"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... says. 'While I ain't sayin' it's pure joy to have him around, I ain't got the heart to hand it to him. I don't mind trimmin' boobs—that's what they're for—but this Elsy thing is too soft. He must be in quite a wad on this bum ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... the best, when the days is warm, With his bum Prince-Albert on his arm— He likes to size up a farmhouse where They haint no man ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... a new boarder to-day, a feller with bum nerves who come from the city. Gee! but he's togged out t' kill. Got money, too, an' ain't afraid to spend it. ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... "Cruel, cruel Polly Hopkins, treat me so,—oh, treat me so!" till they fell, at last, into an indistinguishable jumble and clamor, from which extricated themselves now and again and prevailed, the choruses of "Upidee," and "Bum-bum-bye," with an occasional drum-beat of emphasis given upon ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... old hoss, if John D. Rockefeller shud come With all the riches his paws are on And want to buy you, you bum, I'd laugh in his face an' pat your neck An' say to him loud an' strong: "I wouldn't sell you this derned old wreck For all ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... our backs. Just fancy what a guy your big brother looked on Lexington street, where all the ladies here go shopping! I should have died if I had seen anybody from home. There wasn't any breaking away, because they were too many for us. One "freshy" tried it, and he's going around with a bum eye and his ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... Hope to die if I didn't. I was just coming to camp from town. Some men kept me, and made me sing and dance for them—you know how I can sing—tra-la-la-da-do-da-bum! They promised me a dollar, but didn't give it to me. I was running to get out of the wet when I plumped into something fearful—a ghost! Your father, covered with blood, and groaning and moaning, 'Robbed, robbed; almost murdered!' That's what ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... you be so kind as to bring me another box of caramels?" Annie, without stopping her work or so much as looking up, raises her voice and calls down the room—and in her heart she is the same exactly as Elizabeth W.—"Fannie, you bum, bring me a box of car'mels or I'll knock the hell clean ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... makes it easier. It's the woman's suit-case, and if we can't find out who she is from that, we're pretty bum, eh?" ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... incredibly coarse: "Gimme the dough," he said without a tremor of surprise. Indeed there was a metallic ring of menace in his low and entirely cold tones as he laid one hand on my arm. "No welchin'," he said, "or I put the whole show on the bum!" ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... one of the apples; and, hearing him say, with a loud gaffaw, "Where is the tailor?" I took to my heels, and never stopped till I found myself on the little stool by the fireside, and the hamely sound of my mother's wheel bum-bumming in my lug, like ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... sun was out o' sight, And darker gloamin' brought the night; [twilight] The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone, [cockchafer] The kye stood rowtin' i' the loan; [cattle, lowing, lane] When up they gat and shook their lugs, [ears] Rejoiced they werena men but dogs; And each took aff his several way, Resolved to meet ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... self entered into its composition in about equal proportions; hence the sailing-master who neglected to salute the flag, or who through ignorance, crass stupidity, or malice aforethought flew prohibited colours, was no more liable to be taught an exemplary lesson than the bum-boatman who sauced the officer of the watch when detected in the act of smuggling spirits or women into one of ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... knocker, peradventure, guess, prof, classy, booze, per se, cute, biz, bug-house, swell, opry, rep, photo, cinch, corker, in cahoot, pants, fess up, exam, bike, incog, zoo, secondhanded, getable, outclassed, gents, mucker, galoot, dub, up against it, on tick, to rattle, in hock, busted on the bum, to watch out, ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... Joe into the vestibule of one of the many slum saloons abounding in that locality, and here he watched the mounted police hard at work trying to again open the thoroughfare. While he thus passed the time until he could cross the street, he was accosted by a typical Chicago rum-soaked bum. "Say, friend," the semi-maudlin wretch pleaded while he edged most uncomfortably close to Joe, "would you mind assisting a hungry fellow who has not eaten a square meal in a week?" More for the sake of getting rid of his unpleasant company, than from a desire to accord ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... no harm meant. That's right, stand by him. I like to see it. Why, a little queen across the counter from you tole me you'd have married him if he'd had three bum lungs, ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... his guest with a deprecating wave of the hand. "A cook what sings! Which in the old days I wouldn't have had a bum like that around my place, but ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... troubled souls solve their problems. A sudden withdrawal from the world we call stupor. When the same thing happens insidiously, the condition is labeled according to the financial and social status of the victim. He is a bum, a loafer, a mendicant or, more politely, a disillusioned recluse. Frequently this undiagnosed dement has satisfied himself with a weak, cynical philosophy that life ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... Gen[)a]bum, Orleans, an ancient town in Gaul, famous for the massacre of the Roman citizens committed there by ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... in the morning, she seems to drift off into a peaceful slumber, but awakens on the moment and hurrying all the way up to the other end of Main Street she slams the bass keys a couple of hard blows—bumetty-bum! And so it goes for quite a long spell after that: Tippy-tap!—off to the country for a week-end party, Friday to Monday; bumetty-bum!—six months elapse between the third and fourth acts; tippetty-tip!—two years later; dear me, how the old place has changed! Biffetty-biff! Gracious, ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... "You big bum, do you think I really care?" He grinned. "Don't feel too guilty, Twin. We've been back to ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... witnesses of the defendants' guilt, and they now state the circumstances as being indubitable proof. This argument manifests, in those who use it, an equal want of sense and sensibility. It is precisely fitted to the feeling and the intellect of a bum-bailiff. In a court of justice it deserves nothing but contempt. Is there nothing that can agitate the frame or excite the blood but the consciousness of guilt? If the defendants were innocent, would they not feel indignation at this unjust accusation? If they saw an attempt to produce false ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... some yearlings in there that belong in the 'bum bunch,' and six or eight with wrong earmarks. We'll have to catch them." Kate set the example by walking in among them, and immediately a cloud of dust arose as the frightened sheep ran bleating in a circle. Above the din Kate's voice rose sharp and imperative as her trained ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... room," invited Herbert, leading the way. "It's a pretty bum joint, but it's the best in the house—the best I could find in this wretched hole of a town. I'm mighty glad to see you, old pal, though I may not appear to be. Oh, blazes! but I have ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... are highly destructivrous to corns of poor peoples and are worthy for killing because they devast the fields too much by their carnivrous fooding. I have also four nice horses for riding which I can let your sons use for the hunting purpose. They are well accustomed to the bum-bum-budam of guns and ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... into the maelstrom of contradictory historical data, some of which credits Wiglaf with being the greatest ruler Mercia ever had and some of which indicates that he was nothing but a royal bum. It is not the purpose of this biography to try to settle the dispute. All we know for a fact is that he was a very human man who had faults like the rest of us and that shortly after becoming king he ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... three hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at the finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I manage for "kipping"?—which means sleeping. Did I know the rounds yet? He was getting on, though the country was "horstyl" and the cities were "bum." Fierce, wasn't it? Couldn't "batter" (beg) anywhere without being "pinched." But he wasn't going to quit it. Buffalo Bill's Show was coming over soon, and a man who could drive eight horses was sure of a job any time. These mugs over here didn't know beans ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Ceylon, where we lay a couple of days; during which time the crew got and kept most unaccountably drunk. The officers tried every method to solve the mystery, but without effect. The truth was, the men became suddenly fond of cocoa-nuts, selecting them from the bum-boats in preference to any other fruit. The secret was, that the shell was bored before the nut was quite ripe, the juice poured out, and Arrack substituted in its place. Our next place of stopping was Madras, where we took in more cargo, but no more cocoa-nuts, as no fruit-boats put ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... I ran away with the circus," he soliloquized in the midst of the throng milling up the Elevated station stairs. "And later, when I had come back from the circus, I took that long bum on brake-beams. And when I had come back from that, a little later I went off in the forecastle of the 'Tropic Bird' to Tahiti. And each time that flapping business came first. Every time I've done something wild and foolish, I've flapped first like this. First I'd flap, then ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... "Majority rules," they said, "and there's three of us against you. We can't sleep while you have that lamp burning. The light keeps us awake and it also makes the room so hot that the devil couldn't stand it. If you stay up reading to-night we'll give you the bum's rush." ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... lives of the younger boarding-school boys and girls of the nineteenth century, particularly eight to thirteen year-old boys. I can tell you that not a lot had changed by the time I was at such a school, less than fifty years later. Even the Eton collar and the bum-freezer jacket was familiar to me! ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... her early triumphs, lured by the attractive offer of a vaudeville manager. In this new field she appeared for a short time; but when on the roof they put her on the programme sandwiched between a troup of performing dogs and a bunch of bum acrobats—she kicked! Any self-respecting artiste would have done the same! I agreed with her. She, too, like the Montgomerys, and other noble families, had been caught in the Knicknack disaster, and her savings ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... idea: As a witness you're on the bum, but as a spy, you're it. They know that you blabbed, and that I know it; they know I've had you in the hole. So now what I want to do is to make a ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bum for his throttle, and a fresh application to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three in ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... waters of Red River, with Dan Davidson in the stern of one and Fergus McKay acting as his bowman. Okematan took the stern of the other, while Archie Sinclair wielded the bow-paddle, and Little Bill was placed in the middle on a comfortable green blanket with the celebrated "bum-rella" erected over him to keep off, not the rain, but, ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... descriptions of things which I cannot but recognise. M. S—-, with his pince- nez, the Doctor, and, above all, the rapids of the Ogowe, rolling his hands round and round each other and clashing them forward with a descriptive ejaculation of "Whish, flash, bum, bum, bump," and then comes what evidently represents a terrific fight for life against terrific odds. Wish to goodness I knew French, for wishing to see these rapids, I cannot help feeling anxious and worried at not fully understanding ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... weren't fifty in the audience. She couldn't act. I mean she couldn't draw. The whole company was on the bum and stone-broke. They'd scraped out of Australia and the Sandwich Islands, but it looked as if they'd stay in Calcutta, doing good works, such as mending roads for the public, to the end ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... TO BUM. To arrest a debtor. The gill bummed the swell for a thimble; the tradesman arrested the gentleman for ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... said the constable, leaning forward and waving his cigar. "You're fren' of mine—sure thing. 'S af'ernoon now, but I was plumb fooled this mornin'. Y' know i's af'ernoon now. Thought you was the guy I'm lookin' for. H'overlan' Red—bum—tram'. Wire from Loshangeles to upperan' him if he ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... owners to obtain their rents was at once removed by Lord Roberts. In order to give effect to this decision it was necessary to appoint officials. Practically what was really required was a sort of glorified bum-bailiff, with the necessary assistance, the bum-bailiff holding a position similar to that of a magistrate. I was asked to suggest the name of a senior officer of the Australians who would be suitable. I did so. But ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... exclaimed; "a blow-out! I was a fool to leave that bum shoe on the rear! And the spare ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... and I'll keep watching. Since Farquaharson got this bug about writing stories he's taken to rambling around town at night. I said he didn't seem to want companions, but when he goes out on these prowls he'll talk for hours with any dirty old bum that stops him and he always falls for pan-handling. Beggars, street-walkers, any sort of old down-and-outer interests him, if it's hard luck ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... or two judges in police courts I got acquainted with had that there idea of me. I always explains that I am not one, and am jest travelling around to see things, and working when I feels like it, and ain't no bum. But frequent I am not believed. And two, three different times I gets to the place where I couldn't hardly of told myself from a hobo, if I hadn't of knowed I ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... bum!" exclaimed Bunker in a rage as the miner passed over the first hill and, stumping across the street, he rolled up the tumbled blankets. "The dirty dog!" he grumbled vindictively, hoisting the bed upon his shoulders; but as he started back to ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... have got to stand together this way or there wouldn't be any political parties in a short time. Civil service would gobble up everything, politicians would be on the bum, the republic would fall and soon there would be the ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... your lack of acuteness, my fat friend. Because I do not patter the flash lingo with you, you appear to take me for a college professor in disguise. You are not a real tramp. You are a bum, a loafer, a yeg. You never traveled more than two hundred miles away from Hoboken—the capital city of hoboes. Have you ever hit the sage-brush trail, hiked the milk-and-honey route from Ogden through the Mormon country, decked the Overland Express, beaten the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... tobacconist! Sot, you Cherokee!" screams out Mr. William. "Jump out of bed, and I'll drive my sword through your body. Why didn't I do it to-day when I took you for a bailiff—a confounded pettifogging bum-bailiff!" And he went on screeching more oaths and incoherencies, until the landlord, the drawer, the hostler, and all the folks of the kitchen were brought to lead him away. After which Harry Warrington closed ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know that his name is Jack Hoag; he's a little bit of a trapper and a big bit of a bum; stuck me last year. He doesn't come out this way; they say he goes out by the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... be envied a heap," said Mrs. Rust. "I 'lows all men has their faults, but Will Henderson ain't no sort of bokay of virtues. He's a drunken bum anyway." ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... to-day. I knew you were thinking that. I knew it all the time I was in Colorado, growing up from a sickly kid, with a bum lung, to a heap big strong man. It forced me to do things I was afraid to do. It goaded me on to stunts at the very thought of which I'd break out in a clammy sweat. Don't you see how I'll have to turn handsprings in front of you, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... customer," he cried, "and a bum waiter comes along and beats him up just when he is trying to have a little innocent sport on Christmas Eve. You take off your apron, young man, and get your time. I won't have no rough stuff ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... can't do that!" wailed the invalid. He wheeled his chair toward his nephew. "You wouldn't do that if my friend Lopez was here, you big bum!" he ended, ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... declared easily, "if I ladled out good United States currency, to feed that bum tough James an' his crew o' hawks, seems to me its findin' its way ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... scornfully. "I don't explain. No, he wasn't drinking! Nor he wasn't crazy!" McAlpin took the burning cigar from his mouth. "That's the cigar he give me, right there—and a bum one. Barb never smoked a good one in his life—you know that, Henry? I don't explain—I drink. Hold on!" he exclaimed, as he emptied his glass with a single gulp. He was looking across the street and pointing. "Who's that over there ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... all right!" Tommy exclaimed. "He's a bum Chicago detective out after some fugitive from justice and he thinks its foxy to lie about his occupation and his residence. Don't you think I know the earmarks of a Chicago ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... think twice before taking a stranger into my family," said Belding, seriously. "Well, I guess he's all right, Laddy, being the cavalryman's friend. No bum or lunger? He must be ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the buttermilk a-bumming, For the yellow butter's coming. It will come, come, come, With a bum, bum, bum, All the buttermilk a-bumming, When ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... points out to Sergeant M'Snape, "a body can breathe withoot swallowing a wheen bluebottles and bum-bees. A body can aye streitch himself doon under a tree for a bit sleep withoot getting wasps and wee beasties crawling up inside his kilt, and puddocks craw-crawing in his ear! A body can keep ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... was changed over into the Steenhundred and Umpty-umpth, wasn't it? The last that was heard from them they were at Blankville-sur-Bum. Now they've moved to Bingville-le-somethingorother. Clerk! Shove ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... through. Get to hell out of here. You'll be hung yet, you loafer. A good-for-nothing bum, that's ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... open-mouthed with delight, and, as usual with bright spirits of this calibre, did not even notice his friend's sadness. "Cupid had clapped him on the shoulder," as Shakespeare hath it; and it was a deal nicer than the bum-bailiff rheumatism. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... I, "forgettin' what a great man you are so long as Father's payin' the bills, let's figure on just what your standin' is now. You're a bum bond clerk, on the ragged edge of bein' fired, ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... turned back to the lawyer. "I've a little personal business you might attend to," he said. Wilding set himself to listen, resignedly, imagining that this bum would yield him ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... did. The rule for elevator boys is still somewhat in the air, because so few of these bum hotels over here have elevators, but you can sort of reason the thing out if you put your mind on it. When you get on a street car in Germany, what tip ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... Ide, "if you've told it to me straight. I should think a man put on the bum from a good job just in one day would be tearing ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... nations meet, From near Bunhill, and distant Watling-street. No Persian carpets spread th' imperial way, But scatter'd limbs of mangled Poets lay; From dusty shops neglected authors come, Martyrs of pies, and reliques of the bum. Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay, But loads of Shadwell almost chok'd the way. Bilk'd stationers for yeomen stood prepar'd, And Herringman was captain of the guard. The hoary prince in majesty appear'd, High on a throne of his own labours rear'd. At his right hand our young ...
— English Satires • Various
... soft hat. The image was photographed upon his brain for life—the honest, laughing eyes, the well moulded features harmonizing so well with the voice, and the impossible garments which marked the man hobo and bum as plainly as though he wore a placard suspended from ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... took the trouble to count 'em, —nothing else to do. I ain't got a word out of 'im yet, an' I've been sittin' 'ere ever since eight o'clock s'mornin'. I'm a conwivial cock, I am,—a sociable cove, yes, sir, a s-o-s-h-able cove as ever wore a pair o' boots. Wot I sez is,—though a bum, why not a sociable bum, and try to make things nice and pleasant, and I does my best, give you my word! But Lord! all my efforts is wasted on that ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... pulmonary subject I, Tra la la la la, bum bum! It can't last long until I die, Tra la la la ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... to visit the lake less often and to wish that September and the opening of college would arrive. When the day finally came to return, he was almost as much excited as he had been the year before. Gosh! it would be good to see Carl again. The bum had written only once. Yeah, and Pudge Jamieson, too, and Larry Stillwell, and Bill Freeman, and—yes, by golly! Merton Billings. He'd be glad to see old Fat Billings. He wondered if Merton was ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... past is not to come, with a hey, with a hey, Now safe is David's bum, with a ho; Then hey for Oxford ho, Strong government, raree show, With ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... it is," said Mitch. "It's near two hundred miles. I looked it up. But it's as easy as pie to get there. Look here—we can bum our way or walk to Havaner—then we can get a job on a steamboat and go to St. Louis—then we can bum or walk our way to Hannibal—and some fine mornin' you and I will be standin' on the shore of the Mississippi—and ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the orchard, like a bum-baily. So soon as ever thou see'st him, draw; and as thou drawest, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... decoration did not hinder the y practical employment of every corner of space. He takes us to the crowded Piazza before San Giacometto at the Rialto, where the business of the world is transacted, not amid shouting and confusion, but with the subdued bum of many voices; where in the porticoes round the square and in those of the adjoining streets sit hundreds of money changers and goldsmiths, with endless rows of shops and warehouses above their heads. ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... mean to told me you are going to send that loafer money he should come over here and bum ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... more and more terrifying speed, he loosened the drag and threw it under the hind wheel, and at this abrupt braking the wagon leaped mightily into the air, like a startled rhinoceros. One of the poles on the side cracked, and the smaller cask toppled over and fell from the cart with a heavy bum-bum-bum-bum. Florie had tried to throw his weight against it, but the cask gave his head a severe slanting blow before dropping full ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... westbound, about one-forty in the morning. There wasn't anything else till six-one. Them are always the hardest hours. A fellow's got to stay awake, see, and nothin' to keep him—unless maybe a coyote howlin' a mile off, or maybe a bum knockin' around among the box cars on the sidin', or, if it's cold, the stove to tend. That's all. Unless you put a record on the old phonograph and hit 'er up a few minutes now and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... certain," said Penhallow, "but who could have wanted to do it. You and I, Rivers, know every one in Westways. Can you think of any one with malice enough to make him want to bum a house and ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Penny, or Poor Robin's Character of an unconscionable Pawnbroker, and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man; with a friendly Description of a Bum-bailey, and his merciless setting cur, or follower. With Allowance. London, Printed for ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... is playing all the tunes in the world, ringing such peals! It has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is beginning "Turn again, Whittington." Buz, buz, buz; bum, bum, bum; wheeze, wheeze, wheeze; fen, fen, fen; tinky, tinky, tinky; cr'annch. I shall certainly come to be condemned at last. I have been drinking too much for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... tune in McGuffy's saloon, and it's cheery and bright in there (God! but I'm weak—since the bitter dawn, and never a bite of food); I'll just go over and slip inside—I mustn't give way to despair— Perhaps I can bum a little booze if the ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... went on, smiling, "we could bum a ride out with some of the company men. No doubt they're all hightailing it away from ...
— This One Problem • M. C. Pease
... a twain, Who care not a rush for hail nor rain, Messages swiftly to go or to come, Or duck a taxman or harry a bum,[7] Or "clip a server,"[8] did blithely lie In the stable parlour next to the sky[9] Dinners, save chance ones, seldom had they, Unless they could nibble their beds of hay; But the less they got, they were hardier all— 'T was the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... his partners went into Darlinghurst for suicide, and the other went into Gladesville for being mad; and one day the bailiff seized the cart and horse with me in it and a load of timber. So I went home and helped mother and the kids to live on one meal a day for six months, and keep the bum-bailiff out. Another cove ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... "Charlie says it's a good Monday night town because two through freights lay over there till daylight. Tuesday night we have to double back to Greenwich, and that's where Charlie gave us the bum deal. This gag of chasing us back over the same route is rotten, because somebody may be sitting up for us with a rock. But Charlie says Greenwich has developed into a great show town since five new families' ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... line; mail steamer, paddle steamer, screw steamer; tug; line of steamers &c. destroyer, cruiser, frigate; landing ship, LST; aircraft carrier, carrier, flattop [Coll.], nuclear powered carrier; submarine, submersible, atomic submarine. boat, pinnace, launch; life boat, long boat, jolly boat, bum boat, fly boat, cock boat, ferry boat, canal boat; swamp boat, ark, bully, battery, bateau [Can.], broadhorn^, dory, droger^, drogher; dugout, durham boat, flatboat, galiot^; shallop^, gig, funny, skiff, dingy, scow, cockleshell, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... And Elinor's sporting. She isn't the kind that needs six butlers to live—she doesn't live that way now. That's just pride, Ted, thinking that—and a rather bum variety of pride when you come down to it. I hate these people who moan around and won't be happy unless they can do everything themselves—they're generally the kind that give their wives a charge account at Lucile's and ten dollars ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... father was lying in bed, scarcely able to move for the pain his hurt caused him. They talked the matter over, and he, knowing that something must be done for the support of the family, gave, though unwillingly, his consent. Thus it happened that my mother again took to bum-boating. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... cried, turning quickly and facing Olivr, "yer can't bum round here after ten, ye know. Keep yer eyes peeled ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... forward with his hand clutchin' at his side, an' his pink checks gray an' twisted. He coughed a dry, short cough, an' groans out between his set teeth. "It 's my heart; I got a bum pump. You tell George Jordan that I never breathed a word of it, but that Jack Whitman—Oh, my God! Get me a drink of whiskey! Get me a ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... adventure there ... a bum for a few weeks, hanging around soldiers' barracks, blacking shoes for free meals ... till Provost Marshal General Bell, in an effort to clear the islands of boys who were vags and mascots of regiments, gave me and several other rovers and stowaways free transportation ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... happiness has wrecked more poems than sorrows ever helped to flow in sparkling jets. Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne taking his ease, smoking a cigar after breakfast, his face beaming as he basked like a lizard in the sunshine, could not summon up courage enough to make herself the bum-bailiff of ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... and cosmetic, We may take our beauty sleep; We may rub and punch and powder But the claws go deep and deep; And before we understand it All our beauty's on the bum For the years are turning yellow When ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... "Art's a bum mistress if she makes you hustle like that!" commented Ogilvy. "Shake her, Kelly. She's a wampire mit ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... So, she on the footstool of the throne, her eyes and his were on a level. She laid hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes until he could see his own twin portraits in hers that were glowing sunset pools. Heart of the Hills? The Heart of all the East seemed to bum in her, rebellious! ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... sweet and decorous when compared with those of a Sandwich or a Dashwood or a Duke of Grafton. Yet these men, whose companionship might be rejected by Jack Sheppard, and whose example might be avoided by Pompey Bum, are the men whose names are ceaselessly prominent in the early story of the reign, and to whose power and influence much of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Cecilia, kid," said Hetty, poising her knife, "is it as bad art as that? I ain't a critic; but I thought it kind of brightened up the room. Of course, a manicure-painter could tell it was a bum picture in a minute. I'll take it down if you say so. I wish to the holy Saint ...
— Options • O. Henry
... perish. Every harsh and undeserved indignity I had to suffer only increased my secret rancour, and whilst accustoming myself more and more to wine as a stimulant and so stirring up the fire to make it bum more merrily, I heeded not that this was the only way by which good could come out of the ruinous evil. In these few words, in this brief statement, I hope you will find the key to many things ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... They were up so high that they could look down and see everything, you know. They could see the big ponds up in the sky where the rain is made, and the awful big windmills up there where the wind blows from, and the cannons that bum the thunder down." ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... without promise of employment. In this extremity, I went to the Y. M. C. A. (which had for one of its aims the assistance of young men out of work) and confided my homelessness to the secretary, a capital young fellow who knew enough about men to recognize that I was not a "bum." He offered me the position of night-watch and gave me a room and cot at the back of his office. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... from Miss Valdes and her people. Ain't I making enough money up at Cripple Creek for my needs? No, Steve! I'm playing for bigger game than that. Size up my hand beside Don Manuel's, and it looks pretty bum. But I'm going to play it strong. Maybe ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... interrupted furiously. "Come and eat. Great Scott! That girl would buy a bum car and a costly one, because the demonstrator has shined ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... square," returned the voice of the coxswain, Israel Hands. "He's no fool, is Dick." And he turned his quid and spat. "But, look here," he went on, "here's what I want to know, Barbecue: how long are we a-going to stand off and on like a blessed bum-boat? I've had a'most enough o' Cap'n Smollett; he's hazed me long enough, by thunder! I want to go into that cabin, I do. I want their pickles ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cudn't do nuthin' 'gainst him onct he wus married to her. I thought o' thet right away. Yer see this wus how it happened: Kirby sed he'd like fer ter marry her, an' I sez, 'why not then? Thar's an ol' bum ov a preacher yere at Yellow Banks, a sorter hanger-on ter one o' them militia companies, what'll do eny damn thing I tell him too. I got the goods on him, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... I'm a-tellin' yer. I wanter be a good boy. My pa, he drinks. He drinks like—" The word he used, in description, was not the sort of a word that should have issued from childish lips. "An' my big brother—he ain't like Pa, but he's a bum, too! I don't wanter be like they are—not if I kin help it! I wanter be th' sort of a guy King Arthur was, an' them knights of his'n. I wanter be like that there St. George feller, as killed dragons. I wanter do real things," unconsciously ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... about the world serious game in Chi yesterday and Florrie says she asked 1 of the boys where I was at and he told her I was polishing the general's shoes and wouldn't he do just as well. How is that for a fresh bum Al and of course I don't have to polish the general's shoes or any shoes and if I could find out who it was that Florrie was talking to I would polish their jaw ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... sisters, sweethearts, in white dresses, flowered hats, and many ribbons, and with dinner-baskets stuffed with good things to eat—old ham, young chicken, angel-cake and blackberry wine—to be spread in the sunless shade of great poplar and oak. From Bum Hollow and Wildcat Valley and from up the slopes that lead to Cracker's Neck came smaller tillers of the soil—as yet but faintly marked by the gewgaw trappings of the outer world; while from beyond High Knob, whose crown is in cloud-land, and through the Gap, ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... an' they nudged me an' kinder shoved me front. So, bein' elected, I sez, 'Friend,' sez I, 'art is on the bum. It ain't your fault; the boys is sad an' sorrerful, but they ain't never knocked you to nobody, Mr. Guilford. You was good to us; you done your damdest. You made up pieces for the magazines an' papers an' you advertised how we ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... of Quality;" a set of eleven Characters appeared in 1675; "A Whip for a Jockey, or a Character of an Horse-Courser," in 1677; "Four for a Penny, or Poor Robin's Character of an unconscionable Pawnbroker and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man, with a friendly description of a Bum-bailey, and his merciless setting cur or Follower," appeared in 1678; and in the same year the Duke of Buckingham's "Character of an Ugly Woman." In 1681 appeared the "Character of a Disbanded Courtier," and in 1684 Oldham's "Character of a certain ugly old ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... was working very clearly now, put out a quick hand. "Say, it wasn't his fault. He's a bum, all right, but I knew it, didn't I? It was me. I didn't care. Seemed to me it didn't make no difference who I went with, but it does." She looked down at her hands clasped so tightly in ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... in yore collar to it, you buckskin," he urged his pony cheerfully. "This ain't no time to dream. You got to travel some, believe me. Steve played a bum hand for all it was worth and I can see where he's right to hit the grit some lively. Burn ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... ordinary, and bringing home the "muckle greybeard "full of excellent Glenlivat from the Cross Keys on Wednesday. Above them both the Reverend Erasmus Teends droned and drowsed, as Jess Kissock said with her faculty for expression, "bummelin' awa like a bubbly-Jock or a bum-bee ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... were scraping their shoes, and said, "Come in—come in—for the love of heaven come in, else you will ruin me entirely." "How so?" cried Opie "Marry, thus," replied the other, "my neighbors over the way will see you, and say, 'Fuseli's done,—for there's a bum bailiff,'" he looked at Opie, "'going to seize his person; and a little Jew broker,'" he looked at Northcote, "'going to take his furniture,—so come in I ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... Balfour, pistol in hand, among the first. No scene of history has ever written itself so deeply on my mind; not because Balfour, that questionable zealot, was an ancestral cousin of my own; not because of the pleadings of the victim and his daughter; not even because of the live bum-bee that flew out of Sharpe's 'bacco-box, thus clearly indicating his complicity with Satan; nor merely because, as it was after all a crime of a fine religious flavour, it figured in Sunday books and afforded a grateful relief from "Ministering Children" or the "Memoirs of Mrs. Katherine ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dust-covered crown and torn rim. He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat, and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City Hall Park he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection. The sifting rain saturated the old velvet collar of his overcoat, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... "Messenger, send Mr Portfire here." The gunpowder functionary, he of the flannel cartridge, appeared. "Gunner, send one of your mates into the maintop, and let him bum ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the permanency of the relationship. They both knew that it was temporary. But he is absolutely certain that but for one of the representatives of the class that is despised, driven about and persecuted by brutal policemen and ignorant judges, he would have become a bum, or, most likely, he would have committed suicide—at the point of which he was several times; only pity for his mother and sisters ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson |
