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More "Whiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sunday morning. Old women in black shawls were going into the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont. Each time the leather doors opened it let a little whiff of incense out into the smoky morning air. Three pigeons walked about the cobblestones, putting their coral feet one before the other with an air of importance. The pointed facade of the church and its slender ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... the jockey, taking a whiff, 'make your conversation as short as possible, whether in Latin or Dutch, for, to tell you the truth, I am rather ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... deep mystery," admitted Jerry, with a puzzled expression on his face. Jerry had never been remarkably clever at finding out hidden things, and the whiff of a ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... said the Devil. "Of course I'll fire, but do you first tell me what kind of a bird it is; else our agreement is cancelled, Old Boy." There was no help for it; the Devil had to own himself nonplussed, and off he fled, with a whiff of brimstone which nearly suffocated the Freischutz and his good ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... ripping," said Miss Penny exuberantly, as they sat by the fire of many-coloured flames, after a slender cup of tea and as hearty a meal as Graeme would allow them in view of possible contingencies. "Do please smoke, Mr. Graeme. It just needs a whiff of tobacco to ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... we could see braziers glowing softly red at the mouth of each burrow. There was a cheerful, mouth-watering smell of cookery on the air, a garlicky smell, with now and then a whiff ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... the grapes which hung black against the starlit, blue sky, on the trellis. I went to the balcony. The garden lay dark beneath; against the twinkling horizon stood out the tall poplars. There was the sharp cry of an owl; the barking of a dog; a sudden whiff of warm, enervating perfume, a perfume that made me think of the taste of certain peaches, and suggested white, thick, wax-like petals. I seemed to have smelt that flower once before: it made ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... their chattering entry. The rows of books—that had gone with the Hall like the family portraits—stretched silently away, but amid the smell of leather and learning, Eileen's lively nostrils detected the whiff of the weed, and sure enough on the top of a stepladder reposed a plain briar pipe beside ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... once the gleaming light began circling about, faster and faster, until it looked like a wheel of fire. Then it reversed, whirling as swiftly in the opposite direction, then up and down, then from side to side, and finally, whiff! ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... played only before Saul, who had of course all the livings in his own gift, no doubt. I've got a new thing running in my head this very minute that you shall hear though, all the same, as soon as I've hammered it into shape—a sort of villanette in music, a little whiff of country freshness, suggested by the new ethereal acquisition, little Miss Butterfly. Have you seen Miss ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... There is not a whiff of fresh and healthy air blowing through "Salome" except that which exhales from the cistern, the prison house of Jochanaan. Even the love of Narraboth, the young Syrian captain, for the princess is tainted by the jealous ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... allowed the A. E. Auto-dresser to dress him, skillfully draping a new selection of fabrics over his bony frame. A whiff of fashionable masculine perfume finished him and he went into the living room, threading his way between the appliances that ...
— Cost of Living • Robert Sheckley
... remember? Why has the guide turned back? I thought we were to go out at the further end, where last week the poor fellow fell who lifted his helmet a moment too soon after he got out and caught one whiff which sent him to the hospital, but instead we seem to be turning around and going back. But there is no time for explanations or questions now; we just plod on through the darkness and soon we are out in the sunlight again—safe!—in God's pure air. Oh, why did man ever want to ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... better, and of the proficiency which their flock reaps by them, than that after all this light of the Gospel which is, and is to be, and all this continual preaching, they should still be frequented with such an unprincipled, unedified and laic rabble, as that the whiff of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of their catechism and Christian walking. This may have much reason to discourage the ministers when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations, and the benefiting of their ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... A whiff of breeze slapped the loosened scow, broadside on, and sent it drifting an inch or two away. As a result, Homer Wefers' large shoe-sole was planted on the edge of the prow, instead of its center. His sole was slippery from the dew of the lawn. The prow's edge was still more slippery, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... Quilp, turning to the boy; 'fill your pipe again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I'll put the sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... mind needs a whiff of strong air, blue and cleansing, from hilltops and primrose valleys, try "The Story of My ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... I really thought you above the fear of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of breath, a ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... leaning upon their rude weapons and looking up at the fire, which had spread so rapidly as to involve one whole side of the castle. Already Alleyne could hear the crackling and roaring of the flames, while the air was heavy with heat and full of the pungent whiff of burning wood. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for the discussion of questions politic and for the transaction of certain routine matters of state. The session had been signally tedious; the business and the wine prodigiously dry. A sudden, prankish humour of Don Sabas, impelling him to the deed, spiced the grave affairs of state with a whiff of ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... said his host, putting his long clay to the candle, and puffing out volumes of smoke. Tom felt more and more unequal to the situation, and filled his pipe in silence. The first whiff made him cough as he wasn't used to the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... were the stalks of the creosote plant—the ideodondo of the Mexican table lands, well known for its power to cause asphyxia. Walt Wilder recognised it at the first whiff. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... wood has been laid upon smouldering embers, a thin curl of smoke crawls lazily up the chimney, another follows with like indolence, and it looks after a while as if the wood would not burn at all. Suddenly a little whiff of air enters the pile, when, presto! up blazes the fire, and soon there ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... caused a smile in official quarters, it was short-lived, except in the Sanitary Bureau, where I fancy it lurked. For the Bend was under its windows. One whiff of it was enough to determine the kind of report the health inspectors would have to make when forced to act. That night, before they got around, some boys playing with a truck in the lots ran it down into one of the cellar holes spoken ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... grown, during these last weeks, to loathe his kiss! He would stand behind her chair, bending his great body over her, his red face would come down, then the whiff of tobacco, then the rough pressure on her cheek, the hard, unmeaning contact of his lips and hers. His beautiful eyes would stare beyond her, absently into the room. Beautiful! Why, yes, they were famous eyes, famous the diocese through. How well she remembered ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... sounded to Danny very, very much like the footsteps of—whom do you think? Why, Reddy Fox! Danny's heart began to beat faster as he listened. Could it be? He didn't dare peep out. Presently a little whiff of scent blew into the old tomato can. Then ...
— The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... passenger, shrewd, sensible, and respectful; now exchanging a little elegant badinage with the coachman; now bowing to a pretty girl; now quizzing a passer-by; he was off and on his seat in an instant, and, in the whiff of his cigar, would lock a wheel, or ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... and sipped the stuff, which she found very nasty, with a whiff of ether in it. And then they all trouped to the large table in ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... as the salty, spray-laden breath of the marsh. It seems fairly to line the lungs with ozone. I know how grass-fed cattle feel at the smell of salt. I have the concentrated thirst of a whole herd when I catch that first whiff of the marshes after a winter, a year it may be, of unsalted inland air. The smell of it stampedes me. I gallop to meet it, and drink, drink, drink deep of it, my blood running ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... mind a small voice asked—"Blighty?" And then came another whiff of rumour: "The ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... her bread and stirred up her griddle cakes for morning. It was early in the season to start with them, but with the first cold whiff Mr. Leverett began to beg for them. Then she fixed her fire, turned down her sleeves, took off the big apron that covered all her skirt, and rejoined ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... first mate were up. The Wanderer lay without headway, though bobbing slowly as a slight whiff of air stirred ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... As the first whiff of smoke wreathed over his head, he said, "What air the differ ter ye, Andy, whether 't war bub, hyar, or Birt, ez dressed up the blackberry bush? ye 'pear ter make ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... operation of its industry, and as they mounted the wooden steps to the open outside door, an inner door swung ajar for a moment, and let out a roar mingled of the hum and whirl and clash of machinery and fragments of voice, borne to them on a whiff of warm, greasy air. "Of course it doesn't ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... oppression, then revolution devours its own children, and the scum rises to the top of the boiling pot. Then comes, in the language of the picturesque historian of the French Revolution, the type of them all—then comes at the end 'the whiff of grapeshot' and the despot. First the government of a mob, and then the tyranny of an emperor, crush the people that shake off the yoke of reasonable law. That is my ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... links of illness, danger, and disaster are always interposed? Unsuspectedly from the bottom of every fountain of pleasure, as the old poet said, something bitter rises up: a touch of nausea, a falling dead of the delight, a whiff of melancholy, things that sound a knell, for fugitive as they may be, they bring a feeling of coming from a deeper region and often have an appalling convincingness. The buzz of life ceases at their touch as a piano-string stops sounding when ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... and when I arrived at Notre Dame des Victoires it was all ready for a start; the luggage, piled up as high as an English haystack, had been covered over and buckled down, and the conducteur was calling out for the passengers. I took my last hasty whiff of my cigar, and unwillingly threw away more than half of a really good Havannah; for I perceived that in the interieur, for which I had booked myself, there was one female already seated: and women and cigars are such great luxuries ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... Keene were among the crew, and others not so well known to fame. Pleasant hours those and gemuethliche, as the Germans say; how different the after-dinner clay pipe or cheap weed of those times to the post-prandial havannah we now complacently whiff at our friend's Maecenas' hospitable table! Yes, things have changed, my dear Rag, since the day we were paying our bill, and you addressed the waiter with superb affability: "Here, Charles, is a penny for you. I know it isn't much, but I ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... this mood, I was unfortunate enough, simply perhaps, but I could not help thinking, undeservedly, to come within 'the whiff and wind of his fell sword[727].' I asked him, if he had ever been accustomed to wear a night-cap. He said 'No.' I asked, if it was best not to wear one. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I had this custom by chance, and perhaps ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... reached about three in the afternoon, or "six bells," exactly twenty-four hours from the time of our leaving the docks, we hove-to, backing our main-topsail and hoisting a whiff at the peak as a signal that we wanted a boat from the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... direct the others in their work, and look after the comfort of her husband. Her place in the lodge is on his right-hand side, while the others have their places or seats near the door-way. This wife is even allowed at informal gatherings to take a whiff at the pipe, as it is passed around the circle, and ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... messy and nasty. The dinner at a teeny place like Caudebec in France was delicious. I wonder why food at country hotels in England is so bad? At Retby Lady Theodosia won't touch anything unless it is absolutely perfect. She sent a dish away yesterday just because a whiff of some flavouring she does not like came to her, but at the "Red Lion" she did not grumble at all; it must be for the same reason that wetting their feet doesn't give French people cold if it is at a national sport, that made her put up with ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... rushed out. Without meeting anyone in the corridor, on the stairs, or down below, he darted out into the garden. It was a grey day, with a low-hanging sky and a damp breeze that blew in waves over the tops of the grass and made the trees rustle. A whiff of coal, tar, and tallow was borne along from the yard, but the noise and rattling in the factory was fainter than usual at that time of day. Nejdanov looked round sharply to see if anyone was about and made straight for the old apple tree that had first attracted his ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... was heard upon the stairs, and an instant later there entered a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear eyes and florid cheeks told of a life led far from the fogs of Baker Street. He seemed to bring a whiff of his strong, fresh, bracing, east-coast air with him as he entered. Having shaken hands with each of us, he was about to sit down when his eye rested upon the paper with the curious markings, which I had just examined and left ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by a wild animal, and the beasts would have been busy enough to-night. Then some of 'em were left lurking about, and they spied Me Dain coming, didn't see us behind, and thought he was coming to the village alone. Of course they slipped out of the bushes and nabbed him, thinking to whiff off his head and turn the ponies' packs out at their own leisure. But Jack upset their little plan, and Me Dain's head stops in the ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... into the chair nearest to Rathbury's right hand. He lighted a cigarette, and having blown out a whiff of smoke, nodded his head in a fashion which indicated that the detective might consider his question answered in ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... is by the pipe, or calumet of peace. Of this Pere Henepin has given a long account in his voyage, and the pipe is as follows: they fill a pipe of tobacco, larger and bigger than any common pipe, light it, and then the chief of them takes a whiff, gives it to the stranger, and if he smoke of it, it is peace; if not, war; if peace, the pipe is handed ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... prolonged sinking sensation, as if the vessel had been converted into a gigantic lift. They were pressed hard into their chairs, which creaked and tried to swing round on their pivots. As the ship yielded stiffly to the sea a whiff of spray dashed through ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... cried Aleck, indignantly. "Why, I do call that cool. You'll be telling me next that the fish in the sea are yours, and that I mustn't whiff or lay ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... moment of enthusiasm, during conversation, referred to as a horse. I put the cheeses on the top, and we started off at a shamble that would have done credit to the swiftest steam-roller ever built, and all went merry as a funeral bell, until we turned the corner. There, the wind carried a whiff from the cheeses full on to our steed. It woke him up, and, with a snort of terror, he dashed off at three miles an hour. The wind still blew in his direction, and before we reached the end of the ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... on one elbow, saw the beautiful brown slices, caught a whiff of the fragrant tea, ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... pipe. He drew a whiff, and when the fire glowed, he turned the pipestem toward the seam of the skins above the doorway. He looked up towards the sky, saying, "Ho, friend, here is the pipe. We must smoke with you this last time. And then we must separate. ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... becoming red in vapor of sulpho-cyanide. Here is a long-necked flask of the gas, made by sulphuric acid acting on potassium sulpho-cyanide. Keep back, Dr. Waterworth, for it would be very dangerous for you to get even a whiff of this in your condition. Ah! See—the scratches I made on the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... arrived this morning on his bicycle, and came in bringing a whiff of heartiness, self-complacency, and fresh air, saying, "Hallo! hallo! hallo! Priceless to find you in, Gillie!" All he got for it was that Vaughan looked up ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... herself to sleep. The gude wife knitted, and the gude mon smoked by the pleasant fire. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the wag at the wa' clock, for burning peat makes no noise at all, only a pungent whiff in the nostrils, the memory of which gives a Scotch laddie abroad a fit of hamesickness. Bobby lay very still and watchful by the door. The farmer served his astonishing news in ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... that is paid among nations to the law of good faith. If there are cases in this enlightened period when it is violated, there are none when it is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of governments. It is observed by barbarians—a whiff of tobacco smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers a truce may be bought for money; but, when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Thus, we see neither the ignorance ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... present comparison. There may be, in the eyes of some, a risk in dwelling in this dark hour on our failures in the past: I believe profoundly that the risk is all the other way. I believe that the most deadly danger to our arms to-day lies in any whiff of that self-praise, any flavour of that moral cowardice, any glimpse of that impudent and ultimate impenitence, that may make one Boer or Scot or Welshman or Irishman or Indian feel that he is only smoothing the path for a second Prussia. I ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... therefore it was to be assumed that her crew had not abandoned her; yet what had become of them? The answer was supplied a little later, for as the Flying Fish, with stopped engines, slowly drifted to within about a quarter of a mile of her, the party of curious gazers suddenly caught a whiff of horrible odour that told the whole story. She was a ship ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... That strong whiff disturbed pussy's and "the Captain's" (so I have called my old setter friend) nap, for puss stands up on her morocco bed and arches her back like a horseshoe, and then springs, with a jolted-out "mew-r-r-r," right on my table, and proceeds to walk over this manuscript, carrying her tail ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... house and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on.—Oh,—oh,—oh! do you know what has got hold of you? It is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... afterwards made up into small pills, about the size of a pea, for smoking. One of these being put into the small tube that projects from the side of the opium pipe, that tube is applied to a lamp, and the pill being lighted is consumed at one whiff or inflation of the lungs, attended with a whistling noise. The smoke is never emitted by the mouth, but usually receives vent through the nostrils, and sometimes, by adepts, through the passage of the ears ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... fallen on him. Indeed, with such force did his proud head collide with terra firma that had it not been for the soft cushion of ferns and tiny redwood twigs, his neck must have been broken by the shock. To complete his withdrawal from active service, the last whiff of breath had been driven from his lungs; and for the space of a minute, during which Jules Rondeau lay heavily across his midriff, the Colonel was quite unable to get it back. Pale, gasping, and jarred from soul to suspenders, he was merely aware that something unexpected ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... outside the door and the usual crowd of people came in. There was a whiff of cold air, for the winter night was keen, and then a strange woman appeared. She walked in with a presence, escorted by Jepson, who was returning from a flying trip East; and immediately every eye, including Mrs. Jepson's, was shifted and riveted upon her. She was a tall, slender woman in ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... the smell of the good red soil in the little story, a whiff of the home earth reminiscent and heartening. But the under-thought laid hold on Japheth and his change ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... a long-drawn whiff from his silver meerschaum, and then a deep draught of soda and brandy to refresh himself after the narrative—biggest, best-tempered, and wildest of men in or out of the Service, despite the angelic character of his fair-haired head, and ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... aroused by the smell of bacon frying over the camp-fire, or the crack of a fine, mealy Arizona potato, roasting in the ashes, or a whiff from the coffee-pot, just about to topple over on the burning sticks. The fire is made of driftwood washed down possibly from some storm-swept region where a Mormon dwells with his numerous family; or, mayhap, from a forest where the ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... unable to close out their immense holdings without breaking the price. In two days wheat that they had held at a dollar and ten cents collapsed to sixty. The two Milwaukee men were ruined, and two-thirds of Cressler's immense fortune vanished like a whiff of smoke. ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... so many and various were there for the man who carries the golden key. Today he was a looker-on, and the ice of his years of bitterness had not melted. Tomorrow, at any moment, he might catch a whiff of the fragrance of life, and the blood in his veins would move to a different tune. This was how it seemed to Aynesworth, as he studied his companion through the faint blue mist of ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the pulse of memory is stirred Out of a chronic state of coma By just a poignant tune, a rhythmic word, A whiff of some refined aroma, And lo! the brain is made aware Of records which it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... Ferraras when Jack MacRae went to France. Dolores' father was dead. Uncle Peter was a bachelor. He had two brothers, and each brother had bred three sons. Four of these sons had left their boats and gear to go overseas. Two of them would never come back. The other two were home,—one after a whiff of gas at Ypres, the other with a leg shorter by two inches than when he went away. These two made nothing of their disabilities, however; they were home and they were nearly as good as ever. That was ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Muster Sutherland," said McKay, with a peculiar smile, as he emitted his first whiff. "I wull not be arguin' wi' you, for you always get the best of it. Nevertheless, it is my opeenion that we've had treebulation enough in Rud Ruver since we came oot, an' I would be ferry gled of a luttle prosperity now—if only by way of ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Griscom quickly, as he caught a whiff from Fogg's lips, "you be sure you mind yours—and the rules," he added, quite sternly, "I advise you not to get too ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... and myself sat conversing as usual over the brasero, a shabby looking fellow in an old rusty cloak walked into the room: he came straight up to the place where we were sitting, produced a paper cigar, which he lighted at a coal, and taking a whiff or two, looked at me: "Carracho," said he, "who ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... were others of the crew not so fastidious as myself. After every meal, they hied to the galley and solaced their souls with a whiff. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... were drawn down and the chamber was very dark. A pungent whiff of disinfectants issued from it, mingled with the dank, heavy smell of disease. The bed was in a far corner. Without seeing him, Girdlestone could hear the fast laboured breathing of the invalid. A trimly dressed nurse who had been sitting by the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... utmost test, where it is successfully encountered, of nobility,—the practice, namely, of self- revelation and self-delineation. To talk much about oneself with detail, composure, and ease, with no shadow of hypocrisy and no whiff or taint of indecent familiarity, no puling and no posing,—the shores of the sea of literature are strewn with the wrecks and forlorn properties of those who have adventured on this dangerous attempt. But a criticism of Stevenson is happy ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... where it showed a reddish gray behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black between the stars. As if to be more like a pedler, I wear a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the inside of my hand was illuminated, and became for a second the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... remember. Women smoked in those days, as well as men, and nothing was thought of it. Well, that was before the time of matches,—leastwise, it was a time when it was necessary to economize in their use,—and mother, who was a corpulent woman, would send me to put a coal in her pipe. I would take a whiff or two, just to get it started, you know, and this soon developed into the habit of lingering to keep it going. But let me be just to myself. More than forty years ago I threw away my pipe and have never smoked since, and never will ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... sponge, saturated with that stuff, in your letters. The whiff of it I got accidentally in one I received some days ago was very pleasant, but the quantity you send me to-day is too much, and has given me a headache, and made me sick. Such virtue is there in proportion! Such immense difference in ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... commission of captain of this craft, in a whiff," returned the sailing-master. "That is as much as to say, here comes one who will command when he gets on board. Well, well, it is Mr. Griffith, and I can't say, notwithstanding his love of knee-buckles and small wares, but I'm glad he's out of the hands of ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in her staccato tones. "Now the only time I really allow myself pride is when I meet the statesmen of my country. I am sure that is the way you feel, dear Cousin Molly—is it not? We are such oysters, the few of us who always have lived here, that a whiff from the political world puts new ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... telling what had brought the troop of horsemen to a halt, but after a time Kirby knew that the cause of his horse's sudden departure must have been a whiff of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... if we were going to be punished for an audacious attempt, instead of rewarded for what might otherwise have been considered a brave one. When the capstan disappeared, it was just as if some great river-god, with a whiff of his breath, or a snap of his fingers, had tossed it contemptuously aside. So we turned back defeated. But there was a great deal to enjoy, when we came to think of it afterwards, and were safely out of ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... a whiff of it a while ago. Unless you want me to sour on sardines, Perry, you won't take me to the place ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... take a whiff Of 'bacco; he acceded; He grew communicative too, (A pipe was all he needed,) Till of the tinker's life, I think, I knew as much ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... sonnet is not so clearly worked out as I could wish. The thought is that as the seabird opening his wings with a whiff of wind in your face means the whirr of the motion, but also unaware gives you a whiff of knowledge about his plumage, the marking of which stamps his species, that he does not mean, so Purcell, seemingly intent only on the thought or feeling he is to express or call ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... to light the cigars. Rev. Dr. Parker was the first man to light. He took three or four heroic whiffs—then gave it up. He got up with the remark that he had to go to the bedside of a sick parishioner. He started out. Rev. Dr. Burton was the next man. He took only one whiff, and followed Parker. He furnished a pretext, and you could see by the sound of his voice that he didn't think much of the pretext, and was vexed with Parker for getting in ahead with a fictitious ailing client. Rev. Mr. Twichell followed, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... going to say have a whiff o' fresh air first, my lad; but you are a bit pulled down for want o' wittals. I'll speak to the cook now, and seeing who you are, I dessay he'll rig you up a mess of slops as 'll do you no ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... on account of its reputed magical powers. Matthiolus said, Scripsere quidam Hypericum adeo odisse doemones, ut ejus suffitu statim avolent, "Certain writers have said that the St. John's Wort is so detested by evil spirits that they fly off at a whiff of its odour." ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... take dark views Of a moonlight night." "Well, well, we'll see" And smoked as if each whiff were gain. The other mused; then sudden asked, "What would you do in grand decree" I'd beat, if I could, Lee's armies—then Send constables after ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... brought up so carefully, a girl who had always had everything and who would always need to have everything, would know how to choose between two such men. As for Robin Morrell, Euphrosyne had been greatly taken with him. He blew into her arid parlour the long-awaited whiff from the golden fields of "society." He was big, loud, self-confident, tremendously and immediately at home (in a condescending way, though this she hardly grasped),—a man to open up his own path and trample through the world, Preciosa by his side, ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... gêne and awkwardness which one sometimes feels at being in company with one’s dependents; for whilst the amber is at your lips, there is nothing ungracious in your remaining silent, or speaking pithily in short inter-whiff sentences. And for us that night there was pleasant and plentiful matter of talk; for the where we should be on the morrow, and the wherewithal we should be fed, whether by some ford we should regain the western ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... rather sophisticated young lady. One would never have seen her, in the mornings, munching a hunk of bread-and-butter "as long as from here to Easter." No; Jeannette has fulfilled her part, providing a whiff of marjoram and cottage flowers for the castle chambers. She has read, written and said her prayers. She has the firm outline, the rosy cheeks, the simplicity of a Watteau peasant-girl—nothing of the Greuze languish, with its hint of a cruche cassee. ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... Market Street Where the Centuries Meet Bags or Sacks Portsmouth Square Miracles Impulses and Prohibitions Stopping at the Fairmont San Francisco Sings Van Ness Avenue The Blind Men and the Elephant You're Getting Queer The Ferry and Real Boats A Whiff of Acacia It Takes All Sorts The Fog in San Francisco A Block on Ashbury Heights The Greek Grocer Billboards or Art Golden Gate Park Extra Fresh On the California-street Car Western Yarns Mr. Mazzini and Dante On the ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... to the entertainer, as I shook the crumbs out of my napkin, and took the first whiff of my chibouque, "that if Stephan Dushan's chief cook were to rise from the grave, he could ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... said the elder, with another calm whiff. 'I have always had a kind of respect for your father, for there is something remarkable in his appearance, something heroic, and I would fain have cultivated his acquaintance; the feeling, however, has not been reciprocated. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... whiff of biting smoke down the well shaft, borne by some breath of wind that eddied into it. The Danes had ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... four times the money you did; only Carew was mad and obstinate; and now, for ten years, I have had my own eyes fixed upon it, and got the earliest news of when it was in the market, as I thought, when, here, without a hint to guide you, a whiff of fortune blows it to your hand. It's a hard case ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... of no sich since dat same storm as de debbil come in to fetch ole marse's soul—dis berry night seven year past, an' he carried of him off all in a suddint whiff! jist like a puff of win'. An' no wonder, seein' how he done traded his soul to ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... look o' things," said Joe, blowing a whiff of smoke slowly from his lips, and watching it as it ascended into the still air. "That blackguard Mahtawa is determined not to let us off till he gits all our goods; an' if he gits them, he may as well take our scalps too, for we would come poor speed in ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... ourselves down according to custom in the same manner. The attendants were constantly on the move, some carrying fans made of feathers to whisk away the flies; another a lighted pipe, which was passed from one prostrate figure to another, each taking a whiff or two, while the rest were engaged in shampooing the royal personages.... Conversation, it may readily be imagined, was not well maintained under these trying circumstances, and had it not been for some excellent watermelons which ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... furs. There was a faint rustle of feminine garments, a fleeting whiff of violets in the air, and Kitty had taken her departure, followed ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... Whiff! Though Pete tried, too late, to dodge the stone, it landed against his sombrero, carrying that away ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... old church. One has now to elbow his way to enter, and all around the door, even out into the middle court, contadini are kneeling. Besides this, the whole place reeks intolerably with garlic, which, mixed with whiff of incense from the church within and other unmentionable smells, makes such a compound that only a brave nose can stand it. But stand it we must, if we would see Domenichino's frescoes in the chapel ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... sea, the city climbing up the hill to Cimiez, the white-capped mountains beyond, and on the handsome promenade the best-gowned of Europe, all in the brilliant sunshine of a soft spring day—what could be more charming? And then, suddenly, your unwilling nostrils breathe in a strong whiff of sewage. Have you been mistaken? Surely you are dreaming. The Casino dances on the water. A bevy of girls come out of the Hotel Ruhl to join the Lenten noon-day throng. Nothing disagreeable like sewage—but there ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... two years ago, a young couple I wot of strolled homeward from an evening walk, a long ramble among the peaceful hills which inclosed their rustic home. Into these peaceful hills the young man had brought, not the rumor, (which was an old inhabitant,) but some of the reality of war,—a little whiff of gunpowder, the clanking of a sword; for, although Mr. John Ford had his campaign still before him, he wore a certain comely air of camp-life which stamped him a very Hector to the steady-going villagers, and a very pretty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... the lesson the fire began to smoke, and Mr Gordon told Owen to open the window for a moment. No sooner was this done than the mischievous whiff of sea-air which entered the room began to trifle and coquet with the pendulous half-sheet pinned in front of the desk, causing thereby an unwonted little pattering crepitation. In alarm, Duncan thoughtlessly pulled out the pin, and immediately ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... caught them, extracted one, closed the package, and tossed it back. A moment later the little chap had lighted the cigarette, and, as he deposited himself at full length on a tiger-skin rug, he puffed out a great whiff of ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... library, and after a few minutes Mr. Townsend joined him. The detective was sitting in an easy-chair drawn up to the table, smoking as coolly and calmly as though taking a last whiff just ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... Lord's-day morning, the sun rose bright and charming as on the seventh day of March it did three years ago in the sunny land of Florida. For the first time in many weary months did I a whiff of the outside air inhale. Oh! how delicious! 'Twas like a prisoner's whiff of the air of freedom. But this was not the best. To sit again with the brethren around the table of the Lord and hear again the sweet old story that is forever new, what a feast to ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... and glowing lights of the great city gladdened Hawker's heart, and a whiff from the murky Thames bade him welcome home. He gave up his ticket at Grosvenor road, and when the train pulled into Victoria he walked boldly through the immense station. He loved London with a thoroughbred cockney's ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he fond of his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then, suddenly—as at a whiff of gardenias and cigars—his heart twitched within him, and he was sorry. One's father belonged to one, could not go off in this fashion—it was not done! Nor had he always been the 'bounder' of the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... scrap of meat. Her hopes ran high and she ranged continually farther from the den till she eventually crossed over the divide for a look at the west slope. The breeze held steadily from the west and Shady caught a whiff of wood smoke and moved toward it to investigate. She scouted along the edge of the timber, watching the cabin in the little clearing for signs of life. It appeared deserted. She crossed to it and sniffed at a crack,—then fled ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... get 'em out here quick. The whole herd's on its toes waiting for the signal; an' the wink of an eye'll send 'em off. God only knows what'll happen between now and daylight! If the wind should change an' blow down from the north, they'll be off as shore as shooting. One whiff of Bennett's Creek is all ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... dintist, in which case,' he says, 'we won't think much iv ye, but we have a good school where ye can larn that disgraceful thrade,' he says. An' th' la-ad makes his choice, an' ivry mornin' whin he's up in time he takes a whiff iv hasheesh an' goes off to hear Profissor Maryanna tell him that 'if th' dates iv human knowledge must be rejicted as subjictive, how much more must they be subjicted as rejictive if, as I think, we keep our thoughts fixed upon th' inanity ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... monster, while between them, on the coal-blackened floor, Toomey, with his big shovel flinging open the iron gate to the blazing furnace for every new mouthful he fed it, and snapping it shut when he turned away for another, for not a whiff of the draught could be wasted. Once past the deserted station at the Fort there would come eight miles of twisting and turning and struggling up-grade, and every pound of steam would be needed to pull even this baker's dozen of heavily laden ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... ashes from his cigar, took another whiff or two, then laid it down, and turned to his host, who was ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... I got a whiff of something bad," he said, and read again the superscription, with a growing contempt for the writer. "Nobody will know if I read it, and I shall hold my tongue, as usual," he thought, his curiosity at last ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... and her movement sent a faint whiff of perfume about her, dainty as herself. And then there was just a moment's painful silence. The awkwardness of the moment dwelt with them both; it would be hard to say ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... being in the control room he was not as badly shocked by the passage of the beam as were Breckenridge and those you saw. The things in the other rooms were about ready to fight, so we gave them a little whiff of tritylamin, but Captain King will be as good as ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... passed him through the air—once, then vanished; unforgettable, however, for he had known it already weeks ago upon the steamer. And before the gardened woods about him smothered it with their richer smells of a million flowers and weeds, he recognized in it that peculiar pungent whiff of horse that had reached him from the haunted cabin. This time it was less fleeting—a fine, clean odor that he liked even while ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... glorious. There's cover gambling. Ever heard of that, George?" He drew the air in through his teeth. "You put down a hundred say, and buy ten thousand pounds worth. See? That's a cover of one per cent. Things go up one, you sell, realise cent per cent; down, whiff, it's gone! Try again! Cent per cent, George, every day. Men are made or done for in an hour. And the shoutin'! Zzzz.... Well, that's one way, George. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... pure, more chaste, more sainted than are plays: Nor with that dull supineness to be read, To pass a fire, or laugh an hour in bed. How do the Muses suffer every where, Taken in such mouth's censure, in such ears, That 'twixt a whiff, a line or two rehearse, And with their rheume together spaul a verse? This all a poem's leisure after play, Drink, or tobacco, it may keep the day: Whilst ev'n their very idleness they think Is lost ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... Smoke saw in belts or neck-hung sheaths. Women toiled over the fires, smoke-curing the meat, on their backs infants that stared round-eyed and sucked at lumps of tallow. Dogs, full-kin to wolves, bristled up to Smoke to endure the menace of the short club he carried and to whiff the odor of this newcomer whom they must accept by virtue of ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Clutching Hand has cleverly contrived to introduce the nascent gas into the room. That acts on the arsenic compounds in the wall paper and hangings and sets free the gas. I thought I knew the smell the moment I got a whiff of it. You are slowly being poisoned by minute quantities of the deadly gas. This Clutching Hand is a diabolical genius. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... window looking over roofs and traffic and the glow-worm light of shipping in the stream. He could smell the sea, the brown kelp bared on rocky beaches by a falling tide. And he fancied that even at that distance he could get a whiff of the fir and cedar that clothed the ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... gypsy camps, the traps and carriages thronging up and down the road, or standing detached from the horses in the wayside shadow, where the trodden grass, not less nor more than the wandering cigar-whiff, exhaled the memories of far-off circus-days and Fourths of July. But such things lift the heart in spite of philosophy and experience, and bid it rejoice in the relish of novelty which a scene everywhere elementally the same offers in ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... had alighted on a bough, and was looking at the three; that the eagle thinking they might be dangerous had unfolded his wings again and was flying away; that a deer passing to the west had caught a whiff of them on the wind and was running with all speed in the other direction; that a lynx had climbed a tree, and, after staring at them, had climbed down again, and had fled, his ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in which a mouse is put in a glass jar, and all the air is drawn away with a pump, so that the poor little beast languishes and rolls pitifully on its side, gasping and wheezing with its tiny lungs for the least whiff of air. That is just how I felt when Nino went away. It seemed as though I could not breathe in the house or in the streets, and the little rooms at home were so quiet that one might hear a pin fall, and the cat purring through the closed doors. Nino left at the beginning of the last ten ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... information. The question of remuneration being settled, tobacco is furnished at each sitting, as the Mid[-e] never begins his lecture until after having made a smoke-offering, which is done by taking a whiff and pointing the stem to the east; then a whiff, directing the stem to the south; another whiff, directing the stem to the west; then a whiff and a similar gesture with the stem to the north; another whiff is taken slowly and with ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... to swarm in every building, old or new, which we entered. The Lena post-house has a characteristic odour of unwashed humanity, old sheep-skins and stale tobacco. Occasionally, this subtle blend includes a whiff of the cow-shed, which generally means that one or more of its youthful occupants have been carried indoors out of the cold. In winter there is no ventilation whatsoever, save when the heavy felt-lined door is opened and an icy blast rushes in to be instantly ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... his father. 'If you are satisfied, I shall try to be the same. Have you your pipe with you?—At your age I hadn't begun to smoke, and I should advise you to be moderate; but we'll have a whiff together, ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... are possible again! The fool has learned wisdom, and, I hope, become a man. But come," said he in a more natural tone, "let us get back to our ditch, and, while you tell me the particulars, if you don't object I should much like to try a whiff at ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... He was afraid of the old woman who smelled of snuff, and who, when she dressed him in the morning, looked at him with a pitying air; he was afraid of the doctor, who climbed the five flights of stairs twice a day now, and left a whiff of perfume behind him; afraid of his father, who did not go to his office any more, whose beard was often three days old, and who feverishly paced the little parlor, tossing back with a distracted gesture the lock of hair behind his ear. He was afraid of his mother, alas! of his mother, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... represented, but that may come the day after at Bath. And the next day too I want to show you something of our old River Severn. We will come right up to the present if we go through Bristol. There we shall have a whiff of America, our new find, from which the tobacco comes, and we shall be reminded of how we set sail thither—was it yesterday or the day before? You will understand at Bristol how it is that the energy has gone out of this dreaming land—to Africa and ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... of an animal trainer, and meant to come up here, just to have things quiet while he did his little stunts. But that was a punk notion for me, all right; there ain't any smell of animals about those boxes, not a whiff." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... struck rock again, not jagged or slippery fragments, but solid paving, and a whiff of faint mist drifted across his face in the gray of the first dawn, and the burro craned his neck forward at the very edge of a black rock basin where warm vapor struck the nostrils ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... foot of the hill on which I stood; all the batteries were clustering around me, and suddenly a column of men shot up from the long sweep of the abandoned hill, with batteries on the left and right. Their muskets were turned towards us, a crash and a whiff of smoke swept from flank to flank, and the air around me rained buck, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... those Friday evenings, then, when the smell of roast apples steeping in hot toddy came wafting out the portals of Malachi's pantry—a smell of such convincing pungency that even the most infrequent of frequenters having once inhaled it, would have known at the first whiff that some musical function was in order. The night was to be one of ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... memory of the people, had such a snowfall been seen in that section. Yet it could scarcely be called a snowstorm, for there was no wind, not a single whiff, and therefore, of course, no snowdrifts. The snow fell slowly, evenly, steadily, dropping over the earth a soft, ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... combination? The young people sniffed in advance the two dear, distinctive odours which, more than anything else, presented the scenes before them—the soft, cowy-milky scent of the farm, the salt, sharp whiff of the brine. From morn till night, at every available moment, they discussed the day's programme—feeding animals, calling the cows, bathing, picnicking on the sands, crab-hunting, mountain climbing. Excitement grew until it really seemed impossible to exist through the intervening ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... or underdone, and messy and nasty. The dinner at a teeny place like Caudebec in France was delicious. I wonder why food at country hotels in England is so bad? At Retby Lady Theodosia won't touch anything unless it is absolutely perfect. She sent a dish away yesterday just because a whiff of some flavouring she does not like came to her, but at the "Red Lion" she did not grumble at all; it must be for the same reason that wetting their feet doesn't give French people cold if it is at a national sport, that made her put up with the lunch ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... hailed the first whiff of the salt sea breeze with eager delight, were down upon the beach within a few minutes of their arrival, and until bedtime left it only long enough to take their tea, finishing their day with a long moonlight drive along ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... old life on the range was dead—for had not Dill made him see it so? And did not every raw-red fencepost proclaim anew its death? For every hill and every coulee he buried something of his past and wept secretly beside the grave. For every whiff of breakfast that mingled with the smell of clean air in the morning came a pang of homesickness for what would soon be ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... from the Baltic; pirate-adventurers who had sailed and sacked under the Conqueror; pioneers of new-found lands: blood of his blood, and brain of his brain, they lived again, roused from centuries of sleep by the stir and whiff and secret business ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... than he did now. Only last night, going for a moment into the night nursery,—poor Mr. Tapster now enjoyed his children's company only when he was quite sure that they were asleep,—he had had an extraordinary, almost a physical impression of Flossy's presence; he certainly had felt a faint whiff of her favorite perfume. Flossy had been fond of scent, and, though Maud always said that the use of scent was most unladylike, he, James, did ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... office of Minister of Public Worship with that of Treasurer of the Royal Household, leaping into the breach, harangued the mob; and Prince Vrede, a strong adherent to the "whiff of grapeshot" remedy for a disturbance, suggested firing on the ringleaders. Although the suggestion was not accepted, hundreds of arrests were made before some semblance of order was restored. But the rioting was only checked temporarily. A couple of days later it started ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... for that. A beautiful night this—the air as soft as June. I was about to turn in, but decided to take a whiff on deck first." ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... up outside the door and the usual crowd of people came in. There was a whiff of cold air, for the winter night was keen, and then a strange woman appeared. She walked in with a presence, escorted by Jepson, who was returning from a flying trip East; and immediately every eye, including Mrs. Jepson's, was shifted and riveted upon her. She was a tall, slender woman ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... a lamp to banish the dark. Very good this white satin is," said Mother Cockleshell irrelevantly, and alluding to the gin. "And terbaccer goes well with it, as there's no denying. You wouldn't mind my taking a whiff, sir, would you?" and she produced a blackened clay pipe which had seen much service. "Smoking is good for ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... of the idea. He talked about it to his clerks at the store. He looked into restaurant windows, humming a tune in the excess of his delight. He looked into bakers' windows and confectionery shops, and a whiff of frying bacon from a little blind court he passed almost set him dancing. Indeed, Mr. Grapewine was a man of juvenile impulse. In figure as well as character he seemed rather to have expanded into a larger sort of babyhood than to have left that ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... ride in the Pineta, which, beginning a couple of miles from the city, extends some twenty-five miles along the sands of the Adriatic. I drove out to it for Byron's sake, and Dante's, and Boccaccio's, all of whom have interwoven it with their fictions, and for that of a possible whiff of coolness from the sea. Between the city and the forest, in the midst of malarious rice- swamps, stands the finest of the Ravennese churches, the stately temple of San Apollinare in Classe. The Emperor Augustus constructed ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Helena that a strange sail was reported on the starboard bow; and as they neared her, it was evident that her foremast was gone, and that she was otherwise in a disabled state. When the Indiaman was within a mile, the stranger threw out neutral colours, and hoisted a whiff, half-mast down, as a signal that she was in distress. Newton ordered the ship to be kept away, and when alongside of the vessel, lowered down a boat, and sent the third mate to ascertain what assistance could be afforded. With sailors, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... was wonderful!" said Kit. "I used to get so lonesome just for a whiff of the desert. And you girls could ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... Handsomebody and marvelled that she should suspect nothing. Did she get no whiff of the furry smell of Anita? Did no faint echo of Tony's music disturb her thoughts? What were her thoughts? Deep ones I was sure, for her brow was knit. Was she thinking of that brother on whom the Scotch mist was falling ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... Princess his sister. When I was at their country-house, I used to sit in the library and turn over books of prints: out of good breeding they would not quit me; nay, would look over the prints with me. A whiff would come from the east, and I turned short to the west, whence the Princess would puff me back with another gale full as richly perfumed as ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Rabbi's study as something that touched genius in its magnificent disorderliness, and Carmichael was so proud of it that he took me to see it as to a shrine. One whiff of its atmosphere as you entered the door gave an appetite and raised the highest expectations. For any bookman can estimate a library by scent—if an expert he could even write out a catalogue of the books and sketch the appearance of the owner. Heavy odour of polished mahogany, ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... as they made their chattering entry. The rows of books—that had gone with the Hall like the family portraits—stretched silently away, but amid the smell of leather and learning, Eileen's lively nostrils detected the whiff of the weed, and sure enough on the top of a stepladder reposed a plain briar pipe ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Diana's letter contained a little too much Fred, but was otherwise crowded and crossed with items of interest, and Anne almost felt herself back in Avonlea while reading it. Marilla's was a rather prim and colorless epistle, severely innocent of gossip or emotion. Yet somehow it conveyed to Anne a whiff of the wholesome, simple life at Green Gables, with its savor of ancient peace, and the steadfast abiding love that was there for her. Mrs. Lynde's letter was full of church news. Having broken up housekeeping, Mrs. Lynde had more time than ever to devote to church affairs ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of the expedition up the west coast, and of the towns they sacked; and the opulent names rolled oddly off his tongue, and seemed to bring a whiff of southern scent into this panelled English room,—Valparaiso, Tarapaca, and Arica—; and of the capture of the Cacafuego off Quibdo; and of the enormous treasure they took, the great golden crucifix with emeralds of the size of pigeon's ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... and mostly blinding me, made me doze like a tottum. At the same time, to clear his way, and the better to enable him to take a good mark, he gave James Batter a shove, that made him stoiter against the wall, and snacked the good new farthing tobacco-pipe, that James was taking his first whiff out of; crying, at the same blessed moment—"Hold out o' my road, ye long withered wabster. Ye're a pair of havering idiots; but I'll have pennyworths out of both your skins, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... floated away; the atmosphere became, clear again; a whiff of fresh air filled the tent, and the pink curtains of the couch trembled slightly, as if stirred ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the dog reared straight up like a maddened horse. Full-throated angry barks, interspersed with sharp, querulous yaps, filled his roaring, swaying prison. How long since he had got so much as a whiff of untainted air, or a glimpse of wild fields and woods! Out there oceans of such air filled all the space between the gliding earth and the sky. Out there miles on miles of freedom were rushing forever out of his life. He began ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... only to hear the swinging door whiff after Skip's syncopated feet, then she whispered sharply across the table ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... what he said, but it seems it was monstrously to the point, and so rudely conceived that the old duke never recovered the indignity. He got home as far as Amboise, sickened, and died two days after (Jan. 4, 1465), in the seventy-fourth year of his age. And so a whiff of pungent prose stopped the issue of melodious rondels ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wings. An instant later a whirling litter of straws, flapping newspapers, and dust came swishing down the pavement, and with the coming of this first strong gust of wind was a noise of slamming doors and the sound of windows being quickly lowered. With the swift and vigorous whiff of storm came the good, cooling ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... the shadow of the high stone-wall near which I walked rapidly, I met Dinah, so nearly face to face that the whiff of the pipe she was smoking was warm upon my cheek. Wrapped in her old cloth shawl and quilted hood, she muttered as she went, and staggered too, I thought, though here the northeast wind, that swept her along before it, might have ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... poor birds would have had a different opinion on the matter. I had, as may be seen, thus become a capital woodman. I kept, depend on it, a very bright look-out all the time for my former visitors, the bears, lest a whiff of the roasting birds might induce them to come back to get a share of the banquet. I had now, however, a vigilant watcher in Solon, who sat by my side wagging his tail and observing the process of roasting with the ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... existence of martial law, the guarding against a conflagration, or a tidal wave or cyclone. At the Cercle Militaire many of the bureaucrats, and especially the doctor who had treated the cow-boy, were for martial law, anyway. Napoleon knew, said the fierce medecin. "A whiff of grapeshot, and the reef would be again gleaming with lights, and the diligences would pour in with loads ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... on New England village, and Sunday noon, hot and still, and many an hour since early sun up anxious eyes had scanned the old McDowell trail, visible in places many a mile before it disappeared among the foothills of the Mazatzal, but not a whiff of ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... reckons up things a Shakespeare would admire at their lowest possible sale value. A slow whiff of smoke from a corner of the sneering mouth, an air of intense knowingness, as much as to say, "You may depend upon me—I've been behind the scenes. All this is got up, you know; stage effect in front, pasteboard at ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... length under a burning sun is no joke, I can assure you. Stroke after stroke, our plucky seamen kept at it in spite of the heat, one minute appearing to gain and then again to lose distance as a whiff of air would waft the dhow along; so that, it was not until nearly sunset that we got within gunshot, and could hail her to see what she was ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... are tired and his knees are stiff, His breath comes low in a wheezy whiff. He'll now "lay up," like a worn-out wherry. 'Tis yours to start ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... Ike, but we once smelt a whiff of tobacco, which seemed to be mingled with the sweet scent of the pines in ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... tired one morning, and went up the hill to his breakfast, and the children got into the boat and pushed off, in imitation of their daddy. It came on to blow, as it does down there, without a single whiff of warning; and when Robin awoke for his middle-day meal, the bodies of his little ones were lying on the table. And from that very day Captain Cockscroft and his wife began to grow old very quickly. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... is smoked and the box is splintered and gone, And only the faintest whiff of the dear old smell hangs on, In the times when he's idle or thoughtful, When he's lonesome, jolly or blue, And he fingers his useless matches, What is a poor ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... daring Indian bands, killing unprotected men close to town. Once a few of us followed the tracks of a party and traced the marauders across Mad River and toward a small prairie known to our leader, Ousley the saddler. As we passed along a small road he caught the sign. A whiff of a shred of cotton cloth caught on a bush denoted a smoky native. A crushed fern, still moist, told him they had lately passed. At his direction we took to the woods and crawled quietly toward the near-by prairie. Our orders were to wait the signal. If the band we expected to find was ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... getting strong enough to go out, his mother got his aunt's husband, who had a little pony cart, to carry them down to the sea-shore. A whiff of sea air, she said, would do them both good. They sat down on the edge of the rough grass which bordered the sand. Away before them stretched the sparkling waters of the ocean, every wave of which flashed out its delight in the face of the great sun. On each hand, the shore rounded ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • Elizabeth Lewis and George MacDonald
... hungry and wayworn. And it has this virtue—it helps to destroy the gêne and awkwardness which one sometimes feels at being in company with one’s dependents; for whilst the amber is at your lips, there is nothing ungracious in your remaining silent, or speaking pithily in short inter-whiff sentences. And for us that night there was pleasant and plentiful matter of talk; for the where we should be on the morrow, and the wherewithal we should be fed, whether by some ford we should ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... an explosion; the insurgents caught a whiff of the poisoned air; the men dropped the beam; there was a rush backward amid cries of terror, and the street was clear for a ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... and they "disturbed" him, to put it mildly. Evidently he had forgotten the peril to which all persons are exposed in tropical waters, and, as the truth was impressed upon him with such suddenness, he uttered a "whiff" like a porpoise and began swimming with fierce energy toward the shore. In fact, he never put forth so much effort in all his life. The expectation of feeling a huge man-eating monster gliding beneath you when in the water is enough to shake the nerves of the strongest swimmer. ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... said General Armour, calling down at them, "escort his imperial highness to the chariot which awaits him, and then ho! for London town. Come along, my daughter," he said to Lali; "come up here and take the last whiff of Greyhope that you will have for six months. Dear, dear, what lunatics we all are, to be sure! Why, we're as happy as little birds in their nests out in the decent country, and yet we scamper off to a smoky old city by the Thames to rush ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the open shell and Charley emptied its contents of powder into the open cut. Quickly, he applied a match to the black grains and they caught with a hiss, there was a tiny cloud of black smoke and a whiff ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... having contrived to send you something or other from the baggage, (though you know that it was impossible). You then damn the enemy for being so near you, though probably, as in the present instance, it was you that came so near them. And, finally, you take a whiff at the end of a cigar, if you have one, and keep grumbling through the smoke, like distant thunder through a cloud, until you tumble into a ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... poetic word—mere mention of it would distress Mr. Yeats; but it is potent as "Sesame" to unlock the treasures of memory. And before the laggard Spring comes round again many of us will sigh for a whiff of yellow, acrid smoke, curling from a smoldering fire in the ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... vivid recollection of that summer is the ocean. I had always lived far inland and had never had so much as a whiff of salt air; but I had read in a big book called "Our World" a description of the ocean which filled me with wonder and an intense longing to touch the mighty sea and feel it roar. So my little heart leaped high with eager excitement when I ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... trousers were worn at the heels. He threw his basket into a corner, and then himself on the rough bench nailed against the wall, and there, without speaking another word, he lay sniffing the odour of the meat like an animal going to be fed. Suddenly a whiff from the beer jug came into his nostrils, and reaching out his rough hand he looked into the jug to assure himself ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... said son. Sarah comes in with a response, Shylock leaves off praying "immediate," to tell Sarah she is no vulgar servant, which assurance is received in the tearful manner. And here it comes a little faint whiff of the real play. In leaving home, Shylock's French plagiarizes the Jew's speech to Jessica, even down to the doubt the Jew has about leaving his house ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... before Saul, who had of course all the livings in his own gift, no doubt. I've got a new thing running in my head this very minute that you shall hear though, all the same, as soon as I've hammered it into shape—a sort of villanette in music, a little whiff of country freshness, suggested by the new ethereal acquisition, little Miss Butterfly. Have ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... hearth to put fresh logs on the fire, my face was so close to hers that I felt her breath on my cheek. It thrilled me to feel even the suggestion of that ineffable contact. Her breath was sweet—sweet as the breath of a calf, sweet as the whiff of a summer breeze across beds of mignonette. How could anyone believe for a moment that such sweet breath could come from the lips of the dead—the dead in esse or in posse—that corruption could send forth fragrance so sweet and pure? ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... shut the door behind me, a delicious whiff of night-stock drifted by me, as if it had waited there for all those long hours seeking entrance to the stale, dry air of ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... was Andrey asleep and the first whiff of neighbour Yeobright's wind had got inside Andrey's clarinet than everyone in church feeled in a moment there was a great soul among 'em. All heads would turn, and they'd say, 'Ah, I thought 'twas he!' One Sunday I can well mind—a bass-viol day that time, and Yeobright ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... prison supported by the soldiers; the snow creaked under foot; the night was very dark, and the sharp fresh air almost took away his breath, yet it was infinitely welcome to him after the heavy atmosphere of his cell, and he inhaled it with keen pleasure, thinking that each whiff was almost the last. He was led into a large, faintly-lighted room, where officers of various grades were smoking around a large table. It was only the committee of investigation, for hitherto his examinations had not been ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... overpowering delight in what are called common things—mere earth, sky, sun, and wind. How lovely life was on such a morning, in such a clean, rain-washed, wind-scoured world. The wet smell of the garden came up to her, a whiff of marshy smell from the water, a long breath from the pines in the forest on the other side of the house. How had she ever breathed at Estcourt? How had she escaped suffocation without this life-giving ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... for the woods, her spotted fawn, which had been frolicking among the branches of the fallen spruce-tree, skipped from it, passed Dol with a bound which carried him a few feet, and disappeared like a whiff too. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... garden-patch. The cow stopped abruptly, threw up her head and stared at the hunter. The sight of the crouching figure must have suggested to the stupid animal that every thing was not right, for with a frightened whiff, she bounded short around with the intention of joining ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... stretching before her astonished eyes, was a great, as it were, encampment of brown blankets, slung and looped up anyhow, dividing from each other countless sordid beds, which were almost touching, and a whiff of huddled humanity came out to her keen nostrils, and a hum of sound to her ears. So that was where her man had dwelt these thirty months, in that dirty, crowded, noisy place, with dirty-looking men, such as those she could see lying on the beds, or crouching by the side of them, over their ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... group about the tea-table she had already given a tingle to the air. Madame de Chantelle still remained invisible above stairs; but Darrow had the impression that even through her drawn curtains and bolted doors a stimulating whiff must ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the darkness and a strong whiff of rum came with him... he disappeared again: "See you ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... but I determined to make a more minute examination when I should have time. It was evident that some of the strange Egyptian smell clung to these old curios; through the broken glass came an added whiff of spice and gum and bitumen, almost stronger than those I had already noticed as coming from others in ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... the truth. But I really thought you above the fear of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of breath, a puff ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Monsieur de Haan, was as glad to see me as a banker away from home is to see a copy of The Wall Street Journal. I brought him a whiff of that great outside world from which he was an exile, with whose doings he kept in touch only through the meager despatches in the papers brought by the fortnightly mail-boat from Java, or through occasional travelers like myself. Dutch ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... legislature. He brought it home in triumph, and in less than three months there was not an open dram shop or distillery in Portland! He invited me to visit him, and drove me over the city, whose pure air was not polluted with the faintest smell of alcohol. It seemed like the first whiff of a temperance millennium. An invitation was extended to him to a magnificent public meeting in Tripler Hall, New York. At that meeting a large array of distinguished speakers, including General Houston, of Texas; the Hon. Horace Mann, of ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... meeting anyone in the corridor, on the stairs, or down below, he darted out into the garden. It was a grey day, with a low-hanging sky and a damp breeze that blew in waves over the tops of the grass and made the trees rustle. A whiff of coal, tar, and tallow was borne along from the yard, but the noise and rattling in the factory was fainter than usual at that time of day. Nejdanov looked round sharply to see if anyone was about and made straight for the old apple tree that ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... Ohio, he fills nearly every place he's got to give away with lean, hungry Ohio men, so that you can get a "whiff" of that state all over Washington, and in a good many other places too, any time ...
— The Honest American Voter's Little Catechism for 1880 • Blythe Harding
... uneasily for a minute or two longer, caught a whiff of his bacon scorching and stooped to its rescue. Then he fried a bannock hastily in the bacon grease, folded two slices of bacon within it and ate in a hurry, keeping an ear cocked for any further sounds from ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... foregathered with one and all, such was the strange fascination of the town for one who was twice the man among his northern roses. But that is the kind of mistress that London is to those who have once felt her spell; you may forget her by the year, but the spell lies lurking in the first whiff of the wood pavement, the first flutter of the evening paper on the curb; and even in the cab you wonder how ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... dropping into the smoking-room of a popular confrA"re, got a whiff of the prevailing gossip ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... made Calhoun react as he did. He jerked the girl Maril to her feet and rushed her toward the Med Ship. Smoke from the flung bomb upwind barely swirled around him and missed Maril altogether. Calhoun, though, got a whiff of something strange, not scorched or burning vegetation at all. He ceased to breathe and plunged onward. In clear air he emptied his lungs and refilled them. They were then halfway to the ship, with Murgatroyd ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... unforgettable, however, for he had known it already weeks ago upon the steamer. And before the gardened woods about him smothered it with their richer smells of a million flowers and weeds, he recognized in it that peculiar pungent whiff of horse that had reached him from the haunted cabin. This time it was less fleeting—a fine, clean odor that he liked even while ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... enthusiastically. Think of the poor people in the city who have none of it. I must send for Randall as soon as we get settled, and some of those fellows we met at The Players that day, and let them have a whiff of it—do them a lot of good. Randall loves it. Poor boy—he needs a change now worse than I did. And have you seen ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... night, the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe And a scornful laugh ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... would go out and see how Fanny was, she looked so very unwell; and besides, what a lovely moonlight evening it was for a drive! He sat himself down comfortably in the carriage, and had just taken a long whiff of his cigar, when all at once he leant forward and ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... numerous flocks around it, we took it to be a shepherds' village. Everything was quiet except the restless sheep, whose silky fleece glistened in the light of the rising moon. Supper was not yet over, for we caught a whiff of its savory odor. Leaving our wheels outside, we entered the first door we came to, and, following along a narrow passageway, emerged into a room where four rather rough-looking shepherds were ladling the soup from a huge bowl in their ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... be a queer sort of a place," said Brother Bart, doubtfully. "But it might do Laddie good to get a whiff of the salt air and a swim in the sea. He isn't well, Brother Timothy says, and as everyone can see. He has a touch of the fever every day; and as for weight, Dan Dolan would make two of him. And his mother died before ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... in with the last batch of the returning crowd, wearing on his face the virtuous look of one who has been snatching a whiff of fresh air after a ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... lion did not surprise me. But I was not prepared for what occurred soon afterward. Noticing a steamy vapor rising from a hole in the snow by the protruding roots of an overturned tree, I walked to the hole to learn the cause of it. One whiff of the vapor stiffened my hair and limbered my legs. I shot down a steep slope, dodging trees and rocks. The vapor was rank with the odor ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... know," she returned generously. "But after the first of May—Well, he is a young man of decisiveness and believes in quick action." She made a whiff, accompanied by an outward and forward motion of the hands. She was wafting Amy Leffingwell out of her own house into the new home which George Pearson was preparing for ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... door curiously, stared over Father's head at Mother, then back at the little man with his pink, cheery face and whiff of delicate silver hair. ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... had become of them? The answer was supplied a little later, for as the Flying Fish, with stopped engines, slowly drifted to within about a quarter of a mile of her, the party of curious gazers suddenly caught a whiff of horrible odour that told the whole story. She was a ship with a ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... enchanting voyage brought us to Lake Umbagog. Whiff's of mist had met us in the outlet. Presently we opened chaos, and chaos shut in upon us. There was no Umbagog to be seen,—nothing but a few yards of gray water and a world of gray vapor. Therefore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... remembered the humourist in all his departed glory, and still venerated him as a temple where the deity yet breathed, though the altar was overthrown, made to this extraordinary remonstrance no other reply than a long whiff, and a "Well, Russelton, dash my wig (a favourite oath of Sir W.'s) but you're ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Not a whiff," he answered. "I'll be here when you come back." Again a subtle cadence in his voice so belied his smile that Alice's heart ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... sheaths. Women toiled over the fires, smoke-curing the meat, on their backs infants that stared round-eyed and sucked at lumps of tallow. Dogs, full-kin to wolves, bristled up to Smoke to endure the menace of the short club he carried and to whiff the odor of this newcomer whom they must accept by virtue ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... got out of the train at Welsley Station, and saw Robin's pal, the Archdeacon, getting out too, and a couple of minor canons, who had come up for the evening papers or something, greeting him with an ecclesiastical heartiness mingled with just a whiff of professional deference, Mrs. Clarke's verdict of "stifling" recurred to ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... has a monopoly of the puffing, himself," Pindar whispered into the captain's ear; "whiff away, my dear sir, and you'll soon ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... with me on purpose to witness what I had to say," answered Bob, taking a cigar out of a box that stood on the table, and lighting it. He smoked a whiff or two, looked thoughtfully at the judge, and then threw the cigar through ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... smoothed my hair before opening the door (feeling a proper pride in my personal appearance, these preparations are usually a preliminary step), when suddenly, just as the portal moved on its hinges, my sense of smell was saluted with the odorous fumes of gin. From the first suffocating whiff of this aromatic cordial do I date the commencement of my grief. Malinda Jane, I knew, never indulged in as much as a sip of Cologne: so, convinced that the breach of discipline was the guilty act of a servant, with all the offended dignity I could embody in my deportment, I ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... and a woman with a man's name. And now leave me, my three queens, and I'll have a drop to warm me old bones and a whiff of the pipe to put the life in me. But don't forget the old woman when the great lords is kneeling before you and pouring the diamonds out of baskets before ye—and send ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... to have had enough to buy whiskey," remarked Roswell, who had had a whiff of his breath, and placed no faith in his story. The man looked angrily at them, but restrained himself, in hopes ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... Haddon answered over his shoulder. "We shall chloroform you. Your heart's as sound as a bell." And as he spoke, I had a whiff of the pungent ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... will. (Calls behind the scenes.) Here, waiter! hostler! driver! what's your name? drive the chaise up here to the door, smart, close. Lean on my arm, madam, and we'll have you in and home in a whiff. (Exeunt Mrs. Talbot, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... Jimmy Whistler, and Charles Keene were among the crew, and others not so well known to fame. Pleasant hours those and gemuethliche, as the Germans say; how different the after-dinner clay pipe or cheap weed of those times to the post-prandial havannah we now complacently whiff at our friend's Maecenas' hospitable table! Yes, things have changed, my dear Rag, since the day we were paying our bill, and you addressed the waiter with superb affability: "Here, Charles, is a penny for you. I know it isn't much, ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... been followed by a morning of drenching fog. At about the middle of the afternoon of the preceding day a little whiff of light vapor—a mere thickening of the atmosphere, the ghost of a cloud—had been observed clinging to the western side of Mount St. Helena, away up along the barren altitudes near the summit. It was so ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... be ill this morning, and I was alarmed. I dosed her with the medicine which Dr. S—— had given me when the epidemic first appeared, and sent for the Doctor himself. But I discovered, before he came, that she had gotten too close a whiff of the chloride-of-lime bag, and it nauseated her. She is more afraid of the disinfectants ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... Cashiobury walks: T—— B—— and I used often to go together to visit ladies, the garden round whose cottage overflowed in every direction with a particular kind of white and maroon pink, the powerful, spicy odor of which comes to me, like a warm whiff of summer sweetness, across all these intervening fifty years. Another favorite haunt of ours was a cottage (not of gentility) inhabited by an old man of the name of Foster, who, hale and hearty and cheerful in extreme old age, was always delighted ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... watching the foam scudding out from under the swift-moving keel, and feeling the soft, balmy Notos, the kind wind of the south, now and then puff against her face, when the west wind veered away, and so brought up a whiff of the spices and tropic bloom of the great southern continent, over the parching deserts and the treacherous quicksands of the Syrtes and the broad ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... here, you are breathing arseniuretted hydrogen. The Clutching Hand has cleverly contrived to introduce the nascent gas into the room. That acts on the arsenic compounds in the wall paper and hangings and sets free the gas. I thought I knew the smell the moment I got a whiff of it. You are slowly being poisoned by minute quantities of the deadly gas. This Clutching Hand is a diabolical genius. Think of ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... at length to her kind Letter? We are not quiet enough. Morgan is with us every day, going betwixt Highgate and the Temple. Coleridge is absent but 4 miles, and the neighborhood of such a man is as exciting as the presence of 50 ordinary Persons. 'Tis enough to be within the whiff and wind of his genius, for us not to possess our souls in quiet. If I lived with him or the author of the Excursion, I should in a very little time lose my own identity, and be dragged along in the current ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... gold-topped bottle nearest her came a long insidious whiff of frangipani. She dared to lean ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... and Genevieve had rather increased than lessened when they left the others. Neither spoke until they had passed through the outer conservatory into the tropical heat of the palm room. But there the first whiff of the odor from the moist warm mould brought with it a ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... had moved carelessly and had fallen in behind the two Indians. I stuck to the trail until the diminished sunlight warned me it would soon be too dark to continue. Then I caught a whiff of burning wood and in ten minutes I ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... (PESTILENTIS) to the ill effects of its stainless flowers, those who camp in places where the plant is plentiful being apt to be seized with violent sickness. An attractive fruit with an exalted title (DIOSPYROS HEBECAPRA) scalds the lips and tongue with caustic-like severity, and a whiff from a certain species of putrescent fungus produces almost instantaneous giddiness, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... outskirts of the site of the contemplated city, and tossed up a series of engirdling hills, whose slopes and crests covered with verdure might afford in the days to come a beautiful sight to the inhabitants when riding forth to get a whiff of country air. These same forces of nature, evidently in love with their work, arranged, it seems, for all the beautiful clouds with their varying hues to pass in daily review over the head of the city ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... are aroused by the smell of bacon frying over the camp-fire, or the crack of a fine, mealy Arizona potato, roasting in the ashes, or a whiff from the coffee-pot, just about to topple over on the burning sticks. The fire is made of driftwood washed down possibly from some storm-swept region where a Mormon dwells with his numerous family; or, mayhap, from a forest where the elk ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... the flagstaff, driven faster yet by the cheers and shouts along the line. We begin to see what is coming. There are three boys in advance, this time, and all abreast,—Hans, Peter, and Lambert. Carl soon breaks the ranks, rushing through with a whiff. Fly, Hans; fly, Peter: don't let Carl beat again!—Carl the bitter, Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is flagging; but you are as strong as ever. Hans and Peter, Peter and Hans: which is foremost? We love them both. We scarcely ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... if it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... the Advanced Left, but necessary to give the Prime Minister sufficient strength to command the respect, both at home and abroad, which can only be won by a statesman who is not afraid of being overturned by every whiff of the parliamentary wind. The 'Legge Rattazziana' certainly aimed at asserting the supremacy of the state, but in substance it was an arrangement for raising the stipend of the poorer clergy at the expense of the richer benefices ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... may even run over an orchestral piece, and get the tone quality of the various instruments; but, after all, such a mental concert is an imperfect substitute for a real orchestra. You enjoy a real whiff of the sea more than the best olfactory image you can summon. There is something lacking in these recalled sensations, and the trouble seems to be that they are not sensations enough; they lack ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... was in itself like a whiff of salt air. It bore me back to the days when a husband's chief function was just that—being a man to his own good woman. We looked for a moment into each other's eyes. Then the same question was born to both ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... a naphthaline odour outflows, In his trail a petroleum-whiff lingers. With crude nitro-glycerine glitter his hose, Suggestions of dynamite hang round his nose, And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... the third ink-bottle I have tried, and still it's nothing to boast of. My journey went off all right, and I have kept ever in good spirits. Last night, indeed, I did think my little bit of gaiety was going away down the wind like a whiff of tobacco smoke, but to-day it has come back to me a little. The influence of this place is assuredly all that can be worst against one; mais il faut lutter. I was haunted last night when I was in bed by the most cold, desolate recollections of my past life here; I was glad to try and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the throbbing monster, while between them, on the coal-blackened floor, Toomey, with his big shovel flinging open the iron gate to the blazing furnace for every new mouthful he fed it, and snapping it shut when he turned away for another, for not a whiff of the draught could be wasted. Once past the deserted station at the Fort there would come eight miles of twisting and turning and struggling up-grade, and every pound of steam would be needed to pull even this baker's dozen of heavily laden cars ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... to be any regular sailors, and in their stead a collection of individuals remarkably greasy in their appearance, who may be cooks or stokers, or possibly both. Then you cannot go on the poop without being saluted by a whiff of hot air from the grim furnaces below; men are always shovelling in coal, or throwing cinders overboard; and the rig does not seem to belong to any ship in particular. The masts are low and small, and the canvas, which is always ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... of good nourishing hot biscuits and cake," she thought. After the supper dishes were cleared away she went into the sitting-room where Daniel Wise sat beside a window, waiting in a sort of stern patience for a whiff of air. It was a very close evening. The sun was red in the low west, but a heaving sea of mist was rising ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... (Though few come prying here), My Lady seems to fear Some downright dreadful evil, And makes me keep my room As closely as she can: So I hate when people come, It is so troublesome. In spite of all her care, 350 Sometimes to keep alive I sometimes do contrive To get out in the grounds For a whiff of wholesome air, Under the rose you know: It's charming to break bounds, Stolen waters are sweet, And what's the good of feet If for days they mustn't go? Give me a longer tether, 360 Or ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... Salem town With silver buckled shoon? No lovely witch to drown Or burn beneath the moon? Not even a whiff of ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... business is encouraged and legitimate business discouraged; where the respectable residents have to fasten their doors and windows summer nights and sit in their rooms with asphyxiating air and one hundred degrees temperature, rather than try to catch the faint whiff of breeze in their natural breathing places—the stoops of their homes; where naked women dance by night in the streets, and unsexed men prowl like vultures through the darkness on "business" not only permitted, but encouraged, by the police; where the education ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... experienced a prescient vicarious qualm to note their lack of heed or secrecy—the noisy shifting of heavy weights (barrels, kegs, bags of apples, and peaches for pomace), the loud voices and unguarded words. When a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean air that pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous odors, and gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most unobservant inmate, that the still was operated in a cellar, peculiarly immune to suspicion, ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... night- nursery windows, the cedars on the lawn, the haystacks just beyond the stables, and the fields where the rabbits sometimes fell asleep as they sat after enormous meals too stuffed to move. He saw the old gravel-pit that led, the gardener told him, to the centre of the earth. A whiff of perfume from the laurustinus in the drive came back, the scent of hay, and with it the sound of the mowing-machine going over the lawn. He saw the pony in loose flat leather shoes. The bees were humming in the lime trees. The rooks were cawing. A ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... and yet unlike, the Secretary of State. Both had the look of hunted animals; but where Palme was a rabbit, twitching to take flight at the first whiff of danger, Hutchinson was a cat who hears hounds baying—ready to run if he could, or claw if ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... graduated, my mother sent her, to commemorate that very important and pleasant occasion, one of her few remaining treasures—a carved ivory fan which Le Brun had painted out of his heart of hearts for one of King Louis' loveliest ladies. It still exhaled, like a whiff of lost roses, something ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... be an interminable period. Occasionally the sounds of distant voices rose to his ear and died away again. The front door opened to admit some one, but Orde could not see who it was. Twice a scurrying of feet overhead seemed to indicate the bustle of excitement. The afternoon waned. A faint whiff of cooking, escaping through some carelessly open door, was borne to his nostrils. It grew dark, but the lamps remained unlighted. Finally he heard the rustle of the portieres, and turned to see the dim form of the ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... outward voyage, by the largest computation; some time that night, or, at latest, before noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island. We were heading S.S.W., and had a steady breeze abeam and a quiet sea. The Hispaniola rolled steadily, dipping her bowsprit now and then with a whiff of spray. All was drawing alow and aloft; every one was in the bravest spirits, because we were now so near an end of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his garden and mine too. That is how by degrees I got able to bear the smoke of tobacco, for I had never been used to it, and found it a small trial at first; but now I have got actually to like it, and greet a stray whiff from the study like a message from my husband. I fancy I could tell the smoke of that old black and red meerschaum from the smoke of any ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... were staying a few nights only at Kettle Point. The old woman lighted up her pipe, and whiffed away with her eyes half shut; after enjoying it for about twenty minutes or so, her old husband thought she had had enough, and taking it from her put it in his own mouth and had his whiff. When he had done, he restored it again to his wife. Underneath another old bedstead were a couple of large dogs, which occasionally let their voices be heard in a dispute; some of the stones on one side of the fire-place had broken away, making a little window through which the dogs ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... I couldn't carry HIM up like that, at once. ... He was a hostage ... But I could not keep him in the house on the lake, either, because of Christine; so I locked him up comfortably, I chained him up nicely—a whiff of the Mazenderan scent had left him as limp as a rag—in the Communists' dungeon, which is in the most deserted and remote part of the Opera, below the fifth cellar, where no one ever comes, and where no one ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... wished the sergeant to fall dead at my feet, and the stupid soldiers who stared at me to turn into corpses; and even those wretches for whom my entreaties had procured a reprieve I wished dead also, because I could not face them without shame. A mephitic heat like a whiff of air from hell came out of that dark place in which they were confined. Those at the window who had heard what was going on jeered at me in very desperation: one of these fellows, gone mad no doubt, ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... thought of them as a bridal wreath, purer than the purest orange-blossom that ever decked a bride. Once, too—this was when she was nearing the end of the voyage—there came to her a magic whiff of wet bog-myrtle that made her fancy that she must ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... dies slowly (it was John who collected the beetles). Even on the second day its legs were supple. But the butterflies were dead. A whiff of rotten eggs had vanquished the pale clouded yellows which came pelting across the orchard and up Dods Hill and away on to the moor, now lost behind a furze bush, then off again helter-skelter in a broiling sun. A fritillary ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... man you don't find laying round loose nowadays to any great extent. It's a pity his brains wasn't preserved in a glass case, where the imbecile lunatics at Washington could take a whiff occasionally. It would do ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... whole Rumania, at any rate during the first few weeks of the occupation, had the substantial sympathy of the largest and most influential section of the world's press. People declared that they were glad to see the haze of self-righteousness and cant at last dispelled by a whiff of wholesome egotism. From the outspoken comments of the most widely circulating journals in France and Britain the dictators in Paris, who were indignant that the counsels of the strong should carry so little weight in eastern Europe, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... as before, going through English, French, Russian, Mongol, and Chinese, and after dinner smoked our pipes and cigars. The sargoochay had a pipe with a slender bowl that could be taken out for reloading, like the shell of a Remington rifle. A single whiff served to exhaust it, and the smoke passing through water became purified. An attendant stood near to manage the pipe of His Excellency whenever his services were needed. We endeavored to smoke each others' pipes and were quite satisfied after a minute's experience. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... me, there swung a flaunting sign—"A l'Irlandois"— at which I cheered up. Here, at any rate, in the midst of this noisome babel, seemed to come a whiff from the old country, and I felt like a castaway ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... Oh, I know; I was worrying my way through poor old Ebor's papers and things. I'm his executor, you know. Then I got weary and came out for a whiff of air." He spoke lightly and with perfect naturalness. Obviously he was telling the truth. "I prefer specimens to papers," he ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... jockey, taking a whiff, 'make your conversation as short as possible, whether in Latin or Dutch, for, to tell you the truth, I am rather tired of merely ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... that each of the Indians, contrary to their usual custom of taking a whiff or two, smoked long and slowly. We knew it was a ruse to protract the ceremony and gain time; while we—I answer for Seguin and ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... answered, after another whiff or two, "it isn't a brave bouncing girl like you who asks that? Why, I always go down at full gallop. There's nothing like ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... box, and let out a whiff of foreign fragrance. But when the beautiful pale-tinted thing was laid across the bed, and Bettina had explained that it was the captain's gift, Miss Matthews looked solemnly at her friend. "If you think I'm going ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... after a long and thoughtful whiff from his meerschaum, "although I have been guilty ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... of snow, only a very far-off view, for it lay away up on the top of a mountain, but it made his heart long for just one breath of good dry Canadian air, just one whiff of ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... caught sight of the shrinking figure in the shadow and the hat was doffed in a profound bow. Undoubtedly a good looking young man, but as undoubtedly a fop of the first water with his ruffles and bosom of Mechlin lace, red heels to his shoes, gold clocks on his silk stockings and the whiff of scent ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... stool. An old man then came forward with the pipe of peace or good-fellowship, lighted and handed it to the chief, and then falling back, squatted himself near the door. The pipe was passed from mouth to mouth, each one taking a whiff, which is equivalent to the inviolable pledge of faith, of taking salt together among the ancient Britons. The chief then made a sign to the old pipe-bearer, who seemed to fill, likewise, the station of herald, seneschal, and public crier, for he ascended to the top ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... bottle. I handles mah licker!" The Wildcat uncorked the bottle and held it to the Mud Turtle's chattering lips. The Mud Turtle took a whiff of the liquid. Its perfume seemed to inspire a new set of internal calisthenics in the Mud Turtle. After he had quit writhing the Wildcat again pressed the remedy upon him. "Drink it, fo' I drips it on you. Go ahead an' drink. I'll hol' yo' nose." ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... more sensitive to the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, if nothing else, and the forces of the Revolution probably would have swamped him from the very first moment of his emergence at Toulon, when the whiff of grape-shot, symptom of an inexorable, merciless intellect and will, started him upon the road that led to the Napoleonic Era. Destiny is always ironic. For the deficiency of the internal secretions which made ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... with the last batch of the returning crowd, wearing on his face the virtuous look of one who has been snatching a whiff of fresh air after a ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... the ashes from his cigar, took another whiff or two, then laid it down, and turned to his host, who ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... brilliant silvery sheen of the moonlight on the water. The remainder of the crew were dimly visible seated on the deck in the black shadow of the bulwarks, a tiny red spark or two indicating that some of them were solacing the idle hours with a whiff or two of the fragrant weed. Officers who were strict disciplinarians would have forbidden smoking in the watch on deck, and would have insisted on the whole watch keeping constantly on the move, as a safeguard against dozing; but Ritson was ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... said, but it seems it was monstrously to the point, and so rudely conceived that the old duke never recovered the indignity. He got home as far as Amboise, sickened, and died two days after (Jan. 4, 1465), in the seventy-fourth year of his age. And so a whiff of pungent prose stopped the issue of melodious rondels to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the curious old church. One has now to elbow his way to enter, and all around the door, even out into the middle court, contadini are kneeling. Besides this, the whole place reeks intolerably with garlic, which, mixed with whiff of incense from the church within and other unmentionable smells, makes such a compound that only a brave nose can stand it. But stand it we must, if we would see Domenichino's frescoes in the chapel within; and as they are among the best products of his cold ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... (through which issues a whiff of hot air charged with a combination of greasy smells that might knock down a rhinoceros), our hero enters the long, low, dingy room, and is instantly relieved of his coat and cap by half a dozen ready ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... roof after the others had gone, and for some time I thought I was alone. After a while, I got a whiff of smoke, and then I saw Mr. Harbison far over in the corner, one foot on the parapet, moodily smoking a pipe. He was gazing out over the river, and paying no attention to me. This was natural, considering that I had hardly spoken ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a monopoly of the puffing, himself," Pindar whispered into the captain's ear; "whiff away, my dear sir, and you'll soon throw him into ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... that Kathleen appeared to apply herself to that becoming and feminine employment with double industry after the appearance of the M'Mahons. Kate Hogan was sitting in the chimney corner, smoking a pipe, and as she took it out of her mouth to whiff away the smoke from time to time, she turned her black piercing eyes alternately from Bryan M'Mahon to Kathleen with a ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... of artillery looks on meditatively. His silent thought is sensed by a bystander who remarks: "I suppose, Napoleon, you think you could manage things better!" The man grins. But Napoleon Bonaparte—he who snuffed out Revolution later by whiff of ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... Mr. Tertius drew a whiff or two of fragrant Havana before he replied. Then he too dropped into a chair and pulled it close to his ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... as the worthy neighbour was about to retire and leave them to the enjoyment of their letters. "You have not had a whiff with me for a long time, and here is a new church-warden waiting ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... but we'll settle that on shipboard," said Mr. Iff promptly. "As for knowing me—business of introducing myself. Mr. Staff, I want you to shake hands with my friend, Mr. Iff. W. H. Iff, Whiff: sometimes so-called: merry wheeze based on my typographical make-up; once a joke, now so grey with age I generally pull it myself, thus saving new acquaintances the mental strain. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... running strong against us, the fineness of the steersman's aim grew more embarrassing. As we came abreast of the sea-front, where the surf broke highest, Kauanui embraced the occasion to light his pipe, which then made the circuit of the boat—each man taking a whiff or two, and, ere he passed it on, filling his lungs and cheeks with smoke. Their faces were all puffed out like apples as we came abreast of the cliff foot, and the bursting surge fell back into the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... began to fall in streams, while the little bosom heaved with sobs. She pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe her eyes, and a strong whiff of perfume greeted Violet's nostrils, telling a tale that sent a ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... is ready; you sniff, Asking for that expected walk, (Your nostrils full of the happy rabbit-whiff) And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... lingered so long that Lemuel thought he should have to find the way beyond for himself. But the tramp suddenly commanded himself from the music, the light, and the smell of strong drink, which Lemuel caught a whiff of as he followed, and turning a corner led the way to the side of a lofty building in a dark street, where they met other like shapes tending toward ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... imagined deadly mines ready to be fired everywhere, and the whole army clamoured to break up the camp. Thus Ali and his fifty followers cast terror into the hearts of nearly thirty thousand men, crowded together on the slopes of Janina. Every sound, every whiff of smoke, ascending from near the castle, became a subject of alarm for the besiegers. And as the besieged had provisions for a long time, Kursheed saw little chance of successfully ending his enterprise; when Ali's demand ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... last cigar is smoked and the box is splintered and gone, And only the faintest whiff of the dear old smell hangs on, In the times when he's idle or thoughtful, When he's lonesome, jolly or blue, And he fingers his useless matches, What is ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... moreover, was a rather sophisticated young lady. One would never have seen her, in the mornings, munching a hunk of bread-and-butter "as long as from here to Easter." No; Jeannette has fulfilled her part, providing a whiff of marjoram and cottage flowers for the castle chambers. She has read, written and said her prayers. She has the firm outline, the rosy cheeks, the simplicity of a Watteau peasant-girl—nothing of the Greuze languish, with its hint of ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... real risk of poisoning myself, and of making I wot not how actual a mooncalf, of my present sound mind and body, I herein would reasonably demur: and, if I wanted dreams, would tax my fancy, and not my apothecary's bill. Dreams? I need not whiff opium, nor toss off laudanum negus, to imagine myself—a young Titan, sucking fiery milk from the paps of a volcano; a despot so limitless and magnificent, as to spurn such a petty realm as the Solar System, with Cassiopeia, Booetes, and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... fired with the rest, and then rammed down another charge as fast as I could, staring out through the smoke in front of me, where I could see some long, thin thing which napped slowly backwards and forwards. A bugle sounded for us to cease firing, and a whiff of wind came to clear the curtain from in front of us, and then we ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sounded agreeably in his own ears; the gentle glow of a lignum-vitae wood fire smote his attenuated shins; he balanced his cards in one hand, a long cigar in the other, exhaled a satisfactory whiff of aromatic smoke, and ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... blaze was made to scare away the wolves. Frank, Jeffson, and Douglas, then rolled themselves in their blankets, and lay down with their feet towards the fire and their rifles beside them. The others lighted their pipes for a finishing whiff—a nightcap as Joe ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze brings the first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end; English ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... she said brightly, shaking hands with me when Andy and I were going to turn in. 'And don't forget your pipe. Here it is! I know that Bushmen like to have a whiff or two when they turn in. Walter smokes in bed. I don't mind. You can smoke all night ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... in the papers that the Thames in London is most horrible. I have to cross Waterloo or London Bridge to get to the railroad when I come down here, and I can certify that the offensive smells, even in that short whiff, have been of a most head-and-stomach-distending nature. Nobody knows what is to be done; at least everybody knows a plan, and everybody else knows it won't do; in the meantime cartloads of chloride of lime are shot ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... were the Morenos from all but the archives of California, but the willows and Dr. Hiram Webster were full of years and honors. The ranchos were ranchos no longer. A somnolent city covered their fertile acres, catching but a whiff at angels' intervals of the metropolis of nerves and pulse and feverish ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... weather. When Darrow joined the group about the tea-table she had already given a tingle to the air. Madame de Chantelle still remained invisible above stairs; but Darrow had the impression that even through her drawn curtains and bolted doors a stimulating whiff must ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... and on some occasions during the summer, a deputation visits the sacred spot, where there is a thick porous stone, twenty feet in circumference, with a smooth surface. Having reached the place, the ceremony of smoking to it is performed by the deputies, who alternately take a, whiff themselves, and then present the pipe to the stone; after this, they retire to the adjoining wood for the night, during which it may be safely presumed, that all the embassy do not sleep. In the morning, they read the destinies ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... shower of blows descending upon him, bent the lad backward and stretched him upon the levee path. In a little while the gust of passion was spent, and he was allowed to rise. Calm now, but a powder mine where he had been but a whiff of the tantrums, Victor extended his hand toward the dwelling house ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... certain countries made fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, and we tried the same plan over and over again. Indeed we spent the better part of several days trying to get fire in that way, but without success; we could not even raise a whiff of smoke. That was about the worst misfortune that happened to us, for without fire to protect us at night, or to cook food during the day, we were continually in difficulties. But it was not long ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... with the suddenness and the start of lightning. Merely the colour of a hill at sunset was enough to flash back her thoughts to an hour when she was looking for Evan; or a certain sort of starlight night would recall a particular walk along the meadow fence; or a gust and whiff of the wind would bring with it the thrill that belonged to one certain stormy September night that never faded in her remembrance. Or the smell of coffee sometimes, when it was just at a certain stage of preparation, would turn her heart-sick. These associations and remembrances were countless and ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... that no extremity need necessarily keep one awake in such heat. He stifled a yawn that was no part of his performance. His pipe was out; he struck a match noisily on his boot; and Stingaree just stirred, as naturally as any infant. But Stingaree's senses were incredibly acute. He smelt every whiff of the rekindled pipe, knew to ten seconds when it went out once more, and listened in an agony for another match. None was struck. Was the Superintendent himself really asleep this time? He breathed as though he were; but so did Stingaree; and yet was there hope in the fact ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... crash. The gunboat shivered, and for a moment stood still; then, gathering headway, moved on again, though with much ominous grating beneath her keel. Soon after she passed out of the smoke and heat, and all hands rushed on deck for a whiff of the fresh, cool air. Their first thought was of the cause of the collision; and, looking eagerly astern, they saw a heavy bridge, about fifty feet of which had been demolished by the tremendous power of the ram. This gave Porter a hint as to the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... smokin' cut plug and dried mesquite leaves mixed when I left," sighed Mustang Taylor, horse wrangler of the Three Elm camp. "They'll be lookin' for me back by nine. They'll be settin' up, with their papers ready to roll a whiff of the real thing before bedtime. And I've got to tell 'em that this pink-eyed, sheep-headed, sulphur- footed, shirt-waisted son of a calico broncho, Sam Revell, hasn't ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... lesson the fire began to smoke, and Mr Gordon told Owen to open the window for a moment. No sooner was this done than the mischievous whiff of sea-air which entered the room began to trifle and coquet with the pendulous half-sheet pinned in front of the desk, causing thereby an unwonted little pattering crepitation. In alarm, Duncan ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... would have gone off capitally. As things turned out, there was a fatal unreality in situation, which House quick to realise. Pretty to see Members, as BIRRELL struggled with his notes, involuntarily sniffing, as if they recognised familiar whiff ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... of becoming red in vapor of sulpho-cyanide. Here is a long-necked flask of the gas, made by sulphuric acid acting on potassium sulpho-cyanide. Keep back, Dr. Waterworth, for it would be very dangerous for you to get even a whiff of this in your condition. Ah! See—the scratches I made on the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the foam scudding out from under the swift-moving keel, and feeling the soft, balmy Notos, the kind wind of the south, now and then puff against her face, when the west wind veered away, and so brought up a whiff of the spices and tropic bloom of the great southern continent, over the parching deserts and the treacherous quicksands of the Syrtes ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... would have given to either Phorenice or myself little enough of concern, as they are the trivial and common incidents of every siege; but the mammoth on which we rode had not been so properly schooled. When the first blue whiff of smoke came to us down the windings of the street, the huge red beast hoisted its trunk, and began to sway its head uneasily. When the smoke drifts grew more dense, and here and there a tongue of flame showed pale beneath the sunshine, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... that may come the day after at Bath. And the next day too I want to show you something of our old River Severn. We will come right up to the present if we go through Bristol. There we shall have a whiff of America, our new find, from which the tobacco comes, and we shall be reminded of how we set sail thither—was it yesterday or the day before? You will understand at Bristol how it is that the energy has ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... in front of me, there swung a flaunting sign—"A l'Irlandois"— at which I cheered up. Here, at any rate, in the midst of this noisome babel, seemed to come a whiff from the old country, and I felt like a ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... A slight amount of ether or chloroform may mean to a vivisected animal no protection whatever from extreme pain. The fact has long been known. Many years ago Dr. George Hoggan declared that "complete and conscientious anaesthesia is seldom even attempted, the animal getting at most a slight whiff of chloroform by way of satisfying the conscience of the operator, OR OF ENABLING HIM TO MAKE STATEMENTS OF A HUMANE CHARACTER." In other words, it enables him to say, "Anaesthetics are always used." Shall we always be blind to the insignificance ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the highest heaven ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... awaiting dinner in a drawing-room after a long walk in wintry weather. It is one thing to get there an occasional whiff of viands cooking in the basement of the house, and quite another to feel the same accentuate your ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... is the truth. But I really thought you above the fear of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of breath, a puff of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... by the Great Britain, many interruptions force me to close, unflavored by one whiff from the smoke of Auld Reekie. More and better matter shall my next contain, for here and in the Highlands I have passed three not unproductive weeks, of ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... resident, who for the more love of the common country, douce, serious, religious man, drove me all about the valley, and took as much interest in me as if I had been his son: more, perhaps; for the son has faults too keenly felt, while the abstract countryman is perfect—like a whiff of peats. ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mountains, and still not be afraid of the present comparison. There may be, in the eyes of some, a risk in dwelling in this dark hour on our failures in the past: I believe profoundly that the risk is all the other way. I believe that the most deadly danger to our arms to-day lies in any whiff of that self-praise, any flavour of that moral cowardice, any glimpse of that impudent and ultimate impenitence, that may make one Boer or Scot or Welshman or Irishman or Indian feel that he is only smoothing the path for a second Prussia. I have passed the great part of my life ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... singing and story-telling went on and in the middle of it Tom O'Donnell came driving in. He was like a whiff of a no'the-easter out to sea. "Whoo!" he said. "Hulloh, Wesley-boy—and Patsie Oddie—and Tommie Ohlsen—and, by my soul, Tommie Clancy again. Lord, what a night to come beating down from Boston! What's that, Wesley?—did the Colleen outfoot the cutter down the ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... California town, filling a summer's engagement with a street railway company. The company owned a large park outside the city, and of course it was to its interest to provide attractions which would send the townspeople over its line when they went out to get a whiff of country air. My contract called for two ascensions weekly, and my act was an especially taking feature, for it was on my days that ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... the owner of Big Shanty enthusiastically. Think of the poor people in the city who have none of it. I must send for Randall as soon as we get settled, and some of those fellows we met at The Players that day, and let them have a whiff of it—do them a lot of good. Randall loves it. Poor boy—he needs a change now worse than I did. And have you seen ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... heard upon the stairs, and an instant later there entered a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear eyes and florid cheeks told of a life led far from the fogs of Baker Street. He seemed to bring a whiff of his strong, fresh, bracing, east-coast air with him as he entered. Having shaken hands with each of us, he was about to sit down when his eye rested upon the paper with the curious markings, which I had just examined ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... business discouraged; where the respectable residents have to fasten their doors and windows summer nights and sit in their rooms with asphyxiating air and one hundred degrees temperature, rather than try to catch the faint whiff of breeze in their natural breathing places—the stoops of their homes; where naked women dance by night in the streets, and unsexed men prowl like vultures through the darkness on "business" not only permitted, but encouraged, by the police; where the education of infants begins ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... afternoon of the third day, as the three women and myself sat conversing as usual over the brasero, a shabby looking fellow in an old rusty cloak walked into the room: he came straight up to the place where we were sitting, produced a paper cigar, which he lighted at a coal, and taking a whiff or two, looked at me: "Carracho," said he, "who is ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... downhill. The lady was voluble. Into your triangular group broke a newcomer whose speech had in it a flippant, or at least a superficially clever, fluency. He was glib. Leaving these three to fight (or talk) it out as best they might, you grabbed your hat and hurried outside for a fresh whiff ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... caught a whiff of burnt syrup, she hurried to the kitchen, where she found that her berries had boiled over, and were hissing and sputtering on the hot stove, raising a cloud of smoke so dense that she did not see the person ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... that near the edge of the pine grove, not far away, there dwelt a lone fisherman, who, coming down to the shore, caught a whiff of sweet perfume such as had never before delighted his nostrils. What could it be? The spring zephyrs, blowing from the west, seemed laden with ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... finds him, Striking too short at Greeks: his antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Repugnant to command: unequal match'd, Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide; But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for lo! his sword, Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick: ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... lunatic, an idiot, any thing else. I don't quite need a strait-jacket as yet, but I tell you I do need the seclusion of a comfortable lunatic asylum. I only stipulate for an occasional drop of beer, and a whiff or two at odd times. Don't you think ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... as black as pitch, and Smith was slowly making his way down its irregular steps, when he was suddenly conscious that something had passed him in the darkness. There was a faint sound, a whiff of air, a light brushing past his elbow, but so slight that he could scarcely be certain of it. He stopped and listened, but the wind was rustling among the ivy outside, and he ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... livings in his own gift, no doubt. I've got a new thing running in my head this very minute that you shall hear though, all the same, as soon as I've hammered it into shape—a sort of villanette in music, a little whiff of country freshness, suggested by the new ethereal acquisition, little Miss Butterfly. Have you ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... dry, hacking cough. Any unusually severe exertion precipitated spells of coughing, during which he was almost like a man in a fit. The blood congested in his eyes till they bulged, while the tears ran down his cheeks. A whiff of the smoke from frying bacon would start him off for a half-hour's paroxysm, and he kept carefully to ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... pathway for foot-passengers. The roadway in the centre, thirty feet wide, is well paved with stone, and perfectly level. Every thirty yards or so are stalls for the sale of kababs, fruit, sweetmeats, and the kalyan, for a whiff from which passers-by pay a small sum. Ispahan is noted for its fruit; apricots, peaches, nectarines, cherries, mulberries, and particularly fine melons, are abundant ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... saying a great deal more than he had. Felgate had a wonderful gift of self-delusion. He knew he had acted wrongly and meanly. "And yet," he argued, "smoking is no crime, and if the school rules make it one, it doesn't follow that I'm a sinner if I have a whiff now and then. He admits he smokes himself. He doesn't call himself a sinner. Easy enough for him to be high and mighty. One law for him ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... particular, take care that you do not tire your horses or yourselves. For yourselves, very likely ten miles will be enough for the first day. It is not distance you are after, it is the enjoyment of every blade of grass, of every flying bird, of every whiff of air, of every cloud ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... gotten halfway across the top of the valley, and the gloom was deepening steadily, when there stole to me upon the calmness of the evening air, a faint smell; something quite different from that of the surrounding fungi. A moment later I got a great whiff of it, and was near sickened with the abomination of it; but the memory of that foul thing which had come to the side of the boat in the dawn-gloom, before we discovered the island, roused me to a terror beyond that of the sickness of my stomach; for, ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... cleverest I ever run up against. For all you know, he may have been back of a lot o' tricks Central never got hold of. I'll bet that each time that you went over with him, he took loot an' disposed of it. I may be pig-headed sometimes, but I'm dead sure o' this. Wait some day an' see. Say, take a whiff o' this an' tell me what y' think it ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... tossed his hat in the closet, opened the incubator on his culture tubes, trying to look busy. He slammed the door after one whiff and gripped the edge of the work ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... I was coming after you, and if I can get away I'll be there. A good whiff of this stuff will lay out a thousand of them just as easily as it will one. Here's the idea. I've made a gas mask for myself, since I'll be in it where it's thick, but you two won't need any. The gas is soluble enough in water so that three or four thicknesses of wet cloth over your ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... 'em now, would ye, Telly?" he continued after drawing a long whiff of smoke and slowly emitting it in rings. "It's been so many years, an' since I got thinkin' 'bout it I'd like to take a look at 'em, jest to remind me o' that fortunate day ye ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... in that country. But unhappily our one need was to be secret; and all this rapid and animated picture of the road swept quite apart from us, as we lumbered up hill and down dale, under hedge and over stone, among circuitous byways. Only twice did I receive, as it were, a whiff of the highway. The first reached my ears alone. I might have been anywhere. I only knew I was walking in the dark night and among ruts, when I heard very far off, over the silent country that surrounded us, the guard's horn wailing its signal to the next post-house for ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... understand," said the elder, with another calm whiff. "I have always had a kind of respect for your father, for there is something remarkable in his appearance, something heroic, and I would fain have cultivated his acquaintance; the feeling, however, has not been reciprocated. I met him, the other day, up the road, with his cane and dog, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... temporary centres of malaria, within the memory of man, on one or more of our Massachusetts rivers, but these are harmless enough, for the most part, unless the millers dam them, when they are apt to retaliate with a whiff from their meadows, that sets the whole neighborhood shaking with ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was felt everywhere. Not only were Max and Pete and Hilda jubilant over it, but the under-foremen, the timekeepers, even the laborers attacked their work with a fresher energy. It was like the first whiff of salt air to an army marching to the sea. Since the day when the cribbing came down from Ledyard, the work had gone forward with almost incredible rapidity; there had been no faltering during the weeks when Grady's threatened catastrophe ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... in joy, but not in sorrow. My second is in lend, but not in borrow. My third is in fast, but not in slow. My fourth is in whiff, but not in blow. My fifth is in whole, but not in half. My sixth is in heifer, but not in calf. My seventh is in song, but not in hymn. My eighth is in hoop, but not in rim. My ninth is in fancy, but not in whim. My hidden whole, when it is ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Semyon he looked graceful and vigorous, but yet in his walk there was something just perceptible which betrayed in him a being already touched by decay, weak, and on the road to ruin. And all at once there was a whiff of spirits in the wood. Marya Vassilyevna was filled with dread and pity for this man going to his ruin for no visible cause or reason, and it came into her mind that if she had been his wife or sister ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... voyage, by the largest computation; some time that night, or, at latest, before noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island. We were heading south-southwest, and had a steady breeze abeam and a quiet sea. The Hispaniola rolled steadily, dipping her bowsprit now and then with a whiff of spray. All was drawing alow and aloft; everyone was in the bravest spirits, because we were now so near an end of the first part ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... warmth in Don Ippolito's deep eyes kindled to a flame; a dark red glowed in his thin cheeks; he drew a box from the folds of his drapery and took snuff in a great whiff, as if inhaling the sulphurous fumes of battle, or titillating his nostrils with grains of gunpowder. He was at least in full enjoyment of the poetic power of his invention, and no doubt had before his eyes a vivid picture of a score of secessionists surprised and blown to atoms in the ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... only gold. The water, reaching round in two arms, came close: there was a note of husky summons in the whistles of passing craft. Almost everywhere, sharp above many smells of oils and spices, the whiff of coffee tingled his busy nose. Above one huge precipice stood a gilded statue—a boy with wings, burning in the noon. Brilliance flamed between the vanes of his pinions: the intangible thrust of that pouring light seemed about to hover him off ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... like shot in a barrel, we are rounded and polished by mere attrition. Formerly, characteristics had more chance to emphasize themselves and throw out angles, as I believe they still do in long polar seclusions. Withal, there came from him from time to time a whiff of the naval atmosphere of the past, like that from a drawer where lavender has been. Going ashore once with him for a constitutional, he caught sight of a necktie which my fond mother had given me. It was black, yes; but with variations. "Humph!" he ejaculated; ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... awoke to find themselves at anchor in Colombo harbour, and the soft warm air brought them a delicious whiff of the celebrated cinnamon gardens. Many were landing for Southern India and a quantity of cargo had to be discharged. As this was bound to be a lengthy process, the remnant who were bound for Rangoon had nearly a whole day ashore. Mrs. ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... far as to be able to go out, one day his mother got her sister's husband, who had a little pony-cart, to carry them down to the sea-shore, and leave them there for a few hours. He had some business to do further on at Ramsgate, and would pick them up as he returned. A whiff of the sea-air would do them both good, she said, and she thought besides she could best tell Diamond what had happened if she had him ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... continually with a sweet savour. I doubt if there is any sensation arising from sight more delightful than the odours which filter through sun-warmed, wind-tossed branches, or the tide of scents which swells, subsides, rises again wave on wave, filling the wide world with invisible sweetness. A whiff of the universe makes us dream of worlds we have never seen, recalls in a flash entire epochs of our dearest experience. I never smell daisies without living over again the ecstatic mornings that my teacher and I spent wandering in the fields, while I learned new words ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... Pippa herself. The whole central and splendid idea of the drama is the fact that Pippa is utterly remote from the grand folk whose lives she troubles and transforms. To make her in the end turn out to be the niece of one of them, is like a whiff from an Adelphi melodrama, an excellent thing in its place, but destructive of the entire conception of Pippa. Having done that, Browning might just as well have made Sebald turn out to be her long lost brother, and Luigi a husband to whom she was secretly married. Browning ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... at her elbow as though someone wished to pass between the seats. The faintest whiff of stephanotis came to her on the lazy summer air. Involuntarily she turned her head and looked for the harsh-voiced woman who had been verily steeped in the aggressive odor the day of Lauzanne's triumph. Two burly men sat ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... was, my boy. The Spaniards bought her from a New York millionaire, but she was an old model then, and they have top-hampered her with armor and guns until they have knocked what little speed she had out of her. We'll not even see a whiff of their smoke in ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... to resemble the lounge of a fashionable hotel. Moffatt himself, as he came forward, gave Ralph the impression of having been done over by the same hand: he was smoother, broader, more supremely tailored, and his whole person exhaled the faintest whiff of an expensive scent. He installed his visitor in one of the blue arm-chairs, and sitting opposite, an elbow on his impressive "Washington" desk, listened attentively while Ralph ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... little basement office, and spent long mornings with him, helping him label some books, or copying notes which he had intended "getting into shape" these twenty years. She liked the stillness and dimness of the small room, with its smell of leather-covered volumes, or whiff of wood ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... starboard bow; and, as they neared her, it was evident that her foremast was gone, and that she was otherwise in a disabled state.—When the Indiaman was within a mile, the stranger threw out neutral colours, and hoisted a whiff, half-mast down, as a signal that she was in distress. Newton ordered the ship to be kept away, and when alongside of the vessel, lowered down a boat, and sent the third mate to ascertain what assistance could be afforded. With sailors, thank God! distress, is sufficient to obtain ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... winter, and, as the drops of dirty moisture which stand on the panes testify, they are hermetically closed. The kitchen leads out of the room by what is apparently the only open door in the house, every other being jealously closed lest peradventure a whiff of fresh air should get in. It is impossible to eat, and one is glad to pay for the untasted food and get out into the open air before the power of ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... lady, ain't she?" said Stalky. "How long d'you suppose it'll take her to get a bit whiff in a confined space?" ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... street, upon some one's fence-rail, climbed a honeysuckle vine; and every now and then Larry caught a whiff of a faint perfume as the breeze flitted by. He wished the breeze would carry heavier loads of it and come oftener. It was tantalizing to get just one breath and ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... Hawk, to his quarters, as it would afford a good opportunity to ascertain explicitly, the feeling which existed among them towards their fallen foe. About seven o'clock they arrived. They took their seats in silence, passed the pipe for all to take a whiff, and in return, quaffed a glass of champagne, which seemed to have a peculiar relish. Pashepahow, shook hands with all ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... two hours: the principal person then rang a little bell, and the tables and chairs all vanished in a whiff, leaving the company standing on their feet. The birds now struck up a most lively air, and the little people began to dance, jumping and leaping and whirling round and round, as if the world were grown dizzy. And the pretty little girls that sat next John caught hold of him ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... apt to feel the depression of such circumstances; and when you add to the other discomforts, that of a steady, pouring rain, with a sound of fall in every whiff of wind, you will understand that Marion was to have comparatively little help from outside influences. She felt the gloom in her heart deepen as the day went on. She was astonished and mortified at herself to find that the old feelings of irritability and sharpness still held her ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... when I shall come to you. I have heaps of work pour manger. Till the spring I must work—that is, at senseless grind. A ray of liberty has beamed upon my horizon. There has come a whiff of freedom. Yesterday I got a letter from the province of Poltava. They write they have found me a suitable place. A brick house of seven rooms with an iron roof, lately built and needing no repairs, a stable, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... of the shiny tools of his trade. The cabinet seemed quite out of place in the tall state chamber: but then so did the man. He did not look in the least like a doctor (just as Miss Heth had said). The faint scent of iodoform that he now gave off was a heterogeneity, like a whiff of brandy ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... who scents battle. The smell of tobacco was strong, and so was that of the open boxes of dried herring on the counter, but plainly, above all the commingled odours of a country grocery, Miss Calista caught a whiff of peppermint, so strong as to leave no doubt of its origin. There had been no hint of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... soldiers; the snow creaked under foot; the night was very dark, and the sharp fresh air almost took away his breath, yet it was infinitely welcome to him after the heavy atmosphere of his cell, and he inhaled it with keen pleasure, thinking that each whiff was almost the last. He was led into a large, faintly-lighted room, where officers of various grades were smoking around a large table. It was only the committee of investigation, for hitherto his examinations had not been strictly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... to the reader what the peace smoke is. We all took seats in a circle around the head Chief. He lighted the peace pipe, which is a special pipe kept to use on these occasions alone. He took the first whiff himself, blowing it up into the air, and the second whiff he blew into my face. I being his guest of honor, I sat at the right of him. The third whiff he blew into the face of the Chief who sat on his left, and then he passed the pipe to me. I went through ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... by-word, the man who loves Nature, if not a poet, at least has poetry in his soul. In a decadent age symbolized by the tango and the problem play, it is at least an encouraging sign for the future that such a character as Senhouse came to the jaded reader of the erotic fiction of the day, as a whiff of sea breeze on a parched plain, and was hailed ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... put the crooked straight and to raise a lamp to banish the dark. Very good this white satin is," said Mother Cockleshell irrelevantly, and alluding to the gin. "And terbaccer goes well with it, as there's no denying. You wouldn't mind my taking a whiff, sir, would you?" and she produced a blackened clay pipe which had seen much service. "Smoking is good ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... would be no worse than you are now, selling drinks to people—beastly beer and spirits, rotten stuff fit to make an old he-goat yell if you poured it down its throat. Pooh! I can't stand the confounded liquor. Never could. A whiff of neat brandy in a glass makes me feel sick. Always did. If everybody was like me, liquor would be going a-begging. You think it's funny in a man, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... sick to death of your well-groomed gods, your make believe and your show; I long for a whiff of bacon and beans, a snug shakedown in the snow; A trail to break, and a life at stake, and another ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... place, he learned to smoke. He began by taking a whiff, now and then, out of the pipe of a comrade, just to be in fashion, and to keep himself warm those chill evenings and mornings. Then a tobacco planter gave him, in return for some polite act on his part, a bunch ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... trouble odour on board a ship is the same as the slave smell. An experienced investigator can detect it immediately, and when I climbed over the low bulwarks of The Waif I got a whiff. I couldn't tell exactly where it was, but I knew that Dame Trouble was aboard the craft. It's a sort of sixth sense with a sailorman to be able to detect a stormy atmosphere, and I felt that the ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... to his ear and died away again. The front door opened to admit some one, but Orde could not see who it was. Twice a scurrying of feet overhead seemed to indicate the bustle of excitement. The afternoon waned. A faint whiff of cooking, escaping through some carelessly open door, was borne to his nostrils. It grew dark, but the lamps remained unlighted. Finally he heard the rustle of the portieres, and turned to see the dim form ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... with renewed force. Young, beautiful, dainty, brilliant and graceful in her pretty evening gown, she figured strangely against the gloomy background of the river, in those dull and mean surroundings of dank stone and rusted iron. She was like (he thought extravagantly) a whiff of flower-fragrance lost in the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... the beasts would have been busy enough to-night. Then some of 'em were left lurking about, and they spied Me Dain coming, didn't see us behind, and thought he was coming to the village alone. Of course they slipped out of the bushes and nabbed him, thinking to whiff off his head and turn the ponies' packs out at their own leisure. But Jack upset their little plan, and Me Dain's head stops in ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... lot to me, my bucko—to me and to the rest of the boys. Cleigh will not prosecute us for piracy if we play a decent game until we raise the Catwick. On old Van Dorn's tub we can drink and sing if we want to. If Cunningham gets a whiff of your breath, when you've had it, you'll get yours. Most of the boys have never done anything worse than apple stealing. It was the adventure. All keyed up for war and no place to go, and this was a kind of safety valve. Already half of them are beginning to knock in the knees. ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... of the high stone-wall near which I walked rapidly, I met Dinah, so nearly face to face that the whiff of the pipe she was smoking was warm upon my cheek. Wrapped in her old cloth shawl and quilted hood, she muttered as she went, and staggered too, I thought, though here the northeast wind, that swept her along before it, might have been at fault, while, blowing in my face, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... his meerschaum to the last whiff, he put it carefully away, and disposed himself to follow Ducie's example in the matter of sleep. He rearranged his wraps, folded the arms, shut his eyes, and pressed his head resolutely against his cushion; but at the end of five minutes he opened ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... a draggled prostitute—no crimson flower for her hair, poor girl!—regards us with a momentary speculation, and we get a whiff of foul language from two newsboys on ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... An unmistakable whiff of tobacco-smoke awoke her from her dream of delight. She turned swiftly, the lily in one hand, her skirt clutched ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... homeward from an evening walk, a long ramble among the peaceful hills which inclosed their rustic home. Into these peaceful hills the young man had brought, not the rumor, (which was an old inhabitant,) but some of the reality of war,—a little whiff of gunpowder, the clanking of a sword; for, although Mr. John Ford had his campaign still before him, he wore a certain comely air of camp-life which stamped him a very Hector to the steady-going villagers, and a very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... of the pack-strings and dropped it noiselessly on the ground. At that precise instant I heard a stealthy movement on my left hand. It was so dark that I could not see an inch in front of my face, but a little eddy of the breeze brought me the merest whiff of stale tobacco—the sort of smell that comes from a pipe that has been put out before it has completely burnt away. It was that dead scent that always seems to hang about the vicinity of a newly quenched ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... the next day. When I reached there, I went right up to my man's store. You ought to have seen his place! The town was about seven hundred, and the store just about evened up with it— groceries and hardware. I got a whiff from a barrel of sauer kraut as I went in the door; on the counter was a cheese case; frying pans and lanterns hung down on hooks from the ceiling; two farmers sat near the stove eating sardines and crackers. No ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... in little globes, rings, or the 'Euripus.' 'The slights' these tricks were called. Ben Jonson facetiously makes these professors boast of being able to take three whiffs, then to take horse, and evolve the smoke—one whiff on Hounslow, a second at Staines, and a ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... that night. Had the day's adventure unsettled his nerves, or had he hitherto always underrated it? How ghastly it would be if—His thoughts broke off short. A figure had detached itself from the vagueness in front of him, and a whiff of rank tobacco smoke came suddenly ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... pretty houses and gardens of the village, forming a great contrast to the densely populated district of Stirchley on the other side of the line. Stepping on to the station, we are greeted by a whiff of the most delicious fragrance, which is quite enough of itself to betray the whereabouts of the great factory lying beneath us, of which from this point we have a fairly good bird's-eye view. Down the station steps, and ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... been cleared away already through the hatch into the kitchen passage, and the servants' quarters were on the other side of the house. No sound of any kind came from the smoking-room; not even the faint whiff of tobacco-smoke that had a way of stealing out when Laurie was smoking ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... daroga, I couldn't carry HIM up like that, at once. ... He was a hostage ... But I could not keep him in the house on the lake, either, because of Christine; so I locked him up comfortably, I chained him up nicely—a whiff of the Mazenderan scent had left him as limp as a rag—in the Communists' dungeon, which is in the most deserted and remote part of the Opera, below the fifth cellar, where no one ever comes, and where no one ever hears ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... beefsteak, instead of good nourishing hot biscuits and cake," she thought. After the supper dishes were cleared away she went into the sitting-room where Daniel Wise sat beside a window, waiting in a sort of stern patience for a whiff of air. It was a very close evening. The sun was red in the low west, but a heaving sea of mist was ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... passed the promontory of Cyzicus, and the Island of Marmora, the marble quarries of which give name to the sea. As we were approaching the entrance to the Dardanelles, we noticed an Austrian brig drifting in the current, the whiff of her flag indicating distress. Her rudder was entirely gone, and she was floating helplessly towards the Thracian coast. A boat was immediately lowered and a hawser carried to her bows, by which we towed her a short distance; but our steam engine did not like ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the life of Englishmen. Each sword had its name like a living thing. And next to their love of war came their love of the sea. Everywhere throughout Beowulf's song, as everywhere throughout the life that it pictures, we catch the salt whiff of the sea. The Englishman was as proud of his sea-craft as of his war-craft; sword in hand he plunged into the sea to meet walrus and sea-lion; he told of his whale-chase amidst the icy waters of the north. Hardly less than his love for the sea was the ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... lighting his pipe for a hurried whiff, "ten brace of white grouse, four rabbits, six red foxes and a black one, and two wolves. ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... smoke, but such as it is it is there," he said; and Le Marchant tried a whiff or two, but laid the pipe aside with ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... could show no epoch when pleasures so many and various were there for the man who carries the golden key. Today he was a looker-on, and the ice of his years of bitterness had not melted. Tomorrow, at any moment, he might catch a whiff of the fragrance of life, and the blood in his veins would move to a different tune. This was how it seemed to Aynesworth, as he studied his companion through the faint blue mist ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... they drove on the Canada shore up past the Clifton House, towards the Burning Spring, which is not the least wonder of Niagara. As each bubble breaks upon the troubled surface, and yields its flash of infernal flame and its whiff of sulphurous stench, it seems hardly strange that the Neutral Nation should have revered the cataract as a demon; and another subtle spell (not to be broken even by the business- like composure of the man who ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... gently and entered. A faint rosy glow from the lowered drop-light shone on the piles of papers and scattered books on the library table. The curtains rippled in the sudden draught caused by the opening of the door, and a whiff of fragrance from a jar of apple-blossoms on the bookcase floated past the visitor. Berta glanced around with a little shrug that was half a shiver. A room frequently partakes of the nature of its occupant; and the atmosphere of this ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... be no smoker himself and dislike the odour of tobacco, I tell him that if he objects, I will postpone my harmless whiff until after captivity. ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... tobacco, but he did not know how to manage the cutting, filling, and lighting operations. I did these for him. In the first attempt he put the wrong end into his mouth, which he found rather hot, and quickly took it out. I then showed him the right end. He managed a whiff or two, but he did not fancy it. He seemed very much pleased with the pipe, which he kept. I then made him understand that I wanted water. He pointed the same course that I was steering. In a short time another made his appearance in the distance. By a little persuasion ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... communications that passed before her bore now largely on rooms at hotels, prices of furnished houses, hours of trains, dates of sailings and arrangements for being "met"; she found them for the most part prosaic and coarse. The only thing was that they brought into her stuffy corner as straight a whiff of Alpine meadows and Scotch moors as she might hope ever to inhale; there were moreover in especial fat hot dull ladies who had out with her, to exasperation, the terms for seaside lodgings, which struck her as huge, and the matter of ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... satisfactory results the glass must be placed in dry air before it has appreciably cooled. This is easily done in the case of electrometer jars, and so long as the air remains perfectly dry through the action of sulphuric acid or phosphorus pentoxide, the jar will insulate. The slightest whiff of ordinarily damp air will, however, enormously reduce the insulating power of the glass, so that unvarnished glass surfaces must be kept for apparatus which ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... "A whiff of fresh air, Robin, is absolutely essential. You must walk down with me. I hate ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... time and the primordial elements became strong within him. In effect he was transported far back into those dim ages, when man fought with the stone axe, and his five senses were so preternaturally acute to protect his life that he had a sixth and perhaps a seventh. A whiff came on the wind. It was faint, because it had traveled far, but he knew it to be the odor of the panther. The big cowardly beast was crouched in a little valley to his right, and he was trembling, trembling at the approaching warriors, trembling at the great youth who lay in the depression, ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and the ship leaves so much commotion in the water behind her. There do not seem to be any regular sailors, and in their stead a collection of individuals remarkably greasy in their appearance, who may be cooks or stokers, or possibly both. Then you cannot go on the poop without being saluted by a whiff of hot air from the grim furnaces below; men are always shovelling in coal, or throwing cinders overboard; and the rig does not seem to belong to any ship in particular. The masts are low and small, and the canvas, which is always spread ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... arm-chair as he spoke, apparently about to deliver himself to the calm delights of a retrospective reverie. But he was not destined to enjoy it. At that moment a whiff of stifling smoke, quite choking in its intensity, forced itself under the door. In another moment the matter was soon explained. With a wild rush the butler burst into ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... are bestowed with an affluent or a niggardly hand, go so far to determine the station and degree which each shall occupy in the subsequent competitions of the world. It is especially mysterious how into a soul here and there, as it passes forth, she breathes an extra whiff of the breath of life, and so confers on it the power of being and doing what others attempt to ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... with us to Cossitollah, and we'll have a tiffin of talk; some cloves of adventure, with a capsicum or two of tragic story, shall stand for the curry; the customs of the country may represent the familiar rice; a whiff of freshness and fragrance from the Mofussil will be as the mangoes and the dorians; in the piquancy and grotesqueness of the first pure Orientalism that may come to hand we shall recognize the curious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... seeing me such a bundle of nerves as I am now, that I couldn't have done it," he said. "But when I'm doing the doctor job I'm a different being; I lose myself. I just gave him another whiff of A.C.E., called to the nurses to fetch candles and got on with it. He's walking about ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... become tinged with blue; I see some big ones that are crumbling into rot and swarming with worms. Others, shaped like pears, are dry and open at the top with a round hole, a sort of chimney whence a whiff of smoke escapes when I prod their under side with my finger. These are the most curious. I fill my pockets with them to make them smoke at my leisure, until I exhaust the contents, which are at last reduced to a ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... off an odor like yours! Why didn't you go down to Fred Greer's harness shop, that's where you got it. We're such an awfully temperance town, you know! But the parsonage! Why, if the trustees had happened into the barn and caught a whiff of that smell, father'd have lost his job. Now you just take warning from me, and keep away from this parsonage until you can develop a good Methodist odor. Oh, don't cry about it! Your very tears smell rummy. ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... starlit, blue sky, on the trellis. I went to the balcony. The garden lay dark beneath; against the twinkling horizon stood out the tall poplars. There was the sharp cry of an owl; the barking of a dog; a sudden whiff of warm, enervating perfume, a perfume that made me think of the taste of certain peaches, and suggested white, thick, wax-like petals. I seemed to have smelt that flower once before: it made me feel languid, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... I have discovered all this. It was last night, shortly before midnight, when I came up on the poop to enjoy a whiff of the south- east trades in which we are now bowling along, close-hauled in order to weather Cape San Roque. Mr. Pike had the watch, and I paced up and down with him while he told me old pages of his life. He has often done this, when not "sea-grouched," and often he has mentioned ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... his behaviour. One of them purposely stalked past him to intimate to him the fact, as well as to jostle the Governor's daughter, and let the flying end of a scarf flick her face; while from a lady seated behind the pair came both a whiff of violets and a very venomous and sarcastic remark. Nevertheless, either he did not hear the remark or he PRETENDED not to hear it. This was unwise of him, since it never does to disregard ladies' opinions. Later-but too late—he was ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... sip champagne and whiff Mild cigarettes; these too, in secret sniff At 'the whole queer caboodle.' Why do they meet? How shall I say, good friend? Modern symposiasts seem a curious blend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... about us is the poison of death. Oh, what was that fourth point that I was to remember? Why has the guide turned back? I thought we were to go out at the further end, where last week the poor fellow fell who lifted his helmet a moment too soon after he got out and caught one whiff which sent him to the hospital, but instead we seem to be turning around and going back. But there is no time for explanations or questions now; we just plod on through the darkness and soon we are out in the sunlight again—safe!—in God's pure air. Oh, why did man ever want ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... acacias that bordered the street. The scent of that living green blended with the scent of laid dust and the fragrance of the last late-clinging chestnut blossoms; it caught up a fuller, richer burden from the overflowing front of a florist's shop; it stole from open windows a savory whiff of cooking, a salt tang of wood smoke; and the soft little breeze—the breeze of coming summer—mixed all together and tossed them and bore them down the long, quiet street; and it was the breath of Paris, and it shall be in your nostrils and mine, a keen agony of sweetness, so ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... an accomplice in the horrible game of his life. One is tempted to add that the romantic imagination is always slightly mad. It runs to seed in darkness and despair. The fugitive verse of Meryon is bitter, ironical, defiant; a whiff from an underground prison, where seems to sit in tortured solitude some wretch abandoned by humanity, a stranger even at the gates ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... the scenes.) Here, waiter! hostler! driver! what's your name? drive the chaise up here to the door, smart, close. Lean on my arm, madam, and we'll have you in and home in a whiff. (Exeunt Mrs. Talbot, Louisa, Farmer, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... very enjoyable, we thought, as we took a last glance at the serene, old-time faces and caught a last whiff of ambergris ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... back, as we had occasion, from our classes to the crowded stair of our "land"—with its greasy handrail, and the faint whiff of humanity clinging about the numbered doorways. Our key grated in the lock. Mrs. Craven opened the kitchen door with a cry that our dinners would be ready in a jiffey. We were done with the world for the day. Henceforth four walls contained us. Many books ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... as to be able to go out, one day his mother got her sister's husband, who had a little pony-cart, to carry them down to the sea-shore, and leave them there for a few hours. He had some business to do further on at Ramsgate, and would pick them up as he returned. A whiff of the sea-air would do them both good, she said, and she thought besides she could best tell Diamond what had happened if she had ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... Wilhelm was not avaricious" (not a miser, only a man grandly abhorring waste, as the poor vulgar cannot do), "not avaricious," says Pollnitz once; "he made munificent gifts, and never thought of them more." This of Trakehnen,—perhaps there might be a whiff of coming Fate concerned in it withal: "I shall soon be dead, not able to give thee anything, poor Fritz!" To the Prince and us it is very beautiful; a fine effulgence of the inner man of Friedrich Wilhelm. The Prince returned to Trakehnen, on this ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... goes my commission of captain of this craft, in a whiff," returned the sailing-master. "That is as much as to say, here comes one who will command when he gets on board. Well, well, it is Mr. Griffith, and I can't say, notwithstanding his love of knee-buckles and small wares, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to sea, but found the waves still running extremely high and boisterous. There my uncle, laying himself down upon a sail-cloth, which was spread for him, called twice for some cold water, which he drank, when immediately the flames, preceded by a strong whiff of sulphur, dispersed the rest of the party, and obliged him to rise. He raised himself up with the assistance of two of his servants, and instantly fell down dead; suffocated, as I conjecture, by some gross and noxious vapor, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... the seat, (which was nothing to brag of,) and a cigar, (which would have been a great deal to brag of, if he had succeeded in smoking it,) and, after a whiff or two, asked his companion how it was that he came to send such a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... but now her despairing look frightened him. To the neighbors, who looked inquisitively as he sat by the mill-door, smoking, he complained of the quality of his tobacco, vowing that it made his eyes so tender that they watered upon the slightest whiff. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... a lope, freshened by the rest, and Bud's followed. They topped the rise, and, then as the animals came within sight and smell of their stables, and caught the whiff of ever-welcome water, they dashed down the slope toward the green valley in which nestled the corral and buildings ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... the reader, and which, with a little experience, he may recognise as 'common form' in novels, seemed to me then distinctive—for to me a new book was not one of a number of similar objects, but was like an individual man, unmatched, and with no cause of existence beyond himself—an intoxicating whiff of the peculiar essence of Francois le Champi. Beneath the everyday incidents, the commonplace thoughts and hackneyed words, I could hear, or overhear, an intonation, a rhythmic utterance fine and strange. The 'action' began: to me ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... wondered what country children do for a holiday. Do good people go round collecting to give them a day in London or Liverpool or Manchester, so that their stunted lives that stretch on from year to year with never a whiff of town fog, never a glimpse of green 'buses, or dangerous crossings, or furnace-smoke, may be expanded and elevated? If not, I beg to move the starting of a Town Fund at once. Nothing can be more narrowing than rustic existence—there are old yokels whose lives have always moved within a four-mile ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... safety that could be seized upon in emergency accommodated a bare 700 and odd men. The troops gathered on the upper decks and sang the "Marseillaise" as the great hull settled in the water. Officers embraced their men, some indulged in a last whiff of tobacco, others prayed for the folks at home. Commandant Vesco stood on the bridge and directed the launching of the few boats that got away. Then, as the vessel came even with the waves, he tossed his cap overboard ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... of the crew not so fastidious as myself. After every meal, they hied to the galley and solaced their souls with a whiff. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... him if he'd take a whiff Of 'bacco; he acceded; He grew communicative too, (A pipe was all he needed,) Till of the tinker's life, I think, I knew as ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... thinks he has a monopoly of the puffing, himself," Pindar whispered into the captain's ear; "whiff away, my dear sir, and you'll soon throw him into ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... fetchin' 'em now, would ye, Telly?" he continued after drawing a long whiff of smoke and slowly emitting it in rings. "It's been so many years, an' since I got thinkin' 'bout it I'd like to take a look at 'em, jest to remind me o' that fortunate day ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Gallieni and Graziani; and with our party, as well as interpreters, secretaries and others, there was quite a gathering. After M. Briand had welcomed us cordially and in felicitous terms, Mr. Asquith got a charming little speech in French off his chest; it may perhaps have had a whiff of the lamp about it and had probably been learnt by heart, but the P. M. undoubtedly managed to serve up a savoury appetitif, and we felt that in the matter of courtesy and the amenities our man had held ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... taking the flowers with us. The Professor's actions were certainly odd and not to be found in any pharmacopeia that I ever heard of. First he fastened up the windows and latched them securely. Next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them all over the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that might get in would be laden with the garlic smell. Then with the wisp he rubbed all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each side, and round the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed grotesque ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... practised archery. Just that—and not the art even, but the mere spectacle—might have been one of the substitutes in question; if not for the languages at least for one or another of the romantic connections we seemed a little to have missed: it was such a whiff of the old world of Robin Hood as we could never have looked up from the mere thumbed "story," in Fourteenth Street at any rate, to any soft confidence of. More than I can begin to say, that is by a greater number of queer small channels, did the world about us, thus continuous with ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... air—just smell it, Billy!" reiterated the owner of Big Shanty enthusiastically. Think of the poor people in the city who have none of it. I must send for Randall as soon as we get settled, and some of those fellows we met at The Players that day, and let them have a whiff of it—do them a lot of good. Randall loves it. Poor boy—he needs a change now worse than I did. And have you seen ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... place, I must impress upon you that when you are dressing for church, as a general thing, you mix your perfumes too much; your fragrance is sometimes oppressive; you saturate yourself with cologne and bergamot, until you make a sort of Hamlet's Ghost of yourself, and no man can decide, with the first whiff, whether you bring with you air from Heaven or from hell. Now, rectify this matter as soon as possible; last Sunday you smelled like a secretary to a consolidated drug store and barber shop. And you came and sat in the same pew with me; ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... levels for the granddaughter of the good-wife Marcile. That petite personne, moreover, was a rather sophisticated young lady. One would never have seen her, in the mornings, munching a hunk of bread-and-butter "as long as from here to Easter." No; Jeannette has fulfilled her part, providing a whiff of marjoram and cottage flowers for the castle chambers. She has read, written and said her prayers. She has the firm outline, the rosy cheeks, the simplicity of a Watteau peasant-girl—nothing of the Greuze languish, with its hint of a cruche cassee. She is as fresh as a March wind. ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... Rumania, at any rate during the first few weeks of the occupation, had the substantial sympathy of the largest and most influential section of the world's press. People declared that they were glad to see the haze of self-righteousness and cant at last dispelled by a whiff of wholesome egotism. From the outspoken comments of the most widely circulating journals in France and Britain the dictators in Paris, who were indignant that the counsels of the strong should carry so little weight in eastern Europe, could acquaint themselves ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... by them, than that after all this light of the Gospel which is, and is to be, and all this continual preaching, they should still be frequented with such an unprincipled, unedified and laic rabble, as that the whiff of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of their catechism and Christian walking. This may have much reason to discourage the ministers when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations, and the benefiting of their ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... corner to enter the passage; then you come plump upon another from the hall door; then comes another, fit to knock you down, as You turn to the upper passage ; then, just as You turn towards the queen's room, comes another; and last, a whiff from the king's stairs, enough to blow you ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... over or underdone, and messy and nasty. The dinner at a teeny place like Caudebec in France was delicious. I wonder why food at country hotels in England is so bad? At Retby Lady Theodosia won't touch anything unless it is absolutely perfect. She sent a dish away yesterday just because a whiff of some flavouring she does not like came to her, but at the "Red Lion" she did not grumble at all; it must be for the same reason that wetting their feet doesn't give French people cold if it is at a national sport, that made her put up ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... violet and mauve, that precede the aching yellow glare of day were fading; a coppersmith began his everlasting bong-bong-bong, apparently reverberating from every direction; the last, almost indetectable, warm whiff of night wind moved and died away, and the monkeys in the near-by baobab chattered it a requiem. Almost on the stroke of sunrise Rosemary McClean stepped out—settled her sun-helmet, with a moue above the chin-strap that was wasted ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... we may, through city or through town, Village or hamlet of this merry land, Though lean and beggar'd, every twentieth face, Conducts th' unguarded nose to such a whiff Of state debauch, forth issuing from the sties That law has ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... very heaven. That's two thirds Wordsworth and one third Anne Shirley. It doesn't seem possible that there should be dying fir in heaven, does it? And yet it doesn't seem to me that heaven would be quite perfect if you couldn't get a whiff of dead fir as you went through its woods. Perhaps we'll have the odor there without the death. Yes, I think that will be the way. That delicious aroma must be the souls of the firs . . . and of course it will ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... shot for you, fire away," said the Devil. "Of course I'll fire, but do you first tell me what kind of a bird it is; else our agreement is cancelled, Old Boy." There was no help for it; the Devil had to own himself nonplussed, and off he fled, with a whiff of brimstone which nearly suffocated the Freischutz and ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... in fanning Piper, and again Oakdale's hope ebbed, as Nelson, who had not made a safety for the day, was sent by the whiff route to join Sleuth on the ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... middle, and very bright and wakeful again towards the end. There was one young gentleman in an India-rubber cloak, who smoked cigars all day; and there was another young gentleman in a parody upon a greatcoat, who lighted a good many, and feeling obviously unsettled after the second whiff, threw them away when he thought nobody was looking at him. There was a third young man on the box who wished to be learned in cattle; and an old one behind, who was familiar with farming. There was a constant succession of Christian names ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... open up this curtain a bit, Driggs," called Ab. Dexter, in a not-too-loud voice. "I don't want to whiff in much of the stuff that I'm ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... first impulse was to get out of sight of its windows, and his glance upward had perhaps not the tender significance that Paula imagined, the last look impelled by any such whiff of emotion having been the lingering one he bestowed upon her in passing out of the room. Unluckily for the prospects of this attachment, Paula's conduct towards him now, as a result of misrepresentation, had enough in common with ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... of the train at Welsley Station, and saw Robin's pal, the Archdeacon, getting out too, and a couple of minor canons, who had come up for the evening papers or something, greeting him with an ecclesiastical heartiness mingled with just a whiff of professional deference, Mrs. Clarke's verdict of "stifling" ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... knob gently and entered. A faint rosy glow from the lowered drop-light shone on the piles of papers and scattered books on the library table. The curtains rippled in the sudden draught caused by the opening of the door, and a whiff of fragrance from a jar of apple-blossoms on the bookcase floated past the visitor. Berta glanced around with a little shrug that was half a shiver. A room frequently partakes of the nature of its ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... part way. So this was heaven—this white expanse that swung and swam before my languid gaze? No, it could not be—it did not smell like heaven. It smelled like a hospital. It was a hospital. It was my hospital. My nurse was bending over me and I caught a faint whiff of the starch in the front of her crisp blue blouse. She was two-headed for the moment, but that was a mere detail. She settled a pillow under my head and told ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... devours its own children, and the scum rises to the top of the boiling pot. Then comes, in the language of the picturesque historian of the French Revolution, the type of them all—then comes at the end 'the whiff of grapeshot' and the despot. First the government of a mob, and then the tyranny of an emperor, crush the people that shake off the yoke of reasonable law. That is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... meet, and he told us if we followed the shore westward a mile or two we should find some very high rocks, for which he knew we had a great liking. It was a delightful day to spend out of doors; there was an occasional whiff of east-wind. Seeing us seemed to be a perfect godsend to the people whose nearest neighbors lived far out of sight. We had a long talk with them before we went for our walk. The house was close by the water by a narrow cove, around which the rocks were ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... was more than a bit down myself, for there were days when death was very near, and one night it really broke me up to hear a big strapping chap saying to the man who shared his two-man sack, "I shouldn't care a whiff if it wasn't for the wife ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... of her through the trees as he entered this last village of his march, but the air was too dull with heat for him to catch so much as a whiff of her refreshing saltness, and for the present he could not go down to greet her. He was still the lonely troubadour, dressed in a native cloth around the loins, with a turban of rags upon his head, and a battered accordion slung from his back, come in from afar ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... chestnuts and acacias that bordered the street. The scent of that living green blended with the scent of laid dust and the fragrance of the last late-clinging chestnut blossoms; it caught up a fuller, richer burden from the overflowing front of a florist's shop; it stole from open windows a savory whiff of cooking, a salt tang of wood smoke; and the soft little breeze—the breeze of coming summer—mixed all together and tossed them and bore them down the long, quiet street; and it was the breath of Paris, and it shall be in your nostrils and mine, a keen agony of sweetness, so long ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... days are hot and damp, and my legs are stiff with cramp, And the office punkahs creak! And I'd give my tired soul, for the life that makes man whole, And a whiff of the jungle reek! Ha' done with the tents of Shem, dear boys, With office stool and pew, For it's time to turn to the lone Trail, our own Trail, the far Trail, Dig out, dig out on the old trail— The trail ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... water to ugly manufactories, and floating an army of big ships, black lighters, and broadly built craft, which coughed spasmodically as they forged sturdily and swiftly through the waters. Their breath was like the whiff that comes from an automobile, and I knew that they must be motor-barges. My heart warmed to them. They seemed to have been sent out on purpose to say, "Your fun is going ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... commotion in the water behind her. There do not seem to be any regular sailors, and in their stead a collection of individuals remarkably greasy in their appearance, who may be cooks or stokers, or possibly both. Then you cannot go on the poop without being saluted by a whiff of hot air from the grim furnaces below; men are always shovelling in coal, or throwing cinders overboard; and the rig does not seem to belong to any ship in particular. The masts are low and small, and the canvas, which is always spread in fair weather, looks as if it had been trailed along ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... are! Archie told us you bore the news like a hero, and now you turn pale at a whiff of bad air. I can't explain it," mused Mac as he meekly endured the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... of Virgil from which all manner of old-time things slip out as I open its pages. The eager enthusiasm of the first dawning appreciation of the undying beauty of the old poet, faintly discerned in the language which embalms it, comes back like a whiff of fragrance from some by-gone summer. The potency of college memories lies in the fact that in those years we made the most memorable discoveries of our lives; the unknown river may widen and deepen beyond our thought, ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... reads the letters as he would read a genuine correspondence. The illusion is perfect, and we feel that we are for the moment in the Athens of the third century before Christ; that we are strolling in its streets, visiting its shops, its courts, and its temples, and that we are getting a whiff of the Aegean, mingled with the less savory odors of the markets and of the wine-shops. We stroll about the city elbowing our way through the throng of boatmen, merchants, and hucksters. Here a barber stands ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... for rest there seems to come an inability to take it, so that not only is every impediment magnified, but imaginary impediments are erected, and only a decided and insistent use of the will in dropping everything that interferes, whether real or imaginary, will bring a whiff of a breeze from the true rest-current. Rest is not always silence, but silence is always rest; and a real silence of the mind is known by very few. Having gained that, or even approached it, we are taken by the rest-wind itself, ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... window aided the deception, and was fitted up solely with goods in the grocery line; but enter the dark low door-way, and get an odorous whiff from within, and one's olfactory nerves would soon convince one of ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... hear the swinging door whiff after Skip's syncopated feet, then she whispered sharply across the table ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... are, compared with the slums of London, Manchester, and Liverpool, pictures of neatness. It is true that windows are seldom opened, for no Dutch window opens at the top, and so in passing by an open door in the poor quarters of a town one gets a whiff of an inside atmosphere which baffles description; but the inside of the house is 'tidy,' and one can see the gleam of polished things, telling of repeated rubbings, scrubbings, and scourings. In fact, cleanliness in Holland has become almost a disease, and scrubbing ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... made, as if with a foreknowledge of going early home to Him. Their father came back very tired one morning, and went up the hill to his breakfast, and the children got into the boat and pushed off, in imitation of their daddy. It came on to blow, as it does down there, without a single whiff of warning; and when Robin awoke for his middle-day meal, the bodies of his little ones were lying on the table. And from that very day Captain Cockscroft and his wife began to grow old very quickly. The boat was recovered without much damage; and in it he sits ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... now coming down the river one after another. Each had its attendant swarm of flies, and vultures soared in flocks in the air. The river was yellow with mud, and the air oppressively hot and heavy. Now and then a whiff of putrid air was blown across the deck. The three men watched the bodies drifting past, brainless skulls, eyeless sockets, floating along many of them as if they were swimming on their backs. "It is really a fine example of the power of civilization," said the stranger. "I don't approve ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... little beasts and in the evening would come quite boldly about the house, and if seen and attacked by a dog, they would defend themselves with the awful-smelling liquid they discharge at an adversary. When the wind brought a whiff of it into the house, when all the doors and windows stood open, it would create a panic, and people would get up from table feeling a little sea-sick, and go in search of some room where the smell was not. Another powerful-smelling but very beautiful creature was the common deer. ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... effect he was transported far back into those dim ages, when man fought with the stone axe, and his five senses were so preternaturally acute to protect his life that he had a sixth and perhaps a seventh. A whiff came on the wind. It was faint, because it had traveled far, but he knew it to be the odor of the panther. The big cowardly beast was crouched in a little valley to his right, and he was trembling, trembling at the approaching warriors, trembling at the great youth who lay in the depression, trembling ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of strolled homeward from an evening walk, a long ramble among the peaceful hills which inclosed their rustic home. Into these peaceful hills the young man had brought, not the rumor, (which was an old inhabitant,) but some of the reality of war,—a little whiff of gunpowder, the clanking of a sword; for, although Mr. John Ford had his campaign still before him, he wore a certain comely air of camp-life which stamped him a very Hector to the steady-going villagers, and a very pretty fellow to Miss Elizabeth Crowe, his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... the fire, which had spread so rapidly as to involve one whole side of the castle. Already Alleyne could hear the crackling and roaring of the flames, while the air was heavy with heat and full of the pungent whiff of ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... back, "the same gas that overcame Granville Barnes. These masks are impregnated with a glycerin solution of sodium phosphate. It was chlorin that destroyed the red coloring matter in Barnes's blood. No wonder, when this action of just a whiff of it on us is so rapid. Even a short time longer and death would follow. It destroys without the possibility of reconstitution, and it leaves a dangerous deposit of albumin. How do ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... good English if it was not so, and he answered in good Arabic that it was. I woke up my horse and went my way, smoking. And presently I said to myself reflectively, "If there is anything that could make a man deliberately assault a dying cripple, I reckon may be an unexpected whiff from this pipe would do it." I smoked along till I found I was beginning to lie, and project murder, and steal my own things out of one pocket and hide them in another; and then I put up my treasure, took off my spurs and put them under my horse's tail, and shortly came tearing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it. I have been longing for a cigarette all day, and, when I came by accident upon this one, finding myself all alone, I could not resist the desire to have a whiff." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... such enchanting voyage brought us to Lake Umbagog. Whiff's of mist had met us in the outlet. Presently we opened chaos, and chaos shut in upon us. There was no Umbagog to be seen,—nothing but a few yards of gray water and a world of gray vapor. Therefore I cannot criticize, nor insult, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... was graduated, my mother sent her, to commemorate that very important and pleasant occasion, one of her few remaining treasures—a carved ivory fan which Le Brun had painted out of his heart of hearts for one of King Louis' loveliest ladies. It still exhaled, like a whiff of lost roses, something of her ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... the expedition up the west coast, and of the towns they sacked; and the opulent names rolled oddly off his tongue, and seemed to bring a whiff of southern scent into this panelled English room,—Valparaiso, Tarapaca, and Arica—; and of the capture of the Cacafuego off Quibdo; and of the enormous treasure they took, the great golden crucifix with emeralds of the size of pigeon's eggs, and the chests of ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... scrubbing of the kitchen floor, for the tiles were wet three quarters of the way over, and on a dry oasis stood a pail, a scrubbing brush, and a morsel of soap. Among less honourable odours he was glad to distinguish a good strong whiff of carbolic. ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... sympathy; because, after having mourned their faults and trembled at their perils, I have joyfully saluted the noble and manly policy of which the election of Mr. Lincoln is the symptom. Is it not true, that at the first news we all seemed to breathe a whiff of pure and free air from the other side of ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... with tea-leaves, brought up the rear. Two tin pots and a tumbler performed outpost duty, and were soon smoking full of warm tea. We made an excellent supper, after which the Indians proceeded to solace themselves with a whiff, while I lay on my blanket enjoying the warmth of the fire, and admiring the apparently extreme felicity of the men, as they sat, with half-closed eyes, watching the smoke curling in snowy wreaths from their pipes, ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... which he commends to these Philippians, arises from the recognition of good in others. He speaks to them of being his 'joy and crown.' He tells them that in his sorrows and imprisonment, their 'fellowship in the Gospel, from the first day until now,' had brought a whiff of gladness into the close air of the prison cell. He begs them to be Christlike in order that they may 'fulfil his joy'; and he may lose himself in others' blessings, and therein find gladness. A large portion of his joy came from very common things. A large ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Friday evenings, then, when the smell of roast apples steeping in hot toddy came wafting out the portals of Malachi's pantry—a smell of such convincing pungency that even the most infrequent of frequenters having once inhaled it, would have known at the first whiff that some musical function was in order. The night was to be one ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... knowledge that in a few minutes it will be hieing along to some distant hunting ground where all the joy and fury of the chase awaits it; think of the crowded sensations of the brain when every rustle, every cry, every bent twig, and every whiff across the nostrils means something, something to do with life and death and dinner. Imagine the satisfaction of stealing down to your own particular drinking spot, choosing your own particular tree to scrape your claws on, finding your own particular bed ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... realization that it was the end. For him the old life on the range was dead—for had not Dill made him see it so? And did not every raw-red fencepost proclaim anew its death? For every hill and every coulee he buried something of his past and wept secretly beside the grave. For every whiff of breakfast that mingled with the smell of clean air in the morning came a pang of homesickness for what would soon be only ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... when the sea had risen and was running strong against us, the fineness of the steersman's aim grew more embarrassing. As we came abreast of the sea-front, where the surf broke highest, Kauanui embraced the occasion to light his pipe, which then made the circuit of the boat—each man taking a whiff or two, and, ere he passed it on, filling his lungs and cheeks with smoke. Their faces were all puffed out like apples as we came abreast of the cliff foot, and the bursting surge fell back into the boat in showers. At the next point "cocanetti" was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The first whiff is the invocation, the last the benediction. When you knock out the ashes you should feel conscious that you have done a good deed, that the offering has not ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... more than time to leave the porch, before the doors burst open, and the people streamed forth. A whiff of evil-smelling air issued from the building, at the same time. The dog was howling more piteously than ever. Someone complained of the disturbance that had been caused by the creature's cries, during worship. The congregation ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... martial law, the guarding against a conflagration, or a tidal wave or cyclone. At the Cercle Militaire many of the bureaucrats, and especially the doctor who had treated the cow-boy, were for martial law, anyway. Napoleon knew, said the fierce medecin. "A whiff of grapeshot, and the reef would be again gleaming with lights, and the diligences would pour in with loads ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the chair nearest to Rathbury's right hand. He lighted a cigarette, and having blown out a whiff of smoke, nodded his head in a fashion which indicated that the detective might consider his question ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... liquid and say, "This milk is sour." But why should we be able by taking the liquid into the mouth and bringing it into contact with the mucous membrane to tell that it is milk, and that it possesses the quality which we call sour? Or, once more, we get a whiff of air through the open window in the springtime and say, "There is a lilac bush in bloom on the lawn." Yet why, from inhaling air containing particles of lilac, should we be able to know that there is anything outside, much less ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... mudhuts a short distance off the road. From the numerous flocks around it, we took it to be a shepherds' village. Everything was quiet except the restless sheep, whose silky fleece glistened in the light of the rising moon. Supper was not yet over, for we caught a whiff of its savory odor. Leaving our wheels outside, we entered the first door we came to, and, following along a narrow passageway, emerged into a room where four rather rough-looking shepherds were ladling the soup from a huge bowl in their ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... their footsteps, but we like to keep near them and pry into their careless, happy lives. When the Bohemians enter a pot-house we are too virtuous, presumably, to go in likewise, but we stand without, to get a tempting whiff of hot negus and a snatch of some genial jest or tuneful song. Then, if our players stray, perchance, into the gloomy precincts of a pawn-shop, are we not quite prepared to steal up to the window and discover what tribute is being paid to mine uncle? And so, speaking ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... his own ears; the gentle glow of a lignum-vitae wood fire smote his attenuated shins; he balanced his cards in one hand, a long cigar in the other, exhaled a satisfactory whiff of aromatic smoke, and smiled comfortably ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... was frightened. He walked in a big circle round and round the place where the plump chicken and the duck had been, and the more he walked, the more suspicious he became. He wrinkled and wrinkled his little black nose in an effort to smell the intruder, but not a whiff could he get. All was as still and peaceful as could be. Little Joe Otter's trout lay shining in the moonlight. The big head of cabbage lay just where Peter Rabbit and Jumper the Hare had left it. Reddy Fox rubbed his eyes to make sure that he was not dreaming and that the plump chicken ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... They wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... way, and the better to enable him to take a good mark, he gave James Batter a shove, that made him stoiter against the wall, and snacked the good new farthing tobacco-pipe, that James was taking his first whiff out of; crying, at the same blessed moment—"Hold out o' my road, ye long withered wabster. Ye're a pair of havering idiots; but I'll have pennyworths out of both your skins, as ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... One has a whiff of fragrant woodlands and serene hay-cocks, a breath of cool air from the Jungfrau's snows, a sniff of delectable bacon and toast—and a zest for breakfast. And one sets about it with interest, with the breakfast of the next day as a ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the sight of the crowd seething in the streets, shrinking from the idea of stripping the rags off the beggar in order to see his tanned and gnarled limbs; shuddering at the thought of seeking for muscles in the dead, cut-open body; fearful of every whiff of life that might mingle with the incense atmosphere of his chapel, of every cry of human passion which might break through the well-ordered sweetness of his chants. No; the Renaissance did not exist for him who lived in a world of diaphanous form, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... through the gathering dusk. "No, dat loup cervier. De wolf ain' hunt dead meat." Leloo had caught a whiff of the animal and the hairs of his great ruff stood out like the quills of an enraged porcupine. Stooping, the Indian slipped him from the harness and the next instant a silver streak was flashing across the snow. The loup cervier did not stand upon the order of his going ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... continued his performances, which were like some peculiar kind of yawning. Tired out by his fruitless efforts at last, he told me to light it for him, which I did, and instantly handed it back to him. But he had hardly taken a whiff when the smoke, which he did not know how to breathe out again, filled his throat, got into his windpipe, and came out through his nose and eyes in great puffs. As soon as he could get his breath, he ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Mr. Warne, "that merely to catch a whiff now and then of a fragrance which is singularly pleasant to me, but which I am denied producing for myself, would add to the things that give me comfort. If you wouldn't mind smoking in the hall now and then, or, better yet, by my fireside, ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... exertion of the long ascent in the steaming heat requires six coolies for every chair. The red road mounts through enchanting vistas of palms and creepers, on the edge of the dark jungle, each turning point bringing a whiff of cooler air, as the evening gold flickers through the velvety fronds of tree-ferns, and the green feathers of spreading bamboos. From the white hotel near the summit, the blue Straits and the flats of Province Wellesley, the English portion of the Malay ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... stench of cow pasture, and a steady-eyed, white-haired capitalist, rolling on his rolling-stock, leans back against the upholstery and gazes with eyes tight closed upon a steady-eyed, brown-haired youngster herding in at eventide. The whiff of violets from a vender's tray, and a young man dreams above his ledger. The reek of a passing brewer's wagon, and white faces look after, ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... doubtless," continued the cool voice. "I always find myself that even a whiff of fresh air is a very effective antidote for threatening vertigo. I remember once—" continued the speaker, dropping into a conversational tone, and leaning across the table slightly toward Barry, "I was in the room with a company of men—" And the speaker ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... sacrilegious adaptation, to a respectable-looking old gentleman, sitting out of doors upon a chair, and smoking his pipe—"c'est dommage, Monsieur, qu'on a converti l'eglise a"—He stopped me: raised his left hand: then took away his pipe with his right; gave a gentle whiff, and shrugging up his shoulders, half archly and half drily exclaimed—"Mais que voulez vous, Monsieur?—ce sont des evenemens qu'on ne peut ni prevoir ni prevenir. Voila ce que c'est!" Leaving you to moralize upon this comfortable morceau ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... tyrannical ways. Instead of asking your husband what he does with every cent you give him, learn to trust him. Teach him that you have confidence in him. Make him think you have anyway, whether you have or not. Do not seek to get a whiff of his breath every ten minutes to see whether he has been drinking or not. If you keep doing that you will sock him into a drunkard's grave, sure pop. He will at first lie about it, then he will use disinfectants for the breath, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... the sun rose bright and charming as on the seventh day of March it did three years ago in the sunny land of Florida. For the first time in many weary months did I a whiff of the outside air inhale. Oh! how delicious! 'Twas like a prisoner's whiff of the air of freedom. But this was not the best. To sit again with the brethren around the table of the Lord and hear again ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... thing that seemed queer to me. I had finished the steaming and freezing and was resting. A maid brought a tray of cigarettes, those dainty little thin ones with gilt tips. There seemed to be several kinds. I managed to try some of them. One at least I know was doped, although I only had a whiff of it. I think after they got to know you they'd serve anything from a cocktail in a teacup to the latest fads. I am sure that I saw one woman taking some veronal in ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... was otherwise crowded and crossed with items of interest, and Anne almost felt herself back in Avonlea while reading it. Marilla's was a rather prim and colorless epistle, severely innocent of gossip or emotion. Yet somehow it conveyed to Anne a whiff of the wholesome, simple life at Green Gables, with its savor of ancient peace, and the steadfast abiding love that was there for her. Mrs. Lynde's letter was full of church news. Having broken up housekeeping, Mrs. Lynde had more time than ever to devote to church ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sight of the shrinking figure in the shadow and the hat was doffed in a profound bow. Undoubtedly a good looking young man, but as undoubtedly a fop of the first water with his ruffles and bosom of Mechlin lace, red heels to his shoes, gold clocks on his silk stockings and the whiff of scent ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... the professor's engagement Cap'n Aaron Sproul and Hiram Look kept sullenly to their castles, nursing indignant sense of their wrongs. They got an occasional whiff of the scandal that was pursuing their names. Though their respective wives strove with pathetic loyalty to disbelieve all that the seeress had hinted at, and moved in sad silence about their duties, it was plain that the seed of evil had been planted deep in their imaginations. Poor human nature ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... ravine to a wide valley. Suddenly there arose from the grass a big She-wolf, like his mother, yet different, a stranger, and instinctively the stray Cub sank to the earth, as the old Wolf bounded on him. No doubt the Cub had been taken for some lawful prey, but a whiff set that right. She stood over him for an instant. He grovelled at her feet. The impulse to kill him or at least give him a shake died away. He had the smell of a young Cub. Her own were about his age, her heart was touched, and when he found courage enough to ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... said Quilp, turning to the boy; 'fill your pipe again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I'll put the sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... you wish to drive the hens out of your garden-patch. The cow stopped abruptly, threw up her head and stared at the hunter. The sight of the crouching figure must have suggested to the stupid animal that every thing was not right, for with a frightened whiff, she bounded short around with the intention of joining the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... however, there is a distinct brightening in the east, and pale, streaky cirrus cloudlets gather to bar the sun's way. Broad, equal-blowing airs begin to draw to and fro through the woods. There is an earthy scent of wet leaves, sharpened with an unmistakable aromatic whiff of garlic, which has been trodden upon and rises to reproach us for our carelessness. Listen! Let us stand beneath this ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... arms, smelt about for a soft plank, and fell in a heap on the porch, his chin on his paws, his mean little eyes watching lazily,—speaking to nobody, noticing nobody, sulking all to himself. There he stayed until he caught a whiff of the fragrant, pungent odor of fried trout. Then he cocked one eye and lifted an ear. He must not carry things too far. Next, I heard a single thump of his six-inch tail. George was beginning to get pleased; he always did when there ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had caught now and then a whiff from the sewers over which he lived, but this was the first time that he had ever been splashed by their filth. This jail was a Noah's ark of the city's crime—there were murderers, "hold-up men" and burglars, embezzlers, counterfeiters and forgers, bigamists, "shoplifters," "confidence men," ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... at his watch. It was nearly half-an-hour since he had entered the mine. He stamped his feet on the plank and rubbed his hands together to get up the circulation, and then he pulled out a cigar and lighted it. The first whiff permeated his being with a sense as of food and drink, ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... itself in his head as he walked toward Water Street—Ca ira—ca ira—les aristocrats a la lanterne. A whiff of the wind that blew through Paris streets in the terrible times had come across the Atlantic and tickled his dull old ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... scholars alike are apt to feel the depression of such circumstances; and when you add to the other discomforts, that of a steady, pouring rain, with a sound of fall in every whiff of wind, you will understand that Marion was to have comparatively little help from outside influences. She felt the gloom in her heart deepen as the day went on. She was astonished and mortified at herself to find that the old feelings of irritability ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... perfectly melted condition that I at last dropped from Tolly's grasp into a pair of new arms which cradled me against a broad breast with such gentleness that I might have thought it was mother come to the dance if I hadn't caught a whiff of cedar woodsiness when I turned my nose into a miniature brier-patch of blue-berried cedar in the buttonhole of the coat against which my face was pressed as my feet caught step with a pair of smart shoes bearing a smear of moss loam ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the two aviators that they had their goggles on, else they too might have suffered from the fumes that so quickly spread in every direction as though fanned by the night breeze. Perk afterwards admitted that he had caught a whiff of the penetrating gas despite the covering helmet and close-fitting goggles but thanks to the haste with which Jack carried their ship past, the gas had ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... down comes a shell and away goes a house. War and slavery have quite reconciled the Dutch to the abdication of Napoleon. In answer to the question, "Etes vous content de ces changements?" you meet with no doubtful shrug of the shoulders, no ambiguous "mais que, oui"; an instantaneous extra whiff of satisfaction is puffed forth, accompanied with the synonimous terms, "Napoleon et Diable." On leaving Gorum we acquired an accession of passengers—a protestant clergyman and a fat man, who looked much like a conjurer or alchymist. A protestant clergyman ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... Surtee man grinned; the winch began again, and the voices that called: 'Lower away! Stop her!' were as familiar as the friendly whiff from the lascars' galley or the slap of bare feet along the deck. But for the passage of a few impertinent years, I should have gone without hesitation to share their rice. Serangs used to be very kind to little white children below the age of caste. Most familiar ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... right, Godson Klaus. I like my bit of pipe! That I can say, and honestly. It's good tobacco, too; a little dear, no doubt, but fairly earned. Wilt try a Whiff?' ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... coughing to tears and rejecting smoke through her nose. The Markgraf, feigning to kiss her, had blown a whiff of tobacco into her mouth. She did not get angry, did not utter a single word, but glared at her possessor with anger aroused way down at the bottom ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... black as pitch, and Smith was slowly making his way down its irregular steps, when he was suddenly conscious that something had passed him in the darkness. There was a faint sound, a whiff of air, a light brushing past his elbow, but so slight that he could scarcely be certain of it. He stopped and listened, but the wind was rustling among the ivy outside, and ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... eyes and saw a pea-green world all around me. Then I heard the doctor say: "Give 'er another whiff or two." His voice sounded far-away, as though he were speaking through the Simplon Tunnel, and not merely through his teeth, within twelve inches ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... complexion, and sat down in my room in the gloom, with a gripsack handy, with a change in it, and my door ajar. For I suspected that the bird would take wing now. In half an hour an old woman passed by, carrying a grip; I caught the familiar whiff, and followed with my grip, for it was Fuller. He left the hotel by a side entrance, and at the corner he turned up an unfrequented street and walked three blocks in a light rain and a heavy darkness, and got into a two-horse hack, which, of ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... children running around a house—great cities shouting on the seas, suddenly sliding up and down the globe, playing hopscotch on the equator, scrambling up the poles—all these colossal children!... Here we all are!—a whiff of steam from the Watts's steam kettle and a wave of Marconi across the air and we have crept up from our little separate sunsets, all our little private national bedrooms of light and darkness ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... that brings a whiff of burning powder to one's nostrils.... In some way he blazons the scene before our eyes, and makes us feel the very impetus of bloody ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... the wrists amid a shower of blows descending upon him, bent the lad backward and stretched him upon the levee path. In a little while the gust of passion was spent, and he was allowed to rise. Calm now, but a powder mine where he had been but a whiff of the tantrums, Victor extended his hand toward the dwelling house ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... forgotten until morning by the harassed family; and they rolled their eyes occasionally, with apprehension lest the grinding of the wheels should cease, and some ghostly wall loom up at one side of their way, unlighted by a single glimmer and unperfumed by any whiff of supper. It was a fine thing to be movers' dogs when the movers went into camp or put up in state at a tavern. Around a camp were all sorts of woodsy creatures to be scratched out of holes or chased up trees, or to be nosed and chewed at. There were ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... further at present, for my attention was demanded by more pressing things; but I determined to make a more minute examination when I should have time. It was evident that some of the strange Egyptian smell clung to these old curios; through the broken glass came an added whiff of spice and gum and bitumen, almost stronger than those I had already noticed as coming from others ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... cleared away already through the hatch into the kitchen passage, and the servants' quarters were on the other side of the house. No sound of any kind came from the smoking-room; not even the faint whiff of tobacco-smoke that had a way of stealing out when Laurie ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... dark surf of slums. In one foreign street, too deeply trenched for sunlight, oranges were the only gold. The water, reaching round in two arms, came close: there was a note of husky summons in the whistles of passing craft. Almost everywhere, sharp above many smells of oils and spices, the whiff of coffee tingled his busy nose. Above one huge precipice stood a gilded statue—a boy with wings, burning in the noon. Brilliance flamed between the vanes of his pinions: the intangible thrust of that pouring light seemed about to hover him off ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... word the dog reared straight up like a maddened horse. Full-throated angry barks, interspersed with sharp, querulous yaps, filled his roaring, swaying prison. How long since he had got so much as a whiff of untainted air, or a glimpse of wild fields and woods! Out there oceans of such air filled all the space between the gliding earth and the sky. Out there miles on miles of freedom were rushing forever out of his life. He began to rage, to froth at the mouth. The baggageman ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... different now! The history of the world could show no epoch when pleasures so many and various were there for the man who carries the golden key. Today he was a looker-on, and the ice of his years of bitterness had not melted. Tomorrow, at any moment, he might catch a whiff of the fragrance of life, and the blood in his veins would move to a different tune. This was how it seemed to Aynesworth, as he studied his companion through the faint blue ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... George's recollection, a little story touching the evolution of the body politic, during his own time. It was like Maui of Maori legend, and Arthur 'by wild Dundagil on the Cornish sea,' in that he scarce knew whence it came. He inclined to link it, a whiff of airy gossip, with two of the most strenous middle Victorians, but ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... taking her two hands while keeping his pipe in one of his own so that the whiff of the coarse 'Store-cut' tobacco made her wrinkle her nose and stemmed the tide of emotion. But he did not ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... quickly, as he caught a whiff from Fogg's lips, "you be sure you mind yours—and the rules," he added, quite sternly, "I advise you not to get too ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... be true enough, Colonel," replied the man, ignoring the title of "major," and taking a whiff from his pipe. "That may be true enough, but I calculate nature's got somethin' to say in this world. And I calculate I ain't a-going to risk my life, and the happiness of my wife and five children, by tryin' to stem the ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... He had never thought about smoking before, in connection with himself, but now for the first time he began to wish that he knew how to smoke. It would be worth risking something to take a whiff or two of the magic tobacco in that Chinaman's head, just to see what ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... with a wink that had a deal of significance about it, Hugh could see. "Mebbe I've got a whiff of an idea myself that might turn out worth while; but wild horses couldn't drag a hint of the same from me so early in the game. So we're quits on that ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... rather have taken it from any one else, but the whiff of burning tobacco, as Carlsen lit up, gave him an irresistible craving for a smoke. Besides, it wouldn't do for the doctor to know he mistrusted him. If he was to be a part of the ship's life, there was small sense ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... his nostrils a naphthaline odour outflows, In his trail a petroleum-whiff lingers. With crude nitro-glycerine glitter his hose, Suggestions of dynamite hang round his nose, And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... struck by a bar of shadow which seemed like a scar on the surface. The two men, as they stood in the street looking seaward, could hear already the solemn hum through the breathless air, and feel the first cool whiff of the breeze on their faces, while at their feet there fell with a sudden plash ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... had smoked his meerschaum to the last whiff, he put it carefully away, and disposed himself to follow Ducie's example in the matter of sleep. He rearranged his wraps, folded the arms, shut his eyes, and pressed his head resolutely against his cushion; but at the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... this chapel, in the center of what in modern days is called the Bowling Green—on the very spot, in fact, where he appeared in vision to Oloffe the Dreamer. And the legend further treats of divers miracles wrought by the mighty pipe which the saint held in his mouth; a whiff of which was a sovereign cure for an indigestion—an invaluable relic in this colony of brave trenchermen. As however, in spite of the most diligent search, I cannot lay my hands upon this little book, I must confess that I entertain ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... bungalow. "But I smell a smell that I've often smelled. Something doing, or my nose is a liar. The lagoon is carpeted with shell. They're rotting the meat out not a thousand miles away. Get that whiff?" ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... the passengers awoke to find themselves at anchor in Colombo harbour, and the soft warm air brought them a delicious whiff of the celebrated cinnamon gardens. Many were landing for Southern India and a quantity of cargo had to be discharged. As this was bound to be a lengthy process, the remnant who were bound for ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... One day a whiff of celery coming from a garden near by, reminded Miss Swallow-tail of the time when she was a baby and liked to ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... the year 1817, or thereabouts. In her bed, lying with her pipe in her mouth, she would talk on politics, philosophy, morality, religion, or on any other theme, with her accustomed eloquence, and closing her periods with a whiff that would have made the Duchess of Richmond stare with astonishment, could she have risen from her tomb to have seen her quondam friend, the brilliant ornament of a London drawing-room, clouded in fumes so that her features were sometimes invisible. Now, this ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... the words, and they "disturbed" him, to put it mildly. Evidently he had forgotten the peril to which all persons are exposed in tropical waters, and, as the truth was impressed upon him with such suddenness, he uttered a "whiff" like a porpoise and began swimming with fierce energy toward the shore. In fact, he never put forth so much effort in all his life. The expectation of feeling a huge man-eating monster gliding beneath you ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... pulse of memory is stirred Out of a chronic state of coma By just a poignant tune, a rhythmic word, A whiff of some refined aroma, And lo! the brain is made aware Of records which it didn't know ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... the sofa, wondering what was to be the fate of the unfortunate messenger, for, in spite of the sudden shutting of the door by the Russian, she caught a glimpse of the man lying face downwards on the floor of his stifling room. She also had received a whiff of the sweet, heavy gas which had been used, that seemed now to be tincturing the whole atmosphere of the car, especially in the long narrow passage. It was not likely they intended to kill the man, for his death would cause an awkward ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... you when you wish to drive the hens out of your garden-patch. The cow stopped abruptly, threw up her head and stared at the hunter. The sight of the crouching figure must have suggested to the stupid animal that every thing was not right, for with a frightened whiff, she bounded short around with the intention of joining ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe And a ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... explosion; the insurgents caught a whiff of the poisoned air; the men dropped the beam; there was a rush backward amid cries of terror, and the street was clear for a considerable space ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... sainted than are plays: Nor with that dull supineness to be read, To pass a fire, or laugh an hour in bed. How do the Muses suffer every where, Taken in such mouth's censure, in such ears, That 'twixt a whiff, a line or two rehearse, And with their rheume together spaul a verse? This all a poem's leisure after play, Drink, or tobacco, it may keep the day: Whilst ev'n their very idleness they think Is lost in these, that lose their time in drink. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... danger had always seemed remote until that night. Had the day's adventure unsettled his nerves, or had he hitherto always underrated it? How ghastly it would be if—His thoughts broke off short. A figure had detached itself from the vagueness in front of him, and a whiff of rank tobacco smoke ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... in at this moment, not without a whiff about him of the cigarette over which he had lingered so. It relieved him to see the two ladies seated opposite each other in the bow window, and to hear something like a laugh in the air. Perhaps they were discussing other things, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... sensation arising from sight more delightful than the odours which filter through sun-warmed, wind-tossed branches, or the tide of scents which swells, subsides, rises again wave on wave, filling the wide world with invisible sweetness. A whiff of the universe makes us dream of worlds we have never seen, recalls in a flash entire epochs of our dearest experience. I never smell daisies without living over again the ecstatic mornings that my teacher and ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... third, as you turn the corner to enter the passage; then you come plump upon another from the hall door; then comes another, fit to knock you down, as You turn to the upper passage ; then, just as You turn towards the queen's room, comes another; and last, a whiff from the king's stairs, enough to blow ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... sunlight, oranges were the only gold. The water, reaching round in two arms, came close: there was a note of husky summons in the whistles of passing craft. Almost everywhere, sharp above many smells of oils and spices, the whiff of coffee tingled his busy nose. Above one huge precipice stood a gilded statue—a boy with wings, burning in the noon. Brilliance flamed between the vanes of his pinions: the intangible thrust of that pouring light seemed ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... times he can. But if the hunter is an old woodsman and a clever caller, he'll generally fool the animal, unless he makes some awkward noise that isn't in the game, or else the moose gets his scent on the breeze. One whiff of a man will send the creature off like a wind-gust, and earthquakes wouldn't stop him. And though he sneaks away so silently when he hears anything suspicious, yet when he smells danger he'll go through the forest at a thundering rush, making as much noise ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... crying, or talking, or hoping, or fearing, could keep off the dreaded Saturday afternoon, or Newman Noggs either; who, punctual to his time, limped up to the door, and breathed a whiff of cordial gin through the keyhole, exactly as such of the church clocks in the neighbourhood as agreed among themselves about the time, struck five. Newman waited for the last stroke, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... course. First a nation rises up against intolerable oppression, then revolution devours its own children, and the scum rises to the top of the boiling pot. Then comes, in the language of the picturesque historian of the French Revolution, the type of them all—then comes at the end 'the whiff of grapeshot' and the despot. First the government of a mob, and then the tyranny of an emperor, crush the people that shake off the yoke of reasonable law. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... to actually find for herself two very fine pearls; but that sufficed. She confessed that the effluvium was altogether too powerful for her, and beat a hasty retreat to the boat, where she spent the remainder of the day in comparative comfort, only an occasional faint whiff of odour reaching her there. As for us males, we had taken the precaution to bring along with us a ship's bucket, which we filled with salt water upon leaving the boat, and every pearl found, whether large or small, was dropped into this ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... mourned their faults and trembled at their perils, I have joyfully saluted the noble and manly policy of which the election of Mr. Lincoln is the symptom. Is it not true, that at the first news we all seemed to breathe a whiff of pure and free air from the other ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... his cap over his forehead, and rushed out. Without meeting anyone in the corridor, on the stairs, or down below, he darted out into the garden. It was a grey day, with a low-hanging sky and a damp breeze that blew in waves over the tops of the grass and made the trees rustle. A whiff of coal, tar, and tallow was borne along from the yard, but the noise and rattling in the factory was fainter than usual at that time of day. Nejdanov looked round sharply to see if anyone was about and made straight for the old apple tree that had first attracted his attention ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... the remarkable property of becoming red in vapor of sulpho-cyanide. Here is a long-necked flask of the gas, made by sulphuric acid acting on potassium sulpho-cyanide. Keep back, Dr. Waterworth, for it would be very dangerous for you to get even a whiff of this in your condition. Ah! See—the scratches I made on the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... responsibilities as the head of the association to which he belonged, of the pleasant hours he would spend in discussing with youthful shallowness the deepest subjects that can occupy the human mind, deciding, between a draft of brown ale and a whiff of tobacco, that Schopenhauer was right in one point, and that Kant was wrong in another. But, for the present, at least, none of those things could by mere anticipation distract his thoughts from ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... livin' man," he would say, "what's ever seed anybody wi' them kind er eyes settled down an' married. No, sirs! Hit's the vittles Tuck Peevy's atter. Why, bless your soul an' body! he thes natchally dribbles at the mouth when he gits a whiff from ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... soothed by a whiff of her pipe, Mistress Jamieson was getting on quite friendly terms with Allison, who had her good word from that day forth. For with the most respectful attention she sat listening to the all-embracing and rather ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... this bet on the part of his uncle, but still less did he like the want of good manners in not waiting for him. He had just time to see the covers removed, to scent a whiff of the goose, and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... before he indulged in the savoury morsels, if he was in the least superstitious or devout, or inspired by the sublime scene around him, he lighted his pipe, and after saluting the elevated ridge on which he sat by the first whiff of the fragrant kinnikinick, Indian-fashion, he in turn offered homage in the same manner to the sky above him, the earth beneath, and to the cardinal points of the compass, and was then prepared to eat his solitary meal ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... of such enchanting voyage brought us to Lake Umbagog. Whiff's of mist had met us in the outlet. Presently we opened chaos, and chaos shut in upon us. There was no Umbagog to be seen,—nothing but a few yards of gray water and a world of gray vapor. Therefore I cannot criticize, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Two ruffians—I can call them, nothing else—paced the deck, smoking, and passed me every forty seconds. If there is a thing which tumbles a human being of a highly-strung nervous temperament over when he feels squeamish, it is the occasional whiff of a cigar. Then, added to the occasional whiff, were occasional catches of derogatory remarks, which came home to me as unpleasantly as did the tobacco: "A chap with a sword like that should live up to it, and not grovel over a basin."—And a quotation ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... what had brought the troop of horsemen to a halt, but after a time Kirby knew that the cause of his horse's sudden departure must have been a whiff of the strange perfume. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... on this clever suggestion of Dr. Cricket's, and travel off to the land of fancy, where you can make the weather to suit yourself, where fogs never fall, and fish always bite, and sails always fill with breezes from the right quarter, and whiff about at a convenient moment when you want to come home—oh, I say!" she adds with a joyful upward inflection, "there's the sun, and I am going ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... pleasures so many and various were there for the man who carries the golden key. Today he was a looker-on, and the ice of his years of bitterness had not melted. Tomorrow, at any moment, he might catch a whiff of the fragrance of life, and the blood in his veins would move to a different tune. This was how it seemed to Aynesworth, as he studied his companion through the faint ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Cora Stanton, a Senior, stood with Jerry and the boy who made up the affirmative side of the debate. Cora was prettily dressed in blue taffeta, with a yellow rose carelessly fastened in her belt. Her hair had been crimped and Jerry caught a whiff of perfume. Then she glimpsed a trim little foot thrust out the better to show a patent leather pump and a blue silk stocking. For the first time since she had come to Highacres, Jerry grew conscious of her own appearance. Over her, in a hot wave of ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... even that room seemed stuffy. The heat of the day seemed to have become confined in the house. Sarah stood irresolute for a moment. She looked at the high mound of feather bed, at the small window at the foot, whence came scarcely a whiff of the blessed night air. Them she went back out on the door-step and again seated herself. As she sat there the scent of the lilies came more strongly than ever, and now with a curious effect. It was to the girl ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... the last batch of the returning crowd, wearing on his face the virtuous look of one who has been snatching a whiff of fresh air after ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh ...
— The Wreck of the Hesperus • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... strangers is by the pipe, or calumet of peace. Of this Pere Henepin has given a long account in his voyage, and the pipe is as follows: they fill a pipe of tobacco, larger and bigger than any common pipe, light it, and then the chief of them takes a whiff, gives it to the stranger, and if he smoke of it, it is peace; if not, war; if peace, the pipe is handed all ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... pushing through into the inner court, where mass is going on in the curious old church. One has now to elbow his way to enter, and all around the door, even out into the middle court, contadini are kneeling. Besides this, the whole place reeks intolerably with garlic, which, mixed with whiff of incense from the church within and other unmentionable smells, makes such a compound that only a brave nose can stand it. But stand it we must, if we would see Domenichino's frescoes in the chapel within; and as they are among the best products ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... violet perfumery he is paying at the rate of more than $10,000 a pound for the odoriferous oil it contains; the rest is mere water and alcohol. But you would not want the pure undiluted oil if you could get it, for it is unendurable. A single whiff of it paralyzes your sense of smell for a time just as a loud noise ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... present when the Rocky Mountain Rangers troop the colors and I stand solemn, like the children, and I salute when the flag goes by. Of course when she goes to her fort her sentries sing out 'Turn out the guard!' and then . . . do you catch that refreshing early- morning whiff from the mountain-pines and the wild flowers? The night is far spent; we'll hear the bugles before long. Dorcas, the black woman, is very good and nice; she takes care of the Lieutenant-General, and is Brigadier-General Alison's mother, which ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... "I hope my 'whiff of garlic' won't settle into a steady breeze. Be patient a moment, ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... which I stood; all the batteries were clustering around me, and suddenly a column of men shot up from the long sweep of the abandoned hill, with batteries on the left and right. Their muskets were turned towards us, a crash and a whiff of smoke swept from flank to flank, and the air around me rained buck, slug, bullet, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... seem to have had their attention attracted by the unusual stir among their turbulent subjects, and especially by this suspicious gathering at Mizpeh, and they come suddenly up the passes from their low-lying territory to disperse it. A whiff of the old terror blows across the spirits of the people, not unwholesomely; for it sets them, not to desire the outward presence of the ark, not to run from their post, but to beseech Samuel's intercession. They are afraid, but they mean ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... The heat of the near African coast seemed to beat like steam against our faces. The pitch bubbled like caviare in the seams of the white deck, and the shrouds and ratlines ran with tears of tar. To touch the brass rail of the poop was to blister the hand, to catch a whiff from the cook's galley was to feel sick for ten minutes. The hens in their coops lay with eyes glazed and gasped for air. If you hung forward over the bulwarks you stared down into your own face. The sailors grumbled and cursed and panted as they huddled forward under a second awning that was rigged ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... half so sweet an odor to my nostrils, outraged by a winter of city smells, as the salty, spray-laden breath of the marsh. It seems fairly to line the lungs with ozone. I know how grass-fed cattle feel at the smell of salt. I have the concentrated thirst of a whole herd when I catch that first whiff of the marshes after a winter, a year it may be, of unsalted inland air. The smell of it stampedes me. I gallop to meet it, and drink, drink, drink deep of it, my blood running redder with ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... end crushed off. The warmth of the hand alone is sufficient to start a veritable spray. It acts violently on the senses, too. But kelene anaesthesia lasts only a minute or so. The fraction of time is long enough. Then comes the jab with the real needle—perhaps another whiff of kelene to give the injection a chance. In two or three minutes the injection itself is working and the victim is unconscious, without a murmur—perhaps, as in your case, without any clear idea of how it all happened—even without recollection of a handkerchief, unable to recall any sharp pain ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... the honeysuckle arbour: the girls and the advocate of progress stood without among the garden flowers. It was a still and lovely night, the moon at her full. The farmer, seated facing his hayfields, smoked on placidly. Kenelm, at the third whiff, laid aside his pipe, and glanced furtively at the three Graces. They formed a pretty group, all clustered together near the silenced beehives, the two younger seated on the grass strip that bordered the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with the knowledge that in a few minutes it will be hieing along to some distant hunting ground where all the joy and fury of the chase awaits it; think of the crowded sensations of the brain when every rustle, every cry, every bent twig, and every whiff across the nostrils means something, something to do with life and death and dinner. Imagine the satisfaction of stealing down to your own particular drinking spot, choosing your own particular tree to scrape your claws ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... answered. "Success, if you will. My profession is so much of a lottery. A whiff of public opinion, a criticism which hits the popular fancy, and the bubble is floated. I'm not pretending that I don't appreciate it, but it was a stroke ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... unprotected men close to town. Once a few of us followed the tracks of a party and traced the marauders across Mad River and toward a small prairie known to our leader, Ousley the saddler. As we passed along a small road he caught the sign. A whiff of a shred of cotton cloth caught on a bush denoted a smoky native. A crushed fern, still moist, told him they had lately passed. At his direction we took to the woods and crawled quietly toward the near-by prairie. Our orders ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... canna thole it." The child fled to comforting arms in the inglenook and cried herself to sleep. The gude wife knitted, and the gude mon smoked by the pleasant fire. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the wag at the wa' clock, for burning peat makes no noise at all, only a pungent whiff in the nostrils, the memory of which gives a Scotch laddie abroad a fit of hamesickness. Bobby lay very still and watchful by the door. The farmer served his astonishing news in ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... ever run up against. For all you know, he may have been back of a lot o' tricks Central never got hold of. I'll bet that each time that you went over with him, he took loot an' disposed of it. I may be pig-headed sometimes, but I'm dead sure o' this. Wait some day an' see. Say, take a whiff o' this an' tell me what y' think it is." ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... forth into the street to get a whiff of fresh air. He, the demon, pertinaciously stuck to us; he familiarly linked his arm through mine, and, suggesting coffee as rather a good thing to take after dinner, took us over to the Cafe du Cardinal, where he, however, took none of the Arabian ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the Purcell sonnet is not so clearly worked out as I could wish. The thought is that as the seabird opening his wings with a whiff of wind in your face means the whirr of the motion, but also unaware gives you a whiff of knowledge about his plumage, the marking of which stamps his species, that he does not mean, so Purcell, seemingly intent only on the thought or feeling he is to express or call out, ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... interminable period. Occasionally the sounds of distant voices rose to his ear and died away again. The front door opened to admit some one, but Orde could not see who it was. Twice a scurrying of feet overhead seemed to indicate the bustle of excitement. The afternoon waned. A faint whiff of cooking, escaping through some carelessly open door, was borne to his nostrils. It grew dark, but the lamps remained unlighted. Finally he heard the rustle of the portieres, and turned to see the dim form of the general ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... to come to-day. Get on with your work, for Heaven's sake! The new sailing-master is a man of ten thousand. He has got an Englishman whom he knows to serve as mate on board already; and he is positively certain of getting the crew together in three or four days' time. I am dying for a whiff of the sea, and so are you, or you are no sailor. The rigging is set up, the stores are coming on board, and we shall bend the sails to-morrow or next day. I never was in such spirits in my life. Remember me to your wife, and tell her she will be doing me a favor ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... will salute one for an old acquaintance that he never saw in his life before. He usurps upon cheats, quarrels, and robberies, which he never did, only to get him a name. His chief exercises are, taking the whiff, squiring a cockatrice, and making privy ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... replying at length to her kind Letter? We are not quiet enough. Morgan is with us every day, going betwixt Highgate and the Temple. Coleridge is absent but 4 miles, and the neighborhood of such a man is as exciting as the presence of 50 ordinary Persons. 'Tis enough to be within the whiff and wind of his genius, for us not to possess our souls in quiet. If I lived with him or the author of the Excursion, I should in a very little time lose my own identity, and be dragged along in the current of other people's ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... them of the expedition up the west coast, and of the towns they sacked; and the opulent names rolled oddly off his tongue, and seemed to bring a whiff of southern scent into this panelled English room,—Valparaiso, Tarapaca, and Arica—; and of the capture of the Cacafuego off Quibdo; and of the enormous treasure they took, the great golden crucifix with emeralds of the size of ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... river bank, Neighbors on horseback, and the slaves, With teeth as white as eyeballs, rank on rank, Watched on the pyre the form wrapped in a shroud, Lonely among the lolling tongues of flames— The smoke streamed, trailing in a saffron cloud, The greedy noise of fire grew loud, Then, "whiff," the shroud burned with a flare: The dead man's eyes looked down Like china moons upon the crowd. They saw him slowly shake his head, The thing denied that it was dead, While from the blacks arose a babblement ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... for that day, the Drawing Room had been well attended, several new presentations had taken place, the three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the table had accidentally increased to twelve shillings, and the Father of the Marshalsea refreshed himself with a whiff of cigar. As he walked up and down, affably accommodating his step to the shuffle of his brother, not proud in his superiority, but considerate of that poor creature, bearing with him, and breathing toleration of his infirmities in every little puff of smoke that issued from his lips ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... than ninety hours had begun to stink abominably. Several yards away, as we returned, let us say from dinner, our nostrils were assailed by rancid air. I have stood on a platform while the whole train was shunting; and as the dwelling-cars drew near, there would come a whiff of pure menagerie, only a little sourer, as from men instead of monkeys. I think we are human only in virtue of open windows. Without fresh air, you only require a bad heart, and a remarkable command of the Queen's English, to become such another as Dean Swift; a kind ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... feet are tired and his knees are stiff, His breath comes low in a wheezy whiff. He'll now "lay up," like a worn-out wherry. 'Tis yours to start like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... thing, whether it be verily so, yea or nay? and to have answer, and to rely on that? All the debts which such a man could contract to other wit, would never disturb his consciousness of originality: for the ministrations of books, and of other minds, are a whiff of smoke to that most private reality with which ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... who had heard nothing of his lost draft at Alexandria, and was much relieved thereby, became incorrigible when he smelt the whiff of the trenches brought by these heroes. He would invite our subscriptions to the daily sweepstake with the words: "Come along, fork out. Last few sweeps of your life." And he would take me aside and say: "I suppose I shall be daisy-pushing soon. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... petite personne, moreover, was a rather sophisticated young lady. One would never have seen her, in the mornings, munching a hunk of bread-and-butter "as long as from here to Easter." No; Jeannette has fulfilled her part, providing a whiff of marjoram and cottage flowers for the castle chambers. She has read, written and said her prayers. She has the firm outline, the rosy cheeks, the simplicity of a Watteau peasant-girl—nothing of the Greuze languish, with its hint of a cruche ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... conceiving a grand effect, he would willingly surrender it for a pocketed half-crown. This side the Channel, in brief, romance and the picturesque are dead; and in France, the last refuge of crime, there are already signs of decay. The Abbe Bruneau caught a whiff of style and invention from the past. That other Abbe—Rosslot was his name—shone forth a pure creator: he owed his prowess to the example of none. But in Paris crime is too often passionel, and a crime passionel is a crime with a purpose, which, like ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... air—once, then vanished; unforgettable, however, for he had known it already weeks ago upon the steamer. And before the gardened woods about him smothered it with their richer smells of a million flowers and weeds, he recognized in it that peculiar pungent whiff of horse that had reached him from the haunted cabin. This time it was less fleeting—a fine, clean odor that he liked even while ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... notion, though there is just a whiff of Wordsworth in an observation he once hazarded, that a tree is a more poetical object than a prince in his coronation robes. His taste in landscape gardening was honoured with the approbation of Horace Walpole, and ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... red-eyed from the whiff of phosphorus smoke, spoke with him. The U.P. man had sagged drunkenly into a chair, but the other newsmen noted that Dr. Barnes glanced at them as he spoke, in ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... bookshops, whence a pleasant smell of paper freshly pressed came issuing forth, awakening instant recollections of some new grammar had at school, long time ago, with 'Master Pinch, Grove House Academy,' inscribed in faultless writing on the fly-leaf! That whiff of russia leather, too, and all those rows on rows of volumes neatly ranged within—what happiness did they suggest! And in the window were the spick-and-span new works from London, with the title-pages, and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of large-type story book were stumbled through; and there was a triumphant exhibition when the cousins came home—Eustace delighted; Harold, half-stifled by London, insisting on walking home from the station to stretch his legs, and going all the way round over Kalydon Moor for a whiff of air! ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... begins a word, the aspirate h precedes w in pronunciation: as in what, whiff, whale; pronounced hwat, hwiff, hwale, w having precisely the sound of oo, French ou. In the following words w is silent:—-who, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... the streets, shrinking from the idea of stripping the rags off the beggar in order to see his tanned and gnarled limbs; shuddering at the thought of seeking for muscles in the dead, cut-open body; fearful of every whiff of life that might mingle with the incense atmosphere of his chapel, of every cry of human passion which might break through the well-ordered sweetness of his chants. No; the Renaissance did not exist for him who lived in a world of diaphanous form, colour, and character; unsubstantial and unruffled, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... when my father looked at the signature at the end of the long, closely written letter he gave a whiff of surprise and sat motionless for a moment or so staring at it. Then he turned to the commencement and read it very carefully through, after which he turned it over and read it again. Clearly it brought no unwelcome news, for his eyes ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... benignly with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat. Before the Major's own doorway the myrtles were in bloom, and a few China roses on the well-trimmed standards. By the Broad Ship as of old his nostrils caught the odours of tar and hemp with a whiff of smoke from a schooner's galley (the Ranting Blade, with her figure-head repainted, but otherwise much the same as ever). Miss Jex, the postmistress, still peered over her blind. She studied ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... feet struck rock again, not jagged or slippery fragments, but solid paving, and a whiff of faint mist drifted across his face in the gray of the first dawn, and the burro craned his neck forward at the very edge of a black rock basin where warm vapor struck the nostrils like ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... shrewd, sensible, and respectful; now exchanging a little elegant badinage with the coachman; now bowing to a pretty girl; now quizzing a passer-by; he was off and on his seat in an instant, and, in the whiff of his cigar, would lock a wheel, or unlock ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... of a fashionable hotel. Moffatt himself, as he came forward, gave Ralph the impression of having been done over by the same hand: he was smoother, broader, more supremely tailored, and his whole person exhaled the faintest whiff of an expensive scent. He installed his visitor in one of the blue arm-chairs, and sitting opposite, an elbow on his impressive "Washington" desk, listened attentively while Ralph ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... the world is smokin'," said Larry, who had now relit his pipe, and squatted himself on a three-legged stool beside the widow's fire. "The most improvinist in the world"—(paugh!)—and a parenthetical whiff of tobacco-smoke curled out of the corner of Larry's mouth—"is smokin': for the smoke shows you, as it were, the life o' man passin' away like a puff—(paugh!)—just like that; and the tibakky turns to ashes like his poor perishable body; ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... gentlemen practised archery. Just that—and not the art even, but the mere spectacle—might have been one of the substitutes in question; if not for the languages at least for one or another of the romantic connections we seemed a little to have missed: it was such a whiff of the old world of Robin Hood as we could never have looked up from the mere thumbed "story," in Fourteenth Street at any rate, to any soft confidence of. More than I can begin to say, that is by a greater number of queer small channels, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... Are they hot with you? Here they are heavenly. When the windows are open, the sweet warm air blows up from the river and across the White Lot, and we get a whiff of roses from the gardens back of the President's house; and when I reach home at night, the fragrance of the roses in our own garden meets me long before I can see the house. We have wonderful roses this year, and the hundred-leaved bush ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... I, as I took the first delightful whiff; and F——, darkening the window that looked out on the verandah, gave me a fugitive look of recognition, and then entering and making his salutation in a kindly hearty manner, asked me to eat my mid-day meal ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... that if it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... we always buy come from Boonville, Mo., and we don't see why we shouldn't blow a little whiff of affection and gratitude toward that excellent town. Moreover, Boonville celebrated its centennial recently: it was founded in 1818. If the map is to be believed, it is on the southern bank of the Missouri River, which is there spanned by a very fine bridge; it is reached by two ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... telegram from her. She says in it, 'Tell Judy to expect me at ten to-night.' Why, my darling, how white you are! Babs, run and fetch me those smelling-salts. Now, Judy, just one whiff. Ah, now you're better." ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... a man who gets mad at a practical joke, that is, one that does not injure him, is a fool, and he ought to be shunned by all decent people. That's a nice bouquet you have in your coat. What is it, pansies? Let me smell of it," and the grocery man bent over in front of the boy to take a whiff at the bouquet. As he did so a stream of water shot out of the innocent looking bouquet and struck him full in the face, and run down over his shirt, and the grocery man yelled murder, and fell over a barrel of axe helves and scythe snaths, and then groped around ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... the law of good faith. If there are cases in this enlightened period when it is violated, there are none when it is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of governments. It is observed by barbarians—a whiff of tobacco smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money, but when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Thus we see, neither the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... graceful and vigorous, but yet in his walk there was something just perceptible which betrayed in him a being already touched by decay, weak, and on the road to ruin. And all at once there was a whiff of spirits in the wood. Marya Vassilyevna was filled with dread and pity for this man going to his ruin for no visible cause or reason, and it came into her mind that if she had been his wife or sister she would have devoted her whole ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the most matter-of-fact manner, he gave me another whiff of that incomparable perfume, and I felt my taut nerves steady. Not untruthfully had the Coptic physician claimed magic qualities for ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... Vanity and a woman with a man's name. And now leave me, my three queens, and I'll have a drop to warm me old bones and a whiff of the pipe to put the life in me. But don't forget the old woman when the great lords is kneeling before you and pouring the diamonds out of baskets before ye—and ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... the summer, a deputation visits the sacred spot, where there is a thick porous stone, twenty feet in circumference, with a smooth surface. Having reached the place, the ceremony of smoking to it is performed by the deputies, who alternately take a, whiff themselves, and then present the pipe to the stone; after this, they retire to the adjoining wood for the night, during which it may be safely presumed, that all the embassy do not sleep. In the morning, they read the destinies of the nation in the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... you sounds and scents from afar. You know you are abreast Grape Island now far you scent the wild roses on the point. Another breeze brings faint odors of the charnel house from Bradley's. A stronger chases it away and you have a whiff of an early breakfast, brown toast, fried fish and coffee, at Rose Cliff. The chuckle of oars in rowlocks tells you that the old fisherman is astir at Fort Point and the man with the new motor boat over at Hough's Neck is giving it a little run before ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... placed in dry air before it has appreciably cooled. This is easily done in the case of electrometer jars, and so long as the air remains perfectly dry through the action of sulphuric acid or phosphorus pentoxide, the jar will insulate. The slightest whiff of ordinarily damp air will, however, enormously reduce the insulating power of the glass, so that unvarnished glass surfaces must be kept for apparatus which is ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... astir, and Wyatt experienced a prescient vicarious qualm to note their lack of heed or secrecy—the noisy shifting of heavy weights (barrels, kegs, bags of apples, and peaches for pomace), the loud voices and unguarded words. When a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean air that pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous odors, and gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most unobservant inmate, that the still was operated in ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... mystery that greatly intrigued us. One morning the mystery was solved. A whiff of tobacco from an upper window came along with a puff of wind. It was a heated whiff, in spite of the cooling breeze. It was from a pipe, a short, black pipe, owned by some one in the Mansard window next door. There was the round disk of a dark-blue beret drooping ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... ought to be done; but the Emperor still continued his performances, which were like some peculiar kind of yawning. Tired out by his fruitless efforts at last, he told me to light it for him, which I did, and instantly handed it back to him. But he had hardly taken a whiff when the smoke, which he did not know how to breathe out again, filled his throat, got into his windpipe, and came out through his nose and eyes in great puffs. As soon as he could get his breath, he panted forth, "Take it away! what a pest! Oh, the wretches! it has made me sick." In fact, he ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... feet distant, blew a quiet little whiff of smoke through his thin purple lips, meanwhile dreamily contemplating ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... wrapped it carefully in a sheet and hung it behind the door. There were bunches of dried sage and mint and lavender hanging along the low rafters above it, and just to move the wedding dress gave one a whiff as sweet as a breath from all the ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... of a house and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on.—Oh,—oh,—oh! do you know what has got hold of you? It is the great red dragon that ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... mind had not become somewhat unsettled by his misfortunes. But no, there was the ringing peal of laughter again. This time it was accompanied by a strange chattering sound such as he had never heard before. At the same moment a most delicious whiff of frying bacon reached the hungry boy, mingled with the unmistakable and equally enticing odor of coffee. There was no doubt as to the direction from which these came, and plunging into the cotton-wood thicket, ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... getting rested by this time, and she gathered up her tools again, with the thought that breakfast would taste good. I suppose a whiff of the fumes of coffee preparing in the house was borne out to her upon the air, and suggested the idea. And as she went in she cheerfully reflected that their plain house was full of comfort, if not of beauty; and that she and her sisters were doing what ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... heard a curious scraping sound, and a little tinkle of metal. I caught a whiff of a powerful odor—a strange, fishy odor—so strong that it almost knocked ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... south, the east, and the west, and told them the stone was red, that it was their flesh, that they must use it for their pipes of peace, that it belonged to all alike, and that the war-club and scalping-knife must never be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the ledge for miles was melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women—the guardian spirits of the place—entered them in a ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... from his cigar, took another whiff or two, then laid it down, and turned to his host, who was ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... ghostes am whiff away, like de fog outen de holler whin de wind blow' on it, an' li'l' black Mose he ain' see no ca'se for to remain in dat locality no longer. He rotch' down, an' he raise' up de pumpkin, an' he perambulate' right quick to he ma's shack, an' he ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... possessed of a winning manner. On the voyage to Aneityum he was constantly smoking and making things disagreeable to all around him. Being advised not to smoke while on board, he pleaded with the Missionary just to let him take a whiff now and again till he finished the tobacco he had in his pipe, and then he would lay it aside. But, like the widow's meal, it lasted all the way to Aneityum, and never appeared to get less—at which the innocent ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... cold, penetrating wind blew inappropriately from the east, and everything sank into silence. Needles of ice stretched across the pools, and it felt cheerless, remote, and lonely in the forest. There was a whiff of winter. ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... could hear no noise but the clink of the chain, although the road was clear and straight. Nearer and nearer came the noise, gradually getting louder, and as it passed them closely they distinctly felt a blast or whiff of air. They were paralysed with an indefinable fear, and were scarcely able to drag themselves along the remaining quarter of a mile to their house. The elder of the two was in very bad health, and the other had almost to carry her. Immediately she ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... eyes half-closed in a luxurious lighting up. "Very wise indeed. But just to-night—don't you think you'd better have a whiff to-night?" The colonel shook his head, but Jeff sent out an advance signal of blue smoke. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... keen eye for a picture or a piece of sculpture, for, in addition to the draughtsman's and anatomist's sense of form, he had a strong sense of colour. To good music he was always susceptible. (To one breaking in upon him at certain afternoon hours in his room at South Kensington, "a whiff of the pipe" (writes Professor Howes), "and a snatch of some choice melody or a Bach's fugue, were the not infrequent welcome.") He played no instrument; as a young man, however, he used to sing a little, but his voice, though true, was never strong. But he had small leisure ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his meerschaum, "although I have been ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... picture than the pair of helpless creatures presented was never seen on a rainy day, as they stood on the great, gaunt, puddled platform, a whiff of drizzle blowing under the roof upon them now and then; the pretty attire in which they had started from Stickleford in the early morning bemuddled and sodden, weariness on their faces, and fear of him in their eyes; for the child began ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... she was thinking how Billy had improved. How immaculate he was and how well his blue suit fitted him. There was no barnyard odor about him now! Only a whiff of the ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... shall come to you. I have heaps of work pour manger. Till the spring I must work—that is, at senseless grind. A ray of liberty has beamed upon my horizon. There has come a whiff of freedom. Yesterday I got a letter from the province of Poltava. They write they have found me a suitable place. A brick house of seven rooms with an iron roof, lately built and needing no repairs, a stable, a cellar, an icehouse, eighteen acres of land, an ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... suspects till they have a little carried him away. Almost every one remembers how in this light company he first came across the little word ranch. It had in its youth distinctly the cachet of the verbal flying squadron, the "nameless something," the oenanthic whiff which flies to the head. There are signs that its best days as a word are now over, and in contemplating it at present one has a vision of a passee brunette, in the costume of Fifine at the Fair, solacing herself with thoughts of early triumphs. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... of bone or stone Smoke saw in belts or neck-hung sheaths. Women toiled over the fires, smoke-curing the meat, on their backs infants that stared round-eyed and sucked at lumps of tallow. Dogs, full-kin to wolves, bristled up to Smoke to endure the menace of the short club he carried and to whiff the odor of this newcomer whom they must accept by virtue of ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... fire away," said the Devil. "Of course I'll fire, but do you first tell me what kind of a bird it is; else our agreement is cancelled, Old Boy." There was no help for it; the Devil had to own himself nonplussed, and off he fled, with a whiff of brimstone which nearly suffocated the Freischutz and his ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... mouth; and whilst the odoriferous Boer equivalent for the "divine weed" held out, food and drink were but minor considerations. But something must be done now, so, knocking out the ashes from his last whiff, and with one more futile grope in his capacious pocket, he stuck his empty pipe in his mouth, rose, stretched himself, and, glancing once more at the pageant of the western sky, turned back towards the contemptible collection of tin shanties, drinking saloons, empty ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... he would go out for a run and whiff of fresh air. He and Jem were cruising about when they ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... could not tell. All the color had faded from him; but whether this had happened on the journey, or whether it came from care, no one could say. He looked at the little girl and she looked at him. He felt that he was melting, but still he stood steadfast, musket in hand. Then a door opened. A whiff of air caught the dancer, and she flew like a sylph right into the tile-stove to the tin soldier, blazed up in flame, and was gone. Then the tin soldier melted to a lump, and when the maid next day took out the ashes, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... me, my bucko—to me and to the rest of the boys. Cleigh will not prosecute us for piracy if we play a decent game until we raise the Catwick. On old Van Dorn's tub we can drink and sing if we want to. If Cunningham gets a whiff of your breath, when you've had it, you'll get yours. Most of the boys have never done anything worse than apple stealing. It was the adventure. All keyed up for war and no place to go, and this was a kind of safety valve. Already ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... on a lope, freshened by the rest, and Bud's followed. They topped the rise, and, then as the animals came within sight and smell of their stables, and caught the whiff of ever-welcome water, they dashed down the slope toward the green valley in which nestled the corral and buildings of Diamond ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... It was nearly half-an-hour since he had entered the mine. He stamped his feet on the plank and rubbed his hands together to get up the circulation, and then he pulled out a cigar and lighted it. The first whiff permeated his being with a sense as of food and drink, sunshine and ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... Uncle Peter was a bachelor. He had two brothers, and each brother had bred three sons. Four of these sons had left their boats and gear to go overseas. Two of them would never come back. The other two were home,—one after a whiff of gas at Ypres, the other with a leg shorter by two inches than when he went away. These two made nothing of their disabilities, however; they were home and they were nearly as good as ever. That was enough for them. ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... paper. He tried hard to forget that he had really bought it to give to Winny on her birthday. He tried hard to forget his feeling, wrapped up and put away with it. But he couldn't forget it; because every day his handkerchiefs, impregnated with the scent of violets, gave out a whiff that reminded him, and his feeling was ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... from white. Whips crack. Mules trot and stumble over the loose and resounding boards. Heavy wheels rumble. And the life of gambling, drinking, pleasure, crawls about the French quarter, along Canal Street, on Royal Street. The bell in the Cathedral rings. I catch the whiff of flowers. Gulls ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... now, when we so cluster that, like shot in a barrel, we are rounded and polished by mere attrition. Formerly, characteristics had more chance to emphasize themselves and throw out angles, as I believe they still do in long polar seclusions. Withal, there came from him from time to time a whiff of the naval atmosphere of the past, like that from a drawer where lavender has been. Going ashore once with him for a constitutional, he caught sight of a necktie which my fond mother had given me. It was black, yes; but with variations. "Humph!" he ejaculated; "don't wear ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... In a manner, she was cleverer even than M. P.; but it was not a school-booky way, and hence was not thought much of. However, Laura felt drawn to her at once—even though Cupid treated her as quite a little girl—and they sometimes got as far as talking of books they had read. From this whiff of her, Laura was sure that Cupid would have had more understanding than M. P. for her want of veracity; for Cupid had a kind of a dare-devil mind in a hidebound character, and was often ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... in the air that told of the nearness of winter, for the month of November was come, and in that northern latitude the rigorous season would soon set in. A whiff of air which fanned the face of the Indian brought the chill of snow and ice in it, while here and there the leaves of some of the deciduous trees drifted downward like the soft falling ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... the poison of death. Oh, what was that fourth point that I was to remember? Why has the guide turned back? I thought we were to go out at the further end, where last week the poor fellow fell who lifted his helmet a moment too soon after he got out and caught one whiff which sent him to the hospital, but instead we seem to be turning around and going back. But there is no time for explanations or questions now; we just plod on through the darkness and soon we are out in the sunlight ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... a Snake went out of his hole to take an airing. He crawled about, greatly enjoying the scenery and the fresh whiff of the breeze, until, seeing an open door, he went in. Now this door was the door of the palace of the King, and inside was the King himself, ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... embassador from Washoe, a citizen of California, a resident of Oakland, could thus be drawn toward this hideous wretch? A word in your ear, reader. It was all the effect of association! The unbidden tears flowed to my eyes as I caught a whiff of the fellow's breath. It was so like the free-lunch breaths of San Francisco, and even suggested thoughts of the Legislative Assembly in Sacramento. Only think what a genuine Californian must suffer in being a whole ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
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