"Buttonhole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Richard Vanderpole took place on a Thursday night. On Monday morning a gentleman of middle age, fashionably but quietly dressed, wearing a flower in his buttonhole, patent boots, and a silk hat which he had carefully deposited upon the floor, was sitting closeted with Miss Penelope Morse. It was obvious that that young lady did not altogether appreciate the honor done to her by a visit from so ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... first makes his own, and thus establishes his right to borrow—a right very rarely to be conceded. Much that he has learned from Shelley he passes on to his readers, but before they receive it, it has become, not Shelley's, but Francis Thompson's. To stick a lotos-flower in our buttonhole—harris-cloth or broadcloth, it does not matter—is an impertinent folly that makes a guy of the wearer. But this man's raiment is his own, not that of other men, and Shelley himself would willingly have ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... parliamentary capital of Ontario, and from Toronto the town. It was packed full of speeches and singing from the children and from a Welsh choir—and Canada flowers Welsh choirs—and presentations from many societies, whose members, wearing the long silk buttonhole tabs stamped with the gold title of the guild or committee to which they belonged, came forward to augment the press on ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... uninitiated. This he put on, taking particular pains to select a very plain cravat, and to fasten in it with care the scarf-pin bestowed upon him by old Benson, the little watchmaker on the corner below. Through the buttonhole in the lapel of his coat he drew a spicy-smelling sprig of ground-pine, chanting whimsically as he did so a ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... room, Margaret arose and faced him. The Englishman was well dressed, and newly shaven, and wore a rosebud in his buttonhole. Evidently, he had spent some time over his toilet ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... very quiver of the mouth." "Yes," said Sir Robert, "and the arrow coming out of it." Or it may mean Sir Robert Inglis, Peel's successor at Oxford, more noted for his genial kindness and for the perpetual bouquet in his buttonhole at a date when such ornaments were not worn, than for capacity to conceive and say good things. In some mischievous lines describing the Oxford election where Inglis ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... rushed in. He was very dapper in a new tailcoat and a flower in his buttonhole. He was very nervous, too, for he was to give the address of the day. He pulled a ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... night after Sam's graduation in June and just the night before I had sailed with Mabel Vandyne and Miss Greenough for a wander-year in Europe. Sam was perfectly wonderful to look at with his team ribbon in the buttonhole of his dress-coat, and I was very proud of him. We were all having dinner at the Ritz with two of Sam's classmates and the father of one, Judge Vandyne, who is one of the greatest corporation lawyers in New York. He had just offered Sam a chance in his offices, together ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... actions, and sometimes would enforce it with the whip-stock. But now the farm lad has the hardihood and the right to summon his employer before a magistrate, goes to "Lunnon" at holiday time, walks with a stick, wears a buttonhole in his coat, and, mirabile dictu! has been seen to ride home from his work on a "bone-shaker"! In place of the old bent figures in smock-frocks, there are spruce young fellows in black coats; in place of the old indoor farm ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... he has not been described. When we saw him, his hair danced wildly over his shoulders, as if electrified: he had a quick eye, and wore enviably well-fitting ducks: his neck, besides supporting his head and all its contents, supported an inextricable labyrinth of gold chains; from every buttonhole of his waistcoat the chains they came in, and the chains they came out, like the peripatetic man on the Boulevards who sells them: his gloves, well-fitting, and buttoning at the wrist, were of the whitest kid, and grasped a yet whiter ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... This he did by standing up gallantly for the Censor, to whose support the Opposition was in no way committed, and by visibly defying the most cherished conventions of the average man with a bunch of carnations in his buttonhole as large as a dinner-plate, which would have made a Bunthorne blench, and which very nearly did make Mr Granville Barker (who has an antipathy to the ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... sprays set ready for them, and putting one in his own buttonhole, fastened the other in her bodice with ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... morning of the Demonstration, Captain Caius Hocken, School Manager and therefore ex officio a steward, taking the field in his Sunday best with a scarlet badge in his buttonhole, "quite," declared Mrs Bowldler, "like a gentleman of the French Embassy as used frequent to take luncheon ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... that he causes one to seriously consider whether his old head be turned or no. A scholar and statistician buried in heaps of flowers, with a rope of daisies round his neck, and a belt of primroses round his waist; a sunflower in his buttonhole, and a singing bird upon his shoulder; and, worst of all, the picture of a pink-frocked, pink-faced girl next his heart—can he be relied upon? But he persists in his claim to be listened to, and we must take his word for ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... the two sneak off together every chance they get, and sometimes are n't back till eleven or twelve. I wish dadda would put a stop to it. Like as not, 't is for pilfering they are bound." Miss Meredith began anew on the buttonhole, and had she been thrusting her needle into either man or dog, she could not have sewed with a ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... listening to novellas, the parvo, predecessor of the Spanish gracioso, the Lisbon courtier descended from Aeneas, the astronomer, unpractical in daily life as he gazes on the stars, the old man amorous, rose in buttonhole, playing on a viola, the Jewish marriage-brokers, the country bumpkin, the lazy peasant lying by the fire, the poor but happy gardener and his wife, the quarrelsome blacksmith with his wife the bakeress, the carriers jingling along the road and amply ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... declined when, about six months before this history begins, he had privately presented himself to Madame Beauvisage as a suitor for her daughter's hand. No step of that nature is ever taken secretly in the provinces. The procureur-du-roi, Frederic Marest, whose fortune, buttonhole, and position were about on a par with those of Antonin Goulard, had received a like refusal, three years earlier, based on the difference of ages. Consequently, the two officials were on terms of strict ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... flower stuck in the buttonhole of the schoolmaster's coat, a pale tea-rose. If Dr. Knowles had been a man of fine instincts, (which his opaque shining eyes would seem to deny,) he might have thought it was not unapt or ill-placed even in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... was a hearing before the General Assembly. The opponents had rushed into town every farmer and small politician they could secure and the women "antis" pinned a red rose in his buttonhole. The suffragists had given a yellow jonquil to every friend. Behind the Speaker's desk hung a huge yellow banner inscribed "Votes for Women," and so crowded was the room with determined men and eager women that the sergeant-at-arms ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... have to wear it with a ribbon," said the irrepressible Archer, fastening it to Tom's buttonhole with a piece of ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... Monday, March 17.—St. Patrick's Day in the evening. Every Irish Member carries in buttonhole bit of withered grass; at least looks like withered grass. DICK POWER says it's shamrock. Anyhow it leads to dining-out, and business to fore being nothing more important than voting a few millions sterling for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... several fine examples of rare flowers, or rather he found the shrubs which his experienced eye recognised as having once borne these unusual blossoms. One or two blooms still hung to the bushes and the detective, who was a great lover of flowers, picked them and put them in his buttonhole. While he did this, his keen eyes were darting about the place taking in all the details. This vacant lot had evidently been used as an unlicensed dumping ground for some time, for all sorts of odds and ends, ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... Reggie alone in the room reading his letters. He was dressed in loose white flannel, and in the buttonhole of his thin jacket a big green carnation was ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the church at least a half-hour before the guests begin to arrive. They wear small buttonhole bouquets of flowers like those used in the decorations of the church, which are sent them there by ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... it under his arm, and they trotted off. In Madison Square they saw a gallant and courtly old man with military shoulders and pink cheeks, a debonair gray mustache, and a smile of unquenchable youth, greeting April with a narcissus in his buttonhole. He was feeding the sparrows with crumbs and smiled to see one of them fly off, carrying a long wisp of hay, bustling away to build for himself and his sparrow bride a bungalow in the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... expressions were broken at the sight of some young girl's fragility, or the paraded charms of a woman of thirty; and then each feared that his neighbour had discovered thoughts in him unappropriate to the red ribbon which he wore in his buttonhole. ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... curious that cabbages and hay and things do not grow in the Academy of Music; but no doubt it is on account of the interruption of the light by the benches, and the impossibility of hoeing the crop except in the aisles. The fact that the ushers grow their buttonhole- bouquets on the premises shows what might be done if they had the right kind of an agricultural head ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... inexpensive as that happiness, he had stayed there six months, lodging in a room with a cupola, dining a la trattoria on truffles with Parmesan cheese, passing his evenings in the boxes of society people, going to the Grand Duke's balls, feted, invited everywhere, with white camellias in his buttonhole—economizing in the happiest ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... looking at her pink satin slipper, "I mean the one with the decoration in his buttonhole: don't you see him? He is standing by the mantelpiece, by the side of the big bald man in a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... nobleman was the ripest fruit of time, she had done too scant justice. They went through the little gate in the garden-wall and approached the house. On the terrace Madame Clairin was entertaining a friend—a little elderly gentleman with a white moustache and an order in his buttonhole. Madame de Mauves chose to pass round the house into the court; whereupon her sister-in-law, greeting Longmore with an authoritative nod, lifted her eye-glass and stared at them as they went by. Longmore heard the little old gentleman uttering some old-fashioned ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... destructive as his age, "the place will lose its charm. They grow for the End of the World, and the End of the World belongs to them. This wonderful spot will have no beauty when they're gone." To wear a blossom in the hair or buttonhole was to be ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... their pasteboard countenances close to the sculptor's with an unchangeable grin, that gave still more ludicrous effect to the comic alarm and sorrow of their gestures. Just then, a figure came by, in a gray wig and rusty gown, with an inkhorn at his buttonhole and a pen behind his ear; he announced himself as a notary, and offered to make the last will and testament of the assassinated man. This solemn duty, however, was interrupted by a surgeon, who brandished a lancet, three feet long, and proposed ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and began to separate a bunch of tiny flame-coloured rosebuds. "May I?" Selecting one, he sat down on the chair from which he had lately risen, and leaned forward while Kitty pinched the thorns from the stem and arranged the flower in his buttonhole. ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Alan's wonderful success," replied Katharine lightly, as she took out the daffodil she had been wearing in her buttonhole and tossed it over to her cousin. Then she added soberly, "It isn't any story at all, but I believe, while we wait, I'll tell you about the saddest funeral I ever ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... other. "You did a thousand things which no one else did. First, when you sat down at the table, what did you do with your napkin?" "My napkin? Why just what every body else did with theirs. I unfolded it entire]y, and fastened it to my buttonhole." "Well, my dear friend," said Delille, "you were the only one that did that, at all events. No one hangs up his napkin in that style; they are contented with placing it on their knees. And what did you, do when you took ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... imposing party, I assure you, for Toby had a red feather-duster in his head, two remarkable flags waved over the carriage, Kit had a blue bow on his neck, which nearly drove him wild, Demi wore a nosegay of dandelions in his buttonhole, and Mrs. Jo carried the queer Japanese umbrella in honor of ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of the green tabs will make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... young man?" She wrinkled her nose. Then she flushed, conscious that he was a bit surprised at her tone of disdain. "Why, he will wear a frock-coat and a flower in the buttonhole and will bow in my customers. You didn't think my young man was a ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... it's so," continued the first voice. "French Pete and that thar feller that keeps the Dutch grocery hev hed a row over it; emptied their six-shooters into each other. The Dutchman's got two balls in his leg, and the Frenchman's got an onnessary buttonhole in his shirt-buzzum, and hez ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... denounce the corruptions of the Establishment. "The clargy," he once declared, "they're here, and they ain't here; they're like pigs in the garden, and yeou can't git 'em out." On which an old woman, a member of the flock, sprang up and cried, "That's right, Brother Pepper, kitch 'em by the fifth buttonhole!" {22} Tom went once to hear Gavazzi lecture at Debenham, and next day my father asked him how he liked it. "Well," he said, "I thowt I should ha' beared that chap they call Jerry Baldry, but I din't. ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... full of the spirit of adventure, and looked forward to that spring Wednesday when he should leave for Queenstown, his mother made up for his heartless joy by her lugubriousness. As the time drew near she would buttonhole all and sundry whom she could catch to pour out her sorrows. The trailing gown and ragged lace shawl became a danger signal which we would all flee from, an it were not sprung upon us too suddenly. We had a shrewd suspicion that ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... grey frock-coat, with the red rose in his buttonhole, as made famous by Punch. His massive head he carried very high, looking downward through the pebbles ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... and the Baron entered, accompanied by Peppino Ardea. While going through the introductions, the writer was struck by the contrast offered between his three companions. Hafner and Ardea in evening dress, with buttonhole bouquets, had the open and happy faces of two citizens who had clear consciences. The usually sallow complexion of the business man was tinged with excitement, his eyes, as a rule so hard, were gentler. As for the Prince, the same childish carelessness lighted up his jovial ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... white. There were two white horses, flower-trimmed reins, and in the floral bower, seated on maple boughs, were the twelve girls of the class, while the ten boys marched on either side of the vehicle, wearing buttonhole bouquets ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... considered this offering a homage to his merits, and an attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like a smart, sensible little man, as he was, putting it gallantly and nattily into his buttonhole. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... you know y' way, I guess," sighed Mrs. Bowker, passing a small, worn hand across her faded eyes. "There's five dozen more collar-bands I must stitch an' buttonhole t'night—so go your ways, my dear." So saying, Mrs. Bowker went back to her labour, which was very hard labour indeed, while Hermione led the way into a tiny room, where, on a small, neat truckle-bed covered ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... my buttonhole, here. There Mr. Monkey, you can't complain of that for a nest—see here! Don't scratch so, you little varmint! You'll tear my ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... clock. A dull impatience of this large, bland, prosperous personage was growing in him. From the rim the top-hat had left upon his shining forehead to the tightly-screwed eyeglass that assisted his left eye; from the pink Malmaison carnation in the buttonhole of his frock-coat to the buff spats that matched his expansive waistcoat in shade, the large Major was the personification of luxurious, pampered, West End swelldom, the type of a class Saxham abhorred. He had seen the heavy dandy under other conditions, in circumstances strenuous, severe, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... adoring pride of his downward gaze at her, stirred all the women's hearts and roused a sympathetic thrill in the men's breasts. Colin made a good show in the regulation bridegroom's frock coat, and with a sprig of orange blossom in his buttonhole. There was no doubt that he was extremely happy. He gave a short manly speech in response to Sir Luke's rather academic oration proposing the health of the wedded pair. The Premier too made a speech, and so did the Attorney-General, who was best man. Bridget's bridesmaids ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... went quietly about the usual business of his toilet. In taking off his dress-coat he noticed the Legion of Honor which Miss Talcott had given him at the ball. He pulled it out of his buttonhole and tossed it into the fire-place. When he had finished dressing he saw with surprise that it was nearly ten o'clock. Ruby Glenn was ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... that could be easily remedied," she added, with a touch of archness. Then Mr. Iglesias thought it time to depart. In the hall his host held him, literally by the buttonhole, looking up with squinting blue eyes into ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... made a sign to the lawyer, who went out of the door. He came back almost instantly, but not alone. Behind him, dressed up in his best clothes, with a flower in his buttonhole ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... buttonhole, but no one sings him a song. In the opera he is not on the stage during the bridesmaids' chorus. I have not been able to find out whether the quaint pretty verses are by Friedrich Kind, who founded the libretto of the opera ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... ceremony, I suppose, is adequate; the institution, I dare say, is useful or it would not have endured. But the human relation thus recognised is a mysterious thing in its origins, character and consequences. Unfortunately you can't buttonhole familiarly a young girl as you would a young fellow. I don't think that even another woman could really do it. She would not be trusted. There is not between women that fund of at least conditional loyalty which men may depend on in their dealings with each other. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... wrapped around a yellow photograph of the "A Class" of 1870: eight pretty girls in white, smiling among five solemn boys in black, and Tommy himself, as the valedictorian, occupying the centre of the picture in his new suit of broadcloth, with a rose in his buttonhole and his hair cut by a professional barber for ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... Dieu, where he died the next morning, in great agony. When I first saw the French soldiers I thought them a dirty, ragged set—their clothing was originally white. Many of them, particularly in the 'Regiment de la Reine,' had a bit of blue ribbon to the buttonhole of their coat, with a little white shell fixed to it, which they called 'Papa,' and this, it seems, was a mark of honour for having distinguished themselves on some former occasion. I, at first, mistook them for Freemasons! After the battle of the Plains of Abraham, on the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... staggered. She looked quickly at old Perce and saw that he was in his best clothes, with a lovely new spotted blue and white tie, and a dahlia in his buttonhole. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... on the arm of our dear Prince?" asked a little fat man, girt in a white satin waistcoat, and a spray of white lilac in his buttonhole. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... burst into an angry laugh. He stood opposite to her, with his orchid in his buttonhole, himself the fine flower of civilisation. Ranching, indeed! However, he had done so many odd things in his life, that, as she knew, it was never quite safe to decline to take him seriously, and he looked at her now so defiantly, his clear greenish eyes so wide open and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ladies' men—the few Who wish they could be ladies too— Display a sprig of yellow Conspicuous in their buttonhole, To captivate a maiden soul Or vex ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... rubies, of almost priceless value. Each button of his coat and low-cut vest was a diamond, and from the front of his rimless cap waved a plume of diamonds. On his wrists were heavy gold bracelets of Malayan workmanship, and his fingers were cramped with almost priceless rings. In his buttonhole blazed a diamond orchid. The handle and scabbard of his sword were a solid mass of precious stones. Altogether this little known Oriental potentate possessed $10,000,000 worth of diamonds, the ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... old gentleman with the flowing white locks and the white rose in his buttonhole bore down upon Quin and enveloped his ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... young, pretty Aunt Maria, Molly would never have known her but for the portrait—kissed her uncle, and then she took a Christmas rose out of her dress and put it in Mr. Sheldon's buttonhole, and put up her face to him and said, 'Good-night, James.' He kissed her; Molly heard the loud, jolly sound of the kiss, and Aunt ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... among the street venders. They sell matches, tooth-picks, cigars, newspapers, songs and flowers. The flower-girls are hideous little creatures, but their wares are beautiful and command a ready sale. These are made into hand bouquets, and buttonhole bouquets, and command from ten cents to several dollars each. When the day is wet and gloomy, and the slush and the mud of Broadway are thick over everything animate and inanimate, and the sensitive soul shrinks within itself at the sight of so much discomfort, the flower-girls do a good ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... boys marching in the procession of a school, with gowns on, an usher marshalling them and reading as he walked in a great book. He was installed in a villa, semi-detached; the name, "Rosemore," on the gateposts. In a chair on the gravel walk he seemed to sit smoking a cigar, a blue ribbon in his buttonhole, victor over himself and circumstances and the malignity of bankers. He saw the parlour, with red curtains, and shells on the mantelpiece—and, with the fine inconsistency of visions, mixed a grog at the mahogany table ere he turned in. With that the Farallone ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the group; and then, towering above them, and steadying himself by the hand-rail in a desperate effort at erectness, Mr. Royall stepped stiffly ashore. Like the young men of the party, he wore a secret society emblem in the buttonhole of his black frock-coat. His head was covered by a new Panama hat, and his narrow black tie, half undone, dangled down on his rumpled shirt-front. His face, a livid brown, with red blotches of anger and lips sunken in like an old ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... looked puzzled, and might have spoken but for a violent interruption. A man had entered the car with an orange ribbon in his buttonhole. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... I still have the reader by the "introduction" buttonhole, I want to make a suggestion or two about using a book like this. Do not, on the one hand, read it through and then put it away with the dictionary and the family Bible, and trust to memory for the instruction it may give; do not, on the other hand, wait until you think ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... soft "Good-morning," and walked with him into the garden, among the roses and sweet-smelling things of summer. And then—oh, wonderful, exquisite marvel!—plucked a sprig of mignonette, smelled it, and placed it in his buttonhole. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... one else. The Duffer had letters to write, and stigmatized walking as a beastly grind. John determined to walk by himself; but as he was leaving the Manor he met the Caterpillar, a tremendous buck, arrayed in his best—patent-leather boots, white waistcoat, a flower in his buttonhole. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... making such a choice," he remarked. "A butcher's assistant for my father and a consumptive buttonhole-maker for my mother. I suppose I knew what I was about. Quite the right thing for me to have done, as ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... Patricia, but Arabella put her left hand over her lips, while with her right she slipped another button into its buttonhole, and sidled toward ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... cried, indignantly. "When there's such a good, good woman, Jane's sister Meg-Laundress, what washes for us just 'cause I mend her things. An' tailor-Jake who showed me to do a buttonhole an' him all doubled up with coughin'; an' Billy Buttons who gives us a paper sometimes, only neither of us can read it; an' Nick, the parson, who helps me sort my goobers; an' Posy Jane, that's a kind ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... a purple pansy. "This looks to me as though it would like to get into your buttonhole, ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... decoration in his buttonhole whenever we have a dinner. The first time Johan noticed it he almost fainted away, as he knows every decoration under the sun, and, thinking it looked like the Legion d'Honneur, he proposed to question Robert about it; but Robert eluded the master's clutch ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... on the tide of some irresistible impulse. He longed to dare, and yet he had never dared. He longed to take risks, and yet he studied every step of the road. He longed to be unconventional, and yet he would have died rather than wear a red flower in his buttonhole. The thought of Patty rushed over him like the wind at dawn or the light of the sunrise. There was deliverance; there was freedom of spirit! She was the impulse he dared not follow, the risk he dared not take, the red ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... covered with violets and her cap a tiny lace affair with a violet border. In her case she was able to use many real violets and to carry a basket of the fresh flowers. The contents was made up of small bunches of buttonhole size and she stepped from the procession at almost every table to sell a bunch to some gentleman sitting there. A scout ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... thousand francs to Jenny, but the two hundred francs to the servants—nay the six sous given to the waiter at the restaurant, even the money he had spent on the bunch of violets. The bouquet still hung in his buttonhole, faded and shrivelled. What good did it do him? While the sous which he had paid for it—! He did not think of his wasted millions, but could not drive away the thought of that ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... without the buttonhole parts, $60. This last is beyond all question the simplest, easiest to manage and to keep in order, of any machine in the market. Machines warranted, and full instruction given ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... something move on the far side of the wall: he paused to make sure, and then he whistled, the sounds outside ceased, and in a moment something fell softly behind him. He turned quickly and snatched up a little buttonhole of flowers with a still smaller ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... with a masterful touch the delicate cluster of Noisette rosebuds she wore at her throat and transferred them to his buttonhole as he answered courteously: "Certainly. My time, as you know, is entirely ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... convulsive sensation which roused me up as I endeavored in imagination to swallow at one draught the contents of a metal tankard of half-and-half—half laurel-water, and half decoction of henbane—handed to me on a leaden salver by a demon-waiter, with a sprig of hemlock in the third buttonhole of his coat. This Lethean influence could hardly be that of the ailantus-tree alone. What of the plants on the balcony beneath,—the strange, rooty coilers which the mysterious planter sedulously fosters at the glooming of dusk, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... talked savagely of hunting, brutally of love, and only of money with any sort of real appreciation. And that was cold and cunning. They talked business in the smoking-room. Christophe heard some one say of a certain fop who was sauntering from one lady to another, with a buttonhole in his coat, ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Right at him came Birdie Andrews, hat in hand, and when the halfback arrived he bowed and asked him to stop. The runner declined. McMurty was right behind and he also begged the runner to stop. Boggs tried to buttonhole him. Skeeter Wilson, who was as fast as a trolley car, ran along with him for twenty-five yards, pleading with him to listen to reason and consent to be downed. It was no use. The halfback went over the goal ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... themselves the painted spaces and the red plush benches; these were shared by a few scattered gentlemen who picked teeth, with facial contortions, behind little bare tables, and by an old personage in particular, a very old personage with a red ribbon in his buttonhole, whose manner of soaking buttered rolls in coffee and then disposing of them in the little that was left of the interval between his nose and chin might at a less anxious hour have cast upon Maisie ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... was not indifferent—it was excited: when first the Comte de Cambray and Crystal arrived on the Place du Carrousel, a number of white cockades could be picked out in the throng, either worn on a hat or fixed to a buttonhole, but as the afternoon wore on there were fewer and fewer of these small white stars to be seen: the temper of the crowd did not brook this mute reproach upon its enthusiasm. One or two cockades had been roughly torn and thrown into the mud, and the wearer unpleasantly ill-used if he ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... Comtesse, and took his masculine vengeance by the suggested innuendo of a shrug of his shoulders and a lifting of his eyebrows. But he said no more just then, and merely contented himself with coaxingly abstracting a rose out of Angela's bodice, kissing it, and placing it in his own buttonhole. This was one of his "pretty drawing-room tricks" according to Loyse D'Agramont who always laughed unmercifully at these kind of courtesies. They had been the stock-in-trade of her late husband, and she knew exactly what value to set upon them. But Angela was ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... with an air of having a great deal to do, and not knowing at all how to do it. Beyond the darkness there was a steady hum, like the distant whirr of a great machine. There was a very faint smell in the air of boots and human flesh. A stout gentleman with a rosette in his buttonhole showed us to our seats. Vera sat between Uncle Ivan and myself. When I looked about me I was amazed. The huge hall was packed so tightly with human beings that one could see nothing but wave on wave ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... wore very dark clothes of extreme simplicity, and at a time when pins and chains were much in fashion, he had not anything visible about him of gold or silver. He wore his watch on a short, doubled piece of black silk braid slipped through his buttonhole. He dressed almost as ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... a blossom for his buttonhole, and then proceeded to draw David out. Under the skillful, schooled questioning, David ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... bridesmaid. That is what he called it. "She has but one other," said Fortnoye. At the same time I began to recognize other faces not unknown to me, crudely illuminated by the raw colors of the railway-lights. They all had black wedding-suits and enormous buttonhole nosegays of orange-flowers. I picked them out, with a particular recognition for each: 'twas the civil engineer of Noisy; the short gentleman named Somerard; James Athanasius Grandstone, with his saintly aureole upon him in the shape of a Yankee ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... gentleman, with a number of orders at his buttonhole, presently entered the room, and sauntered up to the marble table, before which reposed Simon and his clerical friend. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, as he took a place opposite them, and began reading the papers ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... did see it, and it really did look pretty from a distance, with its little close-clustered red roofs like a buttonhole bouquet floating on the sea. As the steamer brought us nearer the island something of the glamor faded; but there were about a dozen girls assembled to watch the arrival of the boat, wearing rather nice, winged white caps ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... was less handsome but equally picturesque. His white head and iron-grey beard placed him outside the active army. He wore in his buttonhole a tiny bow of ribbon, the usual badge of ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... beautiful flowers, the forest made up of immense trees with luxuriant foliage, overladen with parasitic orchids—eternally in bloom, of course, in the dreamy minds of the untravelled, and just waiting to be picked and to be placed in one's buttonhole. The sky, naturally, over such a forest, could only be swarming with birds of all sizes, with plumage of the richest colours and hues; and what else could such a luxuriant country have in the way of butterflies and insects than some which resemble ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... malaria, and other ills were upstairs. Stores were being brought in, packages of clothing and lint received at the door. A favorite surgeon made his rounds. He was cool and jaunty, his hands in his pockets, a rose in his buttonhole. "What are you malingerers doing here, anyhow? You're eating your white bread, with honey on it—you are! Propped up and walking around—Mrs. McGuire reading to you—Mrs. Randolph smilingly letting you beat her at her own game—Miss Cooper writing beautiful ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... clean. A white night-cap and a round hat, composed of some iron-hard substance, well calculated to protect the head from any loose stones that might fall on it, completed the equipment; to which, three tallow-candles were afterwards added, two to hang at the buttonhole, one to carry in ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... to the visitor, and swept him with an appreciative glance, her eye lingering a second on the oleander in his buttonhole. ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... say it is for the good sense of the public to distinguish true remedies from false, pure wine from adulterated; or, it is for the good sense of the public to distinguish in a buttonhole the decoration awarded to merit from that prostituted to mediocrity and intrigue. Why, then, do you call yourselves the State, Power, Authority, Police, if the work of Police must be performed by the good sense of ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... bent over the cot until the blush rosebud that Miss Amanda had shyly pinned in his buttonhole as her good-by before she had retired, brushed the little fellow's cheek as he ran his arm under the sturdy little nightgowned shoulders and drew him ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... father. He dressed neatly and well. His trousers were never without their fresh crease. He was very vain of his neat appearance, even to the wearing of a fresh-cut flower in his buttonhole. This vanity made him also wear his derby indoors and out, because of ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Descoings, he wore a hat that was greasy, with the nap rubbed off at the edges, patched boots, a shabby overcoat, on which the red ribbon scarcely showed so discolored and dirty was it by long service at the buttonhole and by the spatterings of coffee and liquors. His buckskin gloves, of a greenish tinge, lasted him a long while; and he only gave up his satin neckcloth when it was ragged enough to look like wadding. Mariette was the sole object of ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... at her with interest. She was in a shabby blue serge coat and skirt, but she wore a bunch of violets in her buttonhole. Her hat was dark blue, her gloves were white worsted ones, and her face was bright and smiling. Her whole appearance was pleasant. When she got up to go, she held ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... me that his clothes had undergone much the same change as his dwelling. In his golden days in London he had been a good deal of a dandy; he usually wore white waistcoats at night; was particular about the flowers in his buttonhole, his gloves and cane. Now he was decently dressed and that was all; as far below the average as he had been above it. Clearly, he had let go of himself and no longer took pleasure in the vanities: it seemed to me ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... a bench by myself or set my foot any place without being assailed by insignificant accidents, miserable details, that forced their way into my imagination and scattered my powers to all the four winds. A dog that dashed by me, a yellow rose in a man's buttonhole, had the power to set my thoughts vibrating and occupy me for a ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... years. Towards the end of his dinner with the two Chaplains, the Colonel let out his waistcoat and leaned over the table to look at some Mission Reports. The bar of the watch-guard worked through the buttonhole, and the watch—Platte's watch—slid quietly on to the carpet. Where the bearer found it next ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... entered, threw a cloak over her head, and bound her hand and foot. Immediately the coach started, but presently it stopped again, and Frances had an opportunity to speak to the girl who had come to see Betty. Fortunately a buttonhole in the cloak which the men had thrown over Frances's head happened to fall over one of her eyes, and thus enabled her to ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... something uncanny about him as he stood there—a short, heavily-built fellow, standing without a word, one hand in his trousers pocket, a cigar in his mouth, and a red rosette, such as peasants wear on holidays, in the buttonhole of what was evidently his best coat. There he stood, gazing fixedly at Olof, with a curious glitter ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... o'clock on the second afternoon following Julia's return, Noble Dill closed his own gate behind him and set forth upon the four-minute walk that would bring him to Julia's. He wore a bit of scarlet geranium in the buttonhole of his new light overcoat; he flourished a new walking-stick and new grey gloves. As for his expression, he might have been ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... of a chair, which is to serve you as a clothes rack. Take the trousers by the waist and place together the first two suspender buttons, one on the left and the other on the right. This will make the fold preserve the natural crease and dispose of the extra material, button and buttonhole tab at the waist. Trousers carefully folded will only need pressing about twice a year. Hose should be well shaken, and unless perfectly clean, thrown in the soiled-linen basket. Evening silk hose can be worn several times. The undervest, or undershirt, and the drawers should be also subjected ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... preceding chapter. The "woman's sphere" argument is still being worked overtime by anti-suffrage societies, whose members rather inconsistently leave their "sphere," the home, to harangue in public and buttonhole legislators to vote against the franchise for women. "A woman's place," says the sage Hennessy, "is in th' home, darning her husband's childher. I mean——" "I know what ye mean," says Mr. Dooley. "'Tis a favrite argument iv mine whin I ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... buttonhole flowers naturally. Martin smiled at my choice for him, which was a small, but chubby, red and yellow, uncompromising Dutch tulip, far too stout to be able to follow its family habit of night closing, except to contract itself slightly. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... I've got two buttons left over, and there's only one buttonhole to put 'em in! What'll I ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... couple of ladies, than another cab drove up and set down another couple of ladies, and they all knew: not only one another, but the majority of the gentlemen into the bargain, which made it all as pleasant and lively as could be. Signor Billsmethi, in black tights, with a large blue bow in his buttonhole, introduced the ladies to such of the gentlemen as were strangers: and the ladies talked away—and laughed they did—it was delightful to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Dolokhov, who in Moscow had worn a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman's padded coat with an Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of the room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denisov and began questioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov told him of the designs the large ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... fancy work! The picture of this powerful half-savage, his fierce brows bent over a tiny piece of linen, his strong fingers fussing with little stitches, will always appeal to my sense of the incongruous. Through a piece of linen he punched holes with a porcupine quill. Then he "buttonhole" stitched the holes, and embroidered patterns between them with fine white thread. The result was an openwork pattern heavily encrusted with beautiful fine embroidery. It was most astounding stuff, such as you would expect from a French convent, perhaps, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... herself she saw a thick-set figure approaching her across the square; and a moment later she was shaking hands with Elmer Moffatt. In the bright spring air he looked seasonably glossy and prosperous; and she noticed that he wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. His small black eyes twinkled with approval as they rested on her, and Undine reflected that, with Paul's arms about her neck, and his little flushed face against her own, she must present a not ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... that they should find the game worth the candle. What they add to their incomes I do not know, but it cannot be very much, and the trouble they have to take is colossal. Nobody loves them, and they must see it; yet they persevere. Glossop, for instance, had been trying to buttonhole me every time there was a five minutes' break in the ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... Clean-shaven, with a short bulldog pipe in the corner of his mouth, a billycock hat set rather jauntily on his head, a short, drab-coloured overcoat of horsy cut, black and white check trousers, red-skin riding gloves, square-toed walking shoes, a light cane, and a rose in his buttonhole; you would have taken him at first sight for a sporting tipster. Matthieu, who had stopped short at this sudden apparition, and Bonafede, both stood staring in amazement. The new-comer looked at them with a wicked ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... evening livery, he freed the heavy silver watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an old-fashioned silver watch of that obese style which first earned the portable timepiece its nickname of "turnip," and opening its back inserted a key attached to the other end of the chain. Its winding was a laborious process, prodigiously ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... mind the young lady who grabbed my walking-stick and presented me with a shilling cloakroom ticket, or the other who placed a buttonhole in my coat (two-and-sixpence), or the third who sprayed me with scent (one shilling, but had I known of the threatened attack I would have paid two shillings for immunity), or the fourth, who snatched my rather elderly silk ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... assure you, my dear children, kept up most carefully. There was always a button to sew on, a buttonhole to remake, or a tear to be mended. Thus constantly in touch with the household Madame Hen soon thought she belonged to it. Indeed, worn out by the teasing of her companions, by the constant arguments she had with them, and touched on the other hand by the affectionate care ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... and collar, was open, and the lappels thrown back, displaying a crimson—velvet facing, also richly embroidered, and an embroidered scarlet waistcoat; a large solitary star glittered on his breast, and the grand cross of the Legion of Honour sparkled at his buttonhole; his black neckerchief had been taken off; and his cocked hat lay beside him on a sofa, massively laced, the edges richly ornamented with ostrich down; his head was covered with a red velvet cap, with a thick gold ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... is a gold watch and chain. The man who was killed, Mrs. Brenner, had a piece of gold chain to match this in his buttonhole. The rest of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sounded to most people a church hymn. But it was not a church hymn. It was a new method of shouting out the odds, attracting attention to an exceedingly well-got-up gentleman in a grey frock suit, patent leather boots, white spats, grey gloves, tall white hat, and a flower in his buttonhole. A new bookmaker had made his appearance. He informed the crowds in song that he betted "only for cash," not "on the nod"—"I pay on the winner, immediately after the race." It only wanted an organ to accompany him. It was quite amusing ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... what on earth should we men do going about with purity and innocence? A carefully thought-out buttonhole is ...
— Lady Windermere's Fan • Oscar Wilde
... Lord Henry, settling his buttonhole in his coat; "and when they grow older they know it. But I don't want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... question of love or marriage as Mrs. Luna had tattled about. Mr. Burrage was successful, he could see that in the turn of an eye; not perhaps as having a commanding intellect or a very strong character, but as being rich, polite, handsome, happy, amiable, and as wearing a splendid camellia in his buttonhole. And that he, at any rate, thought Verena had succeeded was proved by the casual, civil tone, and the contented distraction of eye, with which he exclaimed, "You don't mean to say you were not moved by that! It's my opinion that Miss Tarrant will carry ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... quite ceased going out, and gave up the reception-days he had established for the peasants, without the assistance of the priest, sans le concours du clerg. On such days Ivan Matveitch had been in the habit of going in to the peasants in the hall or on the balcony, with a rose in his buttonhole, and putting his lips to a silver goblet of vodka, he would make them a speech something like this: 'You are content with my actions, even as I am content with your zeal, whereat I rejoice truly. We are all brothers; at our birth we are equal; I drink your health!' He bowed to them, and ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev |
