"Chuckle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wilhelm Meister, that a beautiful tear glistened in Theresa's right eye, and then went on to explain that it glistened in her right eye and not in her left, because she had had a wart on her left which had been removed—and successfully. Goethe probably wrote this without a chuckle; he believed what a good many people who have never read Wilhelm Meister believe still, namely, that it was a work full of pathos, of fine and tender feeling; yet a less consummate humorist must have felt that there was scarcely a paragraph in it from first to last the ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... spirit, sir," said he to Dick; "but though I am no friend to parental interference, I will say that you were heavy on the governor." Then he added with a chuckle: "You began, Richard, with a silver spoon, and here you are in the water, like the rest. Work, work, nothing like work. You have parts, you have manners; why, with application, you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Lots of people do it: just as good people as you. Why dont you learn to think, instead of bleating and bashing like a lot of sheep when you come up against anything youre not accustomed to? [Contemplating their amazed faces with a chuckle] I say: I should like to draw the lot of you now: you do look jolly foolish. Especially you, Ridgeon. I had you ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... sympathy reached me, where I sat, demolished before the rebuke of the great man. I distinctly heard a chuckle from a feminine member. Yet, what had the dissenter done, or tried to do? To be quite honest, only, in a little matter where affectation would have been the flowery way; and I must say that I have never loved the Father of English Poetry any better ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... always does, and with a tremendous burst of the victors the piece closed. There were also comic pieces, which caused great amusement. During one, an old man behind me clutched me by the arm, shook his finger in my face with a roguish smile, and said something with a chuckle, which I took to be the equivalent of 'O, you women, you women; it is true of you all!' I fear it was not complimentary. At no time was there the least sign of the ugly indecency of the eastern islands. All was poetry pure and simple. The music itself was as complex as our own, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... saw no use of life But, while he drove a roaring trade, To chuckle "Customers are rife!" To chafe "So much hard cash outlaid Yet ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... I heard Craig chuckle grimly to himself, as if he found humor in the thought, but without other attempt to give utterance to his feelings he ranged up ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... nearly silent chuckle, and looked at him. "I believe you would, Peter," she said, "and I certainly mustn't risk that. I'll be good. Are those the books? Fetch me a chair, then, and I'll ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... door, and leant his ear to listen. From far away came a rich, long-continued chuckle of laughter, followed by the clatter of a falling plate, and then, still more uncontrollable laughter. There was a faint smell of toast on the air. Lawford ventured out on to the landing and into a little room that had once, in years gone by, been Alice's nursery. He stood far back ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... latter shrieking like a wild-cat, the former roaring like a buffalo bull; how March Marston became madder than ever, and infected his little steed with the same disease, so that the two together formed a species of insane compound that caused Redhand and Bounce to give vent to many a low chuckle and many a deep sagacious remark, and induced Hawkswing to gaze at it—the compound—in ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... applied the threatened stick the bag burst, and all the filth came out, which he was compelled to lick up by the enraged populace." At the close of the story the cigarettes glow, the white teeth gleam, the bushy whiskers wag, the old women chuckle, the girls giggle, and the youths snigger, and as the short twilight is now over, the group breaks up, and each vanishes into his or her own vermin-pasture to sleep until amanha has actually become to-day, and the sun shines on ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... fellows, who happened to know what this sly reference on the part of the hotheaded Andy meant, began to chuckle. Of course such a thing would only serve to make Puss more angry. He chose to believe that they were all only trying ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... won for himself a pretty young wife, who, instead of squandering his substance, would help him to grow richer, was indeed a triumph, upon which Mr. Whitelaw congratulated himself with many a suppressed chuckle as he went about his daily labours, or jogged slowly home from market ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... instinctive abhorrence of ostentation and waste that enabled him, as it were, to glide into the millionaire without being observed by his neighbors. He used to relate, with a chuckle, that he was worth a million before any one suspected it. A dandy bank-clerk, one day, having expressed a doubt as to the sufficiency of his name to a piece of mercantile paper, Astor asked him how much he thought he was worth. The clerk mentioned ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... with a chuckle). Make thyself easy, old dotard! thou wilt never more press thy darling to thy bosom—there is a gulf between thee and him impassable as heaven is from hell. He was torn from thy arms before even thou couldst have dreamed it possible ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... but this class of African is the clerk class, and we are now concerned with the labourer. The African's own way of doing anything mechanical is the simplest way, not the easiest, certainly not the quickest: he has all the chuckle-headedness of that overrated creature the ant, for his head never saves his heels. Watch a gang of boat-boys getting a surf boat down a sandy beach. They turn it broadside on to the direction in which they wish it to go, and then turn it bodily over and over, with structure-straining ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... a bed, though that is putting the matter too briefly. The fair way to begin, if you love Mrs. Dowey, is to say to her that it is a pity she has no bed. If she is in her best form she will chuckle, and agree that the want of a bed tries her sore; she will keep you on the hooks, so to speak, as long as she can; and then, with that mouse-like movement again, she will suddenly spring the bed on you. You thought it was a wardrobe, but she brings it down from the wall; and lo, a ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... bizziness. When you run up gold it hits the hul mercantile body of this nation a wipe in the stummuck. A good many little cubs, as well as a few ole Bears, have been gobbled up by your confounded efforts at runnin' up gold, while you grin and chuckle like the laffin' hyena, when ransackin' Navy Yards and whisky distilleries. But, if you insist on goin' ahead and earnin' your daily peck by smashin' things and layin' out the onsofisticated, all I have got ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... with a chuckle, "we are somewhat up a tree in respect to that. We have held several family conclaves on the subject, and after much prayerful consideration of the matter we had finally settled on Gladys, but—well, since we've seen him the ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... said at last, with a slight chuckle. "Now, what I want to know is: is someone playing a joke on you, or are you playing a joke ...
— The Asses of Balaam • Gordon Randall Garrett
... fetchin' in th' ice cream freezers," he said, with his booming chuckle. "I guess I'm 's well 's c'n be expected, under th' circumstances, ma'am.... An' that r'minds me, parson, a little matter was s'ggested t' me. In fact, I'd thought of it, some time ago. No more 'n right, in view o' th' facts. If you don't mind, I'll outline th' idee t' you, parson, ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... take my head off?" said Mr. Tisbett, with a sly wink at the boys, and a little chuckle as he resumed the reins ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... he repeated: "Get right up and come here. Don't sit there like a chuckle-headed chump. Get up, I tell you. Here's some sort of a show for us. Here's what looks like a way out o' this ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... felt hushed and solemn, it was an impressive moment; a slight chuckle came from imperturbable Weissman; he had seen too many go to think much of it, and he gave an order for the helm to be put over, so that we might approach ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... tall ghost jumped around in front of her and patted her other cheek, the while he gave a cackling, rattling, ghostly chuckle. ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... the road and crept across to the door of the inn. The bicycle still leaned against the wall. Holmes struck a match and held it to the back wheel, and I heard him chuckle as the light fell upon a patched Dunlop tire. Up above us was the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Major, with a pretense of having business to call him away at night, would go over to old Gid's house, and together they would chuckle by the fire or nod over roasting potatoes. They talked of their days on the river, and of their nights at Natchez under the hill. To be wholly respectable, a man must give up many an enjoyment, but when at last he has become virtuous, he fondly recounts the escapades of former years; and ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... Cromwell's third daughter, the Lady Mary Cromwell, was married to Viscount, afterwards Earl, Fauconberg. The Fauconbergs took revolutions calmly and, despite the disinterment of their great relative, accepted the Restoration gladly and lived to chuckle over the Revolution. The forgetfulness, no less than the vindictiveness, of men is often surprising. Marvell, who played the part of Laureate during the Protectorate, produced two songs for the conventionally ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... said,—"Hello, Rosy," and nonchalantly accepted Miss Glynn's invitation for the intervening days before school opened, the new Adelle was revealed. The girls exchanged glances. And "Rosy" whispered Irene Paul,—"Our little Adelle is coming on." To which the California girl replied with a chuckle,—"Didn't I tell you she was ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... behind him. Noiselessly the tangle of vines separated and a head thrust itself out in time to see the bit of paper fall short of the water's edge. Then the head shot back as swiftly and as silently as a serpent's. Perhaps Captain Plum heard the gloating chuckle that followed the movement. If so he thought it only some night bird ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... his fist at him, and discharged a volley of horrible curses after him. Whilst he was thus raging after the man that had done his duty he heard a satirical chuckle. He turned his head, and, behold! there was the sneering face of his fellow jail-bird ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... taking his daughter by the arm, he added, "come below, Virginia, and give them the good news. Your friend Oddington has forgotten his cigarettes for a full twenty-four hours, and the Dale girls are candidates for a sanitarium." There was a chuckle ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... chappies burst into a fatuous laugh once more at this remark. "Now, you're giving away the whole show, Mrs. Montague!" he exclaimed, with a chuckle. A look from Miss Sissie immediately ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the envelope, glanced at the enclosure, and in spite of his disappointment could not restrain a chuckle. ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... bottom, with a diabolical chuckle. "I think you observed just now that I looked a fool last night! perhaps you will not mind trying ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Unc' Billy's sharp little face, and then his fat little body would follow, and he and his friend with the long tail and the sharp eyes, for of course you have guessed that is who it was, would put their heads together and laugh and chuckle as if they were enjoying the best joke ever was. Then they would whisper and sometimes talk right out loud, when they felt sure that no one ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Mocker • Thornton W. Burgess
... again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. "No," he answered, "generally he's an early bird—airley to bed and airley to rise—yes, he's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out a peddling, you see, and I don't see ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... no more than an appendix to the legal anatomy, and frequently he is a disease. The spectacle of a medical man of small learning and less English trying to preside over a court of first instance is enough to make the accused himself chuckle ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... The parent birds once out of sight, she had stolen slyly upon the nest, and after a very brief interval as slyly retreated, leaving her questionable compliments, presumably with a self-satisfied chuckle. The intruded egg is so like its fellow as to be hardly distinguishable except in its slightly larger size. It is doubtful whether the sparrow, in particular, owing to this similarity, ever realizes the deception. Indeed, ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... like to get their own back again," he remarked with a chuckle, and then turned sharply to Dunn. "Well, my man," he asked, "what have you got to say ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... Caroline looked at Peter. "She wrote to Cissie, astin' 'bout you. She ast is you as bright in yo' books as you is in yo' color." The old negress gave a pleased abdominal chuckle as she admired her ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... cake," Poke declared, with a chuckle. "He's been on a regular frolic for the last week, and he can invent more kinds of fun than any ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... since honored the students of this institution with a series of calls for the purpose of soliciting money to purchase for himself a bovine, to replace one providentially taken from him. His success may he inferred from a remark let fall by Bill, accompanied by a demoniac chuckle: ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... Probably, for example, there was no bridge whist in those days," said his father, with a chuckle. "And I'll wager, too, the Venetians were quite as happy and as well off without it. The games of the time were doubtless much more simple. But whatever they were, they proved to be so fascinating that they soon became an actual menace. Amusements ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... match, by certain articles of ladies' attire which in the hurried departure had been left behind in the room, that the usual attendants of the smokers were women, but they had stampeded away on our arrival. One heard them chuckle in the adjoining rooms, and in their haste, they had left behind a great many pairs of slippers at the entrance ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... we won't pe up to our necks in somedings else pefore long," came a whine from the rear, that made more than one fellow chuckle. ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... chuckle. 'I recollect we 'ad six children's funerals to do in one week. Ole Misery was as pleased as Punch, because of course as a rule there ain't many boxin'-up jobs in the summer. It's in winter as ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... I tell you, Bakenkhonsu?" said Ki in a full, rich voice, ending the words with a curious chuckle. ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... Tom Betts, with a chuckle, "and I could string off more'n a few times when that same curiosity hauled Bobolink into a peck of trouble. But p'raps your father might let out the secret to you, after the old boxes have been taken away, and then you can ease his mind. Because it's just ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... another and more feverish time; a Mittie May stirred by olden memories to nightmarish performances. By chance once Jeff had happened upon her secret, and now, all in one illuminating flash, recalling the conditions governing this discovery, he gave vent to a low anticipatory chuckle. It was the first chuckle he had uttered in a fortnight, and this one was edged with a sinister portent. He had his idea now. He had at hand the agency for bringing the scheme to fruition. But yet there remained ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... a bad mare; and if she could eat bay, might do a good deal of work yet,' and he gave a kinder chuckle laugh at his own joke, that sounded like the rattles in his throat, it was so dismal and deep, for he was one o' them kind of fellers that's too ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Tal!' exclaims Tunicu with a contemptuous chuckle; 'I should rather think I do! Fulana de Tal, widow of the late Timothy de Tallo y Gallo, the large importer of soap and composites, in Candela Street number sixty-eight, corner of Vela Lane, opposite Snufa's ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... Presently he began to chuckle. "There's a bit notice on the gate that nae dogs are admittet, but Bobby's sleepit on Auld Jock's grave ane—twa—three—fower nichts, an' the gairdener doesna ken it, ava. He's a ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... Ned," said the doctor. "Let us make a distich of it," added he, with a chuckle; "for, of a verity, some of the K. C.'s of our times are but dunces. Let's see—how will ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... with a hoarse chuckle. "He's afraid—and I know what he's afraid of. He won't be caught in a trap if he can help it, the old 'un. He's about as fly as they make ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her over his shoulder as he stalked from the room. Miss Ocky glanced at the faces of the two who remained with her and gave a contented little chuckle. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... biographer could. Carlyle was essentially a humourist. He laughed heartily at other people, and not less heartily at himself. When he was letting himself go, and indulging freely in the most lurid denunciations of all and sundry, he would give a peculiar and most significant chuckle which cannot be put into print. It was a warning not to take him literally, which has too often passed unheeded. He has been compared with Swift, but he was not really a misanthropist, and no man loved laughter more, or could excite more uproarious merriment in others. I remember a sober Scotsman, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... cheerfully. "Mended twenty dozen stockings, got breakfast for seven hungry mouths every morning, played tennis with the boys and Polly, tutored all I could, sent out father's bills,—oh, being the oldest of eight is no snap, I can tell you, but," Katherine added with a chuckle, "it's lots of fun. Boys do like you so if you're rather ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... agree to that, sir, surely?" I believe the lad was slightly nettled by my chuckle. No one likes to ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... A chuckle broke from him while he stood jauntily fingering the diamond in his tie, as if it were some talisman which imparted fresh confidence. Oh, it was useless to try to put a man like that in his place—for his place seemed to ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... all the little folks fairly screamed with laughter, in which even Uncle Juvinell could not help joining right heartily: nor would he venture upon the broad wedge which he had cut out of his apple, till his chuckle was well ended; when he remarked, that "Willie was one of the boys we read about." To which Willie, picking himself up again, replied, that "he rather thought he was not, just then, but perhaps would be as soon as he could get back some of the breath he had lost, and ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... house. The required bonds were given, and the sheriff started off with a chuckle. He had hardly passed out of sight when he checked his horse, returned, and calling Nimbus to the gate, said to him ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... so valuable as what I'm going to tell you," replied Mr. Killick, with a dry chuckle, "Now, as I understand it, from young Mr. Purdie's account, you're all greatly excited at present over the undoubted connection with this Praed Street mystery of one Mr. Spencer Levendale, who is, I believe, a very rich man, a resident in one of the best parts of ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... thickens," began Willis, with a queer little smile on his face. Then with a slight chuckle he added: "To be more accurate, I suppose I should say 'The plot thins.' Those are the two men that were at my uncle's house the morning we started on this trip, and my uncle drew that sketch—I'm sure of it. ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... meat. We picked two mighty hunters to secure the prey for us; they approached with the greatest caution, though this was altogether unnecessary, for the seals lay perfectly motionless. They crept forward in Indian fashion, with their heads down and their backs bent. This looks fine; I chuckle and laugh, but still with a certain decorum. Then there is a report. Two of the sleeping seals give a little spasm, and do not move again. It is otherwise with the third. With snakelike movements it wriggles away ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... we are going to hold you up, you bloody villain," said the Englishman, with a chuckle. "Don't dare to resist, or it will be the worse for you," and he drew a pistol from ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... Sam, scratching his head, "I hope Mas'r'll 'scuse us trying dat ar road. Don't think I feel spry enough for dat ar, no way!" and Sam gave a hoarse chuckle. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Oakville; was to begin work Monday. I was powerful proud of that job, and had got a new suit of clothes and went to town Saturday. That night there was a dance, and they asked me to play for it." He stopped to chuckle, but still a little regretfully. "My playing certainly made a hit. Sunday morning a preacher lambasted the dance, and called me the special messenger of the devil. My job was with a pillar of his church. I didn't go to work ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... grimness of Mr. McBride's face relaxed. In the lower hall, he went so far as to chuckle. When he joined Mr. Park on the porch, he grinned at ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... rubbed the knob of his stick and made a brief convulsive show of laughter, which had much the same genuineness as an old whist-player's chuckle over a bad hand. Still looking at ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Herbert, I congratulate you," he said, with a chuckle. "The old fellow's left you his wardrobe. You'll look like a peacock when you put 'em on. If you ever come to New York to see me, leave 'em at home. I wouldn't like to walk up Broadway with such a gawk as ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... confident that the Hunters, and those people, call him in for mere trifles, just to cultivate his friendship. I know that Laura Hunter is fairly wild about him—and she is a chronic dyspeptic, luckily," my step-mother added with a malicious chuckle. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... suffering to be trampled down, law, justice, the Constitution, and the rights of the people? by exhibiting examples of inhumanity and cruelty and ambition? When the minions of despotism heard, in Europe, of the seizure of Pensacola, how did they chuckle, and chide the admirers of our institutions, tauntingly pointing to the demonstration of a spirit of injustice and aggrandizement made by our country, in the midst of an amicable negotiation! Behold, said they, the conduct ...
— Henry Clay's Remarks in House and Senate • Henry Clay
... silence, broken only by a soft chuckle from the abused David, descended on the seven young people ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... in Geoffrey's quarters when at last he approached them, and the foreman met him at the door. "That blame waster, Black, has come back. Rode in quietly after dark, and none of the boys have set eyes on him," he said; and, noting his master's surprise, he added with a chuckle, "I put him in there for safety, and waited right here ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... know how long I gazed in fascination at the wonderful stone, but at length a low chuckle from Inyati brought me back to reality. He stood looking at me, with a whimsical ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... much to believe of that," Mrs. Braile commented, and Reverdy gave the pleased chuckle of a social inferior raised above his level by amiable condescension. But as if he thought it safest to refuse any share in this intimacy, he ended his adulations with the opinion, "I should say that if these here two rooms was th'owed together they'd make ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... me treacherously, did you?" said he, with a derisive chuckle as if to slacken the speed of his horses. "You know short reckonings make good friends. Oh! what a fine thrashing you are going to receive, my friend! Take care! if you try to bite my hand, I'll choke you with my two fingers, do ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... translated it to her she would have been amazed and abashed. So would Lord Walderhurst have been amazed, so would Lady Maria; but her ladyship's amazement would have expressed itself after its first opening of the eyes, with a faint elderly chuckle. ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he, with a quiet chuckle, "that many dozen; for every 'un of them nutches count twelve. I only make a nutch when I've throwed the ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... with a chuckle, "if she's a Presbyterian. She'll get into deep water if she goes to discussing predestination and original sin, and all ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... gave a kind of grim chuckle of derision. "My dear Durward, what do you suppose I'm after?... rape and adultery and Markovitch after us with a pistol? I tell you—" and here he spoke fiercely, as though he were challenging the whole ice-bound ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... was left alone, stood for a few moments on the spot, and then with a whistle, a shake of the head, and a little low chuckle ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Limited Mail gave the signal cheerily. Ralph swung in from his side of the cab on the crack locomotive of the road. Old John Griscom gave a chuckle of delight and the ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... plan being the fact, of which he was in complete ignorance, that Fenton already held stock and had nothing whatever with which to buy more. He was willing to let the widow's bribe pass to her under so plausible a disguise, and he said to himself with a chuckle that he had far rather sell Fenton the ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... I ver' badt," he whispered; and then with something between gasp and chuckle, "but der pak-wa goot, no? When der live dependt, zo can mann—" He caught his breath, and trembled in a ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... not bad of blood will always be glad to mention one of the few good sides of a generally detestable character; and a person of humour must always chuckle at some of the ways in which Calvin's services to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... A soft chuckle came from the recumbent occupant of the third chair, but Atherton ignored it and hurried on, twirling rapidly, as he spoke, a single eyeglass attached ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... have reminiscences if not Francois Villon? There was not such another judge of peaches in all France, no such authority upon their eating, and few who had broken more teeth over their stones. The smile broadened into a soft chuckle, laughter deepened into puckers the many wrinkles of his crow-footed temples, and he wagged his grey head in the warm appreciation of a happy memory. Dipping a finger-tip into a pool of spilt wine he wrote on the table reflectively, and as La Mothe watched his leering face ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... except for the regular chuckle of their exhausts, and the light was subdued and even. It was a world without shadows. Still, Rick thought, there was plenty of light for photography. Next time ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... bit of it. Makes you look broader-chested and square-shouldered—more of the man. But, here, Lieutenant Lacey wants you up at his quarters. Sent that chuckle-headed Joe Todd, his ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... feet at that. But the light and its bearer, who so far recovered himself as to chuckle at his master's pious thought, had disappeared. They were left to pace the room, and reproach themselves and curse the Vidame in an agony of late repentance. Not even Marie could find a loop-hole ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... clear as glass with a bottom of fine sand. There then he bathed him, and as he sported in the water he bethought him of the long smooth reaches of Upmeads Water, and the swimming low down amidst the long swinging weeds between the chuckle of the reed sparrows, when the sun was new risen in the July morning. When he stood on the grass again, what with the bright weather and fair little land, what with the freshness of the water, and his good rest, and the hope of adventure to come, he felt as if he had never ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the publishers, making this eager demand; for Dick Prescott, Dave Darrin, Tom Reade, and the other members of Dick & Co. are the most popular high school boys in the land. Boys will alternately thrill and chuckle when reading ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... His plan was to light the candle, dispatch a porter with the message, and bolt for home. Having completed his preparations, he leaned back in his easy chair and smiled. He smiled a long time, and even achieved a chuckle. For the first time in his life, he felt a serene sense of happiness in being particularly wide awake. Then, without moving from his chair, he ignited the taper, and put out his hand toward the bell-cord, to summon the porter. At this stage of his vengeance the Colonel fell into ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... be a clam," asserted the tall runner with a chuckle, "and once I give my word, nobody ever knew me to break it. But say, doesn't it feel kind of chilly down here? Remember we haven't any too much on in the way of clothes, and for one I was a little heated after my run to ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... that happens, the doom of the book is sealed, for the adventures of Bildad are not in themselves diverting—his love-affair with the giantess is as unfunny a thing as ever I yawned over—and if you cease to chuckle at the burlesque pomposity of the style there is nothing left. There are some things which do not lend themselves to sustained parody, and the manner of the Arabian Nights is one of them. But, as I say, I am not going to allow this book to shake my opinion that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... and spoken some gracious words, the bitterness of the old quarrel might have been in some degree assuaged, even though its cause should not be entirely obliterated. But England did not choose to take that politic and Christian course. She found it much pleasanter to chuckle over the discomfiture of the Irish patriots, to ridicule the failure of their peaceable agitation, to sneer at their poor effort in arms, to nickname, and misrepresent, and libel the brave-hearted gentleman who led that unlucky endeavour; and above all to felicitate herself on the reduction ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... drive. Oh—I know the way," she told me with a chuckle. "You just keep your perception peeled for characters who might be over-nosy. I'll handle ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... husband!" said the ancient count, with an unctuous chuckle. "So few of us excel in that respect; but there is this to be said in our exculpation, few have been matrimonially so fortunate as the Prince von Steinheimer. I have never ceased to long for a repetition of the charming visit I paid to your ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... a chuckle of satisfaction at the compliment to his wife. "Ye look nice enough for anybody's folks. Come right ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... aunt idolised him and called him a good-looking man, a cavalier and even a grenadier. He had a habit of tapping children on the forehead with the nails of his long fingers, hard as stones (he used to do it to me when I was younger), and as he tapped he would chuckle and say with surprise: "How your head resounds, it must be empty." And this lout was to possess my watch!—No, indeed, I determined in my own mind as I ran out of the drawing-room and flung myself on my ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... that are just sentimental and romantic than to be so awfully possessed and overcome about things that are only real? There, you needn't stare at me so! It's true. You've had your fill of grandeur and propriety, and—here you are. And," she added with a little chuckle, as she tucked up her feet and leaned a little closer to him, ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... at last, mounting his shaggy pony, rode off, still laughing, at a canter to Golden Friars; and when he reached Golden Friars, and got into the hall of the George and Dragon, he asked Richard Turnbull with a chuckle if he ever knew a man refuse an offer of money, or a man want to pay who did not owe; and inquired whether the Squire down at Mardykes Hall mightn't be a bit "wrang in t' garrets." All this, however, other people said, was intended merely to conceal the fact that he really had, through ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... passed by the row of busy bookkeepers Dick caught a chuckle from one, while another, under cover of his big open ledger thrust out his hand and seizing on the sleeve of Dick's coat gave it several little nudges as if trying to indicate how thoroughly they enjoyed his independent ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... a chuckle and, closely followed by Jim and Pen, he mounted the stile. He was balked by the red-headed woman who towered high above him. Sara reached up and touched her ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... get on your hind legs," Hilliard interrupted with another ecstatic chuckle. "What I say is right-enough. Look here, it's perfectly simple. We thought brandy would be unloaded! And what's more, we both sat in that cursed barrel and watched it being done! But all we saw coming ashore was pit-props, Merriman, pit-props! ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... a sound behind them, as of an imperfectly suppressed chuckle. Mr. Tupman turned sharply round. No; it could not have been the fat boy; there was not a gleam of mirth, or anything but feeding in his ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... mock of the Duchy?—after all our pride! I fancy I see you going over to Troy and asking Browne for the loan of his band. 'Hullo!' he'd say, 'I thought you never had such a thing as a funeral over at Looe!' I can hear the fellow chuckle. But I wish something could be done, all the same. A trifle of pomp would draw folks' ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... watering-pot in order to cool them, so now he had to be content to look on, with his nose pressed so tightly against the pane that from outside it looked like the base of a sea-anemone growing in a glass tank. He could no longer hear the glad chuckle of the watering-pot when the water ran out, but, on the other hand, he could write his name on the window with his tongue, which he could not have done if he had been in the garden. Also he had some sweets in his pocket, bought with a halfpenny stolen ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... that he must side with them against me. He comes to me often with the story of some difference he has had with his mother, and he talks freely of his sister's failings and his brother's inconsistencies. He even sometimes gets righteously indignant, and fairly sputters. Inwardly, I chuckle with amusement, and outwardly I appear sympathetic, but never a word do I say to commit myself. It is his family, and if there is a row, I, to quote Young America, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... "best" to be got out of everything; but it is neither the best of place or possession, nor the chuckle ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Thersites, if only you could see it. When you take in hand your fine volume, purple-cased, gilt-bossed, and begin reading with that accent of yours, maiming and murdering its contents, you make yourself ridiculous to all educated men: your own toadies commend you, but they generally get in a chuckle too, as they ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... was one great chuckle inside, and his heart was full of admiration and gratitude; but would Freckles be equal to bluffing it through? Would the boy have the finesse, the nice subtlety, the real master hand, the situation demanded? If ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... patter, something was coming. Jack awoke with a start of expectation. There was no moon tonight, but he had left a candle burning in a distant corner. It was all he could do to keep back a chuckle when he saw a big gray rat dart across the floor with a good sized twig in its mouth. Jack kept perfectly still and the little fellow, not even seeing him, continued its way across the floor to the bunk on which sat Jack beside the doll clothes. It clawed its way up the side of the bunk, dropped ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster
... expression of festivity, not by any means that beautiful radiance of the human spirit which in another man was said to make his face at the age of seventy-two "a thanksgiving for his former life and a love-letter to all mankind," but rather the expression of a mental chuckle, as though he had suddenly seen something to laugh at in the very character of the universe. The face has plumped and reddened, the light-coloured eye has acquired a twinkle, the firm mouth has relaxed into a sportive smile. You can imagine him ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... A grim chuckle brought Ross and Vernon back to their surroundings. Herr Rix was rubbing his hands and grunting ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... perceived, under the shadow of the table, a blacker shadow, huge and formless in the gloom, and two spots of incandescent green twinkling towards him. He stopped; he even made a step back; and then he heard a stifled chuckle from the bartender. ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... this in his life, and years and loneliness hung heavily on his old arms. He was seventy-six, he told me; and nobody would give a day's work to a man that age: they would think he couldn't do it. "And, 'deed," he went on, with a sad little chuckle, "'deed, I doubt if I could." He said good-bye to me at a foot-path, and crippled wearily off to his work. It will make your heart ache if you think of his old ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... can't congratulate you, Major," the veteran replied with a dry chuckle; "the truth is that you have lost a valuable asset by the victory." Calvert was ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... his face wearing a look of amusement, as though he thought the clerk's effusiveness was too good to be true. Then he nodded, gave a little chuckle, and walked out ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... pipe, and, taking her stand at the kitchen door, laded the soft evening air with its pungent odors. If we surprised her at these supreme moments, she took the pipe from her lips, and put it behind her, with a low mellow chuckle, and a look of half-defiant consciousness; never guessing that none of her merits took us half so much as the cheerful vice which she ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... so intently watching Grandfather Frog that he saw nothing else, and Grandfather Frog was so busy watching Longlegs that he quite forgot that there might be other dangers. Besides, his back was toward old Whitetail. Of course Whitetail saw this, and it made him almost chuckle aloud. Ever so many times he had tried to catch Grandfather Frog, but always Grandfather Frog had seen him long before he ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... county friends would read it, and shake their heads over poor Cruden's prodigal. The Wilderham fellows would read it, and set him down as one more who had gone to the bad. Young Gedge would read it, and scorn him for a hypocrite and a humbug. Durfy would read it, and chuckle. His mother and Horace would read it. Yes, and what would they think? Nothing he could say would convince them or anybody. They might ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... with a chuckle. "You can search me," he said irreverently. And his host returned his smile. "Now, will you please pay attention to me, my friend? Or do you wish me to turn and rend myself with curiosity—after I've ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... been so well touched since GILBERT ABBOTT A BECKETT wrote his inimitable Quizziology of the Drama, which for genuine drollery has never been surpassed. Anticipating, then, some side-splitters from Three Men in a Boat, the Baron sent for the work. He opened it with a chuckle, which, instead of developing itself into a guffaw and then into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, gradually subsided altogether, his smile vanished, and an expression of weariness came over the Baron's face, as after heroically plodding through five chapters he laid the book down, and sighed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... Perkins's short laughs answered this—Tom never could tell just what that throaty chuckle ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... closed. Only from time to time, as he went on sucking, the baby raised his long, curly eyelashes and peeped at his mother with wet eyes, that looked black in the twilight. The nurse had left off fanning, and was dozing. From above came the peals of the old prince's voice, and the chuckle of Katavasov. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... interested of persons can withhold a tribute of admiration to the President's presence of mind, skill, and courage in dealing with circumstances wholly without precedent; and in quiet moments, when recalling all that has happened, if human at all, his Honour must indulge in a chuckle now and then to think how completely he jockeyed everybody.{32} Not the least amusing recollection must be that of the 'great trek' (Banjailand Trek), which his burghers threatened to make into Mashonaland via Rhodes' Drift when Sir John Willoughby gained his first experience ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... never to a woman—least of all to Meg Kissock. But when Meg had many "lads" to see her in the evening, he could he observed to smile an inward smile in the depths of his yellow beard, and a queer subterranean chuckle pervaded his great body, so that on one occasion Jess looked up, thinking that there were hens ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... Meg!" he cried with a chuckle. "That dog 'll be worth money to the show, by the time I've trained him. 'The Wonderful Black and Tan Performer,' &c. We'll keep him shut up till we're far from here, and if any questions is asked it's our dog, and that boy's a thief that have stole him ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... on, and now and then a chuckle of pleasure or an exclamation of impatience would tell of the varying fortunes of ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... glad that Charlie has given Alured a sound thrashing. The boy is too modest. He only said a few words, last evening, about the affair, and I thought that only a blow or two had been exchanged. It was as much as I could do, not to rub my hands and chuckle, when his father told me all about it. However, I must speak gravely to Charlie. If he takes it up, every time a Whig speaks scornfully of the king, he will be always in hot water, and, were he a few years older, would become a marked man. We have got to bide ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... said The Roman, with a little chuckle. "Perhaps, John, you didn't give me credit—shall I say, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... that at the approach of my cautious glance she had but to turn her face into the thin flood of moonlight for every feature to become distinctly visible. And so, with the tune abruptly terminated, we steadfastly regarded one another, and she broke into a chuckle ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... grim look on his face as he sent the car, with the hand of an expert, through the crowded streets. He had his do-or-die expression, and the way he was letting the machine out would not indicate a shrinking back from what lay before him. He rather chuckled once; that is, it began in a chuckle, and ended with the semblance of a grunt, and when he finally swung the car down the Midway, he was saying to himself: "Glad of it! I've been wanting for a long time to tell that Lane what I ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... his hair brush and his little whisk broom were missing," declared Allan, with a chuckle. "Why, that boy seems to only live to fight against dirt. He's the most particular fellow I ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... her and nudged her husband. He shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, "What can you expect? It is not my fault." Madame Loiseau gave a silent chuckle of triumph and murmured, "She is crying for shame." The two Sisters had resumed their devotions after carefully wrapping up the remnants ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... laughed again, not loudly, but in a fine chuckle which gave vent to his joy and expressed his incredulity in a ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the professor, with a chuckle of satisfaction. "Yes, that is all right. Now we shall soon overtake you. You need do no more just now, my lady. You can go to your cabin, or where you please. But keep the telephone about you, please, lest we should wish to speak to you again. ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... A slight chuckle came from the man who had risen from the bench. "Dey don't seem ter be no flies on dis party, Pete!" he ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... nice. But ain't I glad," said his host with a sly chuckle, "that nobody sees you taking these drinks on the quiet, which we know you ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison |
