by the immature child's mind worthy of imitation when dealing with the riper adult. Rule of Thumb has the advantage that being born of and acquired by practice it can be applied and put into practice, but it is certainly rather late in the day to revert to it in the acquirement of languages. We have had some experience of Rule of Thumb in this town. The Grammatical Methods of teaching ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous
... woman is given to gambling, it would seem," the valet went on. "And, moreover, she is under the thumb of a third-rate actor in a suburban theatre, whom, for decency's sake, she calls her godson. She is a first-rate cook, it would seem, and wants ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... appear to be absolutely different from those of all other animals, and indeed they are directed, and even formed in a very particular manner. In order to advance, he raises both his front-legs at once, and places them at a small distance forward; at the same time the thumb of each foot points outward, and the creature catches with the claw at any thing which it can lay hold of; then he stretches behind him his two hind-legs, so that the five toes of each foot are also directed backward; he ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... down to work together, marking out and cutting brown paper envelopes for the children's sewing or weaving, binding colored prints with gold paper and putting them on the wall with thumb tacks, and arranging all the kindergarten materials tidily on the shelves of the closets. Next day was a holiday and she begged to come again. I consented and told her that she might bring a friend if she liked and we ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... friend" (who was eating his thumb-nails instead of his savoury) scowled and said he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... rubbed out with the Washita slip and oil to the extent of about half as much as the outside. The handle of the tool should be grasped in the left hand, while its blade rests on a block of wood, or on the oilstone. Hold the slip between the fingers and thumb, slanting a little over the inner edge; and work it in a series of short downward strokes, beginning the stroke at one corner of the gouge and leaving off at the other (see Fig. 10). Strop the outside of the tool, and test for burr, then lay the leather over ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... hand A little band For work or play is ready. The first to come Is Master Thumb; Then Pointer, strong ...
— Finger plays for nursery and kindergarten • Emilie Poulsson
... Evans." And he knotted a cord round Felipe's forehead and began to twist. The Carmelite put her hands over her eyes and would have fallen: but one of her guards held her up, while another slipped both arms round her neck from behind and held her eyelids wide open with finger and thumb. I believe—I hope—that Felipe was past feeling by this time, as he certainly was past speech. He did not scream again, and it was only for a little while that he moaned. But even when the poor fool's head dropped on his shoulder, and the life went ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... trees which sentineled the hospital. They had built a nest therein; it was bedtime, and they wished to retire, only something prevented. Upon investigation he discovered the cause—"and there you were, my dear, no bigger than my thumb!" ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... of theirs, almost simultaneous in the two minds, was not wholly a failure as a thumb-nail sketch of Mr. George Crooper. And yet there was the impressiveness of size about him, especially about his legs and chin. At seventeen and eighteen growth is still going on, sometimes in a sporadic way, several parts ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... and a half high, in pencil. This small sketch should determine, first, the general balance of the page; second, the inter-relations and spacings of the various lines and words and their relative importance and sizes. From this thumb-nail sketch the design should be drawn out at full size in pencil, and much more carefully. In this redrawing the separate letter shapes and their harmonious relations to each other should be determined, and such deviations made from the smaller sketch as ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... peer into the cleanest, barest skylit spot,—with flat creamy walls and a little old fireplace with a Peggoty grate just like the pictures in "David Copperfield." And a trig young person who didn't look a bit like an artist, because she was so neatly belted and so smoothly coiffed, waved a clayey thumb tip toward a ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... of the shingle men lifted the stretched string between his thumb and his forefinger, and he let it go, and it snapped down hard upon ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... manner of demonstration was so orderly and neat and simple, that it was not easy to mistake him. There was something almost ludicrous in the complete irreconcilability of a vague conventional notion that he must be a visionary man, with the precise, sagacious travelling of his eye and thumb over the plans, their patient stoppages at particular points, their careful returns to other points whence little channels of explanation had to be traced up, and his steady manner of making everything good and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... him close, and when he stood at his side reached out and unbuttoned his vest, then his thin shirt, and took his undershirt between his thumb and finger. Then he snorted in disgust. "Look a-here, young fellow, you an' me might's well have it out. I aint' a-goin' to have no ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... lauded by Kotzebue and Freycinet. There was, therefore, no difficulty in obtaining permission to set up an observatory, and to take to it the necessary provisions. The stay at Guam was, however, saddened by an accident to Lutke, who wounded himself severely in the thumb with his own gun ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... way the petrified man was sitting to explain to the public that he was a swindle. Yet I purposely mixed that up with other things, hoping to make it obscure—and I did. I would describe the position of one foot, and then say his right thumb was against the side of his nose; then talk about his other foot, and presently come back and say the fingers of his right hand were spread apart; then talk about the back of his head a little, and return and say the left thumb was hooked into the right little finger; then ramble off about something ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... manner in which the members of the Greek and those of the Latin Church used to sign themselves with the sign of the cross is this: both used the right hand, the thumb and first and second fingers open, and the third and fourth closed; both began at the forehead, and descended to the breast: but in crossing that vertical line by an horizontal one, from one shoulder to the other, the Greeks go from the right to the left, but the Latins ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... jewels. One saw that her corsetiere was an artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand—it was well-shaped, save that the thumb turned back ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... it is only a water-bug," he observed, rescuing the insect upon his thumb-nail. "You need not have been frightened, however, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... nervously. It crackled. She squeezed it between her thumb and forefinger. She held it between her eyes and the light. In vain the effort to ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... a hard voice. "Go ahead, an' get done with it. I'm tired of standing here." He had released his thumb from the spring of the electric torch, and the light went out, making the spot seem all the ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... he interrupted gently, "do you not think that sometimes the potter's thumb slips in the making of ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... do something else just as bad! Probably she'll withdraw her permission and keep you under her thumb as she ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that Alston would approve anything that he did not believe was for her happiness," Father Orin went on after a brief silence. "But there may have been other inducements. With the judge's nephew under his thumb, he need not have much fear of the law or the court. That was the reason most generally assigned for his patronage of William Pressley in the first place, before there was any engagement between the young man and Ruth. But that will, as a matter of course, bind him closer to Alston's interests, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... to me," proposed the Major, turning a stern face but twinkling eyes upon the group. "'Twill be my task to detect him. Leave him to me, young women, an' I'll put the thumb-screws on him ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... nothing have. My uncle will be gazetted to-day. Poor man, he will be delighted; and as he certainly owes it much to me, he will, I suppose, be very grateful—or hate me ever afterwards—that is a toss up. A benefit conferred is a complete hazard between the thumb of pride and the forefinger of affection. Heads gratitude, tails hatred! There, that's a simile in the fashion of the old writers: 'Well ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... choice to doubt of its species. The moment my fingers touched its smooth coat, I recognised it by the "feel;" but I felt the wicked creature in a double sense, for before I could disengage my hand from the clutch I had so rashly taken, its sharp teeth had pierced my thumb, until they nearly met through the flesh. At the same instant its screech sounded in my ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... Handy, softened by success, "don't let 'em have to say that old Bunce has a man like you under his thumb,—a man that always holds his head in the hospital as high as Bunce himself, though you're never axed to drink wine, and sneak, and tell lies about your ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... jerking his thumb at Silas Blackburn. The coat and hat slipped from Doctor Groom's hand. His mouth opened. His great body crept slowly back until the shoulders rested against the wall. He placed the palms of his hands against the wall as if to push it away in order to assure further retreat. Always ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... descended on the father's side from the famous Tom Thumb, so well known to all children. On the mother's side, her lineage was no less distinguished. Mignonette Littlepin (this was the family name of Madam Tom Thumb) was the great granddaughter of the wonderful Princess, who once lodged ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... spoke of the great love of Dickens for scarlet geraniums. Hundreds of the "Tom Thumb" variety were planted in the beds on the front lawn and in the back ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... and sometimes—in moments of great anxiety, for instance, Cupples—it is very moist. It leaves a mark on any cold smooth surface it may touch. That bowl was moved by somebody with a rather moist hand quite lately." He sprinkled the powder again. "Here on the other side, you see, is the thumb-mark—very good impressions all of them." He spoke without raising his voice, but Mr. Cupples could perceive that he was ablaze with excitement as he stared at the faint gray marks. "This one should be the index finger. I need not tell a man of your knowledge of the world that the pattern of it ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... commands sluggishly, his ribs seemed broken, his back was weak, and on the inner side of his legs the flesh was quivering. As they came together the boss reached up his right hand and caught the miner by the face, burying thumb and fingers crab like into his cheeks, forcing his slack jaws apart, thrusting his head backward, while he centred every ounce of his strength in the effort to maim. Roy felt the flesh giving way and flung himself backward to break the hold, whereupon the other summoned his wasting energy ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... John Liston (1776?-1846), the actor, whose mock biography Lamb wrote some years later (see Vol. I. of this edition). His wife was a diminutive comedienne, famous as Queen Dollalolla in "Tom Thumb." Lamb may have known Liston through the Burneys, for he is said to have been an usher in Dr. Burney's school—Dr. Charles Burney, Captain ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... has been very kind to you in the matter of good looks; nor are you by any means deficient in brains. Your cousin George is very fond of a pretty woman, and, to be plain, what I want you to do is to make use of your advantages to get him under your thumb and persuade him into ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... did not move, but she faced the rude blusterer with a frigid, angry, insolent gaze. And her girlish eyes said: 'You've got me under your thumb now, you horrid beast! But never mind! Long after you are dead and buried and rotten, I shall be famous and pretty and rich, and if you are remembered it will only be because you were my father. Do your worst, odious man; ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... to dock all mention of the following intended brochure. But I answered, Really, Mr. Judgment, (better or worse, as occasion may register your Agnomen,) you must not weigh trifles in gold-assaying scales; be not so particular as to the polish of a thumb-nail; endure a little incoherent pastime; count not the several stems of hay, straw, stubble—but suffer them to be pitch-forked en masse, and unconsidered: it is their privilege, in common with that of certain others—lightnesses that froth upon the surface of society. Moreover, let ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... he said, indicating the fleeing musicians with his thumb. "Allee samee muchee flaid noisee," and then his round face dimpled into ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... of news which most concerned herself was not told to Heliet that night. The next morning, when all were seated at work, and baby Rose, in Heliet's lap, was contentedly sucking her very small thumb, Mistress Underdone said rather suddenly, "We have not ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... alongside, a sliding door opened in the glass-domed roof amidships, just opposite to the end of the St. Louis' bridge. A tall, fair-haired, clean-featured man, of about thirty, in grey flannels, tipped up his golf cap with his thumb, and said: ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... by hand, hold the object between the thumb and first two fingers of the left hand, supporting the back of the knife by the forefinger. The knife is to be held firmly in the right hand, and in cutting should never be pushed, but drawn from heel to point obliquely through the tissue. The ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... him to fight about that, my dear. I am so completely under his thumb that I always obey him in everything. You must not, therefore, expect to range me ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... classic shades of learning, the cold pressure of the golden thumb crowds down and chills penniless brains. All students do not have equal chance and equal rights. How can they, when the exclusiveness of many fraternities is not by intellectual gauge or the capability for comradeship, but the power to pay high dues and spend lavishly. Of later years, in several ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... that one of the latter, the one on the right hand, was partly off, leaving the thumb and wrist bare. That hand held a small satchel, which the police opened, with a view to the possible identification of the deceased, but which was found to contain only a little loose silver, some smelling-salts, and ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... of the pouch at his side a long black, dirty-looking leaf, which smelt very strong, and also a little bowl about the size of a man's thumb, with a long, slender handle fixed to it. Said he to a boy standing near him, "Run, my pretty fellow, and bring me some fire." Whilst the boy was bringing the fire, he fell to rubbing the black leaf to pieces between the palms of his hands. The boy brought him the fire. Then he put the powdered ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of the lack of uniformity in neckties. Some wore a Tom Thumb variety, and others wore scarves. This was a state of things to be deplored, and he considered that the Raad should put its foot down and define the size and shape ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... deferentially, and, without divesting himself of the light-kid gloves which fitted his large hands so closely, he clasped my wrist with his finger and thumb, and ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... painting-room window. How many times did Clive's next-door neighbour, little Mr Finch, the miniature-painter, run to peep through his parlour blinds, hoping that a sitter was coming, and "a carriage-party" driving up! What wrath Mr. Scowler, A.R.A., was in, because a young hop-o'-my-thumb dandy, who wore gold chains and his collars turned down, should spoil the trade and draw portraits for nothing! Why did none of the young men come to Scowler? Scowler was obliged to own that Mr. Newcome had considerable talent, and a good knack at catching ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hook slide, D, with the thumb screw, E, arranged and operating substantially as shown and described for the purposes ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... was, he left the room. In a few minutes he returned, accompanied by one of the strange squirrel-like animals I had seen in the fields. I was right in conjecturing that the creature had no opposable thumb; but a little ingenuity had compensated this so far as regarded the power of carrying. A little chain hung down from each wrist, and to these was suspended a tray, upon which were arranged a variety of fruits and what seemed to be small loaves ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... jerked his thumb back over his shoulder, "we are all machines, you know. It isn't us, not a bit of it. There is just the flesh, the muscle, the bones, and a frozen bit of our brains. The rest of us is left behind. If, as we come out, we forget to pick ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... had ignited the paper Joe, by pressing the lower edges of his palms against the blazing wick of the candle, extinguished it. This had the same effect as though he had "pinched" out the flame with finger and thumb, as many country persons put out, or "snuff," candles to-day—for candles are still much used in ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... her swathed thumb doubtfully. She crooked it; it waggled. A pleased, interested look appeared in her tear-stained face. She sniffled and ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... medium whilst under spirit control. Before a table elaborately decorated on which incense burned, she threw herself into extraordinary contortions, quivering and shaking, her finger and thumb forming a circle, whilst the little finger vibrated continuously. She sustained a perpetual chant in the peculiar spirit voice, the minor strains of which I find it impossible to describe. A relative of the deceased ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... handkerchief as I took them out. Little by little I completely emptied the dressing-case. It was lined with blue velvet. In one corner I noticed a tiny slip of loose blue silk. Taking it between my finger and thumb, and drawing it upward, I discovered that there was a false bottom to the case, forming a secret compartment for letters and papers. In my strange condition—capricious, idle, inquisitive—it was an amusement to me to take out the papers, just as I ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... bare-headed, his face cleanshaven, dressed in a long robe embroidered in a chessboard pattern, and with a tunic pleated in horizontal rows; his right elbow is supported by the left hand, while the right is raised to a level with his eyes, his fist is clenched, and the thumb inserted between the first and second fingers in the customary ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... show you how. Then we shall have things fit to eat, and you will be really learning how to cook on a small scale. I'll call you Sally, and say you are a new girl just come," added Mrs. Jo, settling down to work, while Teddy sat on the floor sucking his thumb, and staring at the stove as if it was a live thing, whose appearance deeply ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... growled Casey. "Not so different, after all." He ripped it open ruthlessly with his thumb. "Here's where I get set back a few dollars starting another domestic plant. Blamed if it's any ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... So, thumb and finger went to work To move the stubborn lid; And, presently, a mighty jerk The mighty mischief did; For all at once, ah! woeful case! The snuff ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... really angry. He used to crouch his head down over his two forearms and go to sleep, or pretend to, by way of showing it did not matter what I said to the jury. I dare say it was disrespectful, but I could not help on these occasions quietly pointing across my shoulder at him with my thumb, and that was enough. The jury roared, and ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Lapp carries, and took aim at him. His aim was good, but the Stalo sprang so high into the air that the arrow flew between his feet. A second shot, directed at his forehead, fared no better, for this time the Stalo jumped so high to the other side that the arrow passed between his finger and thumb. Then Andras aimed his third arrow a little over the Stalo's head, and when he sprang up, just an instant too soon, it hit him ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... was accomplished, or her wool was expended. She took the spindle, now charged with her labours, and, undoing the thread gradually, measured it by casting it over her elbow and bringing each loop round between her forefinger and thumb. When she had measured it out, she muttered to herself—'A hank, but not a haill ane—the full years o' three score and ten, but thrice broken, and thrice to OOP (i.e. to unite); he'll be a lucky lad an he ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... slope, testing the knife-edge with his thumb, his short pipe between his teeth. He sheathed his knife, lowered ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... of his thumb, and noted the lighted window to which he pointed. A moment later he was gone, and as I joined Michelot, ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... the Spanish Empire seemed bigger and stronger than ever, besides which it seemed to be getting a firmer hold on more and more places in the Golden West. Nor was this all; for Portugal, which had many ships and large oversea possessions, was becoming so weak as to be getting more and more under the thumb of Spain; while Spain herself had just (1571) become the victorious champion both of West against East and of Christ against Mahomet by beating the Turks at Lepanto, near Corinth, in a great battle on landlocked water, a hundred miles from where the West had ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... compass save the one hanging to my watch-chain, as big as my thumb-nail, but I managed to make a pretty straight course for all that. The wind freshened and was quite cool. The sunlight, sparkling over the ocean, which now turned dark blue with a speck of white here and there to windward, warmed us enough to keep off actual chill, ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... himself to make sure that he was awake. Very substantial flesh met his thumb and finger, and ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... optical activity. After the dish has been thoroughly rinsed, enough water is added to bring the contents of the flask to about 80 c.c. and it is gently rotated until all the sugar has dissolved. The flask should be held by the neck with the thumb and finger, and the bulb not handled during this operation. Care must be taken that no particle of the sugar or solution is lost. To determine if all the sugar is dissolved, the flask is held above the level of the eye, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... quickly lose: Oft do I wish one skill'd in Cupid's Arts, Would quickly dive into my secret Parts; For as I am, at Home all sorts of Weather, I kit,——as Heaven and Earth would come together, Twirling a Wheel, I sit at home, hum drum, And spit away my Nature on my Thumb; Whilst those that Marry'd are, invited be To Labours, Christnings, where the Jollitry Of Women lies in telling, as some say, When 'twas they did at Hoity-Toity play; Whose Husband's Yard is longest, whilst another Can't in ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... not at all concentrated upon her. He felt, on this afternoon, a new, a fresh interest in things. The carpet before him was a vast country and he did not propose to explore it, but sucking his thumb, stroking the bear's coat, feeling the firelight upon his face, he felt that now something would occur. He had realised that there was much to explore and that, after all, perhaps there might be more in this strange condition ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... prettily said. You may kiss my thumb-nail with the white spot in it for luck. No, sir. That is presuming. Now I am snug, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... sent for, and came, apparently not unprepared; for after she had greeted her man through the iron door of his cell, "he put his hand underneath, and she, with a mallet and chisel concealed for the purpose, struck off a finger and thumb to render him unfit for His Majesty's service." ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... they paint a warrior red across the mouth, or they paint a hand in black color, with the thumb on one side of the mouth and the fingers separated on the other cheek, the rest of the face being painted red. (This latter is only done as a mark of respect to a specially brave man.) Spears, clubs, and the medicine-bag of the deceased when alive are buried with the body, the medicine-bag ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... ones. One day early in June I took a wood-frog in my hand. The mosquitoes swarmed about. In a few seconds 30 were on my hand digging away; 10 were on my forefinger, 8 on my thumb; between these was the frog, a creature with many resemblances to man—red blood, a smooth, naked, soft skin, etc.—and yet not a mosquito attacked it. Scores had bled my hand before one alighted on the frog, and it leaped off again as though the creature ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... palms of her hands were softer than anything in the world; there were five little, pink cushions on her palm: beginning at the little finger there was a very tiny cushion, the next one was bigger, and the next bigger again, until the largest ended a perfect harmony at the base of her thumb. Her mother used to kiss these little cushions at times, holding back the finger belonging to each, and naming it as she touched it. These are the names of Mary Makebelieve's fingers, beginning with the Thumb:—Tom Tumkins, Willie Winkles, Long Daniel, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... a big gun, the eyes and the face of him would be little but scowls and puckers; and there he sits, though it's only the dumb likeness of a church that he's at, by the same token that it's no bigger than me thumb, and, by the howly piper, you'd think the light that flings away from the big colored windy down the church was stramin' in his face, he looks so paceful-like; and he no betther than a heretic nayther, though ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... painted without flattery. There he sat—Lilliputian on the great charger! At that moment Van Alen hated him—that Hop-o'-my-Thumb of another age, founder of a pigmy race, who, by his braggart will, had that night brought upon this one of his descendants the scorn ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... bullrush-like ornaments of their head-dress, render them very singularly striking personages. To the right, Joseph of Arimathea is bargaining for the body of Jesus; the finger of one hand placed against the thumb of the other telling the nature of the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... no intelligent person to-day supposes that, outside of Sir Conan Doyle's interesting novels, detectives seek the baffling criminal by means of analyzing cigar butts, magnifying thumb marks or specializing in the various perfumes in favor among the fair sex, or by any of those complicated, brain fatiguing processes of ratiocination indulged in by our old friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There are still, however, genuine detectives, and some of them are to be ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... information in the end amounted to"—the chief constable came to stand immediately in front of Tatham, lowering his voice—"was that the only person with a really serious motive for destroying Melrose, was"—he jerked his thumb in the direction of Faversham's sitting-room—"our friend! They claim—both of them—to have been spectators of the growing friction between the two men. Nash says that Melrose had spoken to him once or twice of revoking, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Sowerberry,' said the beadle, as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin. 'I say you'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' repeated Mr. Bumble, tapping the undertaker on the shoulder, in a friendly ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... to e'en the doctor's hood, The book of life ye thumb, And reckon o'er, in light and joyous mood, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... rasher—when he can get it,' said she, with a leer, and a motion of her thumb towards the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... little interpreter after a snappy French salute which is recognized by a slight motion of the colonel's thumb in the general direction of his ear. "Ze sarzhont, she say, zat ze French man will please to have ze tobak, ze masheen gun ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... boat. She is fair, fat, and forty, possessed of really massive proportions, most powerful lungs, and a true Irish physiognomy—a cast of countenance in which it always strikes me that Nature had originally forgotten the nasal organ, and then returning to complete the work had taken between finger and thumb a piece of flesh and pinched it, thus forming the nose rather high up on the face, while the waste of material below goes to ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... passengers said it wasn't safe. It used not to be safe, I know, but I asked the Chief-Engineer what he thought, and he took his right hand in his left, all but the very tip of the little finger which he measured off with his left thumb nail, and said, "a black maun's heart's no as big as that." So we went ashore and had no adventures at all, but sat in a balcony and listened to pretty good music, and noted the few drowsy figures in the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... we call them), when it instantly caught the pup by the under jaw and held on as only it could (they have a powerful jaw), nor would it release its hold until choked near to death, which was done by taking it behind the bony framework of the head, between the thumb and finger, and pressing hard. The pup did considerable howling for half an hour, by which time the jaw was much swollen, remaining so for two or three days, after which it was all right again. By this I could only conclude ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... hands behind his back, his large thumb holding his place open in the lesson-book, and walked beside her, his head bent somewhat ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... drawing a long breath to us when spared out of sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery now on my mind, was thinking of all the sad business, with only a little girl in the back kitchen come in to muck up the dishes, there appeared a good knock at the garden door, and I knew it for the thumb of the Captain. I locked the young girl up, by knowing what their tongues are, and then I let your father in, and the candle-sight of him made my heart ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... a matter of gesture) is unused by whole nations, and so, too, is handshaking. It has been said by a traveller that the vulgar operation described by Barham in the line "Put his thumb unto his nose and spread his fingers out" is a mark of courtesy and esteem in one remote nation; nor is putting out the tongue a sign of contempt everywhere. Certain of the gestures of ballet still strictly conventional in England are employed outside the theatre in France. Gesture and facial expression, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... it was a round-faced timepiece perversely set in one corner of an immense red plush palette; the palette itself was tilted to one side, and was upheld by an easel of twisted brass wire. Out of the thumb-hole stuck half a dozen brushes wired together in a round bunch and covered with gilt paint. The clock never was wound. It went so fast that it was useless as a timepiece. Over it, however, hung a large and striking ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... forward upon one knee. His revolver was yet in his right hand, gleaming in the starlight, but before he could raise or fire it I had grasped the steel barrel firmly, and the hammer came down noiselessly upon the flesh of my thumb. The next instant we were locked close together in fierce struggle for the mastery. He was the heavier, stronger man; I the younger and quicker. From the first every effort on both sides was put forth solely to ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... see only with his eyes. The King had grown so accustomed to be shut out from all the world, and to be ruled by others, that he easily adapted himself to his new chains. The Queen and Alberoni, then, in a short time had him as completely under their thumb, as he had before been under ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... correspondence instructed to take steps for calling a general congress. Events were beginning to move at last with perilous rapidity. Washington dined with Lord Dunmore on the evening of that day, rode with him, and appeared at her ladyship's ball the next night, for it was not his way to bite his thumb at men from whom he differed politically, nor to call the motives of his opponents in question. But when the 1st of June arrived, he noted in his diary that he fasted all day and attended the appointed services. He always meant what he said, being of a simple ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... hope we shall have him back before Ben Soloman comes," the charcoal burner said, "or it will be worse for both of us. You know as well as I do he has got my neck in a noose, and he has got his thumb on you." ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... kill; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; Men who will not lie, Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duly and in private thinking. For, while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, Their large professions and their little deeds, Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps. God give ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... 'benefit of clergy.' Before 1487, a man who could read and write might commit murder as often as he pleased, subject to an indefinite chance of imprisonment by the 'ordinary.' At a later period, he could still murder at the cost of having M branded on the brawn of his thumb. But women and men who had married two wives or one widow did not enjoy this remarkable privilege. The rule seems as queer and arbitrary as any of the customs which excite our wonder among primitive tribes. The explanation, of course throws ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Chauncy held his ticket between his thumb and finger, and looked at the number. Neither he nor Hilbert suspected for a moment that there was any mistake in reading it; for, not having paid any attention to the scheme, as it is called, of the lottery, they did not know ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... places the slips of paper between his fingers, taking care to put the paper of his confederate between the third and little finger; he then takes the folded paper from between his thumb and first finger and rubs it, folded as it is, over his forehead, at each rub mentioning a letter, as H. rub, A. rub, S.T.I.N.G.S., after which he calls out that some lady or gentleman has written "Hastings." "I ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... than the arms, and ended in members that were very evidently feet and hands combined. What in a human being would be the back of the hand was the sole of the foot—when walking upon that foot the long and dexterous thumb and fingers were curled up, out of the way and protected from injury, in the palm of the hand. From the monstrous shoulders there rose a rather long and very flexible, yet massive and columnar neck, supporting a head neither human nor bestial—a head utterly unknown to Terrestrial ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... * * is writing again! Is there no Bedlam in Scotland? nor thumb-screw? nor gag? nor hand-cuff? I went upon my knees to him almost, some years ago, to prevent him from publishing a political pamphlet, which would have given him a livelier idea of 'Habeas Corpus' than the world will derive from his present production ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... footprints had attracted attention, some slab surfaces of the same formation in Saxony and England were found bearing an impression of a more arresting character. It resembled the impression that would be made by the palm and extended fingers and thumb of the human hand, but a hand much thicker and flabbier than is commonly seen. The appropriate name of Cheirotherium was proposed for the unknown extinct animal which had produced these marks. The dimensions in the several examples were various; but 'in all cases the prints of what appear to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... It was what Dare had characterized as his best joke in speaking on the subject to Captain De Stancy: he had in the morning put it ready in his pocket to give to the captain, and had in fact held it in waiting between his finger and thumb while talking to him in the Platz, meaning that he should make use of it against his rival whenever convenient. But his sharp conversation with that soldier had dulled his zest for this final joke at Somerset's ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... comments point Mr Wells' expression of what he calls in this book "the essential antagonism ... in all human affairs ... between ideas and the established method—that is to say, between ideas and the rule of thumb." And he adds: "The world I hate is the rule-of-thumb world; the thing I and my kind exist for primarily is battle with that, to annoy it, disarrange it, reconstruct it." This confession is so lucid and characteristic that ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... convenience of which needs no comment. But though for clumsy seamen, whose fingers are all thumbs, this description of mitten might do very well, White-Jacket did not so much fancy it. For when your hand was once in the bag of the mitten, the empty thumb-hole sometimes dangled at your palm, confounding your ideas of where your real thumb might be; or else, being carefully grasped in the hand, was continually suggesting the insane notion, that you were all the while having hold of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... reveal all the clues to you now; partly because I might be infringing the copyright of another, partly because I have forgotten them. But the idea roughly is that if a man holds his cigar between his finger and thumb, he is courageous and kind to animals (or whatever it may be), and if he holds it between his first and second fingers he is impulsive but yet considerate to old ladies, and if he holds it upside down he is (besides being an ass) jealous and self-assertive, and if he ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... the other, balancing the letter in a careless grip between thumb and finger. 'Nobody asks you to stop to hear yourself described. You were a cad from your cradle; you were a liar as soon as you could learn to lisp, and a sponge from the happy hour when you found the first fool to ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... snapped his finger and thumb mockingly at her, and smiled knowingly at Abel, who had lingered to watch the ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... sir," the soldier said, jerking his thumb at the sobbing man huddled against Norden. "He said his name was Orkins—Jim Orkins. He works in the warehouse. But you can't tell anything about the rest o' what he says. He just babbles, sir. Something about livin' lightnin' and balls of fire. He ain't ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... failures, he sat down and wept; and from the streaming tear drops sprang into being, as his first boon, a progeny of ghosts and goblins, of an aspect so loathsome and dreadful, that he was ready to faint away. At one time, after profound meditation, different beings spring forth: one from his thumb, another from his breath, a third from his ear, a fourth from his side. But enough ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... this!" she pleaded as though she demanded a right. As she spoke, her thumb and forefinger meeting on a spray, they closed and went through it like a pair of shears; and a bunch of the white pearls of the forest dropped on the ridge of her shoulder and were broken apart and rolled across her ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... year ago the people of Panama lived in fear under the thumb of a dictator. Today democracy is ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of letters asking about sucking the thumb, as introduced by dainty Miss Vanity Vaux in Draw it mild, Daisy. Only the tip of the thumb should be sucked; those of you who put the whole thumb into your mouths must not complain if you see smiles exchanged round you. Where the eyes are large and widely opened and the right cast of feature ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... had a single tooth she had developed mother-ways, and would comfort distressed babies by thrusting into their open mouths whatever was most convenient. At first this was her own small thumb, which she had once found good herself; but she soon discovered that infants can bite, and after that she offered rattle-handles. Later, she used to stagger from one hammock to another and swing them. And often, before she understood the perfect ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... of my act, I thrust the blunt-sharp end of my squid-stick into the side of the shark, much as one would attract a passing acquaintance with a thumb-nudge in the ribs. And the man-eater turned on me. You know the South Seas, and you know that the tiger shark, like the bald-face grizzly of Alaska, never gives trail. The combat, fathoms deep under the sea, was on—if by combat may be named such a ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... It's down as machinery and marked tinned milk. What more ye want? They got things switched somehow, and that's plain as the nose on yer face. I had my thumb on it, I ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... the door, the pistol dangling from his right hand. He had hooked the thumb of the left hand into his cartridge belt, and his eyes were gleaming ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... ringed body, an S-shaped handle with a plain boss at the end, a scroll thumb-piece, a flat molded drop ornament on the handle, and a domed cover with an acorn finial. On the body beneath the Derby coat of arms, is monogrammed "E H D" for Elias Hasket Derby (fig. 3). Elias Hasket Derby achieved wealth and fame as a Salem merchant prince ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... spinning the coin upon his thumb, "ha, now do I dream indeed; may thy waking be ever as joyous. Farewell to thee, thou kind, sweet, youthful fool, and if thou must hang some day on a tree, may every leaf voice small prayers ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... the Artillery practice, designed for belligerent Christians. Finally down from its shelf he dragged the ponderous Roman, Seated himself at the window, and opened the book, and in silence Turned o'er the well-worn leaves, where thumb-marks thick on the margin, Like the trample of feet proclaimed the battle was hottest. 80 Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling, Busily writing epistles important, to go by the Mayflower,[17] Ready to sail on the morrow, or ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... briskly between his palms. A small shower of tobacco sifted to the floor: the rice-paper cracked and came away; and with the bland smile and gesture of a professional conjurer, Lanyard exhibited a small cylinder of stiff paper between his thumb and index-finger. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... second, and carried his message next day to the last of his adversaries: I never saw him in such fine spirits as that day he went out—sure enough he was within ames-ace of getting quit handsomely of all his enemies; but unluckily, after hitting the toothpick out of his adversary's finger and thumb, he received a ball in a vital part, and was brought home, in little better than an hour after the affair, speechless on a hand-barrow to my lady. We got the key out of his pocket the first thing we did, and my son Jason ran to unlock the barrack-room, ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... however, with thumb on the brake of the reel, gave him absolutely no leeway, and the tuna was stopped within twenty feet, to be reeled in again. In the meantime, the gaffer had recovered his weapon, and as the big fish was brought to ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... She liked that reserve, most alluring in a Southerner, the straightforwardness of that judgment, entirely free from artistic or worldly formulas and enlivened by a touch of local accent. It was a change for her from the zigzag movement of the thumb, drawing flattery in outline with the gestures of a studio fag, from the congratulations of comrades on the way in which she silenced some poor fellow, and from the affected admiration, the "chawming—veay pretty," ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... appeared. He jerked a thumb towards the classroom. 'I've locked dem in. What's doin', Buck?' he asked, indicating me with ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... you want anything of them, you had better turn back at once. The mistress would give you something, but she has no authority to, and the farmer, he's tight—he's got a board on his neck, and a stiff thumb into the bargain." ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Injin chieftain, in feathers all fine, Who stood on the ocean's rim; There were numberless leagues of excellent brine— But there wasn't enough for him. So he knuckled a thumb in his painted eye, And added a tear ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... picked up Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw him away; and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were flying from system to system through the universe of stars. But, as the giant had thrown him away carelessly, he did not strike a stone, but struck soft ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... a nunnery; the dethroned prince a poor castaway in a foreign land; the noble young lady in a madhouse; the missionary priest under the thumb of his superiors. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Then or later it is thought he took to the trees to escape his enemies, as the rats in Jamaica have taken to the trees to escape the mongoose. To his tree-climbing we probably owe our hand, with its opposing thumb. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... of Polter's body shifted as he cautiously moved. I clung. I saw that Babs was being held gently between his thumb and forefinger. He lowered her to the ground, and she stood beside the bread and meat he ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... current amongst the rural population. The haddock, again, amongst marine animals, is supposed, throughout all maritime Europe, to be a privileged fish; even in austere Scotland, every child can point out the impression of St. Peter's thumb, by which from age to age it is distinguished from fishes having otherwise an external resemblance. All domesticated cattle, having the benefit of man's guardianship and care, are believed throughout England and Germany to go down upon their knees at one particular moment of Christmas ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... chaps, would thee?" said Ben, speaking in the Hampshire dialect. "No, no; don't be doin' that. Measter Jackson may have spoken fair enough, but he knows that he's got his thumb on thee, an' can come down on thee when he loiks. Now, just listen to what I have got to say. I was going to look for thee. The Nancy is expected in before many days are over, an' she'll be sailing again ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... ugly that he needs to have a new head put on him. Another story, the moral of which was "to teach girls the danger of coquetry," is told by Schoolcraft (Oneota, 381-84). There was a girl who refused all her suitors scornfully. In one case she went so far as to put together her thumb and three fingers, and, raising her hand gracefully toward the young man, deliberately open them in his face. This gesticulatory mode of rejection is an expression of the highest contempt, and it galled the young warrior so much that he was taken ill and took to his bed until ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... continued, thrusting his brawny arm forth, with the fist clenched, indicating the necessary point of the compass by the thumb; "the coast of Guinea might have lain hereaway, and the wind you see, was dead off shore, blowing in squalls, as a cat spits, all the same as if the old fellow, who keeps it bagged for the use of us seamen, sometimes let the stopper slip through his fingers, and was ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... comparison is extent, and the unit of measure is now the division of the circle into three hundred and sixty parts, now the circumference of the terrestrial globe, now the average dimension of the human arm, hand, thumb, or foot. In economic science, we have said after Adam Smith, the point of view from which all values are compared is labor; as for the unit of measure, that adopted in France is the FRANC. It is incredible ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... young man to whom I owe small thanks, and with whom I have an account to settle. He is son of the custodian, and thinks he has us both under his thumb, Heinrich drinks as if he were a fish or a Baron, but I shall cure him of that habit before it ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... little room in which Frank sat, and seemed designed, on purpose, to furnish no temptation to pilferers. There was a table, two chairs, a painted plaster statue of a gray-bearded man in black standing on a small bracket with a crook in his hand; a pious book, much thumb-marked, lay face downwards on the table beside the oil lamp. There was another door through which the monk had disappeared, and that was absolutely all. There was no carpet and no curtains, but a bright little coal ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... Arctic, the bananas of the tropics, the camels of the East, the buffaloes of the West, and the cannibals of the South, are equally at our service. We can hold the mountains, rivers, seas, and human races between our finger and thumb, and thus, as we gently dally with care, we may see the wonders of the world as in a pleasant dream. Thus may we enjoy the perils and hardships of travel at a very small sacrifice ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... her hand and extended it to them impartially, the check, face uppermost, held between thumb and finger. They bent forward to peer. Some rose and looked over the shoulders of the nearer ones, and glasses were sought and hastily ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... the borderland of Canada and the States, stretched like a hand, the thumb and small finger of which belonged to the Dominion, the three digits, in between, to the sister country. Of course it was comparatively easy to bring merchandise, and what not, by way of the thumb and little finger and send the same forth by the three exits, known to Timothy Goodale ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... lake, were required to accommodate Heinrich Schnitt's party. First, there was Heinrich himself, white as wax and stoop-shouldered and extremely clean. At the other end of the table sat Mama Schnitt, who bulged, and always had butter on her thumb. To the right of Heinrich sat Grossmutter Schnitt, in a black sateen dress, with her back bowed like a new moon and her little old face withered like ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... a speculative thumb over Comrade Peck's business card. It was engraved. And copper plates or steel dies are not ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... make a comparison between the cave and a sponge. Take for instance a sponge as large as an apple barrel and there would be holes in it as big as a man's thumb and closed hand. Now take a sponge, four miles square and five hundred feet deep with holes in proportion to the little sponge, and you have an illustration of The Wonderful Wind Cave, ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... the thumb-screws were being put on me again. For the second time I was being forced to the point of denying the Senatorship to my father by refusing him my support. And there could not have been, for me, a more vivid and instantaneous ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... limbs, heavy with ropes of muscle, slowly, ponderously. His hands were enormous, red, and covered with a fell of stiff yellow hair; they were hard as wooden mallets, strong as vises, the hands of the old-time car-boy. Often he dispensed with forceps and extracted a refractory tooth with his thumb and finger. His head was square-cut, angular; the jaw salient, like ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... and most persons have received the impression that the vibratory motion was an actual change of position of the molecular in space instead of a change of form. Make a ring of wire five or six inches in diameter, and, holding it between the thumb and finger at the twisted ends, pluck it with a finger of the other hand; the ring will vibrate, have three nodes, and will give a good idea of the character of the vibration that constitutes what we call heat. This vibratory motion may have a ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... in a broad wink and wriggled a thumb in the direction of the driver. "He's only cleared for Confidential material," said the general, his tone casting aspersions on the sergeant's patriotism, ancestry and personal hygiene. "This project is, of course, Top Secret!" He said the words reverently, his face going all noble ...
— Minor Detail • John Michael Sharkey
... huge quarter-master, whose real name or nickname (I forget which) was Billy Magnus, appeared over the gangway hammocks, holding the missing urchin in his immense paw, where it squealed and twisted itself about, like Gulliver between the finger and thumb of the Brobdingnag farmer. The mother had just strength enough left to snatch her offspring from Billy, when she sank down flat on ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... her praying-stool. Gracefully she removes, without taking her eyes off the altar, the glove from her right hand, and with her thumb turns the ring of Ste-Genevieve that serves her as a rosary, moving her lips the while. Then, with downcast eyes and set lips, she loosens the fleur-de-lys-engraved clasp of her Book of Hours, and seeks out the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... usual, but in the middle of them, the janitor who had gone into the coal house for the wherewithal to replenish the fires, came back with the shawl. I had rammed it rather viciously under the coal, and it was a filthy object. The superintendent held it up by finger and thumb and asked ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... see her too well because the lights were off inside the trailer. But I could tell from the way she filled up the doorway that she was big. I could make out the white blur of a cigarette in her mouth, and when she struck a match to light it—on her thumb-nail, like a man—I saw that she was fairly young and not bad-looking in a tough, sullen sort of way. The wind was blowing in my direction and it told me she'd had a drink recently, gin, by the smell ...
— To Remember Charlie By • Roger Dee
... that were the case, Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband, where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed home the loading with his thumb-end; but hardly had he ignited his match across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to windward like two fixed stars, suddenly dropped like light from his erect attitude to his seat, crying out in a quick phrensy of ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... sake," he said, "don't offend this fellow; he may be as mad as ten hatters, if you like, but he has us between his finger and thumb. This is the very time he appointed to talk with ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... about again," said the captain, as he appeared, in his usual gruff but not unkind tone. "When I brought the ladies aboard, I didn't think that they'd prove so useful in looking after the sick; though I doubt if she," and he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at his wife, "has troubled you ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... exclaimed Mr. Damon, "I know him! He lives just around the corner from me. Bless my very thumb prints!" ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... little philanthropist enthusiastically. "Of course, bartering as you do with aboriginal races, their development and evolution is a matter of the deepest importance to you. If a man came down to barter with you who had a rudimentary tail and couldn't bend his thumb—well, it wouldn't be pleasant, you know. Our idea is to elevate them in the scale of humanity and to refine their tastes. Hewett, of the Royal Society, went to report on the matter a year or so back, and some rather painful ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the right hand makes the sign of recognition, as given in the illustration, and the other responds by repeating the motion, and bringing the fore-finger and thumb together, the whole representing the hammer of a gun as ...
— The Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan. - A Full Expose. By A Late Member • Anonymous
... examined and measured under the microscope utterly different from those in every other case. Each is unique, in its pits, lines, circles and irregularities. The laws of chance are as much against two of them having the same markings as they are against the thumb prints of two human subjects being identical. The firing-pin theory, which was used in a famous case in Maine, is just as infallible as the finger-print theory. In this case when we find the owner of the gun making an 'L' mark we shall have ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... content with sober, sad, deliberate falsehood; he resorted to ridicule. He pulled comical and ugly faces; put out his tongue; put his thumb to his nose; threw orange peel at me; and said and did other things which it is not ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... altered Crevel's pretensions. Like all great artists, he had come to his second manner. In the great world, when he went to the Prince de Wissembourg's, to the Prefecture, to Comte Popinot's, and the like, he held his hat in his hand in an airy manner taught him by Valerie, and he inserted the thumb of the other hand in the armhole of his waistcoat with a knowing air, and a simpering face and expression. This new grace of attitude was due to the satirical inventiveness of Valerie, who, under pretence of rejuvenating her mayor, had given him an ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... two eyes in my head when I chose you, Babet, and the soft place was in my heart!" replied Jean, heartily. The compliment was taken with a smile, as it deserved to be. "Look you, Babet, I would not give this pinch of snuff," said Jean, raising his thumb and two fingers holding a good dose of the pungent dust,—"I would not give this pinch of snuff for any young fellow who could be indifferent to the charms of such a pretty lass ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... a taunt, the final turn of the thumb-screw applied to a dying man, and he had in that watchful, keen mind of his well weighed the full ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... of long coarse hair; but the hunting is only done in the autumn. To prepare for the plucking, the skin must be kept wet on the underside so it is moistened and rolled up for several days, thus loosening the hold of the fleece. With thumb and fingers of both hands the squaw, seated upon the ground, pushes the fleece from her, procuring by this process great patches of wool and hair. Then the hairs are plucked out and thrown away and the wool is ready to be spun. During the spinning ...
— Aboriginal American Weaving • Mary Lois Kissell
... what he is, I dunno what you are, lady, but I figure that you and Caroline Smith and everybody else in this house is under the thumb of the gent ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... going to have a good night of it. The clerk in Terry Kelly's said A crown! but the consignor held out for six shillings; and in the end the six shillings was allowed him literally. He came out of the pawn-office joyfully, making a little cylinder, of the coins between his thumb and fingers. In Westmoreland Street the footpaths were crowded with young men and women returning from business and ragged urchins ran here and there yelling out the names of the evening editions. The man passed through the crowd, looking on the spectacle generally with proud satisfaction ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... felt her sag, betted when she'd break; Wondered every time she raced if she'd stand the shock; Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake; Hoped the Lord 'ud keep his thumb on the plummer-block. Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal; Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul; Last we prayed she'd buck herself into judgment Day — Hi! we cursed the Bolivar ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... even experienced women of the world, like Mrs. Milton-Cleave, can be so easily hoodwinked by that vague nonentity, 'The Best Authority.' I am inclined to think that were I a human being I should retort with an expressive motion of the finger and thumb, "Oh, you know it on the best authority, do you? Then that ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... right hand is so much swollen that I can scarcely keep my pen steady between my thumb and finger, yet my stomach is easy, and my breathing comfortable, and I am eager to hope all good things of my health. That gained, I have a cheering, and I trust prideless confidence that I shall make an active, and perseverant ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... of that hero, whom they first rejected, rendered it the general subject of discourse at Venice. Numberless were the instances he gave of a magnanimity and greatness of mind worthy of a more exalted throne than that of Poland; but I shall only mention one, which, like the thumb of Hercules, may serve to give a picture of ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... it over her shoulder. She moved slightly, but it was only to nestle more closely against him. His dangling fingers moved little by little towards the opening of her corsage, they descended, and with his thumb and forefinger he gripped the paper. Madame did not move her body nor, to Rust, did she seem to suspect his intentions. But her right arm lifted slowly up, she gently grasped his hand in hers, pressed it kindly for a moment, and then, still holding ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... in those eminent ladies having "spoken on Sundays to five hundred thousand hearers"—small audiences, by the way, compared with the intelligent concourse recently assembled in the city of New York, to do honour to the Nuptials of General the Honourable T. Barnum Thumb. At about this stage of their spiritual education they may take the opportunity of believing in "letters from a distinguished gentleman of New York, in which the frequent appearance of the gentleman's deceased wife and of Dr. Franklin, to him and other well-known ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... Harvey, "and nail 'em to the bottom!" That was a salt-flavoured jest he had been put up to by Tom Platt. Manuel leaned over the stern and yelled: "Johanna Morgan play the organ! Ahaaaa!" He flourished his broad thumb with a gesture of unspeakable contempt and derision, while little Penn covered himself with glory by piping up: "Gee a little! ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... shaped pieces as well as straight. You cannot break these directly the cut is made, but, holding the glass as in fig. 12, and pressing it firmly with the left thumb, jerk the tool up by little, sharp jerks of the fingers only, so as to tap along the underside of your cut. You will see a little silver line spring along the cut, showing that the glass is dividing; and when that silver line has sprung from end to end, ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... rhymed heroics, in which the Maydes Metamorphosis is mainly written, bear strong traces of Day's style; and as Mr. Gosse, who is at once a poet and a critic, judges by his ear and not by his thumb, his opinion carries weight. Day's capital work, the Parliament of Bees, is incomparably more workmanlike than the Maydes Metamorphosis; but the latter, it should be remembered, is beyond all doubt a very juvenile performance. Turning over some old numbers of a magazine, I found a reviewer ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... just put his brush into his mouth and held it between his teeth as a poodle carries a stick, while he used his thumb on the canvas. The modern painter paints with everything, not excepting his fingers. He glanced at his model and then at his work, and got his ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... instant the cavalcade and the forest had vanished, and there was the motor-car, just spinning past him. He was on the Wimbledon Common of the twentieth century once more. He stroked his clean-shaven chin with his finger and thumb, and walked slowly along the path by the side of the road, and then across the grass ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... follies are often more calamitous than the ambition of kings; and that intolerance and bigotry have been infinitely greater curses to mankind than ignorance and error. Better any error than persecution! Better any opinion than the thumb-screw, the rack, and the stake! And he knows also how unspeakably absurd it is, for a creature to whom himself and everything around him are mysteries, to torture and slay others, because they cannot think as he does in regard to the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the valley, the weather changed. It snowed harder. Just oodles of the most perfectly darling snow. Then distemper broke out among the saddle horses. Then being already shorthanded, what does the fool vaquero boss do but pick a splinter out of his thumb with a pin and get blood poison enough to lay him off? Too much trouble for cussing. I tried that out scientifically. So I had to get out and make a hand. If I heard someone say I did as much as any three of these mollycoddles up here I'd just simper in silence and look down. Only I wish ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... but a son, no matter if he were no bigger than my goodman's thumb," said the poor woman, "we should ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... catty or kind of bill-hook, when one of these animals descended from a tree just above him and immediately attacked him. The man instinctively threw his left arm forward to receive the bear, who seized it in his mouth and bit the thumb completely off, lacerating the arm and wrist at the same time in a frightful manner. With one blow of the bill-hook the Moorman cleft the bear's skull to the teeth, at the same time gashing his own arm to the bone by the force of the blow; and he never ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... and Sylvester produced them from a pocket. "These are the prints on the robe belonging to the murdered man," he added, passing four cards to the coroner. "You will notice that two of them show the right thumb, though one is not very distinct; another shows the right fore-finger, and the ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... woman sighed, whipped the wool twice round her thumb, and drew the bone needle through. She ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... if necessary. I'm sure you'd have been like the little boy who saw the trickle of water coming out of the dyke, and put his thumb——" ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... we say nothing about Chicago but what we can prove. Look on the map and you will see for yourself that Chicago is right in the centre of the habitable portion of North America. Put your thumb down on Chicago, and then sweep round it in an even circle with your middle finger, and you will see that it takes in with that sweep all the settled portion ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... Milton's Adam, his wavy hair down to his shoulders. In his youth, it had been thick and curling; now it was thinner and straighter, yet curled where it lay. His hands were small, with the taper fingers that indicate the artist, while his thumb was that of the artizan, square at the tip, with the first joint curved a good deal back. That they were hard and something discoloured was not for Dorothy to wonder at, when she remembered what she had both heard and seen of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... two principal standards of length, namely, the BUKA and the BUHAK. The former is the length of the span from finger-tip to tip of outstretched arms; the latter is the length of the span from tip of the thumb to tip of the first finger of the same hand. In buying a pig, for example, the price is determined by the number of BUHAK required to encircle its body just behind the forelegs. The half BUKA is also in general use, especially in ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... an ear and listened, Lin Tai-yue was the first to smile and make a remark. "It's your nurse having a row with Hsi Jen!" she said. "Hsi Jen treats her well enough, but that nurse of yours would also like to keep her well under her thumb; she's indeed an old dotard;" and Pao-yue was anxious to go over at once, but Pao-ch'ai laid hold of him and kept him back, suggesting: "It's as well that you shouldn't wrangle with your nurse, for she's quite stupid from old age; and it's but fair, on the contrary, that you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... is not to be wondered at that his collection of strange and fantastic, odd and curious, things filled his library and overflowed and clustered every nook and corner of the Sabine Farm. Here was a "thumb" Bible, there the smallest dictionary in the world. In one corner was stacked a freakish lot of canes—some bought because they were freaks, some with a story behind their acquisition, and more presented to him because Field let it be known that he had a penchant for canes—which, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... of the war, all this was radically changed. Leaplow pointed her thumb at Leaphigh, and declared her intention henceforth to manage her own affairs in her own way. In order to do this the more effectually, and, at the same time, to throw dirt into the countenance of her late step-mother, she determined that her own polity should run so near a ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... immediately her little table set with food so marvelously appears; or Hop-o'-my-Thumb when he steps into his Seven-League Boots and goes ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... remarked the policeman, jerking his thumb over the Hollow, "this, in a manner of speaking, belongs to nobody. Some say it belongs to the Crown—I don't know. All I know is that nobody has any rights over it—it's been what you might term common land ever since anybody can ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... the helmsman suddenly laughed and prodded Mr. Falk in the ribs with his thumb. Like a flash it came over me that it was Kipping's trick at the wheel. Here was absolute proof that, when the second mate and the mild man thought no one was spying upon them, they were on uncommonly friendly terms. Yet I did not dream that I had stumbled on anything graver than to ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... Dilworthy argued; said he was bound to be elected, and could then ruin him (Noble) if he voted no; said he had every railway and every public office and stronghold of political power in the State under his thumb, and could set up or pull down any man he chose; gave instances showing where and how he had used this power; if Noble would vote for him he would make him a Representative in Congress; Noble still declined ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... hand, hold the object between the thumb and first two fingers of the left hand, supporting the back of the knife by the forefinger. The knife is to be held firmly in the right hand, and in cutting should never be pushed, but drawn from heel to point obliquely through the tissue. The section should ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... American boy. In these sequestered haunts, I frequently meet some urchin three feet high who carries with him an air of consummate worldly experience that completely overpowers me, and I seem to shrink to the dimensions of Tom Thumb. Before his calm and terrible glance all disguises fail. You may put on a bold and careless air, and affect to overlook him as you pass; but it is like assuming to ignore the existence of the Pope of Rome, or of ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... replied the housekeeper, completing her meaning by a movement of the thumb toward the upper story. "That's by his way of it; but I've an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr. Michael. Bribe—me!" she repeated, with inimitable scorn. "That's no' kind of a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the glass tubing between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, resting it against the second finger. Heat it in the upper flame, slowly at first, then strongly, but heat only a very small portion in length, and keep it in constant rotation with the right hand. Hold it steadily, and avoid twisting ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... nothing to do with fear; it is just the sight of that poor fellow's blood. There is nothing to be ashamed of in that. Why, I saw Will Atkins, who was one of the best fighters and single-stick players in Hedingham, go off in a dead swoon because a man he was working with crushed his thumb between two heavy stones. Look, Lionel, what cracks there are in the wall here. I don't think it will stand long. We had better run up and tell Captain Vere, for it may come toppling down with some of ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... "Wherever Spicca is concerned there is a duel. He is a terrible fellow, with his death's-head and dangling bones—one of those extraordinary phenomena—bah! it makes one shiver to think of him!" The old fellow made the sign of the horns with his forefinger and little finger, hiding his thumb in the palm of his hand, as though to protect himself against the evil eye—the sinister influence invoked by the mention of Spicca. Old Astrardente was very superstitious. The ambassador laughed, and ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... or are conscious that you ought to have, whitlows upon your thumb and all your four fingers for not writing to me! Tell me what you are saying and doing, and above all where you are going. My father has taken me into a new partnership—we are writing a comedy: will ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... seem that farming, in colonial days, was almost as hazardous an employment as fighting in the wilds, for Putnam was the victim of two different accidents, by one of which he lost the first joint of his right thumb, and by the other he received a compound fracture of his right thigh. The latter being imperfectly attended to, rendered that leg an inch shorter than the other, "which occasioned him ever after to limp in his walk." Notwithstanding these injuries, ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... ordinary 12-page issues. A 32-page Sunday issue of the New York Herald contains nearly, if not quite, 2,500,000 distinct types and other pieces of metal, each of which must be separately handled between thumb and finger twice—once put into the case and once taken out of it—each issue of the paper. No one inexperienced in this delicate work has the slightest conception of the intensity of attention, fixity of eye, deftness of touch, readiness of intelligence, exhaustion of vitality, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... comical details of my dwelling. Here, instead of handles such as we should have made to pull these movable partitions, they have made little oval-holes, just the shape of a finger-end, into which one is evidently to put one's thumb. These little holes have a bronze ornamentation, and, on looking closely, one sees that the bronze is curiously chased: here is a lady fanning herself; there, in the next hole, is represented a branch of cherry in full ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... his thumb crooked to indicate the place, which was superfluous; for near the middle of the front page, top of column and in the strong type of captions, the words leaped out to Peter's eye as though ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Baby-Land George Cooper The First Tooth William Brighty Rands Baby's Breakfast Emilie Poulsson The Moon Eliza Lee Follen Baby at Play Unknown The Difference Laura E. Richards Foot Soldiers John Banister Tabb Tom Thumb's Alphabet Unknown Grammar in Rhyme Unknown Days of the Month Unknown The Garden Year Sara Coleridge Riddles Unknown Proverbs Unknown Kind Hearts Unknown Weather ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... less stubborn. What a nuisance that the marriage vows had to be taken for life! It would be much nicer if they could be put off as easily as they were put on. Rather hard on some women perhaps, but she could keep any man as long as she chose, and then—she snapped her pretty thumb and finger in the air to express her utter disdain for the man whom she chose to ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... like 'im, that's all," was the answer. "Z—— tries to get the best of everything. Give ye a drink from 'is water bottle when your own's empty; 'e wouldn't. I wouldn't trust 'im that much." He clicked his thumb and middle finger together as he spoke, and without another word ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... order to make our understanding of the starting cut more explicit, we refer to Fig. 20, in which the thumb of the left hand is shown in the position of a guide—the end of the thumb being held up a sufficient distance to clear the teeth. In this position you need not fear that the teeth of the saw (A) will ride up over ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... must know that Kid was a son'—and here he pointed his thumb over his left shoulder wid a knowin' grin upon him—'was a son of the ould Buck's. The ould Buck's wife was a Murtagh; now she again had a cousin named M'Shaughran, who was married upon a man by name M'Faddle. M'Faddle had but one sisther, and she was cousin ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... were very miserable because they had no children. The poor woman declared, with tears in her eyes, that she should be the happiest creature in the world, if she had a son, although he were no bigger than his father's thumb. Merlin was much amused with the notion of a boy no bigger than a man's thumb; and as soon as he returned home, he sent for the queen of the fairies (with whom he was very intimate), and related to ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... nine feet four inches from the floor. The chair for his sitters was raised eighteen inches from the floor, and turned round on castors. His palettes were those which are held by a handle, not those held on the thumb. The sticks of his pencils (brushes) were long, measuring about nineteen inches. He painted in that part of the room nearest the window, and never sat down when he worked. As the actual methods ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... the unhappy Coote, proceeding to write an R and a 3 on his thumb-nail with a pencil. "It doesn't look right I believe because your own name's Richardson, you think everybody else ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... this man's intense conviction of the reality of his conversion. I can respect even the long frock coat and the long brown whiskers, which in the case of so dashing a worldling as Rupert Mainwaring were a deliberate and daily mortification of the flesh. But I hold in shuddering detestation "the thumb-screw and the rack for the glory of the Lord," which he cheerfully contemplated ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... her, but took, instead, two or three hard peas out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumb-nail against the window, vaguely at first, but presently with the distinct aim of hitting a superannuated blue bottle which was exposing its imbecility in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views of Nature, who had provided ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... my friend, To find, where'er our footsteps bend, Small jokes, like squibs, around us whizzing; And bear the eternal torturing play Of that great engine of our day, Unknown to the Inquisition—quizzing! Your men of thumb-screws and of racks Aimed at the body their attack; But modern torturers, more refined, Work their machinery on the mind. Had St. Sebastian had the luck With me to be a godly rover, Instead of arrows, he'd be stuck With stings of ridicule all over; And poor St. Lawrence who ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... was not dead. It let her put her hand round it and draw it in, and to her delight she felt that it was soft and warm, and it even gave a gentle peck on her thumb. ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... and everyone thinks you did it on purpose. And the day goes on and on, getting worse and worse you mislay your exercise-book, you drop your arithmetic in the mud, your pencil breaks, and when you open your knife to sharpen the pencil you split your nail. On such a day you jam your thumb in doors, and muddle the messages you are sent on by grown-ups. You upset your tea, and your bread-and-butter won't hold together for a moment. And when at last you get to bed usually in disgrace it is no comfort at ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... did so well on the whole; that they were so brave, so loyal, so patient, so hopeful, so true to many of the best traditions of their race. One other feature of their system must be noted—the influence of their priests. Protestants would think them too much under the thumb of the priests. But, however this may have been, it can be said with truth that the church and the native soldiers, with all their faults, were the glory of Canada, while the government was nothing but its shame. The priests stood by their people like men, suffered hardship ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... nephew, who is a stout colt, buffets him well for a time, but Forrester, who is a mighty, powerful built fellow, he gets the better in the long run, and both come down together in the road. Then Forrester, being uppermost, sticks his thumb into Master Colleton's eye—the left eye, I think, it was—yes, the left eye it was—and the next moment it would have been out, when your nephew, not liking it, whipped out his dirk, and, 'fore Forrester could say Jack Robinson, it was playing about ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... volcanic gleam from McKeith's eyes stopped him from pronouncing Lady Bridget's name. 'I saw her come out of that room,' he jerked his thumb along the veranda. 'The moon was right on her just then. I saw her give a shiver—she'd been out in the wet. Then she walked up the veranda to where there's the covered bit joining on to the Old Humpey, and I noticed her sit ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Kenneth Malone; and King ... I mean Sir Thomas Boyd." He gave the four a single bright impartial smile. Then he tore his eyes away from the others, and bent his gaze on Sir Kenneth Malone. "Come over here a minute, Malone," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "I ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... we finally got to Plumas I just concluded Emerson's neck wasn't in danger for another hour, and that I'd better set that little girl straight the first thing I did, before the young chap got under his father's thumb. I knew he meant all right and loved her like hell's blazes, but he's more afraid of his father than a self-respectin' young man of his age ought to be. So we went straight to Miss Delarue's. I tell you what, ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... centered, after Chickamauga, on the capture of Atlanta," said Clark Howell, "I remember that General Sherman extended one hand with the fingers spread apart, explaining the strategic situation by imagining Atlanta as occupying a position where the wrist joins the hand, while the thumb and fingers represented, successively, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk. 'If I held Atlanta,' he said, 'I was only one day's journey from these ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... history of "Hop-O'-My-Thumb" and the "Seven-League Boots," "Little Arthur's History of England," "Peter Parley's Historical Tales," and "Harry's Ladder to Learning" were books which he delighted to pore over and their pages bore many traces of his skill ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... the nearest portion of the forest, and plunged in at once, holding his fly carefully between finger and thumb, and shouldering his rod so that, as he walked on with the trees clustering thicker and thicker, he drew the top after him, and got on fairly well without entangling ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... her into the building which rose at the back of the yard, Mrs. Bunting's kind new friend took out his watch. "There's another twenty minutes before they'll begin," he said. "There's the mortuary"—he pointed with his thumb to a low room built out to the right of the court. "Would you like to go in and see ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... famous carpet which carried its owner through the air wherever he wished to go. The sword was the Sword of Sharpness. The ivory glass showed you anyone you wanted to see, however far off. The boots were the Seven-league Boots, which Hop-o'-my-Thumb stole from the Ogre about 1697. There were other valuable objects, but these were the most useful and celebrated. Of course the king did not tell the ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... quite; Your barking curs will seldom bite And though you hear him stut-tut-tut-ter, He barks as fast as he can utter. He prates in spite of all impediment, While none believes that what he said he meant; Puts in his finger and his thumb To grope for words, and out they come. He calls you rogue; there's nothing in it, He fawns upon you in a minute: "Begs leave to rail, but, d—n his blood! He only meant it for your good: His friendship was exactly timed, He shot before your foes were primed: ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... automata of the most perfect kind, rendering the engine and machine-maker in a great measure independent of inferior workmen. For the machine tools have no unsteady hand, are not careless nor clumsy, do not work by rule of thumb, and cannot make mistakes. They will repeat their operations a thousand times without tiring, or varying one hair's breadth in their action; and will turn out, without complaining, any quantity of work, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... the glass windows in the drawing-room, I saw long seaweeds and gigantic fuci and varech, of which the open polar sea contains so many specimens, with their sharp polished filaments; they measured about 300 yards in length—real cables, thicker than one's thumb; and, having great tenacity, they are often used as ropes for vessels. Another weed known as velp, with leaves four feet long, buried in the coral concretions, hung at the bottom. It served as nest and food for myriads of crustacea and molluscs, crabs, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... straight, swift ball, when my object is to obtain the utmost speed at my command and to cut the plate, so that an umpire can have no doubt as to its being 'over,' I grasp the ball firmly with the two first fingers, with the thumb not clutching the ball too tightly. It is not my intention to twist or curve the ball at those times, but to catch the batter napping or else to prevent him from 'walking' to first. I take one long preliminary swing to prepare the shoulder muscles for the coming strain, ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... it be so—Arjuna hear!" Arjuna and the youth were dumb, "For thy sake, loud I ask and clear, Give me, O youth, thy right-hand thumb. I promised in my faithfulness No equal ever shall there be To thee, Arjuna—and I press ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... only one rule of conduct in dealing with nau-naus. Never swat them. Whatever you do, don't swat them. They are so vicious that in the instant of annihilation they eject their last atom of poison into your carcass. You must pluck them delicately, between thumb and forefinger, and persuade them gently to remove their proboscides from your quivering flesh. It is like pulling teeth. But the difficulty was that the teeth sprouted faster than I could pull them, so I swatted, and, so doing, filled myself full with their poison. This was a week ago. At the ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... could travel faster by sea or by land than at any previous time in the world's history, and King George could send a message from London to York no faster than King John might have done. Metals were worked from their ores by immemorial rule of thumb, and the centre of the iron trade of these islands was still among the oak forests of Sussex. The utmost skill of our mechanicians did not get beyond the ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... had gathered itself for a final rush, and, when it had actually started to charge, he dropped to the ground like a flash. In a fraction of a second his powerful right arm went out, and he gripped the nostrils of the bull, pressing his thumb and forefinger home as far as he could. Then ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... (Session of Vendemiaire i8, year III. Speech by Laignelot.) "Robespierre had all the popular clubs under his thumb."] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... said her father proudly—as he opened the end door of the stove and picked up a coal for his pipe, placing it without undue haste in the bowl, and carefully pressing it down with his thumb. Leaning back in the chintz-covered rocking chair, he spread his feet out to the heat which came from the oven door, and repeated, "No fear of Pearlie—there ain't a girl in the country better able to do for herself. Faith—and she's no fool—and ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... Thanksgivings,—years ago, when she wore short frocks, and used to go with John to see the turkeys fed, and be so scared when they gobbled and strutted with rage at her scarlet bombazette;—how they used to pick up frozen apples and thaw them in the dish-kettle; how she pounded her thumb, cracking butternuts with a flat-iron, and John kissed it to make it well,—only it didn't! And then how they slid down-hill before church, and sat a long two hours thereafter in the square pew, smelling of "meetin'-seed," and dinted with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... prospectors. It was now August, and Lin sat on a wet hill making mud-pies for sixty days. But the philosopher's stone was not in the wash at that placer, nor did Lin gather gold-dust sufficient to cover the nail of his thumb. Then they heard of an excitement at Obo, Nevada, and, hurrying to Obo, they made some ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... statement of accounts rendered after the operations of the company had lasted rather more than two years, the debts due were as follows: From the English L607 11s. 9d. and from the Indians L615 7s. 9d. Old and thumb-worn as the account books are, written with ink that had often been frozen and with quill pens that often needed mending, they are extremely interesting as relics of the past, and are deserving of a better fate than that which awaited them when by the merest accident they were rescued ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... cloth in the shape of a tent, and, setting fire to it, allowed it to burn out completely. Then with a wet camel's-hair brush he gathered up the slight yellow residuum of the combustion and painted it over the eyes, holding the lids open with thumb and finger and drawing the brush through and through. An incredulous spectator, noticing the sacred monogram neatly stamped upon the disk of lead, made some sneering remark to me about "Romish superstition," but remembering the Jesuit's bark, and recalling that I had in my writing-case ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... wore slung across their chests weapons resembling long-barreled pistols with large, oddly indented butts to fit Tepoktan claws. The constable, in addition, carried a contraption with a quadruple tube for launching tiny rockets no thicker than Kinton's thumb. These, he knew, were loaded with an explosive worthy of respect on any planet he ...
— Exile • Horace Brown Fyfe
... entertaining volume. The icebergs of the Arctic, the bananas of the tropics, the camels of the East, the buffaloes of the West, and the cannibals of the South, are equally at our service. We can hold the mountains, rivers, seas, and human races between our finger and thumb, and thus, as we gently dally with care, we may see the wonders of the world as in a pleasant dream. Thus may we enjoy the perils and hardships of travel at a very ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... said Mr. Grewgious. 'Tick that off;' which he did, with his right thumb on his left. 'Might you happen to know the name of your neighbour in the top set on the other side of the party-wall?' coming very close to Mr. Tartar, to lose nothing of his face, in ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... friend from slumber, and then only in the gentlest manner possible. It is bad manners to point at all, but, if it is absolutely necessary to do so, the forefinger is never employed, but the person or object is indicated, in a sort of shamefaced way, with the thumb. It is impolite to bare a weapon in public, and Europeans often show their ignorance of native etiquette by asking a Malay visitor to let them examine the blade of the kris he is wearing. It is not considered polite to enquire after the welfare of the female members ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... his maternal grandfather had returned to Stratford. To that place he very frequently resorted in his youth, and there, in the well-stored and well-arranged library he pursued the studies he loved. The tradition is that he conned his Greek lessons lying flat on the floor with his thumb in his mouth, and the fingers of the other hand employed in twisting a lock of the brown, hair on his forehead. He took no pleasure in fishing or in hunting; I doubt whether he ever let off a fowling-piece or drew ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... 'sacred name of liberty' was used but as a stalking-horse — as greasy Testaments are used to swear upon in police-courts, when the witness, with his tongue in his cheek, raises his eyes to heaven, and then with fervency imprints a kiss upon his thumb. ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... first servant. I was eight or nine, in velveteen, diamond socks ('Cross your legs when they look at you,' my mother had said, 'and put your thumb in your pocket and leave the top of your handkerchief showing'), and I had travelled by rail to visit a relative. He had a servant, and as I was to be his guest she must be my servant also for the time being - you may be sure I had got my mother to put this plainly before me ere I set off. My relative ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... haste," said the Professor, taking him with finger and thumb by the plaited guard of silk, as if he had intentions upon the watch—not to ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Widows, I cannot but observe one thing, which I do not know how to account for; a Widow is always more sought after, than an old Maid of the same Age. It is common enough among ordinary People, for a stale Virgin to set up a Shop in a Place where she is not known; where the large Thumb Ring, supposed to be given her by her Husband, quickly recommends her to some wealthy Neighbour, who takes a Liking to the jolly Widow, that would have overlooked ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... th' siller for a double pot a' 'arf and 'arf. Hi might tell ye"; and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward a ginshop ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... vulgar mode of contemptuous defiance, thrusting out the fist with the thumb between the first ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... he kindly procured me a bottle of brandy, of which I drank four large wine-glasses one after the other, but did not feel the least tipsy after the operation. Feeling nearly well, I started on my way home, and then for the first time perceived a most acute pain under the nail of the left thumb: this pain also ran up the arm. I set to work to suck the wound, and then found out how the poison had got into the system. About an hour before I examined the dead rat I had been cleaning the nail with a penknife, and had slightly separated the nail from the skin beneath. Into this ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... (Etin's) is the name of a sea cavern near Torquay; another is Daddy's Hole. The Devil long hindered the building of Buckfastleigh Church, which stands on the top of a steep hill. A stone, at about the distance of a mile, has the marks of his finger and thumb. The stone circles, &c. on Dartmoor, are said to have been made "when there were wolves on the hills, and winged serpents in the low lands." On the side of Belstone Tor, near Oakhampton, is a small grave circle called "Nine ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... the old lady under me thumb, but divil a bit I know how. It's all in the word Jonas. When I want a favor, all I've got to do is to say that word. I wonder what it manes ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... of them, his interview with Edith, and her fainting-fit immediately after. Why had he come? What had transpired at that interview? The green-eyed monster took the baronet's heart between his finger and thumb, and gave it a ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... characters when examined and measured under the microscope utterly different from those in every other case. Each is unique, in its pits, lines, circles and irregularities. The laws of chance are as much against two of them having the same markings as they are against the thumb prints of two human subjects being identical. The firing-pin theory, which was used in a famous case in Maine, is just as infallible as the finger-print theory. In this case when we find the owner of the gun making an 'L' mark ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... no where else: but as I was well satisfied it could be nobody but honest Poll, I got it over; and holding out my Hand, and calling him by his Name Poll, the sociable Creature came to me, and sat upon my Thumb, as he used to do, and continued talking to me, Poor Robin Crusoe, and how did I come here? and where had I been? just as if he had been overjoyed to see me again; and so I carried him ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... mother completely under his thumb," Jack answered with promptitude. "She couldn't call her soul her own, your poor mother—so I've heard: he cajoled her and terrified her till she didn't dare to oppose him. Poor shrinking creature, she was afraid of her life to do anything except ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... whittle off the edges. 'Oh, well,' said he, 'I thought I would like to have it nice.' When I had successfully cast the mould of the right hand, I began the left, pausing a few moments to hear Mr. Lincoln tell me about a scar on the thumb. 'You have heard that they call me a rail-splitter, and you saw them carrying rails in the procession Saturday evening; well, it is true that I did split rails, and one day, while I was sharpening a wedge on a log, the axe glanced and nearly took my thumb off, and there is the scar, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... and extended it to them impartially, the check, face uppermost, held between thumb and finger. They bent forward to peer. Some rose and looked over the shoulders of the nearer ones, and glasses were sought and hastily ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... "howlers," although they are of the same tribe as the "howling monkeys." They belong to the genus Ateles, so called because they want the thumb, and are therefore imperfect or unfinished as regards the hands. But what the ateles want in hands is supplied by another member—the tail, and this they have to all perfection. It is to them a fifth hand, and apparently more useful ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... less and less patience with those fussy little ways, found less and less amusing those frequent, small cat-like gestures of hers, picking off an invisible thread from her sleeve, rolling it up to an invisible ball between her white finger and thumb, and casting it delicately away; or settling a ring, or brushing off invisible dust with a flick of a polished finger-nail; all these manoeuvers executed with such leisure and easy deliberation that they didn't make her seem restless, and you knew she calculated that effect. A man ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... honestly; Why, I do. Susy's given me five lessons. You have to sit up as straight as a pin, and count your fingers, one, two, three, four. X is your thumb." ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... doing things in style, by raising large sums of money on post-obit bonds, at the very moderate premium of 40 per cent.—in queering the clergyman at his father's table, and leaving the marks of his finger and thumb on the article of matrimony in his aunt's prayer-book—in kicking up a row at the theatre, when he knows he has some roaring bullies at his elbow, though humble and dastardly when alone—in keeping a ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... and shrank, though an eager, triumphant light shot into her eyes; then, as though by an effort, she overcame the horror and repugnance that had seized her, took it as she might a frog or worm, between thumb and forefinger, and darted into the house, leaving all but Mrs. Stannard petrified with amaze. "Never fear," said Mrs. Stannard. "I know where she has taken it. She will be ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... four Reals of eight: neither did they demaund or call for any thing so much as for the said Reals of eight. Mercery or haberdashers wares were in no such request as money. Also we much marueiled, how the Iauans should tell vs of more shippes to come, making signes with their foure fingers and thumb, that foure Lyma (which word in their ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... some day and slay him like a dog—" He stopped abruptly, and Gascoyne, looking askance at him, saw that his eyes were full of tears, whereupon he turned his looks away again quickly, and fell to shooting pebbles out through the open window with his finger and thumb. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... apostate repeated alternately and with rhythmic precision as he proceeded to press tobacco into a clay pipe with numerous deft movements of his large red thumb, regarding me fixedly ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... sky lords concern themselves in this matter. In fact it would be against custom, for it was meet that such a hunt be left to warriors of few years, that they might earn glory and be able to stand before the fires at the Naming as men. Therefore—the thumb claw of Groft was extended to its greatest length as he used it to single out the Terrans he had been eyeing—let this one, and that, and that, and the fourth be ready to join with the Salariki party ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... varying not much more than men's feet vary. The heights of horses are still expressed in hands. The inch is the length of the terminal joint of the thumb; as is clearly shown in France, where pouce means both thumb and inch. Then we have the inch ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... he said to himself; "but never mind, she will tell me all to-morrow. I shall win her; it will be my delight to guard her, to help her, and if necessary to save her. She is under someone's thumb; but ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... fish cut under the gills and squeeze out the contents by pressing upward from the middle with the thumb and finger. To open large fish split them from the gills halfway down the body toward the tail; remove the entrails and scrape and clean, opening far enough to remove all the blood from the backbone, and ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... life! It would be much nicer if they could be put off as easily as they were put on. Rather hard on some women perhaps, but she could keep any man as long as she chose, and then—she snapped her pretty thumb and finger in the air to express her utter disdain for the man whom she ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... seen on all sides, careering in new forms. Once more, he was seen to assume a prodigious form, with a hundred heads and a hundred stomachs, and looking like the Mainaka mountain.[235] Once again, becoming small about the measure of the thumb, he moved about transversely or soared aloft like the swelling surges of the sea. Tearing through the earth and rising on the surface, he dived again into the waters. Once seen here, he was next ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... question of nationality in Europe bristles with difficulties. It cannot be solved by theory and rule of thumb. What is a nation? Shall it be determined by speech, by blood, by geographical boundary, by historic tradition? The freedom and independence of a country can and ever should be assured when with one voice it demands the same. It is seldom as easy as all that. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... no better way of testing whether pain has been felt than by taking the lacerated or contused gums of the patient between the index finger and thumb and making a gentle pressure to collapse the alveolar borders; invariably, they will cry out lustily, that is pain! This gives undoubted proof of a specific agent. There is no attempt upon my own part ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... all about the arguments of the wretched crew of demagogues engaged in this propaganda. I could easily, to quote De Quincey's words, 'bray their fungous heads to powder with a lady's fan, and throttle them between heaven and earth with my finger and thumb.' But we want to know just how far their doctrines, or whatever they call their crack-brained fantasies, have taken root in the minds of the people, and what the minds are like, and what the outcome of it all is to be. If we go to the East End, and I don't see why we shouldn't, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... mind their p's and q's. Despotism is just as strong in science as in the army. And he is spending his second summer in this stinking little town because he would rather be first in a village than second in a town. Here he is a king and an eagle; he keeps all the inhabitants under his thumb and oppresses them with his authority. He has appropriated every one, he meddles in other people's affairs; everything is of use to him, and every one is afraid of him. I am slipping out of his clutches, he feels that ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the S. of these places, are a quantity of wild asses, which the Arabs Sherarat hunt, and eat (secretly). Their skins and hoofs are sold to the wandering Christian pedlars, and in the towns of Syria. Of the hoofs rings are made, which the Fellahs of eastern Syria wear on the thumb, or tied with a thread round the arm-pit, to prevent, or to heal rheumatic complaints. I may here make a general remark that there is an infinity of names of places in the desert. Every Tel, every declivity, or, elevation in a Wady, every ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... didn't come in the elevator. I had my usual luck. The elevator was up somewhere, and after I'd pressed the annunciator button till my thumb ached, I watched my ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... warm hand laid on mine as it rested on my lap and Doctor John's kind voice teased into my ears: "Steady, Mrs. Peaches, there's the loving-cup to come yet," he whispered. I hated him, but held on to his thumb tight for half a minute. He didn't know what the matter really was, but he understood what I needed. He ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... funeral," said the girl softly. "Then you came to Prescott, and you had lost your thumb in the meantime; and I was Little Next ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... undoubtedly rush; but they were still drunk from the Revolution, and their ardour soon passed. Your own people, the people of Germany, are a peaceable, home-loving people. You have always had to keep them under your thumb by forced service, by conscription, by the most rigorous laws; you have always had ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... pride of one who had moved men like pawns across the checker-board of life and death. "The two cases afford no parallel. Ann and Terry have remained in the social stations to which they were born, while I—I stand outside all such ready-made, rule of thumb classifications. By sheer impetus of personality I have lifted myself out of the rut, so that not even you, with all your omniscience, dare prophesy how far I am going ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... comfort myself with this thought, I close the window again and return to my book, more restless and absent than before. Sitting thus, with the unturned leaf lingering between my thumb and forefinger, I hear a rapid footfall on the stairs, and a musical whistle which, growing louder as it draws nearer, breaks off at my door, and is followed by a prolonged assault and ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... with one leg over the other, and rubbing the top of his boot with a vigor which betrayed to me some secret mirth. He looked up at me from under his straw hat with the grin of a malicious Puck, glanced towards the group, and made a curious gesture with his thumb. There were several empty pint ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... into the luciscope and then he made a few adjustments with a thumb-screw that projected from ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... was motionless, the stock of his gun on the ground, while his right hand lightly clasped the barrel, his left thumb inserted at his girdle, close to the handle of his knife, much after the fashion of some of us who use the arm holes of ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... home life, which crops out now and then in these Frankfort letters, is very genuine and delightful. Now, Marie is learning the scale of C; he has actually forgotten how to play it, and has taught her to pass her thumb under the wrong finger! Now, Paul tumbles the others about so as to crack their skulls as well as his own. Another time he is dragged off from his letter to see a great tower which the children have ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... ye have spoken the truth, for there is the mark o' the devil's grip;' and greatly to the terror of all, there appeared on the hip of the exhausted man the black imprint of a thumb ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... this oath the scout will stand holding his right hand raised level with his shoulder, palm to the front, thumb resting on the nail of the little finger, and the other three fingers upright pointing upward. This the scouts' ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... indeed, without excuse. For the great owners of the past, certainly, we regret that they were so sparing in marginalia. But this should hardly be considered as an excuse for the petty owners of the present, with "their most observing thumb."' Mr. Lang is the lucky owner of a copy of Stoddart's poem, 'The Death Wake' (1831), that singular romantic or necromantic volume, which wise collectors will purchase when they can. It is of extreme rarity, and the poetry is no less rare, in the French manner of ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... peal of laughter was Gubblum's swift abridgment. The peddler tapped the mouth of his pipe on his thumb-nail, and smiled ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... an interest in the girl, that is, in her music,' he continued. 'She has a good voice, and possesses other good qualities; but refinement—good heavens, where should she get it?' So saying, he repeatedly rubbed the thumb and forefinger of his right hand together. I was quite confused at being undeservedly credited with such a considerable knowledge of music, and was just on the point of explaining the true state of affairs, when some one passing the store called in 'Good evening, all!' ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the right-hand glove—the kid gave with a little shriek, the thumb splitting out. She was in a state of acute indecision. Could she retire from this contest without endangering her authority, without loss of prestige, or must she insist? She had no real wish to hasten to her ex-pupil's ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... ever read, entitled, "Fifty Ways for Boys to Make Money" AND a "Reach" Base Ball Fielder's Glove, (This glove is made of fine brown tan leather, felt padded and leather lined, patent wide hump, web thumb and deep pocket.) ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... parts of the world apart, in spite of the friendly cohesive forces of trade and travel. It keeps back self-government of men." These evils cannot be overcome by law, by formula, by resolution or rule of thumb, but rather by long, patient study, research, and work of many master-minds in co-operative leadership, who will create a sound international public opinion. The international mind needs entire regeneration, not ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... Wood-Sun, Sunbeam, and Bowmay are wholesome women to meet in a story, and Thiodolf, Gold-mane, Iron-face and Hallward are every inch men for book-use or to commune with every day. Weaklings, too, abide in these stories, and Penny-thumb and Rusty and Fiddle and Wood-grey lend ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... are not like those wicked Italians and Germans who have no scruple about swallowing slave grown sugar. Surely this sophistry is worthy only of the worst class of false witnesses. "I perjure myself! Not for the world. I only kissed my thumb; I did not put my lips to the calf-skin." I remember something very like the right honourable Baronet's morality in a Spanish novel which I read long ago. I beg pardon of the House for detaining them with such a trifle; but the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fire, then, no Jesuitical rack, no cup of hemlock, no thumb-screw, no torture of any kind for David. Still, here was a duty to be done, an awful responsibility to be discharged in sorrow and with prayer; and grave good men they were. Blameless was this lad in all their eyes save in his doubt. But to doubt—was ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... of Canning contains A new Easter-offering tax; And he means to devote all the gains To a bounty on thumb-screws and racks. Your living, so neat and compact— Pray, don't let the news give you pain!— Is promised, I know for a fact, To an ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the face terrible, and with a fixed look; with acumination or pointing and contraction of the pulps of the ear. And there are many other signs, as pustules and excrescences, atrophy of the muscles, and particularly of those between the thumb and forefinger; insensibility of the extremities; fissures, and infections of the skin; the blood, when drawn and washed, containing black, earthy, rough, sandy matter. The above are those evident and manifest signs, which, ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope
... painted the rainbow, one the head and body, another the skirt and legs, while the third painted the bow. The head of this goddess was to the north, the bow extending over the structure. The colors used were made from ground pigments sprinkled on with the thumb and forefinger. Whenever a pinch of the dry paint was taken from the pieces of bark which served as paint cups, the artist breathed upon the hand before sprinkling the paint. This, however, had no ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... I told her right before Edith. I think it ought all to be done with perfect frankness, because nobody can say it isn't for the girl's own good and what her best friend would do. But Mother Sheridan's under Edith's thumb, and she's afraid to ever come right out with anything. Father Sheridan's different. Edith can get anything she wants out of him in the way of money or ordinary indulgence, but when it comes to a matter like this he'd be a steel ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... of these, and found them all good when rightly applied. If pure hog manure is used it is apt to produce that corpulent enlargement of the roots known in different localities as "stump foot," "underground head," "finger and thumb;" but I have found barn manure on which hogs have run, two hogs to each animal, excellent. The cabbage is the rankest of feeders, and to perfect the larger sort a most liberal allowance of the richest composts ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory
... Show woman, "what shows a Dwarf," Seeing a red Cow come To swallow her Tom Thumb, And forc'd with broom of birch to keep ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... common charge is that I think too much of beauty, and say too much about it. I myself think it one of my greatest weaknesses. A handsome man, woman or child can always make a pack-horse of me. My next neighbor's little boy has me completely under his thumb, merely by virtue of his beautiful eyes and sweet voice." There was one before her of whom it was said, "He denied himself, and took up his cross." It was also said of him, "Though he was rich, yet ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... the velvet mask by that part of it which covered the cheeks, and feeling that her thumb was wet, she looked at it. It was not only wet, but reddened. The mask had fallen upon one of the spots of blood which, we have already said, stained the floor, and from the black velvet outside, which had ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... of his hands outstretched on the counterpane. I thought a glimmer of content lightened his dull eyes as I sat down beside him. I talked with him a little, but he seemed scarcely to heed my words. Then turning his head towards me he plucked from under his pillow an old thumb-worn copy of Virgil (so bedraggled and spotted that no second-hand book-seller would have looked at it) and thrust it out to me, intimating by a gesture that he would have me read to him. I asked him where I should ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... run both ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I've got to have two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the door for me, and, with his palette on his thumb, and a brush in his hand, sat down for a moment ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... more and more, and looked up and looked down, and bit his thumb, and dried it on his waistcoat, and finally said, eyeing his tormentor askance, 'How should I know, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... thumped in the bung while the foreman made his notes in a book, and in a few minutes a man or a woman came and rolled the barrel away. Those employed in the task wore strong leather gloves with no fingers—only a thumb, and so tarred they were absolutely hard, as also their boots from walking over the tarry ground. And yet all the faces were beautifully clean, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... winter, and I confess I grumbled as I rose and went downstairs to open the door. Twice that week I had been aroused long after midnight for the most trivial causes. Once, to attend upon the son and heir of a wealthy family, who had cut his thumb with a penknife, which, it seems, he insisted on taking to bed with him; and once, to restore a young gentleman to consciousness, who had been found by his horrified parent stretched insensible on the staircase. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... out a faithful pipe, fill it, press down tobacco with a practised thumb, and reach toward the campfire for a burning brand. Then he smoked ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... of the wilderness, And we the low-prized laymen. In sooth, red flannel is a saucy test Which few can put on with impunity. What make you, master, fumbling at the oar? Will you catch crabs? Truth tries pretension here. The sallow knows the basket-maker's thumb; The oar, the guide's. Dare you accept the tasks He shall impose, to find a spring, trap foxes, Tell the sun's time, determine the true north, Or stumbling on through vast self-similar woods To thread by night the nearest ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Will you have clansmen for your candlesticks, or silver plate? Myrmidons at your tents, ant-born, or only a mob on the Gillies' Hill? Are you resolved that you will never have any but your inferiors to serve you, or shall Enid ever lay your trencher with tender little thumb, and Cinderella sweep your hearth, and be cherished there? It might come to that in time, and plate and hearth be the brighter; but if your servants are to be held your inferiors, at least be sure they are so, and that you are ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... was said to be worth about fifty cents, and the second over five dollars. Almost all, though, that was found was like beans or small seeds or in fine dust. No one tried to weigh or measure such gold more correctly than to call a pinch between the finger and thumb a dollar's worth, while a teaspoonful was an ounce, or sixteen dollars' worth. A wineglassful meant a hundred dollars, and a tumblerful a thousand. Miners carried their "dust" in a buckskin bag, and this was put on the counter, and the storekeeper took out what he thought enough ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... with the missing eye covered by a black patch, worked demoniacally in the gathering darkness with each leaping flame of the ignited torches. The hand that clutched the knife was a thing of horror; two fingers and half the thumb remained from some drunken brawl to serve the Spaniard in future play for work or debauch; and the man, crouching low over his stone, made a picture of incarnate hate that ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... I'll never forget that benevolent-looking face of yours. As I was saying, I would bid you good-by, and leave. I'd pass those fellows," he added, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the robbers in the rear, "before they could say 'General Jackson' with their mouth's open. You haven't got a horse, in this party, that can ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... had given Drake an exaggerated reverence for the printed page. He was inclined to set Mallinson on a pinnacle, and scourge himself at the foot of it for his earlier distrust of him. He opened the book again at the beginning, and let the pages slip across beneath his thumb from cover to cover; 413 was marked on the top corner of the last; 413 pages actually written and printed and published; all consecutive too; something new on each page. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... lavish. A sort of stud or button, composed of a solitary ruby, in the upper rim of the cartilage of either ear,—a chain of gold, curiously wrought, and intertwined with a string of small pearls, around his neck,—a massive bangle of plain gold on his arm,—a richly jewelled ring on his thumb, and others, broad and shield-like, on his toes,—complete his outfit in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the many interesting books, manuscripts, works of art, antiques and relics, found in this Library and Museum. Among them stands the desk at which little "Willie" sat at school, also a ring which he wore at his thumb (later in life), and upon which are engraved the letters "W.S." and a "true lover's knot." I spent nearly an hour here, a studying how things looked in Shakespeare's time. The ground floors of the house, are covered with flagstones broken in varied forms, as accident would have it, while the rough ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... brass bi this time, for he wor allus a nipper; but he wor allus honest, an' it isn't ivery man yo meet i'th world 'at's honest; but aw doant think Tommy ud wrang ony body aght o'th' vally o' that;"—saying which, he snapped his finger and thumb together ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... not answer. He had his gun held in such a way that it could be fired with a second's warning. At the same time his left hand was gripping the little electric torch, with his thumb pressed against the trigger that would connect the battery, and send an intense ray of light wherever ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... be a work of considerable time, for with their masts they would have to clear away the branches to a considerable height. Down near the water the branches by which we pushed ourselves along were those of the undergrowth, with many rattans and other creepers varying from the thickness of one's thumb to that of one's wrist, and these would take a great deal of chopping before one of their war boats could be pushed through, but higher up they would probably have much thicker branches to contend with. It may be that they can lower their masts; but even if they could do so, I should ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... into sight of the branding-fire with his Winchester across his saddle-horn and his thumb upon the hammer; what followed came with almost the blinding suddenness of a lightning crash, though afterward the events of that crowded moment lingered as a clear-cut memory. First there was the picture of a sandy glade in the center of which burned a fire with branding-irons in it, and a spotted ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... designed, on purpose, to furnish no temptation to pilferers. There was a table, two chairs, a painted plaster statue of a gray-bearded man in black standing on a small bracket with a crook in his hand; a pious book, much thumb-marked, lay face downwards on the table beside the oil lamp. There was another door through which the monk had disappeared, and that was absolutely all. There was no carpet and no curtains, but a bright little coal fire burned on the hearth, and two windows looked, one up the drive down which Frank ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... where they could not be seen, that is, in the dark places. The grown imps look like old men with beards, but no one ever heard of a kabouter that was taller than a yardstick. As for the babies, they are hardly bigger than a man's thumb. The big boys and girls, in the kabouter kingdom, are not much over ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... something of your history, Nichols," he said with a wink, "I might think you'd been looting the strong box of the Sultan of Turkey. Pigeon's blood and as big as my thumb nail! You want to ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... and only about so large," the ex-theological student assured them, indicating the circle formed with his index finger and thumb. "Press hard on the plugs so that they won't ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... been! She, who had been such a docile girl, and then for many years so completely under the thumb of her splendid-looking husband, had suddenly become utterly intractable. She would listen to no reason and brook no delay. She had been willing enough to explain; she had explained repeatedly, but the trouble ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... searched now with a will. There was but a short moment of suspense, then the sliding panel fell back, the little tin box was pulled out, and Cecile's Russia-leather purse was held up in triumph between Jane's finger and thumb. ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... Chamu was led into a room where an ink-pot stood open on a desk, and watched narrowly while he made a thumb-mark and ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... suppose the form, like @ or the Phoenician @ and @ for the Phoenician @ turned through an angle of 90 deg. . So also if Kaf corresponds to the Babylonian Kappu, "hollow-hand,'' the Sabaean form @ which Hommel33 interprets as the outline of the hand with the fingers turned in and the thumb raised is a better pictograoh than the various meaningless forms of k ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the table. "This," said the Professor, holding up some invisible object between his thumb and forefinger, "is the finest cambric needle. I will take upon the point of it an invisible portion of the substance I speak of." Here he carefully picked out a pill from the basin, and as carefully placed it upon the table, where he detached an infinitesimal ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... of the man who held him completely under his thumb, Casey ran forward. Seeing him coming, Jerry fled behind a large screen. Here rested a heavy cane, and he picked it up and brandished it ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... interview Jeneka had been holding a determined thumb against the electric button. The Governor-General, waiting impatiently up the hallway, heard the prolonged buzzing and came to investigate. He found the adorable Jeneka, all trembling with indignation, in the doorway. She saw him and pointed. He looked and ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... tactics, husbanding his resources and exposing his troops to no unnecessary hazards. The total loss of the victors in this obstinately contested affair was, in killed, wounded, and missing—one forefinger and part of a thumb-nail (which the late proprietor brought along with him in his hand), a severely contused arm, and a considerable effusion of blood flowing from the thigh of a chief, who had received an ugly thrust ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... make no noise, while I brew a rack- punch for the men-folk in the parlor." She jerked her thumb toward the buttery hatch, where I had already caught the mur-mer ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... considered it my duty, I told him he was a liar, and he was so upset that he nicked my Adam's apple and I was that covered with blood that I accused him of trying to cut my throat, and I went out and finished shaving myself at home, which is unsatisfactory when you only have a thumb on your right hand ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... no instruments of torture, [Footnote: "The gag, the thumb-screw, and many other instruments of severe torture could be easily destroyed and others as easily procured. The non-appearance of instruments is not enough to sustain the current belief that the use of them is discontinued. So long ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... our orchards bore so profusely. The succeeding year the majority of the trees were as dead as smelts, and the balance never had vigor enough afterward to produce a decent crop. Once before," said he, "we had a similar experience in Illinois. Put your thumb down at this place and watch for results. Do not say anything about this in your Wayside Blusterings, at least as coming from me," and of course I don't. But I wanted the readers of THE PRAIRIE FARMER to help me watch with fear and trembling for the fulfillment of this horticultural ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... is a great tell-tale where character is concerned. If nose, eyes and mouth decline to reveal the secrets or temperament, you need not be at a loss. Notice the hands, and especially the thumb of the person whom you ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... as machinery and marked tinned milk. What more ye want? They got things switched somehow, and that's plain as the nose on yer face. I had my thumb on it, ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... into a prehensile hand is polyphyletic. By the same adaptation to climbing trees the habit of grasping their branches with the feet has in many different cases brought about that opposition of the thumb or great toe to the other toes which makes the hand prehensile. We see this in the climbing lizards (chameleon), the birds, and the tree-dwelling mammals of ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... Suzette, as proud as a king. Madame Roquet, volubly convivial, was talking to every one. Madame Robineau was silently disposing of all the biscuits and punch that came in her way. Monsieur Robineau, with his hat a little pushed back and his thumb in the arm-hole of his waistcoat, was telling a long story to which nobody listened; while Dalrymple, sitting on the other side of the bride, was gallantly doing the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... differ. Whom shall my soul believe? One conclusion may, at least, be rested in: a man's true success must not be estimated by things done, which had their price in the world; but by that which the world's coarse thumb and finger failed to plumb; by his immature instincts and unsure purposes which weighed not as his work in the world's estimation, yet went toward making up the main amount of his real worth; by thoughts ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... After they were read, I was demanded to swear to the performance of them; first in the manner of my own country, and afterward in the method prescribed by their laws; which was, to hold my right foot in my left hand, to place the middle finger of my right hand on the crown of my head, and my thumb on the tip of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... breaking into sea-life so sharp and suddenlike, there were many things I noted that most men would never heed. I don't heed them myself now. But then I did. And in port on Sundays, and sometimes at sea when I couldn't sleep on the middle-watch, I'd jot down little thumb-nail sketches, you might call them, of the things I saw. 'Cameos of the Sea,' I'd put on the top. The whole thing wasn't as long as some of the chapters in Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall,' and, to tell you the truth, I had no great opinion of them. I only mention them because ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... appeared to be about as long as the whole arm. From his shoulder a thin, rubbery skin was stretched to the ends of the long fingers, then across to the ankle of his hind foot on that side, and from there across to the tip of his tail. A little short thumb with a long, curved claw stuck up free from ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... he shyly bit his thumb, And coyly blushed like one half-witted, "The pain is in my little tum," He, whispering, at ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... tongs, some old candle-sticks, some earthenware pots, and even a syringe. From this I concluded that some prisoner of distinction had been allowed to make use of these articles. But what interested me most was a straight iron bar as thick as my thumb, and about a foot and a half long. However, I left everything as it was, as my plans had not been sufficiently ripened by time for me to appropriate any ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... with his thumb. "They are not at home now. They go on a hunt. But you shall not make more trouble for them or you will hear from me," and again he handled his gun suggestively. The man's face was very red and looked as if he had been drinking. Evidently he was in ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... about the ass is current amongst the rural population. The haddock, again, amongst marine animals, is supposed, throughout all maritime Europe, to be a privileged fish; even in austere Scotland, every child can point out the impression of St. Peter's thumb, by which from age to age it is distinguished from fishes having otherwise an external resemblance. All domesticated cattle, having the benefit of man's guardianship and care, are believed throughout England and ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... across, Jerry," Spillane said, at the same time jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his wife. "Her father's hurt at the Clover Leaf. Powder explosion. Not expected to live. We just ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... strong-box at the Fair the other day, while the three Englishmen hammered away in vain at Brother Jonathan Herring's. The Englishmen represented brute force. The Germans had been trained to appreciate principle. The Englishman "knows his business by rote and rule of thumb"—science, which would "teach him to do in an hour what has hitherto occupied him two hours," "is in a manner forbidden to him." To this cause the "Times" attributes the falling off of English workmen in comparison with those ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... brother of the King of Baracouta, a calabash of palm-wine was produced, which, in consequence of some imperfection in the vessel, leaked out its contents; in order to cure this defect, the hospitable chief took off his hat, and, scraping with his thumb-nail a portion of the clay and grease from his head, effectually checked further leakage, with ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... sunset rays, as he tested its sharpness between thumb and finger. The Arab watched with a smile. "We understand one another," he said. There was no need to finish the description of his plan. With a solemn wave of his hand he left ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... his head against the back of the sofa, and looking up at the chandelier, "sometimes a man has more freedom than he's got any use for. I don't know as I want to be back under Tweet's thumb, but I guess the Scripture was about right where it says it ain't good for a man to be alone. When d'you leave ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... an interrogative lift of his eyebrows, at the bed to the left. Jerry of the twinkling sloe-eyes answered with a quick upturn of the thumb in the direction of the ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... to produce one ton of dried, and are, therefore, the most profitable for drying; they also command better values in the market. The grapes are sufficiently dried when, on being rolled between the thumb and finger, no moisture exudes, and also when the stems are found to be dry and brittle, so that they can be separated readily from the berries. After the grapes have reached the proper state of dryness, they are taken in boxes or sacks to the packing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... set to work all the harder, for the idea of Thumb-and-Craft was new to him; and that made his craft very interesting to him, so that he became determined to stick to it until he got the beauty out of it. (All the same, it was a frightfully backward Summer that year; and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... line Carol was indignant at the prodding curiosity of the others, their manner of staring at the poor as at a Zoo. She felt herself a great liberator. She put her hand to her mouth, her forefinger and thumb quite painfully pinching her lower lip, and frowned, and enjoyed ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... [Passing him and crossing to veranda, turns and beckons to him. She motions with her thumb over her shoulder. He goes up the steps ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... him the writing on the package; "here is the same hand, but it is written with a fine hard pencil, and you can see distinctly that this is a woman's handwriting. And besides, the skin on a man's thumb does not show the fine markings that you can see here on these bits of bread that have been used ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... continued Burnside, putting the forefinger and thumb of each hand together, as if he was making "windows" with soapsuds, "Captain Desborough has surprised that gang in a gully, sir, and," spreading his hands out right ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... lying close together on the sand in three fathoms, when the tide set inshore in the morning. And then he fell out wi' my lady, and she never spoke to him again—no, not to the day of her death. They lived at Fording—that's the great hall over there," he said to Westray, jerking his thumb towards the east—"for twenty years in separate wings, like you mi'd say each in a house to themselves. And then he fell out wi' Mr Fynes, his grandson, and turned him out of house and lands, though he couldn't leave them anywhere else when he died. 'Tis Mr Fynes as is the young lord now, and ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... of about twenty was nailing a green kangaroo skin to the slabs; he was out of temper because he had bruised his thumb. The girl unstrapped the parcels and carried them in; as she passed ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... one indubitable sign of identification, his rimless hat cut full of holes and decorated with its variety of badge buttons. Ruefully, Mr. Denny lifted this dripping masterpiece of original handiwork, and held it between his thumb and forefinger. ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... crossed the Cascade Portage, which is the last on the way to the Athabasca Lake, and soon afterwards came to some Indian tents, containing five families, belonging to the Chipewyan tribe. We smoked the calumet in the Chiefs tent, whose name was the Thumb, and distributed some tobacco and a weak mixture of spirits and water among the men. They received this civility with much less grace than the Crees, and seemed to consider it a matter of course. There was an utter neglect of cleanliness, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... packed, and was to have left for the North Woods this morning. Now I must wait until to-morrow morning. I hate night trains. My best razors are, of course, at the bottom of some unidentifiable trunk. It is a plot to drive me to bay rum and a monologueing, thumb-handed barber. Give me a pen that doesn't scratch. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... to themselves, gave a snarling refusal. Then there were jovial spirits who must have their jest, even though the sensitive subject of it was tortured thereby—men who enjoyed quizzing Haldane before sending him on, as much as the old inquisitors relished a little recreation with hot pincers and thumb-screws. There were also conscientious people, whose worldly prudence prevented them from giving employment to one so damaged in character, and yet who felt constrained to give some good advice. To this, it must be confessed, Haldane listened with very poor grace, thus extending ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... three gestures, without saying a word: first she pointed to herself, then she shook her forefinger, and lastly she jerked her thumb back in the direction of the door that led to the Senator's apartments. The weak-minded body was not Pina, but her master, since he had brought that handsome singer to teach Ortensia, who had never before exchanged two words with any young man, handsome or plain, except ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... box that generated his protective screen. Snapping it open with thumb-pressure, he turned a ...
— Mutineer • Robert J. Shea
... the line of arm and racquet is straight and the hand on top of the handle. The thumb in my stroke is around the handle, but may be placed up the handle if desired. Personally, I do not use it, and do not advocate it, as it tends to detract from the ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... granes of Lead. He answered; Give it me. I, accordingly gave it him, conceiving, good hope of receiving somewhat a greater particle instead thereof; but he breaking off the one half almost of it with his thumb-nayl, threw it into the fire, and wrapping the other up in blew paper, he gave to me, faying, It is yet sufficient for thee. To which, I with, a sad Countenance and perplexed Mind, answered: Ah Sir! What mean you by this? Before ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... to ask a question," said Holmes, with his finger and thumb in his waistcoat pocket. "Should I be too early to see your master, Mr. Silas Brown, if I were to call at five ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... and brusquely went away with a loud guffaw. Wamibo dreamed.... Donkin felt all over his sterile chin for the few rare hairs, and said, triumphantly, with a sidelong glance at Jimmy:—"Look at 'im! Wish I was 'arf has 'ealthy as 'ee is—I do." He jerked a short thumb over his shoulder towards the after end of the ship. "That's the blooming way to do 'em!" he yelped, with forced heartiness. Jimmy said:—"Don't be a dam' fool," in a pleasant voice. Knowles, rubbing his shoulder against the doorpost, remarked shrewdly:—"We can't all go an' be took sick—it would ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... of this speech brought a radiant smile of relief to Sewell's face. "Ah, well, then! That settles it! I feel perfectly sure that 'Manda Grier will win the day. That poor, sick, flimsy little Statira is completely under 'Manda Grier's thumb, and will do just what she says, now that there's no direct appeal from her will to Barker's; they will never be married. Don't you see that it was 'Manda Grier's romance in the beginning, and that when she came to distrust, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... nutmeg, and somewhat hard and tough. Having picked some leaves, he took one of them, and produced from his pocket a small piece of lime about the size of a pea. This he mixed with some of the nut, and enclosed in the leaf. He then took the roll between his thumb and forefinger, and rubbed it violently against the front of his gums, his teeth being closed and his lips open. After this, he began to chew it for some time, and then held it between his lips and teeth, a portion protruding from ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... He's a fool where women are concerned. Always was, and now he's got to the stage where he can't sit beside a girl without pawing her. They won't have him in the house. Of course this lovely creature's got him under her thumb. (I'll see him today and give him a piece of my mind for the lies he's told me.) And if this girl has inherited her mother's ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... knife knit knuckle knock knot know knowledge lamb latch laugh limb listen match might muscle naughty night notch numb often palm pitcher pitch pledge ridge right rough scene scratch should sigh sketch snatch soften stitch switch sword talk though through thought thumb tough twitch thigh walk watch whole witch would write written wrapper wring wrong wrung ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... bit of old iron, incrusted with earth; but Elsie persisted to knock off some of the earth that seemed to have incrusted it, and discovered a key. The children ran with their prize to the grim Doctor, who took it between his thumb and finger, turned it over and over, and then proceeded to rub it with a chemical substance which soon made it bright. It proved to be a silver key, of antique and ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his pocket and drew out a small object which he held up before her between his fat forefinger and thumb. It was a ring, a thin, plain hoop of gold worth possibly a couple of dollars, but which in her eyes seemed to possess an incalculable value, for she had no sooner seen it than her whole face flushed and a look of positive delight supplanted the passionately aggrieved one with which she ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... He read and re-read it, became more thoughtful, sighed slightly. Then he moved to the table and took some note-paper out of a writing-case. Still he seemed to be in doubt, hesitated in pressing a pen against his thumb-nail, was on the point of putting the note-paper away again. Ultimately, however, he sat down to write. He covered four pages with a letter, which he then proceeded deliberately to correct and alter, till he had ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... of not very good plays of the lighter kind, with a few poems and miscellanies, it is reasonably enough supposed that he lived by his pen. The only product of this period which has kept (or indeed which ever received) competent applause is Tom Thumb, or the Tragedy of Tragedies, a following of course of the Rehearsal, but full of humour and spirit. The most successful of his other dramatic works were the Mock Doctor and the Miser, adaptations of Moliere's famous pieces. ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... the desired effect, he threw down the hatchet and said he would first bite out the minister's finger-nails,—a form of torture then in vogue among the northern Indians, both converts and heathen. Williams offered him a hand and invited him to begin; on which he gave the thumb-nail a gripe with his teeth, and then let it go, saying, "No good minister, bad as the devil." The failure seems to have discouraged him, for he made no further attempt ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... guaranteed to me be th' Constitution, which Gawd defind an' help in these here days, an' me liquor license, I'm entitled to stick me tongue in me cheek, wink, roll up me nose, wiggle me hands fr'm me ears, bite me thumb, or say 'Pooh' to any black-an'-tan ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... the pin delicately between finger and thumb, and controlled her with his roguish eyes. She took the pin and fixed the rose to ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... yet he had never been broke of the habit of sucking his thumb. Ef he'd ben my child, I'd a lammed it out'n him before he'd a seen two, but seem' he was aged for an infant havin' such practices, I tried to shame him out'n it. But, Lord a massy, men folks is hard to shame even at four. I hissed at ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... that hero, whom they first rejected, rendered it the general subject of discourse at Venice. Numberless were the instances he gave of a magnanimity and greatness of mind worthy of a more exalted throne than that of Poland; but I shall only mention one, which, like the thumb of Hercules, may serve to give a ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... and self-contradiction. An amusing instance of this may be given from Sesame and Lilies. In the first lecture, which, it will be recalled, was given in aid of a library fund, we find[21] the remark, "We are filthy and foolish enough to thumb one another's books out of circulating libraries." His friends and his enemies, the clergy (who "teach a false gospel for hire") and the scientists, the merchants and the universities, Darwin and Dante, all had their share in the indignant ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... in daylight it didn't seem as if It could be such an awful devil of a god. But It did have the deuce of a funny spoor, as I made haste to find out. The thing had five toes, like a man, which was a relief. But unlike nigger feet, the thumb toe and the index weren't spread. The thumb bent sharply inward, and mixed its pad mark with that of the index. Furthermore, though the impress of the toes was very deep (down-slanting like a man walking on tiptoe), the heel marks were also very deep, and between ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... host at once. After a fervent meditation, with his hands clasped before his face, he took the paten and gathered from the corporal the sacred particles of the host that had fallen, and dropped them into the chalice. One particle which had adhered to his thumb he removed with his forefinger. And, crossing himself, chalice in hand, with the paten once again below his chin, he drank all the precious blood in three draughts, never taking his lips from the cup's rim, but imbibing the divine Sacrifice ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... himself as he pressed the switch of his electric torch and looked. Again he saw the twin braids of heavy golden hair ere his thumb relaxed from the ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... became a judge of the Insolvent Court, noticing a witness kiss his thumb instead of the Testament, after rebuking him said, "You may think to desave God, sir, but you ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... shipping room where a travelling crane was rolling on its tracks overhead, carrying a load of boxes. This crane was hurrying back empty for another load, its chain and tackle swinging low, when Martha started across the room to look at one of the boys who had caught his thumb between a hammer and a nail and was trying to bind it with his handkerchief. The next moment the swinging tackle of the crane struck poor Martha in the back, caught in her dress and dragged her for a few horrible yards ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... a work of art! You have lost your artistic senses. The man is utterly incapable of modelling a thumb nail, let alone ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... stroking his chin with his thumb and finger while he deliberated, "I s'pose I may as well tell ye fust as last. I cum here for that purpose, an' all I want to fix is, if thar's nothin' in it ye'd keep it a secret and not raise any false hopes in the minds o' them as is near ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... straight line and resting on left leg, flexed, in the attitude of Gea-Tellus, fulfilled, recumbent, big with seed. Narrator: reclined laterally, left, with right and left legs flexed, the index finger and thumb of the right hand resting on the bridge of the nose, in the attitude depicted in a snapshot photograph made by Percy Apjohn, the childman weary, the manchild ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... stopped for a few minutes to play with Henry Wills—a boy not quite a year older than I. While playing there I discovered a piece of the rind of my melon in the dooryard. On that piece of rind I saw the cross which I had made one day with my thumb-nail. It was intended to indicate that the melon was solely and wholly mine. I felt a flush ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... to make the agreement good and to allay his feelings. When requested to sign the document the camel man, who had sounded each coin on the doorstep, and to his evident surprise found them all good, gaily dipped his thumb into the inkstand and affixed his natural mark, a fine smudge, upon the valuable paper, and licked up the surplus ink with his tongue. The man undertook to provide the necessary camels and saddles, and to take me across the Salt Desert in a north-easterly ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of contempt or playfulness, as the case may be, and which consists in a certain twist of the fingers and thumb. ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Bailey jerked a thumb significantly at the ceiling. "The boss wants to see you. And you'd better have the right answers, too. The boss seems to have ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... in a few days for Mrs. Bazalgette's house. You tell me you have got a warm invitation there. Then make the play there, and, if you can't win her, say you don't deserve her, twiddle your thumb, and see a bolder lover carry her off. You foolish boy, she is only a woman; she is to be won. If you don't mind, some man will show you it was as easy as you think it is hard. Timid wooers make a mountain ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... instant's hesitation, Robert slipped it away, and crumpling it up in his hand, gave out the twenty-third psalm, over which it had lain, and read it through. Finding it too short, however, for the respectability of worship, he went on with the twenty-fourth, turning the leaf with thumb and forefinger, while the rest of the fingers clasped the note tight in his palm, and reading ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... to Rowland as he came up, and pointed back with his thumb to the statue, with a smile half sardonic, half good-natured. "A pretty thing—a devilish pretty thing," he said. "It 's as fresh as the foam in the milk-pail. He can do it once, he can do it twice, he can do it at a stretch half ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... apparently been in a deep reverie, roused herself with a start, placed the crystal in her lap with the first finger and the thumb of each hand lightly touching it, and stared fixedly into the magic glass. For a moment or two the future seemed obscured, then evidently it cleared. She began to speak in a deep, monotonous voice, as if ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... the shingle men lifted the stretched string between his thumb and his forefinger, and he let it go, and it snapped down hard upon ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... and low divans and the strumming of a painted ukulele that sang its little twisted soul out under the caress of Penelope's white fingers. I can still see the big black opal in its quaint setting that had replaced her wedding ring and the yellow serpent of pliant gold coiled on her thumb with two bright rubies for its eyes. Penelope Wells! How little we realized what sinister forces were playing about her that pleasant evening as we smoked and jested and sipped our glasses, gazing from time to time up the broad ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... attempted to go down the river bed, but encountered unexpected difficulties, and his progress was finally checked by a box canon from which he escaped with difficulty, spending a night without food or water on a chilly mountain top known as "Thumb Peak." The following morning he managed to cross to a high mountain called Santo Tomas, whence he returned to Baguio. He was, however, of the opinion that the trip down the canon could be made without special difficulty by a party suitably provided ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... incomprehensible success there is some foul intrigue or mystery. It is certain that the appearance and disappearance of this mysterious father have given rise to very singular conjectures; and probably if the thumb-screws were put upon the organist, who was, they say, entrusted with the education of the interesting bastard, we might get the secret of his birth and possibly other unexpected revelations. Now I have ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... of walks can be formed of low-growing plants, such as the White Lobelia, Gypsophila, or Silvered Alyssum, for the front line, followed next by the Tom Thumb Tropaeolum; then as a centre, or third line, Fuchsia Golden Fleece; as a second margined-line on the other side, Silver-leaved Geraniums with scarlet flowers, followed by a line ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... quarter-master, whose real name or nickname (I forget which) was Billy Magnus, appeared over the gangway hammocks, holding the missing urchin in his immense paw, where it squealed and twisted itself about, like Gulliver between the finger and thumb of the Brobdingnag farmer. The mother had just strength enough left to snatch her offspring from Billy, when she sank down flat on the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... this time. And so were Uncle Lucky and Billy Bunny, and if you'll wait a minute I'll tell you, as soon as my typewriter behaves itself, for it got so excited when Luckymobile ran into the milk wagon that it caught my thumb ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... capture of Atlanta," said Clark Howell, "I remember that General Sherman extended one hand with the fingers spread apart, explaining the strategic situation by imagining Atlanta as occupying a position where the wrist joins the hand, while the thumb and fingers represented, successively, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk. 'If I held Atlanta,' he said, 'I was only one day's journey from these chief cities ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... held out one hand the hand that had proved all kindness and comfort and, snapping a finger and thumb, clicked his tongue in ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... than by any one feature, so on the same principle, no striking feature of a man's action should attract attention to itself. On the same principle, no part of the hand should be made conspicuous—the thumb or forefinger should not be too much stuck out, nor the other fingers, except in pointing, be very much curved in. Generally, except in precise pointing, there is a graduated curving, not too nice, from ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... brought to us a lanky-legged pup about three months old. Its colour was a dirty yellowish red, but it gave promise of turning out a dog—of a kind. The captain put out his hand to stroke it, and as quick as lightning it closed its fang-like teeth upon his thumb. With a bull-like bellow of rage, the skipper was about to hurl the savage little beast over the cliffs into the sea, when ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... then their piety, their piety; weel, let's luke at it; hing it up by the nape o' the neck, and turn it round atween our finger and thumb on all sides. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... my host, jerking his thumb back towards the house; "there be two ugly customers within I does not know: they have got famous good horses, and are drinking hard. I can't say as I knows any thing agen 'em, but I think your honours had better ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... probably baked in the ashes of a fire of brushwood piled over and about it. The decoration, like the other processes, bespeaks a simple culture. It is usually in the nature of lines, or dots, varied now and then by thumb marks, many exhibit the impress of the thumbnail. A pointed stick would produce lines on the soft body of the vessel, so would a twisted cord, while a rude comb of points inserted in a stick, gave a fine dotted line. Circles, animal forms, or ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... conditions of sea and sky the Rock is as lonely and forbidding a spot as ever a ship's timbers were broken upon. Point Old thrusts out like the stubby thumb on a clenched first. The Rock and the outer nib of the Point are haunted by quarreling flocks of gulls and coots and the black Siwash duck with his stumpy wings and brilliant yellow bill. The southeaster sends endless battalions of waves rolling up there when it blows. ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... out a bit of the cotton without breaking it, and tied it to another little stick with a weight on it. Then he twisted the weight, and set it a-spinning; and as it span, he held the cotton ball in one hand, and pulled out the cotton with the other, working it between finger and thumb to keep it fine. Thus the spindle went on spinning, and the cotton went on twisting, until it was twisted into thread. That is why the man was called a Spinner. It looks very easy to do, when you can do it; but it is really very hard to ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... aristocracy loses all its powers, and, except for the bureaucracy and "King's friends," there is no privileged class unless the King is a weak man and under the thumb of his court (e.g., contrast the France of Louis XIV with that of ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... seen, and taken a view of the frightful place, which may rather be imagined than described. One part of the water was formerly so narrow, that a wager was laid by a gentleman that he could span it with the thumb and little finger, and which he would have accomplished, but his adversary, getting up in the night time, chipped a piece off the rock with a hammer, and thus won the wager. It is now, however, little more than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... from the ground, with a sharp exclamation, as some coal pierced through his moccasin, and now and then another could be seen, slapping his fingers against his person, after he had hastily dropped some object. One eager Shawnee attempted to draw a red-hot nail from a slab with his thumb and finger, and roasted the ends of both by the operation, while a second seated himself upon a board which set fire to the fringe of his hunting-shirt. He did not become aware of it until a few minutes later, when, in walking around, the fire reached his hide. Placing his hand behind him, ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... is a fair company, God us save; For if any of us three be mayor of London, I-wis, i-wis, I will ride to Rome on my thumb: Alas! ah, see; is not this a great feres? I would they were in a mill-pool above the ears; And then I durst ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... strange ornament that is! Is it a brooch or a pin? No, I declare it is a ring — large enough for three cardinals, and worn on her thumb. It seems almost to sparkle. Is it ruby, or ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... clear as a steel engraving. His eyes are weak blue; he wears a brown vest and a shiny black serge coat. He stands always in the sunshine chewing something; and he keeps half-shutting his pocket knife and opening it again with his thumb. And, if the Man Higher Up is ever found, take my assurance for it, he will be a large, pale man with blue wristlets showing under his cuffs, and he will be sitting to have his shoes polished within sound of a bowling alley, and there will ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... and pulled his rifle from the "boot" where it was slung under his right leg, and jerked the lever forward until a cartridge slid with a click up into the chamber; let the hammer gently down with his thumb and laid the ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... made me so; and I told him it was nothing but fact. We walked quite fast, for I seemed stepping on air. It was partly because I had not got tired during the day. It was splendid moonlight. I was not in the least cold, except my thumb and phiz. Mr. H. said he should have done admirably were it not for his nose. He did not believe but that it would moderate, "For God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and when you go out we may expect mild weather!" Was not that sweet? Mr. II. and I went into ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... my scheme, for I knew that once in the water I should be safe, and could rejoin Jack and Peterkin in the cave. But my hopes were suddenly blasted by the captain crying out, "Hold on, lads, hold on! We'll give him a taste of the thumb-screws before throwing him to the sharks. Away with him into the boat. Look alive! ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... steadily at the young man, and then slipping his hand behind his back he drew forth from the waistband of his trousers a long, sharp, cruel-looking knife, which for safety had a leather sheath. Drawing this off, the dumb man ran his thumb along the keen edge, and held the knife out towards Vandeloup, who refused ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... round hole in which you put Your finger and your thumb, And tear the nice new sponge in two, As I have told you not to do, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... fellow's blood. There is nothing to be ashamed of in that. Why, I saw Will Atkins, who was one of the best fighters and single-stick players in Hedingham, go off in a dead swoon because a man he was working with crushed his thumb between two heavy stones. Look, Lionel, what cracks there are in the wall here. I don't think it will stand long. We had better run up and tell Captain Vere, for it may come toppling down with some ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... how are you? That stupid fool has made 'em too tight for anybody but Tom Thumb, and be hanged to him. Ever read fairy tales, Fairlegh? I did when I was a little shaver, and wore cock-tailed petticoats—all bare legs and bustle—'a Highland lad my love was born'; that style of thing, rather, you know; never believed ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Life was playing marbles with the Unknown. And the Unknown said unto Life, "Give me an alley-tor." But Life replied, "Nay, for the commoneys are lying well, and the thumb of him that aimeth is seasoned unto the stroke." And the Unknown beat his sable wings together, and one black feather flitted far into the breast of the day and fell to earth. And there came a fair-haired Child plucking flowers in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... said Bean pointing back with his thumb. "He never had a gun like this in his hand ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... plump, with light, semi-transparent fat, soft breast-bone, tender flesh, leg joints which will break by the weight of the bird, fresh colored and brittle beaks, and windpipes that break when pressed between the thumb and fore-finger. They are ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... head through the hole intended for the bear, and his arm through another which he had made for himself, he held the "devil" at arm's length between his finger and thumb. The Quan now took a blazing faggot from the fire, and passing it between the wattles, ignited the fuse which the old grenadier had ingeniously placed in the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... or at least to fall into the background. Individual teachers, no doubt, in many cases realised the partial error in this conception of the aims of the Primary School, but the demands of Government inspectors and of school authorities, with their rule-of-thumb methods of testing the success of the teacher's work by the percentage of passes gained, tended often to make the teacher, in spite of his better judgment, look upon the child mainly as a three-R grant-earning subject and to ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... explained. "And about the red-faced man: we sha'n't take him into court. But I'd rather you wouldn't buy him, if you can help it. Can't you get him like this, some way?"—she held up a thumb and finger tightly ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... him the great man sat fidgeting in his chair; and, happening to put his thumb and finger into his vest pocket, he found the lavender-colored bonbon he had placed there the ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... quit it; and if you don't, every time you take a grain, I'll take two. And she did! I'd come home, and she'd see what I'd been doing, and she'd up with her sleeves, and—" In horrible pantomime, the boy lifted the cuff of his shirt, and pressed his right thumb against the wrist of his other arm. At the memory of it, he gave a shiver and, with a blow, roughly struck the cuff into place. "God!" he muttered, "I couldn't stand it. I begged, and begged her not. I cried. I used to get down, in this ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... accomplishments. He deserveth not to be borne away by my emissaries. Therefore is it that I have come personally." Saying this, Yama by main force pulled out of the body of Satyavan, a person of the measure of the thumb, bound in noose and completely under subjection. And when Satyavan's life had thus been taken out, the body, deprived of breath, and shorn of lustre, and destitute of motion, became unsightly to behold. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... astonishing force, and are generally ruptured rather than yield. If not ruptured, they close again, as Dr. Canby informs me in a letter, "with quite a loud flap." But if the end of a leaf is held firmly between the thumb and finger, or by a clip, so that the lobes cannot begin to close, they exert, whilst in this position, very ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... dread what may happen before night. I don't even feel safe about her after she goes to bed, since the time she went into the woods in the middle of the night to try some trick or other with a dead cat, thinking, silly child, that in that way she could cure a wart she had on her thumb. But then," Mrs. Clark always adds, "Polly is always so good-tempered when she is scolded for doing wrong, and seems really to be so sorry about it, that I can't help forgiving her, and hoping she ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... fed a bit," Van Bibber ran on, cheerfully. "They did not treat her very well, I fancy. She is thin and peaked and tired-looking." He drew up the loose sleeve of her jacket, and showed the bare forearm to the light. He put his thumb and little finger about it, and closed them on it gently. "It is very thin," he said. "And under her eyes, if it were not for the paint," he went on, mercilessly, "you could see how deep the lines are. This red spot on her ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... down Manniston Road, his heels striking hard against the concrete. Under the light at the far corner he flashed into Bristow's vision, twirling his cane on his thumb; his erect, alert figure giving little evidence of the weariness he had felt ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... refused; the court left the opera, and then Pitrot told the dancers they would have a hop by themselves, which they did. However, this was forgiven; and, at his departure, he was presented with the emperor's picture, set with brilliants. Pitrot received it with sang froid, pressed his thumb upon the crystal, crushed the picture to pieces, adding, "Thus I treat men not worthy of my friendship." This fellow behaved equally ill in France, Prussia, and Russia; but, at length, scouted by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... apparent boredom with country life, had suggested asking some people from London with whom, at one time, he would have had very little in common. Perhaps his London life had changed him, but if so, it was a change for the worse for a young man, and a Heredith, to be so much under the thumb of his wife as to give up his own habits of life at her behest. But Phil was so much in love that he had done so, cheerfully and willingly. Violet's lightest wish ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... sky with stars behind it; the faces that he knew so well had starry eyes; Jimbo flung handfuls of stars loose across the air, and Monkey caught them, fastening them like golden pins into her hair. Glancing down, he saw a long brown hair upon his sleeve. He picked it off and held his finger and thumb outside the window till the wind took it away. Some Morning Spider would ride it home—perhaps past his cousin's window while he copied out that wonderful, great tale. But, instead—how in the world could it happen in clear daylight?—a little hand shot down from above and gathered ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... a bed, and put up an artistic performance, a duet, musical, regular, not too loud. In a little while his colleague's "S-s-t!" stopped him, and a slight crack of a finger against a thumb called him to the door, which was ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... us recall the names and order of colors given in the last chapter, with their assemblage in a sphere by the three qualities of HUE, VALUE, and CHROMA. It will aid the memory to call the thumb of the left hand RED, the forefinger YELLOW, the middle finger GREEN, the ring finger BLUE, and the little finger PURPLE (Fig. 6). When the finger tips are in a circle, they represent a circuit of hues, which has neither ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... doorway, and Evan was sufficiently astonished. Deaves was neatly dressed in black as for a funeral, carrying a highly-polished silk hat over his thumb. He was pale and moist with agitation, and looked not at all sure ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... revolver in the side pocket of his coat, and recklessly firing it without drawing, much less sighting or even showing it, he peppered a white blaze at twenty yards. Finally he looked around for an old fruit tin. Then he cocked the revolver, laid it across his right hand next the thumb and the tin across the fingers. He then threw them both in the air with a jerk that sent the revolver up ten feet and the tin twenty. As the revolver came down he seized it and shot a hole through the tin before it could reach ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... heart Pelle had found out about himself; it was a little bird shut up in there. But the soul bored its way like a serpent to whatever part of the body desire occupied. Old thatcher Holm had once drawn the soul like a thin thread out of the thumb of a man who couldn't help stealing. Pelle's own soul was good; it lay in the pupils of his eyes, and reflected Father Lasse's image whenever he looked ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... dwarf replied; whereupon the giant Manabozho seized himself by the finger and thumb at the place, and gave it a violent tweak; but as he immediately heard the voice of the dwarf at a distance upon the ground, he was satisfied that he had only pulled his own ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... and place them about a foot apart, so as to form a square on the table. Next fold a couple of table-napkins, each into a pad of five inches square. Take one of these in each hand, the fingers undermost and the thumb uppermost. Then inform the company that you are about to give them a lesson in the art of hanky-panky, etc., and in the course of your remarks, bring down the two napkins carelessly over the two raisins farthest from you. Leave the ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... down the patient's arms to the sides of the body, the assistant holding the tongue changing hands if necessary[1] to let the arms pass. Just before the patient's hands reach the ground the man astride the body will grasp the body with his hands, the balls of the thumb resting on either side of the pit of the stomach, the fingers falling into the grooves between the short ribs. Now, using his knees as a pivot, he will, at the moment the patient's hands touch the ground, throw (not too suddenly) ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... me for a long time—that's the last of the litter, you know; she shrieked when they called to her to come to me, and cried, 'That's ugly Corney! I won't have ugly Corney!' So you may see how I am used! But I've got her under my thumb at last, and she's useful. Then there's that prig Mark! I always liked the little wretch, though he is such a precious humbug! He's in bed—put out his knee, or something. He never had any stamina in him! Scrofulous, don't you know! They won't let me go near him—for fear of frightening him! ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... you little Hop-o'-my-thumb," said Mrs. Clifford, coming into the pantry; "a baby with a cough in her throat and pills in her pocket ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... shed, looked at the forms, thought everything was mixed up, and did what he always did when longing to speak right out, but afraid to do so; he took hold of his lower lip with thumb and forefinger and twirled it back and forth turning it over and under. Clarence's little sister appeared whilst he was thus engaged, and seeing the sadness of his eyes and the perplexity of his mouth and fingers, she ventured to say, "It is too bad, and Clarence said it ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... had advanced to the scene of action, regardless of the tremendous fire of the Bavarians, carrying the wine upon her head, when a bullet struck the cask, and compelled her to let it go. Undaunted by this accident, she endeavoured to repair the mischief, by placing her thumb upon the orifice caused by the ball; and then encouraged those nearest her to refresh themselves quickly, that she might not remain in her dangerous situation, and suffer for ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... fig of Spain!] An expression of contempt or insult, which consisted in thrusting the thumb between two of the closed fingers, or into the mouth; whence Bite the thumb. The custom is generally regarded as ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... of my dwelling. Here, instead of handles such as we should have made to pull these movable partitions, they have made little oval-holes, just the shape of a finger-end, into which one is evidently to put one's thumb. These little holes have a bronze ornamentation, and, on looking closely, one sees that the bronze is curiously chased: here is a lady fanning herself; there, in the next hole, is represented a branch of cherry ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... were its duty to go and look after it. He literally wanted the courage to read the words. He attempted to smile indifferently, and to thank his servant as courteously as if he had given him a pleasant pinch of snuff; but at the same time, he pressed his thumb upon the paragraph, and made his way straight to his snug and private room. He was ready to drop when he reached it, and his heart beat like a hammer against his ribs. He placed the paper on the table, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... in front of him, crawling along the floor, was a man's hand. Eustace stared at it in utter astonishment. It was moving quickly, in the manner of a geometer caterpillar, the fingers humped up one moment, flattened out the next; the thumb appeared to give a crab-like motion to the whole. While he was looking, too surprised to stir, the hand disappeared round the corner Eustace ran forward. He no longer saw it, but he could hear it as it squeezed ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... may look. I wunnot pick and choose my words, noather for yo' nor for nobody, when I speak o' that daumed gang. I'm none ashamed o' my words. They're true, and I'm ready to prove 'em. Where's my forefinger? Ay! and as good a top-joint of a thumb as iver a man had? I wish I'd kept 'em i' sperits, as they done things at t' 'potticary's, just to show t' lass what flesh and bone I made away wi' to get free. I ups wi' a hatchet when I saw as I were fast a-board a ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to be understood a Pugil; which is no more than one does usually take up between the Thumb and the two next Fingers. By Fascicule a reasonable full Grip, ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... and stronger in him each instant. He could feel the tiny beat of the little one's heart against his breast; he could feel her breath against his cheek; one of her little hands had gripped him by his thumb. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... answer. "He's a stranger," and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder back toward the professor. "He and a party are camped over in the hills—where we saw the smoke a while back," he explained further. "He says a bunch of Greasers are trying to do up his boss. ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... removed at once, and the hatching trays should be gone over carefully once or twice a day to see if any are present in them. Dead ova are easily recognized from the fact that they become opaque and white. They are best removed with a glass tube. The thumb is placed over one end of the tube, and the other end brought directly over the dead ovum. When the thumb is removed from the end of the tube held in the hand the water will rush up into the tube, carrying with it ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker
... handsome wife, and G. W. Parmalee's no more than the mud under your feet. Very well—we'll see! 'Every dog has his day,' and 'the longest lane has its turning,' and you're near about the end of your tether, and George Parmalee has you and your fine lady under his thumb—under his thumb—and he'll crush you, sir—yes, by Heaven, he'll crush you, and strike ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... in alarm as something floated through the dark from the window and fell with a soft thud upon his face. He brushed at the something—perhaps a bat, or a lizard, or a snake—with his hand and received a sharp prick, a little dart of pain in a thumb. He sprang from the bed, lighted the wick that floated in the iron lamp, and discovered that the thing of dread was a rose, its petals red against the ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... space or wherever there is room to work the line. It is not necessary to practise with the actual hooks or flies on the line. Simply tie a knot in it. Hold the rod lightly but firmly in the right hand. Point your thumb along the line of the rod and start by pulling out a little line from the reel with the left hand. With a steady sweep, cast the end of the line toward some near-by object and with each cast pull out a little more line until you reach a point ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... that upon the least jar a corner of the ceiling was liable to fall loose; and then one would have to get a ladder, and climb up into a hot region, and pound nails into a broken lath, with dust sifting down into one's eyes, and the hammer hitting one's sore thumb, and occasioning exclamations not at all suitable for the ears of ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Chancellor), Heavy concern to both purchaser and seller. Tho' made of pig iron yet worthy of note 'tis, 'Tis ready to melt at a half minute's notice.[1] Who bids? Gentle buyer! 'twill turn as thou shapest; 'Twill make a good thumb-screw to torture a Papist; Or else a cramp-iron to stick in the wall Of some church that old women are fearful will fall; Or better, perhaps, (for I'm guessing at random,) A heavy drag-chain for some Lawyer's old Tandem. Will nobody bid? It is cheap, I am sure, Sir— Once, twice,—going, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... up his hand and stopped him. 'I'm not going to stand this kind of thing,' he said. The old Marquis of Auld Reekie was close at hand, the father of Lord Nidderdale, and therefore the proposed father-in-law of Melmotte's daughter, and he poked his thumb heavily into Lord Alfred's ribs. 'It is generally understood, I believe,' continued Melmotte, 'that the Emperor is to do me the honour of dining at my poor house on Monday. He don't dine there unless I'm made acquainted ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... means of these two different views of an object, the mind, as it were, feels round it and gets an idea of its solidity. We clasp an object with our eyes, as with our arms, or with our hands, or with our thumb and finger, and then we know it to be something more than a surface. This, of course, is an illustration of the fact, rather than an explanation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... whistling or lilting what you sung, Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my tongue; But you've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands, And for myself there's not a thumb or little finger stands. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the pipe from his mouth and spat once at the woodpile. Then, jerking his thumb toward the little window, ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... insisted strenuously upon the honesty of this particular negro. The whole race, in the major's opinion, was morally undeveloped, and only held within bounds by the restraining influence of the white people. Under Mr. Delamere's thumb this Sandy had been a model servant,—faithful, docile, respectful, and self-respecting; but Mr. Delamere had grown old, and had probably lost in a measure his moral influence over his servant. Left to his own degraded ancestral instincts, Sandy had begun to deteriorate, ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... last joint between his finger and thumb for a moment till it was black at the end; then he turned to the saucer at his side, which Hilda herself had placed there, and chose from it, cat-like, with great deliberation and selective care, a particular needle. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Jan's head. Then he reached for his spoon, and proceeded to force down a little more warm whisky and milk beside the clenched jaws. One knew, by the way he lifted one of Jan's flews, raised the dog's head, and gently rubbed his gullet between thumb and forefinger to help the liquor down, that he had handled sick dogs before to-day. He had covered Jan's body with an old buffalo robe, and now he proceeded to fill a jar with boiling water, and placed that against ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... indicating the fleeing musicians with his thumb. "Allee same muchee flaid noisee," and then his round ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... grind down the back on a stone until but little more than half its bulk remains. The upper edges being carefully worked to a fine edge, the only housewifery implement that the blacks possess is perfect. With the implement in the right hand, between the thumb and the second finger—the sharp edge resting on the thumb-nail—the beans are planed, the operator being able to regulate the thickness of the shaving ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... is sometimes so perfect, that it escapes detection, unless the fingers are actually counted. Occasionally there are several supernumerary digits; but usually only one, making the total number six. This one may be attached to the inner or outer margin of the hand, representing either a thumb or little finger, the latter being the more frequent. Generally, through the law of correlation, both hands and both feet are similarly affected. Dr. Burt Wilder has tabulated (12/28. 'Massachusetts Medical Society' volume 2 No. 3; and ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... pressed his thumb against the fauces of the serpent, until its mouth stood wide open. I could plainly see its terrible fangs and poison glands. Then, holding its head close up to his lips, he injected the dark saliva into its throat, and once more flung it to the ground. Up to this time he had used no violence—nothing ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... of spear-head found in France several human hands were engraved, but having only four fingers each. On this point Mr. Lartet assures us that some savage tribes still depict the hand without the thumb. Representations of birds and reptiles are very rare; fishes are more common. On a piece of reindeer's horn was found this representation of the head and chest of an ibex. Of special interest to us is a representation of a mammoth found engraved on a piece of mammoth tusk in one of the ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... ignorant are these men even about what it concerns them to know. They show a silver image, which a dozen men can, they assure us, scarcely lift. The body of the saint is not, however, here, but at Venice. "No; we have but one rib and a thumb," said the padre! "but we have two very handsome dresses which she wore—one red, the other blue." Cast-off clothes, then, will do for relics! In returning to the church, they tell us of a blind old general who came ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... in the lumber-room after a set of old library steps, which I wanted to get repaired, I came upon the chest, and opening it, discovered my boys' hoard, and in it this packet of books. I sat down on the top of the chest and read them all through, from Jack the Giant-killer down to Hop o' my Thumb without rising, and this in the broad daylight, with the yellow sunshine nestling beside me on the rose-coloured silken seat, richly worked, of a large stately-looking chair with three golden legs. Yes I could tell you all those stories, not to say the names of them, over ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com
|
|
|
