"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that," said the bluff skipper. "It'd do him good to be six months aboard my vessel under me. I'd make another man of him. Ah, you may laugh, my young sharper. You think I'm a quiet, good-tempered sort of an old chap, but a ship's captain has to be a bit of a Tartar ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... pet antipathy. The bluff old minister, with his brusque manner and big heart, would have no truck with the man who never went to church, was perpetually in liquor, and never spoke good of his neighbors. Yet he entered upon the interview fully resolved not to ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... this said vehicle, the canal-boat, is the most absolutely prosaic and inglorious. There is something picturesque, nay, almost sublime, in the lordly march of your well-built, high-bred steamboat. Go take your stand on some overhanging bluff, where the blue Ohio winds its thread of silver, or the sturdy Mississippi tears its path through unbroken forests, and it will do your heart good to see the gallant boat walking the waters with unbroken and powerful ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... two or three days at Camp Lookout, where we were put upon the alert on the 7th by a reported advance of the enemy, but it amounted to nothing more than a lively skirmish of some cavalry with our outposts. Lee was glad to move back to Meadow Bluff to be nearer his supplies, and Rosecrans encamped his troops between Hawk's Nest and the Tompkins farm, all of them being now within a few miles of Gauley Bridge. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 253. See also Official Atlas, pl. ix.] Part ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... he had adopted, the party and their adventurous leader on the 3rd of August, at 11 o'clock a.m., rounded a high bluff cape, which they called after the lady of Sir John Henry Pelly, Bart., Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is situated in latitude 67 deg. 28' 00" north; longitude, by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and there the narrowness of the windows suggested southern Europe. Some parts of the great stone walls had been stuccoed, and some had been whitewashed. Here and there vines climbed up the walls and stretched themselves under the eaves. As the house stood on a wide bluff, there was a lawn from which one could see over the tree tops the winding river sparkling far below. There were gardens and fields on the open slopes, and beyond these the forests rose to the ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... went the hard, bluff soldier, who has as much iron in his composition as any man of his time sprang one of those human surprises that even war fails to emulate—when he listened time after time to the record that he loved better than most music, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... jovial gentlemen, all were overlooked in the wild scramble the college men made for their hero. They haled him forth, set him on high, bore him on their shoulders, shouting "Skal to the Viking!" and carried him up the wooded bluff to the Casino. He heard Mrs. Van Skuyt say, "Oh, we're used to it; we've put in at several other places where he had friends!" He struggled manfully to be set down, but his triumphal procession swept on. He heard bystanders ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... located on a little bluff above the Lkalla Chaca, a small stream which finally joins the Huatanay near the town of San Sebastian. Before it reaches the Huatanay, the Lkalla Chaca joins the Cachimayo, famous as being so highly impregnated ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... all "steps" taken before and thereafter, the English have everywhere had important losses to show at sea—some 200 ships lost since the beginning of the war, according to the latest statements of the Allies—so that even they themselves no longer dare to talk about the "German bluff." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... turned back with the doctor, and soon after the boys were intently examining the drove of nearly fifty beautiful, sleek, well-bred oxen in their kraal, where they were in charge of their drivers, one a big, bluff, manly-looking fellow, well bronzed by the sun, and with Englishman stamped upon every feature, forming a striking contrast to his companion, a flat-nosed, half-bred Hottentot, who ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... streams, born to what destiny who shall tell? Watatic, and the neighboring hills in this State and in New Hampshire, are a continuation of the same elevated range on which we were standing. But that New Hampshire bluff,—that promontory of a State,—lowering day and night on this our State of Massachusetts, ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... twenty yards away, and not far from the bluff, a vigorous rivulet started from beneath the half-bared roots of a monster beech, and fell over an outcropping boulder into a pool so clear that sand on its bottom, worked mysteriously into a pattern by the action of the ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... pity, that, for your plain, bluff letter, you should get such gibberish! Mention me to Mrs. Hawthorne and to the children, and so, good-by to you, with ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... idea he was bluffing, but I kept my mouth shut. A bluff was as good as anything else, ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... to climb down quite to the bottom of the cliff, and make his way, as best he could, over rocks and shingle round the bluff which shut in one side of the little bay on which he stood, and along the narrow line of beach, to Saint Winifred's head. This was possible sometimes, and he fancied that the tide was sufficiently far out to enable him to do it now. At any rate herein ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... on the northeast another, lower. Between them, and also along the north shore, the land is low, and during the season of rains there is a row of ponds parallel to the shore. On the south side a conspicuous white bluff looks to ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... a careful, thoughtful man in command—it wanted dash and bluff. It could have been done in those early days. The landing WAS a success—a brilliant, blinding success—but it stuck at the very moment when it should have rushed forward. It was no one's fault if you understand. It was sheer luck. It just didn't "come off"—and only just. But a man with dash, ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... under such circumstances, a bluff and hearty stoicism as remote as possible from Mrs. Peyton's deprecating evasion of facts. It was a bad business; he was sorry Kate should have been mixed up with it; but she would be married soon now, and then she would see that life wasn't exactly a Sunday-school story. Everybody ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... work passed into the capable hands of Mrs. Hutton. One of the most valuable helpers was Rabbi L. Witt, who always attended and helped out many a program. Leagues were formed in Hot Springs and Pine Bluff and these were the only three prior to 1913 when a ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... quarrelled furiously, nevertheless, with the passage of time their own weaknesses and those of the Maggie had aroused in each for the other a curious affection. While Captain Scraggs frequently "pulled" a monumental bluff and threatened to dismiss both Gibney and McGuffey—and, in fact, occasionally went so far as to order them off his ship, on their part Gibney and McGuffey were wont to work the same racket and resign. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... first night, but we saw nothing of interest. The next night Capt. Welch brought back a revetting stake from the new German trench. I believe it was on February 13 that the Germans attacked and took the 'Bluff,' some trenches south-west of Hill 60. About 3.30 P.M. our own trenches were bombarded for about two hours continuously with field artillery, and a lot of pieces were blown out of the top of our trenches, but no infantry attack developed. ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... unblinded window revealed inside it a room bright and warm. It was illuminated by firelight only. Within, Ethelberta appeared against the curtains, close to the glass. She was watching through a binocular a faint light which had become visible in the direction of the bluff far away over ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... said this, she pointed to the left—the direction which I had intended to take. I could see through a break in the bluff a precipitous mountain spur running north and south—parallel with the ravine I had been threading. It certainly appeared impassable—trending along the sky like the escarpment of some gigantic fortress. If this ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... over to pat tenderly the hand that held his check. "I'm glad if you care," he said, and there was an undertone of seriousness beneath his raillery, "but save your sympathy for the Admiral. The U. S. Navy can't bluff me." He rose ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... listening sympathetically.] I've heard Old Chris talkin' about your bein' a nurse girl out there. Was that all a bluff yuh put ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... foam flying over her, he quickly sent me aloft to black down the main rigging. Clem showed me how to secure the bucket to the shrouds while I was at work, and in spite of the violent jerks I received as the vessel plunged her bluff bows into the sea, I got on very well. Before the evening was over I had been out on the yards with little Clem to assist in reefing the topsails, and he had shown me how to steer ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... boy that you would ruin Goes home with me, my men; Or some of us shall never Ride through the Gap again. You know old Trooper Campbell, And have you ever heard That bluff or lead could turn him, That e'er he ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... to breakfast this morning Rob was capering over another victory—Ball's Bluff. He would read me, "We pitched the Yankees over the bluff," and ask me in the next breath to go to the theater this evening. I turned on the poor fellow. "Don't tell me about your victories. You vowed by all your idols ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... the current of the stream, breaks the water into waves which are foam-flecked and dash against the muddy cliffs and sand-banks, while the quickly sailing boats bend to the wind, and from their bluff and brightly-painted bows toss the sprays high into the air, or turn the water from their sides in a creamy cataract. The sky also is flecked with rounded little wind-clouds, whose undersides are alternately grey or orange as they pass over the cultivated land or desert rock, whose ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... grassy bluff, well known thereabouts to lovers of sunset views, I stepped immediately to the edge to gaze upon the scene, but my wife sat down to take a sip of wine, for she was very thirsty; and then, leaving her basket, she came to my side. The scene was indeed one of great ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... a moment, like one awakening memories of childhood; then he said abruptly, like a man remembering somebody's name: "But, of course, we shall be better off still round the corner of Cragness Point; nobody ever comes there at all." And picking up his sword again, he began striding towards a big bluff of the rocks which stood out upon their left. MacIan followed him round the corner and found himself in what was certainly an even finer fencing court, of flat, firm sand, enclosed on three sides by ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... and it was only in 1720 that the first yacht club had been established, not in England, but in Cork. If we may judge from contemporary paintings of yachts we can visualise the Hurst and Calshot as being very tubby, bluff-bowed craft with ample beam. But what would especially strike us in these modern days would be the exceptionally long bowsprit, the forward end of which was raised considerably above the water than its after end, both jib ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... quoits, horseshoes, discus; rounders, lacrosse; tobogganing, water polo; knurr and spell[obs3]. [childrens' games] leapfrog, hop skip and jump; mother may I; French and English, tug of war; blindman's bluff, hunt the slopper[obs3], hide and seek, kiss in the ring; snapdragon; cross questions and crooked answers.; crisscross, hopscotch; jacks, jackstones[obs3], marbles; mumblety-peg, mumble-the-peg, pushball, shinney, shinny, tag &c. billiards, pool, pingpong, pyramids, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... glide towards the anchorage two features attract my attention: the Morro or hill-ridge on the mainland, and the narrow strip which forms the harbour. The escarpment, sweeping from a meridian to a parallel, juts westward in the bluff Cape Lagostas (Lobsters), a many-coloured face, in places not unlike the white cliffs of Dover; it then trends from north-east to south-west, bending at last in a picturesque bow, with a shallow sag. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... a blame bad bargain," commented the rancher, with unruffled good humor. "I was figuring that I might help you. I thought you were a hobo after my chickens, or trying to bluff me into a free meal this morning. If you'd asked straight for it, I'd ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... that is most frequently described is that known as the Basket trick, which is in my opinion the chef d'oeuvre of the Indian Jadoo-wallah. It is a wonderful bluff usually wonderfully shewn. ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... reasons. Mainly it was the empty ache in her heart since the death of Big Jim Thompson a year earlier following a ranch tractor accident that had crushed his chest. The other was her well-hidden disappointment that she had been childless. Hetty's bluff, weathered features would never admit to loneliness or heartache. Beneath the surface, all the warmth and love she had went out to the scared but belligerent youngster. But she never let much affection show through until Johnny had become part of her life. Johnny's father died the following ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... us still; let us up again and new through the canal of Piombino, touching at the isle of Elba, the "Great Emperor's" mimic domain; step into the town lying beneath this rocky bluff; which is crowned by a fort-it is Porto Ferrajo. Look off for a moment from this rocky eminence, back of the town, and see the wild beauty of these Tuscan mountains on the main land. Now, we will over to the Italian coast, and cross, if you will, from Leghorn to Florence. There, ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... down to cases, Colonel Dodd," insisted the spokesman. "We haven't come here without posting ourselves. We know how you have talked to the others. But you can't bluff us. You propose to steal our plant, such of it as we have been able to build to date. One word from you to the money gang takes the hoodoo off us. Now talk business! Do you propose to pot us like you ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... noon the breeze began to slacken. We were at this time between two and three miles from the land, and observed in latitude 15 deg. 23' the Isle of Lepers bearing from E. by N. to S., distance seven leagues; and a high bluff-head, at which the coast we were upon seemed to terminate, N.N.W. 1/2 W., distant ten or eleven leagues; but from the mast-head we could see land to the east. This we judged to be an island, and it bore ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... the same as typhoid. There'll be a surgeon aboard that gunboat. You got to bluff him. Say little an' look wise as an' owl. Don't let him mix ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... "hermaphrodite brig," of about one hundred and fifty tons burden; and had been engaged, for some twelve or fifteen years, in the West India trade. This vessel could not with propriety be regarded as a model of grace and beauty, but gloried in bluff bows, a flat bottom, and a high quarter-deck; carried a large cargo for her tonnage, and moved heavily and reluctantly through ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... they could not lift a snowshoe far in a day's journey. Everybody talked too much. That was why they lied and were unable to work greatly with their hands. Finally, there was a new human force called "bluff." A man who made a bluff must be dead sure of it, or else be prepared to back it up. Bluff was a very good thing—when ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... information," he thought. "Perhaps he's trying to throw me off the scent. I'll put a few questions that no one but an ignoramus would ask in good faith. If he's trying to bluff me, I'll beat him ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... likable personality, made a hero of Schley, but his fellow naval officers felt differently. A court of inquiry held in 1901 found Schley to be at fault, but despite this decision he retained his public popularity, a tribute to his affability and bluff, ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... his holidays with Mrs. Egerton; but as she now resided either in London, or followed her lord to Brighton, to partake of the gayeties at the Pavilion, so as he grew older, William, who had a hearty affection for country life, and of whose bluff manners and rural breeding Mrs. Egerton (having grown exceedingly refined) was openly ashamed, asked and obtained permission to spend his vacations either with his guardians or at the old Hall. He went late to a small college ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... off all that was valuable, he built a house close under a bluff, where a projecting shelf of rock covered a small grotto, which he enlarged with pick and shovel. Before the rainy season set in, he had a comfortable house. They had a store of provisions enough to last for two years, and, in addition, John ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... water. Past low cliffs of ash and volcanic boulder, sloping westward to the sea, which is eating them fast away, the steamer runs in through a deep crack, a pistol-shot in width. On the east side a strange section of gray lava and ash is gnawn into caves. On the right, a bluff rock of black lava dips sheer into water several fathoms deep; and you anchor at once inside an irregular group of craters, having passed through a gap in one of their sides, which has probably been torn out by a lava flow. Whether ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... occurrence they became uncontrollable, and destroyed the buildings and property on five plantations near the scene of the murder. McCook had recently been promoted for gallantry at Mill Springs. He was a brave, bluff, talented man, and his loss ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... Here a pontoon bridge had been thrown over, and a double column of troops and a battery of artillery were crossing at the same time. We pushed ourselves into the throng, as to which there was no semblance of order, and were soon on the other side. On the top of the bluff, some one hundred feet above the river, on our side, we noticed a hospital tent, and we thought if we could reach that we might find shelter and rest, for it was still raining and we were drenched to the skin, and so cold that our ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... that he was talking the most dangerous nonsense, and she rather wanted to say so. Most of her life had been passed among soldiers. Her father had been a general in the Artillery. Her two brothers were serving in India. Her husband had been a bluff and straightforward man of action, full of hard commonsense, and the sterling virtues that so often belong to the martinet. Mr. Amarinth and Lord Reggie were specimens of manhood totally strange to her—until now she had not realised ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... of fatigues, were inspected by the new G.O.C. of the Division, Major-General Fanshawe, enjoyed the sun, and endured a violent thunderstorm. Thence returning to the wood we sampled White Lodge, the Warwick's home under the steep wooded bluff of Hill 63, where the rats made merry among the dirt and unburied food; also La Plus Douce, a pastoral but dangerous spot, where the Douve flowed muddily amidst neglected water-meadows stretching along to Wulverghem with its battered church tower showing among the trees. On the opposite ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... to discover that he has two distinct and separate manners, and that neither expresses the whole truth of his rational life. At one moment he is full of cheerful good sense, the very incarnation of jocular heartiness, a bluff, laughing, rallying, chafing, and tolerant good fellow, overflowing with the milk of human kindness, oozing with the honey of social sweetness. At the next moment, however, the voice sinks suddenly to the key of what Father Knox, I am afraid, would call unctimoniousness, the eyelids ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... followed by hand clapping, during which Jim slipped down. Sara gave him a bear hug. "Oh, Still Jim, you're the light of my weary eyes! Did he call our bluff, Pen, huh?" ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... people, in gratitude for the past, and in anxiety for the future, outbid one another in servility to Russia. They despise Austria-Hungary as powerless, for internal and external reasons. The serious words of our statesmen are regarded as "bluff." ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... eagerly began reading the advertisement. The hill was very steep just at its top, and the sulky slanted backward at a sharp angle. A terrific burst of wind tore around the corner of the bluff. It eddied through the sulky between the dashboard and the curtained sides. The widow, in her excitement at finding the advertisement, had inadvertently removed her feet from the pile of papers. In an instant the air was filled with whirling copies ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... curious question about the sheep. It must have been a password—I saw that now, and I could have kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. Of course I had no idea of the proper answer, but I might at least have replied with some equally cryptic sentence and tried to bluff him into thinking I was using a different code. As it was, I had made it perfectly obvious that I had ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... kind of sea-captain that is found in story-books, but not always in real life. He was stout and grizzled and brown and kind. He had a bluff weather-beaten face, lit up with a pair of shrewd blue eyes which twinkled when he was pleased; and his manner, though it was full of the habit of command, was quiet and pleasant. He was a Martinet on board his ship. Not a sailor under ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... view. It is this. If the prisoner had made up his mind to do this, would not a clever man, such as he undoubtedly is, probably come to the conclusion that it would seem so absurd that he should leave the knife in the body of his victim that he might do so as a mere matter of bluff? A clever man, a far-seeing man will sometimes do things which a duller man would not do, and it is for you to decide whether these things might not have been in the mind of the prisoner when he decided ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... forgotten their early experience, for they got out the boats to tow, and employed their time so well that by sunrise the frigate was two leagues astern. After 18 hours' more chase the Adams dropped her. But in a day or two she ran across a couple more, one of which, an old bluff-bows, was soon thrown out; but the other was very fast, and kept close on the corvette's heels. As before, the frigate was to leeward. The Adams had been built by contract; one side was let to a sub-contractor of economical ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... bluff of a democratic crusade must be called, so must the knight-leader of the crusade be exposed to the critical eyes of the world. Here was the President, suddenly elevated to the position of a world leader with the almost pathetic trust of the peoples of the world. Here ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... Peter sternly; "as weak as a soft-boiled egg! What Ireland wants is a firm hand, and if that's not enough, a swift kick after it! Concession! Who wants concessions? A sensible man doesn't make concessions unless he's trying to bluff you into thinking he's got what he hasn't got, or is getting out of you what ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... most imposing portion of the gorge; on through an amphitheatre where densely-wooded mountains on either side were reflected in smooth water; on beneath masses that appeared about to topple, and over shallows where it looked as if we must be grounded; on round a bluff which had hidden the sudden opening of the valley into a broad sweep, and which had hindered us from seeing Orsova the Fair nestling closely to her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... remaining there for some days, as was done, in difficulty, actual or feigned, about getting coal; but why the large expense was incurred of passing through the canal, merely to double the amount by returning, is beyond understanding. It may have been simply to carry bluff to the extreme point; but it is difficult not to suspect some motive not yet revealed, and ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... residence. Sombre memories overhang this "Cannoneer's Valley," this Topschidere, where Michael, the son and successor of good Milosch as sovereign prince of the nation, perished by assassination in 1868. In a few minutes we are whisked round a corner, and a high wooded bluff conceals the White City from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... practised in Nippon. On the beach at Kamakura at times can be found straw chaplets with gaudy cloth attached to the centre; a copper coin, and rice offering are accompaniments. Or such will be found at the crossroads of town or village, or on the Yokohama Bluff. Or in times of epidemic in numbers they are laid on the wayside shrine of the god of measles or other disease. The latter disposition conveys its own warning; the others are majinai or charms by which it is hoped to transfer the disease ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... easier driving with the wind behind him, and Jan hit a hundred kilometers an hour several times before striking the rougher ground of Den Hoorn. Now, if he could only find a way over the bluff raised ...
— Wind • Charles Louis Fontenay
... bluff he heard, above the clamor of the flood, a faint metallic "tap-tap-tap," as of hammer and drill, and, drawing closer, he saw Dan Appleton perched upon a rock which commanded a view in both directions. Just around the shoulder, in a tiny gulch, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... box. She had to grope her way along the passage outside the stalls, but Bordenave guessed where she was as she passed along in the dark and caught her up at the end of the corridor passing behind the scenes, a narrow tunnel where the gas burned day and night. Here, in order to bluff her into a bargain, he plunged into a ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... Bradley burst out, violently. "There's not a gram of metal inside the fourth zone—within a hundred thousand kilometers—and yet they must be close to send such a wave as that. But the Second thinks not—what do you think, Costigan?" The bluff commander, reactionary and of the old school as was his breed, was furious—baffled, raging inwardly to come to grips with the invisible and undetectable foe. Face to face with the inexplicable, however, he listened to the younger men ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... they used to drink and gamble away their hard-won dollars, few of these men caring for anything beyond the indulgence of immediate fancies. But Pierre was ambitious, and thought that money might be made subservient to his aspirations in a better way than speculating with it upon "bluff" or squandering it upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the Emperor were mad, he must be treated accordingly, and the old statesman condescended to "bluff." ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... profit politically by the Pretender's visit, paid the penalty of their meanness and their rudeness to him later on. Sung was polite, as at that time Sung and Ts'u were both aiming at the Protectorship. Ts'u's hospitality was bluff and good-natured, the King being too strong to fear, and too unsophisticated to intrigue after Chinese fashion. Just then news coming from Ts'in that the Pretender's brothers had all resigned or died, and that his chance had now come, the Pretender hurried to Tsin, regained his throne, and ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... few things, Brencherly, remember. Baker Allen told me your office held him up good and plenty to turn in a different report when his wife employed you, and you 'got the goods on him.' Now, don't give me any bluff. I want facts, and I pay you for them, don't I? Well, when you got that story, you looked ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... I thought maybe he really had had business at the Gare de Lyon, and that I'd partly misjudged him. And then it flashed into my head that, on the contrary, he didn't really know Sir Lionel, but had overheard the name, and was doing a "bluff" to get introduced to me. Wasn't that a conceited idea? But neither was true. At least the latter wasn't, I know, and I'm pretty sure the first wasn't. What I think, is this: that he simply followed me to the Gare de Lyon for the "deviltry" of the thing, and because he'd nothing better ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... contemptuously. "Mere bluff! Of such a pill as that I've described there'd be no trace but the sugar coating—and the poison. I tell you, I haven't the least doubt that that was how the poison was administered. It was easy. And—who is there that ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... of a bluff but good-hearted old marquis who was not very successful in bringing up his family. Young Mirabeau had been so immoral and unruly that his father had repeatedly obtained lettres de cachet from the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... of their Majesties was erected on a stage in the shape of a semicircle, and covered with a bluff carpet studded with bees, and was reached by twenty-two steps. The throne, draped in red velvet, was also covered by a pavilion of the same color, the left wing of which extended over the Empress, the princesses, and their maids of honor, and the right ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... development. The ideal of the strategist, as antiquity saw it, appears to be consummated in his person. William James, himself an ardent pacificist, well observed that in the modern soldier there is a matter-of-factness far removed from the bluff and make-believe of modern life in general. He might have chosen Moltke as the best type of this sort of warrior. But there was much more than this scientific and dutiful soldier; there was at bottom of Moltke's nature a fine sense of proportion, an artistic vein, and, not the least element, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the Wilsons at Beverly Farms was on a bluff overlooking the sea. It was reached by a long avenue winding through pines mingled with birches and rowan trees; and stood in a clearing where all the day and all the night the sound of the waves on the cliff answered the whispering of the wind in the pine-tops. ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... deck-planks. In other seasons we were driven by storm and stress. But at length, in spite of every obstacle, an unbroken coast stretched before us far as the eye could reach. For three days we sailed past verdure-covered hills, white, sandy beaches, and bluff headlands, until Hartog felt assured the Great South Continent was at last in ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... in Horace Lansing's demeanour. From a blustering braggart, he became a pale and cringing coward. But with a desperate attempt to bluff it out, he exclaimed, "What do you mean?" but even as he spoke, he shivered and staggered backward, as if ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... descending floods, toward the rushing torrents—drenched to the skin, on she passed toward the railroad to the well remembered foot-log, only to find the waters rushing along high above and beyond the place where it had been. Then she thought of the great bluff rising to the west of her home and extending southward toward the railroad track, and she determined to ascend it and reach the bridge over this barrier to the waters. Need I recount how she struggled on and up through the thick oak undergrowth, that, being storm-laden ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Mr Button long to reach the hill-top, and there she was, beating up for the island. Bluff-bowed and squab, the figure of an old Dutch woman, and telling of her trade a league off. It was just after the rains, the sky was not yet quite clear of clouds; you could see showers away at sea, and the sea was green ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... when the Government of Canada was established in the Province of Manitoba, which included the district of Assiniboia, the Sioux were found living quietly in tents, in the parishes of Poplar Point, High Bluff, and Portage la Prairie, in what became the new Province of Manitoba. Immigrants from Ontario, had begun to settle in that section of the Province, and the ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... men returning with some of the horses for rations. They informed me that the water was nearly all gone, but that there was plenty in the Elizabeth, nineteen miles from Pernatta. I intended to keep on the track, but our black insisted that Pernatta lay through a gap, and not round the bluff. I allowed him to have his own way. Our route was through a very stony saddle. When there we saw a gum creek, and made for it; when we arrived at the creek he told us that was Pernatta. We looked ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... He gave her a ribbon and she promised to marry him. Just a bluff! And then he wanted his ribbon back, but she had already made it into garters, and when he tried to take them by force she boxed him smartly. He got fussy, drank a gallon of gooseberry wine, smoked two cigarettes and making out that he was a great bounder, ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... box—or, if you prefer it stated symbolically, a small bachs. "Ah! Master Bach," said the Prussian King, condescendingly, "What have you in your hand?" "A Boehm flute, your majesty," answered Bach; "for it I have composed a concerto in seven flats." "You lie!" retorted the bluff monarch, "the Boehm flute has not yet been invented. Away with you, hayseed from Halle." Whereat the mighty Bach softly laughed, being tickled by the regal repartee, and stole home, and there he sat him down and composed a nine-part ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... fleet, being a sloop of less than thirteen hundred tons, with a battery of fifteen guns, none of long range. Clearly such an armada as this could be of but little avail against the earthworks which the Virginians were busily erecting on every commanding bluff. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the sails tacking in to Tralee, And the dip of the bluff Dingle bows, And under Beenaman the surge of the sea, The heathery slopes that are haunts for the bee Where Carraghmore ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... but a big bluff and a coward. You would have known that he was a coward, by the lies he had told and by the way he had attacked us. He ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... the wishes and the theories of many excellent people has nothing to do with its truth. If all children were the bluff, hearty, charmingly naughty, enviably happy, utterly simple and unsentimental beings that some of us wish, and so assert them to be, it might be better for them, or it might not—who can say? That the healthy, careless, rough and ready type is the one to encourage, many will agree, who cannot agree ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was only a bluff of Hank's to make me ride along so he and his pal might follow us. I haven't the least doubt but that both of those cowardly rascals are hiding just out of sight where they can watch my every movement. Should we start to ride along towards the cave, ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... head like a toy in a window. People tried to get past him in all the ways people try to get through life, in the ways that Saint Peter must grow very tired of at the gate of heaven—bluff, ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... little stock of pins, needles, thread, and buttons. These he peddled along the way; and, at last, after fifteen days of slow travel, the emigrants came to the spot picked out for a home. This time it was on a small bluff on the north fork of the Sangamon River, ten miles west of the town of Decatur. The usual log house was built; the boys, with the oxen, "broke up," or cleared, fifteen acres of land, and split ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Lake, the traveler met a wolf which bristled and snarled but at last surrendered the right of way before the superior bluff, which was put up against him, backed by a "big stick." That night he stayed with a friend named Terry, who had come West the year before, and preempted a piece of land on the east shore rock, about seven miles above Watertown. The next morning he saw on ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... ran a stud-poker game, with a Jap an' a Chinaman for partners. They were quicker than white men, an' less likely to lose their nerve. It was easy money, like taking candy from a kid. Often I would play on the square. No man can bluff strong without showing it. Maybe it's just a quiver of the eyelash, maybe a shuffle of the foot. I've studied a man for a month till I found the sign that gave him away. Then I've raised an' raised him till the sweat pricked through his brow. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... swamps that breed mosquitoes and fever, and in laying out gravel walks, water mains, and open cement gutters, and in erecting model hospitals, barracks, and administrative offices. Even grass has been made to grow, and the high bluff upon which are situated the homes of the white officials and Government House has been trimmed and cultivated and tamed until it looks like an English park. It is a complete imitation, even to golf links and tennis courts. But the fight that ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... for all that you could not get a single glance from him except as a great favour, remembering the while to address him by all his title and offices. From him I turned my eyes to the other side of the street, and saw a bluff young nobleman with a numerous following, smiling graciously and bowing low to everyone he met. "It is strange," said I, "that these two should belong to the same street." "It is the same princess—Pride, who governs them both," answered he, "this one's ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... played rationally, the machine had a slight edge, since it had a perfect memory and could compute faster than Mike could. But it would not, could not learn how to bluff. As soon as Mike started bluffing, the robot went into ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... was a broad-shouldered man of moderate stature, who had lost the sight of one eye. The other, being covered with a green shade, gave him an ill look. His manner, however, was hearty, and showed a bluff, off-hand cordiality, as he welcomed the party to the hospitalities of the Travellers' Rest. He was familiarly called "Larry," by Fletcher, who greeted him ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... which it is bounded end abruptly on the coast. To the north a long chain of lofty rugged cliffs mark the bearing of the shore in that direction, and turning southwards, the spectator beholds, seven or eight miles distant, the spacious harbour of Botany Bay, beyond which a high bluff range of hills extends along to the south in the direction towards Illawarra. Westward one vast forest is to be seen, varied only by occasional openings which cultivation and the axe have made on the tops of some of the highest hills. Beyond ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... that bottom we've found as good clay for pottery, sewer-pipes, and paving-brick as exists anywhere. Back there where you saw that bluff along the river—looks as if it's sliding down into the water—remember it? Well, there's probably the only place in the world where there's just the juxtaposition of sand and clay and chalk to make Portland cement. Supply ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... by the bluff greeting of an acquaintance not dissimilar to himself in age, manner, ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... W. Terry, foreman of the iron and fitting department of the Chicago West Division Street Car Company; J. D. Baltimore, engineer, machinist, and inventor, of Washington, D. C.; Wiley Jones, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the owner of a street car railroad, race track and park; Richard Hancock, foreman of the pattern shops of the Eagle Works and Manufacturing Company, and draughtsman; John Beack, the inventor, whose inventions ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... down to her meals, and another a physician who had not been able, in embracing the medical profession, to deny herself the girlish pleasure of her pet name, and was lettered in the list of guests in the entry as Dr. Cissie Bluff. In the attic, which had a north-light favourable to their work, were two girls, who were studying art at the Museum; one of them looked delicate at first sight, and afterwards seemed merely very gentle, with a clear-eyed ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... work in the Houston General Office, and some eight months after reaching there I received a message from my old friend Clarke, saying, "if I had improved any in my commercial work he would give me a job at seventy dollars per month." I hadn't improved much, but as this world is two-thirds bluff, I made mine, and said I'd come, trusting to luck to be able ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... appeared to be elevated several feet above the level of the sea,—at one end having a bold bluff-like termination, at the other shelving off in a ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... of it on the I'll Away. It was rumour that had cursed me there, and he started to work upon rumour. I had put up a plate in Harley Street, as you know, upon the dregs of my capital. This meant a certain bluff upon credit. If my reputation lasted me out six months, all would be well. He divined this and struck at it. To do him justice, I suppose that if he had walked up brutally to the Medical Association and given them his ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... up good this morning, Mr. Cox. When do you think I called you up last night? When could it have been if not after my sister broke her confidence to tell me? Why do you think all of a sudden last night I seen your bluff through about Gerber? It was because I knew I had you where you needed me, Charley—I never would have dragged you down the other way in a million years, but when I knew I had you where you needed me—why, from that minute, honey, you didn't have ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... to laugh at them. The wind was in the east, and the weather set fair, and but for the sea-mist the power of the sun would have been enough to dazzle all beholders. Already this vapour was beginning to clear off, coiling up in fleecy wisps above the glistening water, but clinging still to any bluff or cliff ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the pis'kun walls and came toward her. "Come," he said, taking hold of her arm. "No, no!" she replied pulling back. "But you said if the buffalo would jump over, you would marry one; see, the pis'kun is filled." And without more talk he led her up over the bluff, and out ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... Upon the bluff of Wreckers' Head was to be dimly seen the sprawling Ball homestead. Tunis pointed it ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... leader of the first patrol, and acting scoutmaster in the absence of Mr. Gordon, found that he had duties to perform. Paul, in spite of his wishes, had been elected president of the local council, Jud being the vice-president, Bluff treasurer ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... father? The child can't live. It is one of the worst cases of croup I have had this year, why didn't you send for me sooner? Where is his father? It is now just twelve o'clock, time for all respectable men to be in the house," said the bluff but kind hearted family doctor looking tenderly upon Jeanette's little boy who lay gasping for breath in ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... to me. I go walking with Aunt Josephine. I don't understand why I'm sandwiched in between Havens and Aunt Josephine. Otherwise the arrangement is neat. There is a veranda outside our windows. We sit upon it. Aunt Josephine is a great bluff, but she's clever. She's never napping. I've tried to pump her. Miss Crozier is harmless. She doesn't care. Havens never takes his eyes off Mrs. W. when they are together. She looks at him a good bit, too. They don't pay much attention to me. Aunt ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... distance, and it appeared like a cape or head of land. The sea breeze this day was not so strong as the day before, and it veered out more, so that we had a fair wind to run in with to the shore, and at sunset anchored in twenty fathom, clean sand, about five leagues from the Bluff point, which was not a cape (as it appeared at a great distance), but the easternmost end of an island about five or six leagues in length, and one in breadth. There were three or four rocky islands ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... his game of bluff a safe one, for his claims were just, and diplomacy was derelict, or there would have been no utility in the demonstration. But the futility of the Greek threats was most conspicuously shown, for not a battalion got to the frontier in a condition to fight, and two batteries sent off from Athens ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... before this occurrence I had directed my party to proceed to the village, as I had discovered a smoke ascending from a hollow in the bluff, and wished to go alone to the place from whence the smoke proceeded, to see who was there. I approached the spot, and when I came in view of the fire, I saw an old man sitting in sorrow beneath a mat which he had stretched over him. At any other time I would ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... nearly dark when we came to a saw-mill by the roadside. The scenery is pretty all the way from Christiania, but not very striking till the train passes the narrow gorge in which the saw-mill is situated, where there is a tunnel of a few hundred feet that penetrates a bluff on the left. Emerging from this, we are close upon the charming little village of Eidsvold, one of the loveliest spots in this land of beauty. A few minutes more brought us to the station-house, where the railway ends. Here we found ourselves at a good ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... dismissed with slight ceremony; and soon as eaten, they recaparison their horses; then leading them out of the cavern, mount, and are off. As the arroyo has long since shrunk to its ordinary level, and the path along the base of the bluff is dry as when trodden by them in their rush for shelter from the storm, they have no difficulty in getting out. So on they ride up the steep acclivity to the cliff's crest; which last is on a level with ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... the sweet murmur of the sea in the distance. There was no wind, and the pale light of the moon lit up the scene, which was grand in the extreme. On my right hand behind me, rose the giant cliffs, rugged and forbidding, on the great headland stood our house, bluff and bold like an ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... The house stood upon the crest of what had been a roll in the prairie, and as the two leant together on the railing of the stoop, they looked out over a small orchard of peach-trees to where, a couple of hundred yards away, at the foot of the bluff, Cottonwood Creek ran, fringed on either bank by the trees which had suggested its name. On the horizon to their right, away beyond the spears of yellow maize, the sun was sinking, a ball of orange fire against the rose mist of the sky. When the girl turned ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... put up a fight, Kit, it would have been a good deal more interesting," said Calvert, "but you always were one of the biggest cowards that ever made a bluff at being a bad man. ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... her christening, and could even remember things that happened before that, her wonderful journey, she found, had slipped entirely from her mind. But her mother and the three big brothers, ever reminded by the stone-piled mound on the carnelian bluff, ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... ape-man held his heavy spear; but he had no intention of pitting his puny weapon against seven lions; yet he stood there growling and roaring and the lions did likewise. It was purely an exhibition of jungle bluff. Each was trying to frighten off the other. Neither wished to turn back and give way, nor did either at first desire to precipitate an encounter. The lions were fed sufficiently so as not to be goaded by pangs of hunger and as for Tarzan he seldom ate the meat of the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the boy's name, and Cornelius and I walked along with him till we got off the street—Cornel' was sharp enough not to tackle him near the school. As soon as the crowd thinned out, he asked him if he had that locket, and at first Burt put up a bluff. Finally he admitted that he got it from Greg. Simpson; said he swapped a lot of tops ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... removed from the condition of a contadine, or peasant. Look at the speaking portrait of the artist by his own hand which hangs on the wall of the Collegio dell' arti del Cambio in Perugia, the walls of which are covered with immortal frescoes by him. It is a broad, bluff, open face, with abundance of brain-development, with plenty of shrewd intelligence, and not a little of strong volition—the presentation of a strong, highly-gifted and thoroughly self-radiant character, but the last face in the world to have belonged to a man accustomed to sacrifice much to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various |
