"Crumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... let the fact sink in. Then, having dealt the blow, he proffered a crumb of consolation, "Perhaps he prefers to keep quiet till he's pulled it off. But I warn you, if he persists, I shall put every feasible ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... slit, as it were, between his eyelids, Iden watched the mice feed and run about his knees till, having eaten every crumb, they descended ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... kneads her flour, mingles it sparingly with honey. The mixture is made into a round loaf, the size of a pea. Unlike our own loaves, this one has the crust inside and the crumb outside. The middle part of the roll, the ration which will be consumed last, when the grub has acquired some strength, consists of almost nothing but dry pollen. The Bee keeps the dainties in her crop for the outside of the loaf, whence the feeble grub-worm is to take its first mouthfuls. Here ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... Janey," he reminded her. "But then, of course, unlike Donald and myself, you had no opportunity for realizing what a fine, wholesome lass she is." He lowered his gaze and rolled a bread-crumb nervously between thumb and forefinger. "They tell me at the hospital, Nellie," he began again presently, "that her absence is killing our boy—that he'll die if she doesn't come back. They've been ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... cat. 'What name did they give the child?' 'Top off!' said the cat quite coolly. 'Top off!' cried the mouse, 'that is a very odd and uncommon name, is it a usual one in your family?' 'What does that matter,' said the cat, 'it is no worse than Crumb-stealer, as your godchildren ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... think of you as such, and am sure the lesson will not be forgotten," was the crumb of comfort upon which she fed all the rest of the day and for several days following, during which Fra Lorenzo had not reappeared. The fountain-scene had not been mentioned to her friends, so one day at dinner Margaret said, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... next half hour feasting was in order. Juniors and sophomores shared cups; as the supply of these were limited. At the end of that time the last crumb of food had disappeared and the girls stood in groups or walked about the field, discussing the various ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... both together, I may make a colossal fortune. Yes, wealth is a door before which the heralds of life have their station—I am not a man pasted over with labels. I confess that this perspective entices me; what I possess now is merely a little crumb for my hunger of life. I shall leave here greedy for new sensations and new profits—eager for love in ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... losing her wits, for it was centuries since she had had anything warm in her stomach. Ah! what an infernal week! A complete clear out. Two loaves of four pounds each on Tuesday, which had lasted till Thursday; then a dry crust found the night before, and finally not a crumb for thirty-six hours, a real dance before the cupboard! What did she know, by the way, what she felt on her back, was the frightful cold, a black cold, the sky as grimy as a frying-pan, thick with snow which obstinately refused to fall. When winter and hunger are both together in your ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... we shall starve.' The men's faces fell; but never a murmur, nor a sound. 'Turn out the biscuit bags. Here, spread these empty ham sacks, and pour the biscuit on to them. Don't lose any of the dust. We shall want every crumb, mouldy or not.' The gloomy faces grew gloomier. What's to be done?' Silence. 'The first thing, as I think all will agree, is to divide what is left into nine equal shares - that's our number now - and let each one take his ninth part, to do what he likes with. You yourselves ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... rolling a crumb of bread between his fingers, and looked as if the story did not concern ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... rat had appeared in the distant corner. The Professor nodded as he saw it. The animal stopped as the man's eyes came upon it; then sat squirrellike on one of the shelves as it ate a crumb of food. Some morsel from a hurried lunch of Avery's, the Professor reflected—poor Avery! Yes, there ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... He bent over and kissed her again, as if really seeing her for the first time, with a whispered "Poor girl!" That momentary close embrace brought her a needed—oh, so needed!—crumb of comfort. She who had hungered so insatiably for recognition could be humbly thankful now for the two words that spoke ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... see the departure of Margaret French—one more wrestle with Lady Tranmore, and all the links with the old life would be torn away. A bare, stripped soul, dependent henceforth on Geoffrey Cliffe for every crumb of happiness, treading in unknown paths, suffering unknown things, probing unknown passions and excitements—it was so she saw herself; not without that corroding double consciousness of the modern, that it was all very interesting, and as such to ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... black looked at the bread, then at Aunt Georgie, then at the bread again suspiciously. There was the gleaming point of that knife hidden within the soft crumb; and as his mental capacity was nearly as dark as his skin, and his faith in the whites, unfortunately—from the class he had encountered and from whom he had received more than one piece of cruel ill-usage—far from perfect, he saw in imagination ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... wife came and pulled the children out of bed. She gave them each a little piece of bread—less than before; and on the way to the wood Hansel crumbled the bread in his pocket, and often stopped to throw a crumb on ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... the maiden told her to fear nothing, for she never hurt anything, and was very grateful for the oven's kindness in giving her such a beautiful white loaf. When she had finished it, down to the last crumb, she shut the oven ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... interposed the captain quickly, with a good-humoured laugh; "I feel for you, lad. Had it been myself I fear I should have been even more exasperated. I would not sell a crumb of my portion ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... shed! Courtly domes of high degree Have no room for thee and me; Pride and pleasure's fickle throng Nothing mind an idle song. Daily near my table steal, While I pick my scanty meal:— Doubt not, little though there be, But I'll cast a crumb to thee; Well rewarded, if I spy Pleasure in thy glancing eye; See thee, when thou'st eat thy fill, Plume thy breast and wipe thy bill. Come, my feathered friend, again? Well thou know'st the broken pane:— Ask of me thy ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... came just after I had returned from burying my dear, dear father, who worshipped my darling mother. If I were begging in the street, starving, dying, I would not touch a crumb or a penny of yours. You are wicked—yes, you are wicked to write to me ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... will go on again!" he cried, when he had eaten the last crumb and felt very strong. But, would you believe me, while he was eating, those mosquitoes had sneaked up and taken away ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... and bring the bread tray," suggested Sister practically. She never forgot the task in hand for other interests. "Mother says we mustn't dawdle, Roddy, you know she did. It's my turn to feed the birds, so I'll crumb the table. Could I use your saw if you ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... concerned right now about the disappearing grub," he was informed. "The shape we're putting it away tells how soon it'll be down to the last crumb. If we keep on as we're doing, I figure we've got just enough for, say two more days. Then it's going to be a case of hustle, ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Squire said, Laban, every word?" asked Israel, and as he did so all eyes turned on Laban with a faint gleam of hope that there might yet be some crumb of comfort. Laban scratched ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... time a grimy sweep Was creeping down the street, When Quartern Loaf, the biker's boy, Below he chanced to meet: "Sweep!" sneered the baker: and the sweep Gave Puff a sooty flout; But Puff-crumb did not deal in soot, So turned his face about; Nor did he care to soundly drub The imp of dirty flues: "Go change your clothes!" said he, "and then "I'll thrash you when you choose! "It will not do for me to fight "With such a sooty elf; "My jacket's white, 'twould soon be black "By ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... reader likes to guess (in default of knowledge) he might do worse than think of the Robin Redbreast as a likely candidate. He is called in Celtic Broindeag, is a small, friendly, crumb-eating, and burnet bird, and behaves much as these ancient legends describe. The name ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... oil is required. If a crumb of bread will brown in twenty seconds the oil is hot enough. Put fish in a frying basket, then into the hot oil and cook five minutes. Drain on brown paper and arrange on platter. Do not stick knife or fork into fish while it ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... grasshoppers adds emphasis to the white heats of the air. Even the housefly seeks the shade and hums drowsily in complicated orbits about the upper part of the room, or, with too keen proboscis, destroys my last crumb of comfort, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... had passed since the signal smoke arose on Medicine Mountain. In that time, though they had fasted and prayed, not a crumb of hope had come to feed their languishing spirits. Truly, it seemed as if the pied buffalo were bringing them more than a generous share of ill-luck. The interpreter told them only evil news: That ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... friend. Pleased with such an unexpected familiarity, the man would bring them food and feed them from his hand, as one feeds a flock of chickens. The resemblance, in their familiarity and some of their ways, to poultry was, in fact, very striking. As a little chick will sometimes seize a large crumb and scurry off, followed by the flock, so a fish would sometimes snatch a morsel and fly, followed by the school. If he dropped it or stopped to enjoy his bonne bouche, his mates would be upon him. Sometimes two would get the same morsel, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... sight of her, she was slipping as quietly and unobtrusively through the crowds of jewelled and fur-wrapped women and men in evening-dress as though she were a mouse vanishing from a hall of banqueting, to which she had surreptitiously crept for her crumb. She did not look at the people about her. She did not seem to see them, for her eyes were still languorous with memories of Tristan and Isolde. As Paul touched her arm, she started and he hastened to say: "My car is here. Won't you let me drive ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... said, "I thank you; I believe when you give me that advice you mean well, but I cannot follow it. If I were dying of hunger I would not touch even a crumb of bread that came from Lady Lanswell. I will never even return to the house which has been my own. I will take no one single thing belonging to them. I will leave them my hatred and my curse. And you tell Countess Lucia, from me, that ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... overcome it. Out of disfigurement he had created success; and out of misery, happiness. Of his exile he had made an asylum. A vagabond, he had wrestled against space; and, like the birds of the air, he had found his crumb of bread. Wild and solitary, he had wrestled against the crowd, and had made it his friend. An athlete, he had wrestled against that lion, the people; and he had tamed it. Indigent, he had wrestled ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... little Jules, who was to have no supper that night! He held it up in the moonlight, hungrily looking at it on every side. There was not a broken place to be found anywhere on its surface; not one crack in all that hard, brown glaze of crust, from which he might pinch the tiniest crumb. ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau^, screed, smack, tinge, tincture; inch, patch, scantling, tatter, cantlet^, flitter, gobbet^, mite, bit, morsel, crumb, seed, fritter, shive^; snip, snippet; snick^, snack, snatch, slip, scrag^; chip, chipping; shiver, sliver, driblet, clipping, paring, shaving, hair. nutshell; thimbleful, spoonful, handful, capful, mouthful; fragment; fraction &c (part) 51; drop in the ocean. animalcule ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... be gradually accustomed to feed on what is known as "insectivorous" or "insectile" food, a composition of which the principal ingredients generally consist of dried ants' cocoons, dried flies, dried powdered meat, preserved yolk of egg,[1] and crumb of bread or biscuit. This is moistened with water or mixed with mashed boiled potato, and forms a diet upon which most of the insectivorous birds thrive. The various ingredients, or the food ready made, can be obtained at almost any ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... aged lovers, when refused and relegated to the position of a brother, urged her to reconsider this important matter, making it a subject of prayer. But she quietly said, "I'm not going to bother the Lord with questions I can answer myself." When choked by a bread-crumb at table, she said to the frightened waiter, as soon as she had regained her breath, "Never mind, if that did go down the wrong way, a great many good things have gone down the right ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... that they lead after them into decent company like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no "facts" at this table. What! Because bread is good and wholesome and necessary and nourishing, shall you thrust a crumb into my windpipe while I am talking? Do not these muscles of mine represent a hundred loaves of bread? and is not my thought the abstract of ten thousand of these crumbs of truth with which you would choke ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... her eyes half-closed, as she removed with the ends of her fingers a crumb that had lodged in his long black whiskers; but her transparent little nostrils quivered ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... Crowl's gossip, the knowledge of her poverty, and her wretched errands to New York to dispose of the relics of the happy past. He gathered from such observations as he could maintain without being suspected, by every crumb of gossip that he could pick up (for once he listened to gossip as if it were gospel), that they were in trouble, that Edith was looking for work, and that she was so superior to the rest of the family that they now all deferred to her and leaned upon her. Then, to ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... upon the salvation of the individual . whether he is a slave or a free man, a merchant or a scholar, his aim in life has nothing to do with his calling, so that a wrong choice is not such a very great piece of unhappiness. Let this serve as a crumb of comfort for philologists in general; but true philologists stand in need of a better understanding: what will result from a science which is "gone in for" by ninety-nine such people? The thoroughly unfitted majority draw up the rules of the ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... children by themselves again. All this did not give Hop-o'-my-thumb any concern, for he thought himself quite sure of getting back by means of the crumbs that he had dropped by the way; but when he came to look for them he found that not a crumb was left, for the birds had eaten them ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... extremely good appetite, but the voracity of the stranger soon obliged him to give up, for, not contented with eating, or rather devouring, nearly the whole of the olla-podriga, the guest finished a large loaf of bread, without leaving a crumb. While he ate, he kept continually looking round with an expression of inquietude: he started at the slightest sound; and once, when a violent gust of wind made the door bang, he sprang to his feet, and seized his carbine, with an air which ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... breakfasted, eaten their bread to the last crumb, and drunk their wine to the last drop, they remained seated side by side upon the grass, saying nothing, their eyes on the distance, their eyelids drooping, their fingers crossed as at mass, their red legs stretched out beside the poppies of the field. And the leather of their helmets and the brass ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... Cheshire cheese, 1/4 lb. of Parmesan cheese, 1/4 lb. of fresh butter, 4 eggs, the crumb of a small roll; pepper, salt, and pounded mace ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... revealing of much. Here was the mother's dilemma: her girl—Victor's girl, as she had to think in this instance,—the most cloudless of the young women of earth, seemed, and might be figured as really, at the falling of a crumb off the table of knowledge, taken by the brain to shoot up to terrific heights of surveyal; and there she rocked; and only her youthful healthiness brought her down to grass and flowers. She had once ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a final angry flick at an imaginary crumb and flounced off in the direction of the kitchen. The next moment her shrill voice was heard addressing ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... he could pull himself to another planet, or throw himself back into the dim past. But that would take voluntary control, and he knew now that hours of effort had shown him how impossible that was. He hadn't been able to lift a crumb of bread from the table deliberately, in his original tests ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... without food or shelter. Provisions, shelter tents, means of relief of various kinds were being hurried forward in all haste, but for several days the host of fugitives had no beds but the bare ground, no shelter but the open heavens, scarcely a crumb of bread to eat, scarcely a gill of water to drink. Those first days that followed the disaster were days of horror and dread. Rich and poor were mingled together, the delicately reared with the rough sons of toil to whom privation was ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... noticed the difference. Every one must have his bread-card now, with coupons entitling him to so many grams a day—about four pounds a week—which the waiter or baker tears off when the customer gets his bread. Without these cards not so much as a crumb can be had for love or money. Yet with all this stiff and not unamusing red tape your morning coffee and bread and butter costs from thirty pfennigs (seven and one-half cents) in one of the Berlin "automats" to ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... we been drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves; all our small stock of food had been devoured—though we had hoarded every crumb, as the miser hoards his gold. Even the rain-water, as well as the water we had brought with us, we had drained to the ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... central piece for the sun, and, "See here!" I said, "good fellow! This morsel shall stand for that sun you have just been welcoming back with quaint ritual. Now stretch your starry knowledge to the utmost, and put down that tankard for a moment. If this be yonder sun and this lesser crumb be the outermost one of our revolving system, and this the next within, and this the next, and so on; now if this be so tell me which of these fragmentary orbs is ours—which of all these crumbs from the hand of the primordial ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... both marry,' replied Captain Palliser, gravely, folding his napkin and whisking an accidental crumb off his waistcoat. 'Young men always get drifted into matrimony. If they are rich all the women are after them, If they are poor—well, there is generally some woman weak enough to prefer dual starvation to bread and ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... you like, I am very sorry indeed that my opinion is of so little value in your eyes, Gladys, and I ask your pardon if I have presumed too much in offering you a crumb of advice.' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... but Mole promptly had another fit of the blues, dropping down on a couch in dark despair and burying his face in his duster. "Rat," he moaned, "how about your supper, you poor, cold, hungry, weary animal? I've nothing to give you—nothing—not a crumb!" ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... morsel, fragment, scrap, crumb; mite, ace, scintilla, particle, whit, iota, tittle, grain, atom, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... water, and that growing less and less. Sometimes I would divide my ration into three parts and resolve to make it last all day, but invariably it would be gone before noon. Generally I would eat the whole ration at once, but that did not satisfy my hunger, and I had to go without a crumb for the next twenty-four hours. To illustrate how inadequate the ration was, I can say that I have seen officers picking potato-peelings from the large spittoons, where they were soaking in tobacco spittle, wash ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... thick-hoofed shoes, which are very much admired at in London. All these sundries I commend to your most strenuous looking after. If you find the Miltons in certain parts dirtied and soiled with a crumb of right Gloucester blacked in the candle (my usual supper), or peradventure a stray ash of tobacco wafted into the crevices, look to that passage more especially: depend upon it, it contains good matter. I have got your little ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... on Tizzy's little red lips to say: "Oh, please do make some paste!" but she was not peeling onions, and had no knife with a piece of bread-crumb at the end to keep the tears from coming. So come they did, and sobs with ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... about night to another post, called Torna Munni. Here they found another ambuscade, but as barren as the former. They searched the neighbouring woods, but could not find anything to eat, the Spaniards having been so provident, as not to leave anywhere the least crumb of sustenance, whereby the pirates were now brought to this extremity. Here again he was happy that had reserved since noon any bit of leather to make his supper of, drinking after it a good draught of water for ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... had been kept busy. Not only had he rushed downstairs and up again half a dozen times, springing to the night city editor's curse, or pound, or shout, whichever had come handiest, but he had also been twice to the corner for frankfurters for reporters who hadn't had a crumb to eat for hours. He was unwrapping the second one ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... know that," cried Punch; "and call this 'ere bread! It's all solid crust, when it ought to be crumb for a chap like you. Look here, you could eat one ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... feeling stiffer than ever before, the slightest contraction of a muscle resembling the jerking of a rusty wire. However, when a soldier, seeing that I was awake, brought my breakfast, I sat up with remarkable agility and devoured every crumb. Never have I enjoyed a meal more. Every additional mouthful of the deliciously fresh Dutch cheese and new bread seemed to receive a still more exquisite taste when I thought of the Irish stew I had missed when standing behind my imitation wall ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... Stale crumb of bread is better, if you are making a delicate drawing, than india-rubber, for it disturbs the surface of the paper less: but it crumbles about the room and makes a mess; and, besides, you waste the good bread, which is wrong; and your drawing will not for a long while be worth the crumbs. ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... lonely hours; generally carrying in his pocket a sandwich of bread and meat, and a small flask of wine. The latter diluted with large quantities of water, he drank in a heated, feverish way, as though his throat were dried; but he scarcely ever broke his fast, by so much as a crumb of bread. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... litterateur born—and made. A verbal invention is meat and drink to him. There are places where you see him actively in pursuit of one, as when Markheim stops the clock with 'an interjected finger,' or when John Silver's half-shut, cunning, and cruel eye sparkles 'like a crumb of glass.' Stevenson has run across the Channel for that crumb, and it is ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... had taken up its abode with him. He wanted bread often. His clothes went and came with painful regularity from his back to the pawnbroker's. His father refused to do anything for him. "He saw me without bread to put in my mouth, and offered me not a crumb, although he had money belonging to me in his hands. He saw me in boots full of holes, and gave me to understand that I was not to come to see him in such plight." Such was the poor fellow's distress, that he was almost glad when the purpura, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... of the death of Mrs. Villa (Crumb) Borden at her home in Norwich, N.Y. During her three years' service in the work of this Association at Athens, Ala., she was untiring in efforts for the improvement of her pupils. By her genial spirit, unselfish life and faithful labor in school, church, Sunday-School and the community, ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various
... the North Danes are a scurvy breed. They birth dwarfs, not men. Of what use is this thing? He will never make a man. Listen you, Lingaard, grow him to be a drink-boy at Brunanbuhr. And have an eye on the dogs lest they slobber him down by mistake as a meat-crumb from ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... brought a hundred more pieces," soliloquized Archie, as he nibbled the last crumb. "One isn't ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... flicked a crumb or two from the knees of his pantaloons. For the moment he seemed about to answer her, but thought better of it and left the room without speech, taking his napkin ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the eggs were fresh, and the herrings so good that Stanor ran across the road for more, and we made time with bread and butter until they were cooked. And we gave not a thought to the motor; it was only when the sixth plate of bread and butter had been eaten to a crumb that we remembered the miles between us and the nearest station. Five or six it was, nothing to trouble ordinary people, even if they would have preferred a comfortable car, but there was Honor! She had slipped off her shoe under the table, and when she tried ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... has her servants about carrying the trays of fruit for sale. According to her lights, which are not hygienic, she is a good housekeeper and a genuine helpmeet. She keeps every ounce of food under lock and key, and measures each crumb that is used in cooking. She keeps the housekeeping accounts, handles the money, never pries into her husband's affairs, bears him a child every year, and is content, in return for all this devotion, with ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... pleased, conscious laugh. "Well, raw-thah!" he drawled, and opened the door leading into the main office. He had been loath to lose one crumb ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... crumb of his goodies, Johnnie leaned back against the stone wall and closed his eyes in thought. He wondered if there wasn't some out-of-the-way nook ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... nor young; the little Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in the wainscot; the bird that, in frost and snow, pecks at the window for a crumb. I know somebody to whose knee the black cat loves to climb, against whose shoulder and cheek it loves to purr. The old dog always comes out of his kennel and wags his tail ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... first high, chirpy notes of a baby—her baby. Lovin Child was picketed to a young cedar near the mouth of the Blind ledge tunnel, and he was throwing rocks at a chipmunk that kept coming toward him in little rushes, hoping with each rush to get a crumb of the bread and butter that Lovin Child had flung down. Lovin Child was squealing and jabbering, with now and then a real word that he had learned from Bud and Cash. Not particularly nice words—"Doggone" was one and several ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... consider the words of a man who was no more than a better sort of peasant. He set to work at once, and had filed the bars through in the course of the day. Fearing a visit from the Governor, he stopped up the breaches with bread crumb rubbed in rust to make it look like iron; he hid his rope, and waited for a favorable night with the intensity of anticipation, the deep anguish of soul that makes a ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... weakness," he went on to say aside, "and of course he is always in deadly fear of starving to death. That's why he loads himself down so with grub on the least provocation. But never expect to see a crumb come back, for that would be against Steve's principles, you know. He thinks it a shame to waste food; and so he'd stuff himself until he could hardly breathe rather than throw anything away. We may be a little late in the afternoon, but ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... the young gentleman from New York vanquished his last "fried in crumb," and victory perched upon his knife. Just then the gas-burners began to meander queerly before his eyes. Around and above him he beheld showers of glittering sparks,—snaky threads of light,—fantastic figures of fire,—jets of liquid lustre. He communicated, in confidence, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... stop here till the new year after this next one—" said Mr. William, coming up to him to speak in his ear, "has done him worlds of good! Bless you, worlds of good! All at home just the same as ever—my father made as snug and comfortable—not a crumb of litter to be found in the house, if you were to offer fifty pound ready money for it—Mrs. William apparently never out of the way—yet Mrs. William backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, up and down, up and down, ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... a slice, accordingly; and though the loaf, when she and her husband ate of it, had been rather too dry and crusty to be palatable, it was now as light and moist as if but a few hours out of the oven. Tasting a crumb, which had fallen on the table, she found it more delicious than bread ever was before, and could hardly believe that it was a loaf of her own kneading and baking. Yet, what other loaf could it ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... her a loaf from home, for the few days she had to live. The jailer shook his head, but let it pass. When Alice was safe in the cell, she broke the loaf, and produced from it, cunningly imbedded in the soft crumb, several sheets of paper folded surprisingly small, a pen, and a little inkhorn. Margery's eyes glistened when she saw these, and she wrote her letter secretly during the night. But how to get it out of the prison with safety? ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... the companionway that led to the platform, I saw a cabin 2 meters long in which Conseil and Ned Land, enraptured with their meal, were busy devouring it to the last crumb. Then a door opened into the galley, 3 meters long and located between the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... I think," added Elaine. "There is one behind the post." It had belonged in the bear-pit during the lives of Orlando Crumb and Furioso Bun, two bears trapped expressly for the Baron ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... in which soggily hung half-suspended slabs of raw potato. Following the example of my neighbours, I too addressed myself to La Soupe. I found her luke-warm, completely flavourless. I examined the hunk of bread. It was almost bluish in colour; in taste mouldy, slightly sour. "If you crumb some into the soup," remarked B., who had been studying my reactions from the corner of his eye, "they both taste better." I tried the experiment. It was a complete success. At least one felt as if one were getting ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... courses, after the soup has been eaten, it may be the duty of some member of the family to remove the soup plates and place the vegetables, grains, and meats if any are to served, before those chosen to serve them. At the close of this course, another may remove the dishes and food, crumb the cloth, and place the dessert, with the proper dishes for serving, before the lady of the house or her oldest daughter, one of whom ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... to go to sea," he said, snatching at this crumb of hope. "There are other jobs than ships. Why, only last trip I was offered a refrigerating ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... she was first separated from George, she would have evaded the suggestion; but to-night, at the end of the long summer, she caught eagerly at the small crumb ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... dining-room is found in all early inventories—a voider. Pewter voiders abounded and were advertised in newspapers, as were wicker and china voiders in 1740. The functions of a voider were somewhat those of a crumb-tray. They are thus given in Hugh Rhodes's ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... [358]affections, all: that most powerful goddess, by whom we are reared, depressed, elevated, [359]esteemed the sole commandress of our actions, for which we pray, run, ride, go, come, labour, and contend as fishes do for a crumb that falleth into the water. It's not worth, virtue, (that's bonum theatrale,) wisdom, valour, learning, honesty, religion, or any sufficiency for which we are respected, but [360]money, greatness, office, honour, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... that I know much," said the little man. "On the contrary I am the most ignorant person of my acquaintance. You would be astonished to discover what I don't know. But the thing is that I know what is worth knowing. Yet I get not a crumb more than my daily bread by it—I mean the bread by which the inner man lives. The man who gives himself to making money, will seldom fail of becoming a rich man; and it would be hard if a man who gave himself to find wherewithal to still the deepest cravings of his best self, should not be ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully brushing an imperceptible crumb of bread and butter from her left-hand mitten, 'are trustworthy, punctual, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Him. It is not a natives' feast; for in New Zealand everybody eats as much as he is able, and as fast as he is able; but this is a feast of belief. If my body were hungry, I should not be satisfied with a piece like a crumb, nor with a drop that will go in a cockle shell; but my soul is satisfied, my heart is satisfied, though it be a crumb and a drop. The thoughts within me yesterday were perhaps right, and perhaps wrong. I said to myself, I am going to ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... and taking a long pull at the pewter, watched with a kind smile to see the famished seaman eat. He noted as a strange fact that starving men nibble gently at the outside crust first, and then start on small, very small, mouthfuls of crumb, instinct rather than reason probably warning them of the dangers ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... ignorant to wish to comprehend her husband lest she should meddle in his pursuits, and who should find her crumb of the happiness that human life and family compact ought to yield, in "acting as a breakwater" to protect him, and "never disturb his peace," was a great artist's view of the education needed by a woman! To this I would oppose my more humble experience, but I am sure ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... thee, While my rates one crumb afford; Colds nor cramps shall ne'er oppress thee; Come and share my humble board: Robin! come and live with me— ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... long delay in the decision of the Massachusetts convention had carried the excitement to fever heat throughout the country. Not only were people from New Hampshire and New York and naughty Rhode Island waiting anxiously about Boston to catch every crumb of news they could get, but intrigues were going on, as far south as Virginia, to influence the result. On the 21st of January the "Boston Gazette" came out with a warning, headed by enormous capitals with three exclamation-points: "Bribery and Corruption!!! The ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... polish of his cowhide shoes. Also the memory of the whiteness and slipperiness of his collar oppressed him. He was fain to look like one accustomed to social diversions, a man hurried from hall to hall of pleasure, without time between to change collar or polish boot. He stooped and rubbed a crumb of earth on ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... the food we have in our hands; let us swallow the last crumb. It will bel Heaven willing, our last repast. Well, never mind—instead of being exhausted skeletons, ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... he replied, "it is nothing but stubbornness; and I shall not allow you to show such a temper. Take up that bread this moment and eat it. You shall eat every crumb of the bread and drink every ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... and off with it for their supper afore one could cry out. But if you stop quite still they'll not find you out before I'm back with the donkey. It's about their time o' day for sleeping just now, I'm thinking," and with this crumb of consolation the cruel-hearted ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... tookie!" he would say, swallowing the last crumb and hurrying up to the board counter with another "penny," which was a ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis
... want them to; don't we?" asked the captain of the Go-Aheads, good-naturedly. "We're going to lunch together, and if we make the poor boys work too hard they'll eat every crumb we've got and leave nothing for ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... the powerlessness of wealth to give me one crumb of comfort, and remembered Winnie's sermon about wealth, I would look at myself in the mirror above my mantelpiece and smile bitterly at the sight of the hollow cheeks, furrowed brow, and melancholy eyes, and recall her words about her hovering near ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... good thing," said Martin, twirling a buttercup as he swallowed his last crumb, "but I also like butter. Do not ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... accustomed to sing Through the warm, sunny months of gay summer and spring, Began to complain, when he found that at home His cupboard was empty and winter was come. Not a crumb to be found On the snow-covered ground; Not a flower could he see, Not a leaf ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... reconciles us so often to the worst. Didst thou not complain to me that thou wert compelled to offices that were not odious to thee as a slave, but guilty as a Nazarene? Didst thou not tell me that thy soul shook with remorse when thou wert compelled to place even a crumb of cake before the Lares that watch over yon impluvium? that thy soul was torn by a perpetual struggle? Didst thou not tell me that even by pouring wine before the threshold, and calling on the name of some Grecian ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... I were a crumb of bread," he sighed, as he stuck one into his mouth, "then I would know where ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... upon Lin Chih-hsiao to insert the two hundred taels in the accounts for the current year, by making such additions to various items here and there as would suffice to clear them off, and presented Pao Erh with money out of his own pocket as a crumb of comfort, adding, "By and bye, I'll choose a nice wife for you." When Pao Erh, therefore, came in for a share of credit as well as of hard cash, he could not possibly do otherwise than practise contentment; and forthwith, needless to dilate on this topic, he began to pay court ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... penniless situation; and, stiffly as he acknowledged the receipt of young Frol's check, de Windt perceived that he was deeply sensible of the kindliness and friendly feeling that had inspired the act. This was at least a crumb of comfort to the unhappy Vladimir; who had been overwhelmed by bitter regret at the series of misfortunes which now ended forever his friendship with the one intimate companion of his life. For de Windt, so speedily and so ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... "Rotten little crumb," Judy fumed, glaring balefully at the snake. But Droozle wrote serenely on, his ruby ...
— Droozle • Frank Banta
... crumb of his sandwich, wiped his hands on his handkerchief, and shoved them into his shabby pockets; the ankus ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... day I was myself again. Not relieved from the impression which had seized me when I first saw Mr. Thorold; but quietly able to bear it; in a sort raised above it. To do the moment's duty; to gather, and to give, every stray crumb of relief or pleasure that might be possible for either of us; better than that, to do the Lord's will and to bear it, were all I sought for. All at least, of which I was fairly conscious that I sought ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... fruit is as large as a pine-apple—when it is ripe, it is yellow and soft. The natives, however, generally gather it before it is ripe; it is then cooked in an oven; the skin is burnt or peeled off—the inside is tender and white, like the crumb of bread or the flour ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... after leave asked of lawful authority, across all that waste of waters, they sank Shaitan by gun-fire, having first taken all the proper steps about the confidential books. Yet Shaitan had had her little crumb of comfort ere the end. While she lay crippled she saw quite close to her a German cruiser that was trailing homeward in the dawn gradually heel over ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... providence in every instance of relief from their pressing wants, and I recall the religious serenity with which she told me of the greatest strait of the hardest winter of that period, when resources seemed to have been exhausted to the last crumb, and they unexpectedly received from one of her half brothers, who had gone farther west, and lived in what was practically the wilderness, a barrel of salted pigeons' breasts. There had been one of those almost ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... He rose deliberately, taking time to brush every crumb from his lap. At the door he reached for a whisk broom and wielded it conspicuously. He could not have said whether bravado or contempt was moving him to such flamboyant dawdling. Or was he merely trying to persuade himself that he ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... large congregation in the recital of evening prayers, after which they all broke the fast, and enjoyed a good breakfast. The reader will no doubt feel surprised at the amount of work Sir Moses was able to accomplish on a fast-day, when for twenty-four hours neither a crumb of bread nor a drop of water passed his lips; but we shall yet have many other instances of his ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... life I saved do? Did he send me thirty thousand pounds? say, 'Bonaparte, my brother, here is a crumb?' No; he ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... mind, the knives and forks rattled merrily, and the children laughed, and the two long braids of hair on each head flew right and left so fast, that the flies couldn't get near the table to taste of a thing, and were almost distracted when they saw every single crumb eaten up, and the plates nearly ...
— The Little Nightcap Letters. • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... overshoes. She had her purple dress and she walked abroad. Let the elements do their worst. A starved heart must have one crumb during a year. The rain ran down ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... got no mouf, but she can talk ter you, all de same; an' she 'ain't got no head, but she can reason wid you. An' while ter look at 'er she's purty nigh all belly, she don't eat a crumb. Dey ain't a greedy ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... starvation, Mr. Pariente, of Jerbah, having filled for me a large box of provisions, consisting of a leg of lamb, a fowl, pigeons, fish and bread, besides wine and spirits. But this was as liberally distributed amongst all as given to me, and not a crumb was left on arriving at Tripoli. When we were getting safe into port, I gave the grog to the crew; they had often cast wistful eyes at the acquavite, but none was poured out whilst at sea. Two or three drunken sailors would have sent our cockle-shell ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... means of a round opening on the top, as large as a half dollar piece or less, extract nearly all the crumb, leaving the crust intact, but not too thin. Wet inside and outside with hot milk, and when they are fairly soaked, dip in beaten eggs and fry them in lard or oil. When beginning to brown, fill them with meat that has been previously chopped and cooked. This chopped meat ...
— The Italian Cook Book - The Art of Eating Well • Maria Gentile
... lady's amusement," he was saying to her, "no new philosophies to spread out for my lady's inspection, no bright pictures to display for my lady's pleasure, and so I, like a poor poverty-stricken minstrel whose harp has been broken, yet dare beg at the castle gate for a crumb of my lady's bounty." At which he would have wept, but could only laugh louder ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... false, and turns away," I conclude this error to be confuted, and I say that it is time to open the eyes to the Truth; and this is expressed when I say, "And now I seek to tell, As it appears to me." It is now evident to sound minds that the words of those men are vain, that is, without a crumb or particle of Truth; and I say sound not without cause. Our intellect may be said to be sound or unsound. And I say intellect for the noble part of our Soul, which it is possible to designate by the common word "Mind." It may be called sound or healthy, when it is not obstructed in ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... rather to sharpen than to enfeeble his appetite, ordered a little bag to be brought to him filled with smoked vachacos. He mixed these bruised insects with flour of cassava, which he pressed us to taste. It somewhat resembled rancid butter mixed with crumb of bread. The cassava had not an acid taste, but some remains of European prejudices prevented our joining in the praises bestowed by the good missionary on what he called an excellent ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... to me," said the other, with a kind of condescending appreciativeness, as of one who, out of devotion to knowledge, disdains not to appropriate the least crumb of it, even from a pauper's board; "and, as I am a very Athenian in hailing a new thought, I cannot consent to let it drop ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... town in the north of Holland. All the cheese-fanciers are out, thumping the cannon-ball Edams and the millstone Goudas with their bare red knuckles, plugging in with a hollow steel tool for samples. In Holland the business of judging a crumb of cheese has been taken with great seriousness for centuries. The abracadabra is comparable to that of the wine-taster or tea-taster. These Edamers have the trained ear of music-masters and, merely by knuckle-rapping, can tell down to an air pocket left by a gas bubble just how ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown |
