"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... best 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 ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stews, wretched servants of the bagnios, whose lives seem 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 its calamities ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... perfect imitation of Chip's manner and tone when crossed. "I've been trying out all the darned benchest you've got—and there ain't a one I'd give a punched nickel for but Silver. I'd a rode Shootin' Star, only he wouldn't stand still so I could get onto him. Whoever broke him did a bum job. The horse I break will stand, or I'll know the reason why. Silver'll stand, all right. And I can guide him pretty well by slapping his neck. You did a pretty fair job when you broke Silver," the Kid ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... fell to his knees, his broken face blowing out bloody air. Finally he rolled over onto his side with a long sighing moan, lay limply, very still. Doctor Spechaug's lips were thin, white, as he kicked savagely. He heard a popping. The bum flopped sidewise into ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... see to live; I will not touch thine eyes For all the treasure that thine uncle owns: Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy, With this same very iron to bum them out. ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... awakened by a scratching noise on the iron quilt which covers my repose. A cold perspiration broke out on my forehead. I buried my head in the hardwood pillows and waited the end. Just then M. Stepupski, the Minister of the Department of Bum Shells, walked in through the secret tunnel in ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... 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 his tent round him in sulky wrath, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... condition, when one day Peterson, his Oxonian friend, burst in on him 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
... Hold on till I git my internal machine to work on the fence. Dad! Where's that ole morepoke? O, you're there, are you? Fetch the jack off o' your wagon—come! fly roun'! you're (very) slow for a young fellow. Bum," (abbreviation of "bummer," and applied to the red-headed fellow) "you surround them carrion, or we'll be losin' the run ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Benny the Bum: "I wanna know kin I borry a red lantern off'n you? I find I gotta sleep in the street to-night an' I'll harfta warn the ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... onion, that tears it," Stevens declared as he unplugged. "No use going any further on these bum reference points. I'm going to report to Newton—he'll rock the Observatory on its foundations!" He plugged into the telegraph room. "Have you got a free high-power wave?... Please put me on Newton, in the ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... the 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 ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... now—well, say, 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 your ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... 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
... 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 charity, ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... my 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 ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... in betwixt the legat, and the archbishop of Canturburie. And where belike the said archbishop of Canturburie was loth to remooue, he set his buttocks iust in his lap, but he scarslie touched the archbishops skirt with his bum, when the bishops and other chapleins with their seruants stept to him, pulled him away, and threw him to the ground, and beginning to lay on him with bats and fists, the archbishop of Canturburie yeelding good for euill, sought to saue ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... Withaat ivver thinkin—bi'th' mass! 'At yo're wearin' soa much off yor booit. To be able to walk along th' street, An stand at shop windows to stare, An net ha to beat a retreat If yo scent a "bum bailey" ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... call me gude faller, Ay s'pose she tenk dat vill help some; And all of dem call me gude faller, And helping to put me on bum. Val, back to the pines, Maester Olaf, And driving yure old team of mules. Put dis in yure pipe, tu, and smoke it: Gude fallers ban ...
— The Norsk Nightingale - Being the Lyrics of a "Lumberyack" • William F. Kirk
... Mary. Miss Carstair, some calls her. I git money and clo's off her. I'd 'a' had some bum ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... said Waymark, smiling, as he lit his cigar. The result was that, in a quarter of an hour Sally had related her whole history. As Ida had said, she came from Weymouth, where her father was a fisherman, and owner of bum-boats. Her mother kept a laundry, and the family had all lived together in easy circumstances. She herself had come to London—well, just for a change. And what was she doing? Oh, getting her living as best she could. In the day-time she worked ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... men. He looked so queer, Kate wanted to laugh, but she was too far from home to dare. He presently put his head conveniently in between Sawdy and Lefever and offered some news of his own: "There's been a big electric storm in the up country, Sawdy; the telephones are on the bum." ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... tell when Doc is kidding. He's an educated man—used to teach at some Northern college, he said once, and I never doubted it—and talks like one when he wants to. But Doc's no bum, though he's a semi-alcoholic and lets me support him like an invalid uncle, and he's keen enough to read my mind like ...
— To Remember Charlie By • Roger Dee
... 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, wherry, coble^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Understand, this was the first time we went into Loando. I have learned that wretched hole well enough since. And it was as we were running out of Loando, that, in reversing the engine too suddenly, lest we should smash up an old Portuguese woman's bum-boat, that the slides or supports of the piston-rod just shot out of the grooves they run in on the top, came cleverly down on the outside of the carriage, gave that odious g-r-r-r, which I can hear now, and then, dump,—down came the whole weight of the walking-beam, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... down the crick beating a drum befo' a war. He wuz a Revolushun drummer, and cum back to beat the drum befo' de war. But some say you can hear de drum 'most any spring now. Go down to the Crick and keep quiet and you hear Brrr, Brrr, Bum hum, louder and louder and den it goes away. Some say dey hav' seen de little man, but I never seen him, but I heayd de drum, 'fo de war, and ater dat too. There was a white man kilt hisself near ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... much we who deal chiefly in new books are at the mercy of the publishers. We have to stock the new stuff, a large proportion of which is always punk. Why it is punk, goodness knows, because most of the bum ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... themselves a free people, and could never abide to be in bondage to any. And this was something of the reason, that they were so generally by all the Jews counted so vile and base, and reckoned among the worst of men, even as our informers and bum-bailiffs are with us ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... seams is split; his slippers are run over; and his shirt should have gone to the wash last week. Also his chin is decorated in two places with surgeon's tape and has a thick growth of stubble on it. As I drifts in he's makin' a bum attempt to' roll a cigarette and is gazin' disgusted ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... a queer look from eyes that seemed to bum like red coals, but he said nothing whatever. He took the coffee Sylvia held out to him and drank it as if parched ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... tattered suit, and his derby was a marvel of 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, and as the wet cloth pressed against his neck, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... don't know. The whole system is on the bum to-day. Maybe half an hour; maybe more. Better take ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... clothes and disreputable 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 ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... knock you out, Blow-Hard. You're doing for yourself nicely. Come on over here. Pretty slow! Pretty slow! Who was your dancing teacher, Joe? You're getting white around the lips now. Bum heart. You won't ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... 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 weight into ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... Beef-eaters, Tramps, Life-Guards, Washerwomen, Ghosts, Clowns and God-knows-what, armed with jezails, umbrellas, brooms, catapults, pikes, brickbats, kukeries,[52] pokers, clubs, axes, horse-pistols, bottles, dead fowls, polo-sticks, assegais and bombs. They were commanded by a Highlander in a bum-bee tartan kilt, top-hat and one sock, with a red nose a foot long, riding on a rocking horse and brandishing a dem great cucumber and a tea-tray made into a shield. There was a thundering great drain-pipe mounted on a bullock-cart and a naked man, painted blue, in a cocked-hat, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... 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 ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... other table sits a Knight, And here a grave old man ore right Against his worship, then perhaps That by and by a Drawer claps His bum close by them, there down squats A dealer in old shoes and hats; And here withouten any panick Fear, dread or care a ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... at him. "You big bum, do you think I really care?" He grinned. "Don't feel too guilty, Twin. We've been back to back on ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... said. "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' moved there last ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... policemen, and new chums.... At twelve years of age, having passed through every phase of probationary shrewdness, he is qualified to act as a full-blown bus conductor. In the purlieus of the theatres are supper-rooms (lavish of gas and free-mannered waitresses), and bum-boat shops where they sell play-bills, whelks, oranges, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... de sassafras blossom hab de keen smell o' de root, An' it hab rich er tender yaller green! De co'n hit kinder twinkle when hit firs' begin ter shoot, While de bum'le-bee ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... the red tie" (that was my cosmopolite), said he, "got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come from ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... o'clock the curtain went up. After we had waited fully ten minutes, out came a big, fat, greasy looking Dago with nothing on but a bear robe. He went over to the side of the stage and sat down on a bum rock. It was plainly to be seen, even from my true lovers' seat, that his bearlets was sorer than a dog about something. Presently in came a woman, and none of the true lovers seemed to know who she was. Some said it was Melba, others Nordica. Bud and I ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... "He's handing out bum dope, as usual," Scotty added. "He hasn't even read the letter." He grinned widely. "But I have. And he'll eat his words before ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... he blinks upward through the murk trying to find the owner of the whistle, he brandishes his shovel murderously over his head in one hand, pounding on his chest, gorilla-like, with the other, shouting:] Toin off dat whistle! Come down outa dere, yuh yellow, brass-buttoned, Belfast bum, yuh! Come down and I'll knock yer brains out! Yuh lousey, stinkin', yellow mut of a Catholic-moiderin' bastard! Come down and I'll moider yuh! Pullin' dat whistle on me, huh? I'll show yuh! I'll crash yer skull in! I'll drive yer teet' down ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... time, a guardhouse trusty brought him his supper on a tray. Also, the man tossed him half a pack of cigarettes when Lance sought to bum just one. But when the pilot started pitching questions back, the trusty looked scared and unhappy and ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... yo're going to skin me outen three-fifty, one-fifty, or one measly cent, you need some medicine, an' I'll give it to you in pill form! You'd make a bum-looking angel, so get up an' hand over that cayuse, an' do ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... to sip an afternoon glass with him, when a big-booted fellow cried out, halt. Now, sir, the idea of asking a man well in both legs to halt, is preposterous. So I said, and walked on as straight as I could, when bang, bum, whiz, came one, two, three bullets scattering ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... an Ale-draper near New-palace-yard, Who used to Jerk the Bum of his Wife; And she was forced to stand on her Guard, To keep his Clutches from her Quoiff: She poor Soul the weaker Vessel, To be reconcil'd was easily won; He held her in scorn, But she Crown'd him with Horn, Without Hood or Scarff, and rough ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... than any external commotion around me would have caused me to 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 which may have appeared to you contradictory, if not ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... hook-nosed man. "Pleased to have you come, fellow-bum. My name's Crook McKusick. I'm kind of camp boss. The boys call me 'Crook' because I'm so honest. ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... 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
... like the kind of man who need sleep out of doors," replied Standish, speaking slowly, as one who chooses his every word with care, and with his cold blue eyes unobtrusively scanning Gavin's battered face. "That's the bedroom for bums. You aren't a bum. Even if your manner, and the way you fought out yonder, didn't prove that. A bum doesn't walk all this way and back, on a hot day, unless for ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... 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
... 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 ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... down his neckcloth with a smile. 'That man exists no more: by an exercise of will I have destroyed him. There is something like it in the poets. First, a brilliant and conspicuous career - the observed, I may say, of all observers, including the bum-bailie: and then, presto! a quiet, sly, old, rustic BONHOMME, cultivating roses. In Paris, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ha' look'd busy like, in me, to say a word; so I took up a warming pan, and I bang'd bum bailey, wi' the broad end on't, 'till he fell o' the floor as ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... manner how Gargamelle was brought to bed, and delivered of her child, was thus: and, if you do not believe it, I wish your bum-gut fall out and make an escapade. Her bum-gut, indeed, or fundament escaped her in an afternoon, on the third day of February, with having eaten at dinner too many godebillios. Godebillios are the fat tripes of coiros. Coiros are beeves fattened at the cratch in ox-stalls, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... 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 ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... why I'm here 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, like the school-boy in the McCutcheon cartoon? ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... another item, that road sign with the busted spoke has been replaced. You must be a bum shot, not to hit that curlicue in the middle. I found the spoke you hit on the floor of your garage, if you'd like it for a souvenir ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Hinsdale heretofore has been hard. It crinkled the hair and put the complexion on the bum. It cost more money for cosmetics to set these complexions right than a couple of $30,000 rain barrels. But now the seediest lady in the land has only to make a pilgrimage to Hinsdale and return ready to make faces at the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... was just after Number Seventeen had pulled out, 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 then. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... opportunity to look over his mercenaries as a whole and he gave a gasp of surprise at the row after row of villainous faces raised with sneering grins to his. Well in the front squatted "Bum" Jocelin, known to the water-front police for fifteen years,—six feet of threatening insolence; "Black" Morrison with two penitentiary sentences back of him; and "Splinter" Mallory, thin, leering, shifty. And yet Danbury, after he had recovered himself a bit, saw ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Well, I'm Sam Clark, dealer in hardware, sporting goods, cream separators, and almost any kind of heavy junk you can think of. You can call me Sam—anyway, I'm going to call you Carrie, seein' 's you've been and gone and married this poor fish of a bum medic that we keep round here." Carol smiled lavishly, and wished that she called people by their given names more easily. "The fat cranky lady back there beside you, who is pretending that she can't hear me ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... not to worry one minute about Vida's happiness, because I wished we could all be as happy as she was. All the same I took pains to go round to that boarding house a couple times more because it seemed like the girl's happiness might have a bum foundation. Darling Clyde was as merry and attentive as ever and Vida was still joyous. I guess she kept joyous at her work all day by looking forward to that golden moment after dinner when her boy would sing Good night, good night, beloved—he'd ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Umpth' 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! ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... bum, bum, diddle dum," and pranced around on a pair of short, fat legs in red stockings. Two fat little arms beat the drumsticks on the top of his head, or what appeared to be the top of his head, which was in reality a funny face, which winked ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... 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 I'd ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... square deal; for Sudden, Johnny knew, had paid him generously for repairing the plane while Johnny was sick. Bland had undoubtedly squandered the money in one long debauch, and there was no doubt in Johnny's mind of Bland's reason for missing his train. He was a bum by nature and he would double-cross his own mother, Johnny firmly believed. Yet, there was Johnny's boyish sympathy that never failed sundry stray dogs and cats that came in his way. It impelled him now ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... night, 'bo, about 'leven o'clock, I guess. It was sure some dark, too, take it from me. I woke up thirsty as a water-front bum, an' beat it for the water-barrel. Comin' back, I come past the tent. Bat was in there figgerin' when I went to the wagon. When I come back he was talkin' to another guy. I stops an' listens, just for fun, you know. The other guy I hadn't never saw. An' he said as how Mr. Crawford had sent him ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... wan. I'm no second girl, an' de storeroom's never cleaned. Dere's nothin' to clean but a lot of stones an' bum mummies an' such." ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... "I'm a theorist, and a real theorist doesn't have one theory; he has dozens. Let me see; let me think, reflect, cogitate, tickle the thinker. Best way is to start at the A, B, C—first principles, all that sort of thing. Supposin', supposin' you come into the room with that hat on—it's a bum hat, by the way—and some one pipes up; 'Get that at the fire sale?' What ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... Guffey, "here's my 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 martyr of ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... he 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 ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... "Have a lift?" As the man climbed in Babbitt condescended, "Going clear down-town? Whenever I see a fellow waiting for a trolley, I always make it a practice to give him a lift—unless, of course, he looks like a bum." ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... worse than this. I ain't hurted bad. I ain't got mine just yet, old scout! Would I leave meself croak—an' that bum, Mike the Kike, handin' me fren's the ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f'r that I'll get up an'—an' go—home—" His voice flattened out and ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 as fat as ever and as pure. And all the brothers at the Nu Delta house. He'd ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... the army and I know what I am talking about," declared the socialist. "There is nothing national about the army. It is a privately owned thing. Here it is secretly owned by the capitalists and in Europe by the aristocracy. Don't tell me—I know. The army is made up of bums. If I'm a bum I became one then. You will see fast enough what fellows are in the army if the country is ever caught and ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... Fi'th Av'noo, and the Waldorf-Astoria," mimicked McGuire. "Told you I went broke. I'm on de bum proper. I've got one dime left. Maybe a trip to Europe or a sail in me private yacht would fix me ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... a low, gruff voice. "I'm nothing but a roughneck, I know, and not worth much at that, but if it's any satisfaction to you to know you've bowled a bum like me over to His side, why I'm ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... were interrupted by the authoritative voice—"I told you to move on, didn't I—now if I tell you again I'll run you in. D'yer hear? What you boys let that old bum hang around you for ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... him, white with anger. "That will do!" he exclaimed. "Clear out! I do not intend to allow any such riff-raff as you to order me to—Oh, pray do not be alarmed, ladies! This rowdy is not likely to assault me. Nothing will happen, I assure you. Clear out, you bum,—do you hear me?" ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... glum, 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 ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 about driving ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Osho[u] began the recitation of the sutra. The priests stood by in vigilant attention. As the last word reverberated on the bishop's lips they seized the sutra wrapped bamboo, slipped it in the long box—bum! the lock snapped. The congregation was tremendously impressed. For a decent time Shu[u]den remained in prayer and meditation. "The charm is complete. O'Iwa no longer wanders, to her own penance and the disaster of men. Henceforth ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... of either—Judas, immaculately attired in a white coat, arrived from downstairs with a step ladder and proceeded with everyone's assistance to reconstruct the original pipe. And a pretty picture Judas made. And a pretty bum job he made. But anyway the stove-pipe drew; and everyone thanked God and fought for places about le poele. And Monsieur Pet-airs hoped there would be no more ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... 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 hoss of his'n.' ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... 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 a ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... from Sailor Mike's place, not wishin' to deprive you of your share o' the sport. But I met a big policeman who said: 'Tell that red-headed Irish bum that it'll be better for his health to ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... 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
... foolscap-crowned, white-and-red-trousered Picard bumped the pave, he saw squatting opposite him a figure whose gleaming eyes, ferocious whiskerage and lean-wiry frame suggested the canine rather than the human species. The Jolly Baker was a bum werewolf, but a ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... and one of 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 had ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... /vt./ To make highly efficient, either in time or space, often at the expense of clarity. "I managed to bum three more instructions out of that code." "I spent half the night bumming the interrupt code." In 1996, this term and the practice it describes are semi-obsolete. In {elder days}, John McCarthy ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... cocktail," suggested Baxter, after sipping one himself and forgetting the need for reserve in his remarks. "You mustn't be a bum sport at a dance like ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... pursuit, Burley 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of his nature. If you judged "Wild Bill" by his oratory, you thought him a creature poisoned through and through, a soul turned rancid with envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness. But now the tears came into his eyes, and he put his arm over Jimmie's shoulder. "Say, old pal, that's bum luck! By God, I'm sorry!" And Jimmie, who wanted nothing so much as somebody to be sorry with, clasped Bill in his arms, and burst into tears, and told over and over again how he had gone to what had been his home, and found only a huge crater blown out by the explosion, and how he had gone ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... firing and his propeller wasn't turning and yet the darn fool just hung up there as if he were tied to a cloud. Say, I was so sure I had him it made me sore—felt like running into him and yelling, 'Now, you fall, you bum!'" ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... confusion further with, "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
... pulmonary subject I, Tra la la la la, bum bum! It can't last long until I die, Tra la la la la, ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... all the trouble we have? Let other societies exist by the law, I say that we brisk boys of the Fleet live in spite of it; and thrive best when we are in right opposition to sign and seal, writ and warrant, sergeant and tipstaff, catchpoll, and bum-bailey." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... way it throws light on the 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 ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... out that night to stand his shift, he found Weary at his side instead of Cal. Weary explained that Cal was feeling pretty bum on account of that fall he had got, and, as Weary couldn't sleep, anyway, he had offered to stand in ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... got a big job, Jimmie, but I want to make a man out of you, temper, laziness, gambling, and all. You got it in you to be something more than a tango lizard or a cigar-store bum, honey. It's only you 'ain't got the stuff in you to stand up under a five-hundred-dollar windfall and—a—and a sporty girl. If—if two glasses of beer make you as silly as they do, Jimmie, why, five hundred dollars would land you under the ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... the rogue has no manners at all, that I must own; no more breeding than a bum-baily, that I grant you:- 'tis pity; the fellow has ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... are you going to do? Get a better one quick, or just bum around for two more years as ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... 'Classified information!' and that'd stop the proceedings cold. Sure, there'll be a board of inquiry—composed of naval officers. Probably honorable men, too. But what are they going to believe, the sworn word of their Goddard House colleague, or the rantings of an asterite bum?" ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... 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 in ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... "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 a ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... und Paukenkrach, Noch aus der Ferne toent es schwach, Ganz leise bumbumbumbum tsching; Zog da ein bunter Schmetterling, Tschingtsching, bum, um ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... brass! To be able to set daan yor fooit Withaght ivver thinkin'—bith' mass! 'At yor wearin' soa mitch off yor booit; To be able to walk along th' street, An' stand at shop windows to stare, An' net ha' to beat a retreat If yo' scent a "bum bailey" i' th' air. ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... brought his bum up here and they sat and guzzled. Well, you're wrong, my son. Come, let's go down, and though I don't know whether it'll mean anything to you, you shall have another hack ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... yourself!" snapped Rice, from the boat. "This upstage talk about 'trespassing' makes me sick! As soon as a guy has a three-dollar patch of bum land (with a mortgage eating it up, most likely), he always blats about 'trespassing' whenever decent folks happens to walk on it. Go clean up the papers, yourself! We ain't your slaves. You're due to hear a lot from us, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... a 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 boys ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... me," rejoined Barbee with the same cool impudence. And to the man across the table from him, "Deal 'em up, Spots; you an' me is goin' to pry these two bum gamblers loose from their four-bit pieces real pronto by the good ol' road of high, low, jack, an' ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... aspirant, competitor, bidder; place hunter, pot hunter; prizer[obs3]; seeker. beggar, mendicant, moocher, panhandler, freeloader, sponger, mumper[obs3], sturdy beggar, cadger; hotel runner, runner, steerer [U.S.], tout, touter[obs3]. [poor person] pauper, homeless person, hobo, bum, tramp, bindle stiff, bo, knight of the road (poverty) 804; hippie, flower child; hard core unemployed; welfare client, welfare case. canvasser, bagman &c.758; salesman. % Section III. CONDITIONAL INTERSOCIAL VOLITION % 768. Promise.— N. promise, undertaking, word, troth, plight, pledge, parole, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... 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 L. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... bum I suppose; looks like he had been on a big spree. I only hope I can keep him sober long enough to help me over ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... widow Clark, who was a sensible enough woman in the matter of roomers and household management and knew a bum from a modest paying laboring man as well as any one in the profession, was perplexed in the present situation as to the course of true wisdom? Incredible as it may seem, it was Adelle who during this time of doubt gave her aunt strength to resist much bad advice. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... Witherspoon would call, "Fannie, would 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 ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... the devil is there for a man to do, if he doesn't do anything? He's not going out anywhere since his mother's death; he has no clubs to go to, I understand. What does he do—go to his office and come back, and sit in that shabby old brick house all day and blink at the bum portraits of his bum and distinguished ancestors? Do you know what he does with ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... between them of 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
... Stampede,' she says to me, smiling so cool and sweet like you wanted to eat her alive. 'All you've got to do is show us the way and carry the bums.' 'Carry the what?' I asks. 'The bums,' she says, an' then she explains that a bum is a thing filled with powder which makes a terrible racket when it goes off. So I took the bums, and the next day one of the Indians sprained a leg, and dropped out. He had the firecrackers, pretty near a hundred pounds, and we whacked up his load among us. ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... you using mine?" demanded the other. "That plug you put in holds dandy, and there's nothing the matter with it right now. Same old place, under the side porch here. Guess the lamp is on the bum, but you hardly need that. If a cop holds ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... 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 do you ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... so," Jack replied. "Didn't I wait around a bum old hotel until almost morning for ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... for some days, surrounded by bum-boats filled with picturesque natives of all colours, chattering like parrots, and almost as gaudy in their plumage. Meanwhile the crew were hard at work replenishing the coal-bunkers, filling up wood and ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... 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 risk the possibility ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... hands me a species of coma and leaves me with twenty-five dollars! That's what I get. What I've been doing is a longer story. I apologize for not having seen your friend who brought the letter, but it's up to you to apologize for a bum epistle ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... have our ups and downs," replied the dummy-chucker. "But don't get nervous. I ain't goin' to tell you that I was a millionaire's son, educated at Harvard. I'm a bum." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... is sure—if we turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for false arrest and put the whole administration on the bum," snarled O'Brien. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... clerk for eight o'clock 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, how ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... 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) |
