"Gab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... later, while members of the squadron were engaged in the usual after mess gab fest, an orderly entered with a summons for McGee and Larkin to report to Major Cowan. Larkin had just that day secured a misfitting regulation issue uniform from the Supply Officer, Robinson, and the group had been having a great deal of fun at his expense. ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... long-headed and witty for him. After now in vain endeavouring to find something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and looking fiercely at Varney, he said,—"I don't pretend to a gift of the gab. D—n me, it ain't one of my peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... "There's a good deal in him, I believe! I dare say he's not very bright, but I don't know that we want brightness. A bright financier is the most dangerous man in the world. We've had enough of that already. Give me sound common sense, with just enough of the gab in a man to enable him to say what he's got to say! We don't want more than that nowadays." From which it became evident that Sir Cosmo was satisfied with the new political candidate ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... ladies, we must get our business finished, and we can talk after. I am offerin' three hundred pounds, twenty acres of land, five cows, six sheep, three clockin' hens, and a clutch of ducklin's, and want to know without any palaverin' or old gab, whether or not yourself and Sir Denis are prepared ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... such ill effect. "What do you say, Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert Peel, enjoying the dean's discomfiture. "Why," returned George Stephenson, "I only say this, that of all the powers above and under earth, there seems to me no power so great as the gift of the gab." This is the story. But there are facts which contradict it. The only visit paid by George Stephenson to Drayton Manor was made in the December of 1844, not the January of 1845. The guests (invited for Dec. 14, 1844), were Lord Talbot, Lord ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... "Stow your gab!" snarled the navvy. "Here's the rum all gettin' loose." Picking up the bottle he took a pull of what was left in it. "Here's the bag, parson," he whispered, pulling a black linen bag from his pocket. "We haven't made much noise ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... she commenced her miserable gift of the gab, that Lyddy used to be free to admit she had a fiery tongue, for all they were such friends. And I'm all for peace myself. I guess, on the whole, ma' be she ain't the one for me, perhaps, and it is as well to look further. Why! what in the world! ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... too, as well as there. Slavery speeches are all Bunkum; so are reform speeches, too. Do you think them fellers that keep up such an everlastin' gab about representation, care one cent about the extension of franchise? Why no, not they; it's only to secure their seats to gull their constituents, to get a name. Do you think them goneys that make such a touss about the Arms' Bill, care about ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... gab, The women had a confab And demanded the rights To wear the tights. Gibbery, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... councillors tell me that my tower may never stand tall, unless its stones and lime are slaked with thy blood—the blood of a fatherless man." "Lord God," cried Merlin, "believe not that my blood will bind your tower together. I hold them for liars who told over such a gab. Bring these prophets before me who prophesy so glibly of my blood, and liars as they are, liars I will prove them to be." The king sent for his sorcerers, and set them before Merlin. After Merlin had regarded them curiously, ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... Historia ex editione Gab Brotier cum Notis et Interpretatione in usum Delphini. Varis Lectionibus Notis Variorum, 12 vols. 8vo. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... 'Twas the first thing I said to him, ma'am. 'What do ye mane, ye spalpeen, ye thief o' the world,' says I, 'by miscalling a dacent man out of his name like that?' says I. I gave him all that, miss, and a dale more, though I've forgotten it be now, for the Ryans was always famous for the gift o' the gab!" ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... across t' valley up there to Whitcliffe and stop an hour or two, enjoyin' hisself. Well, now, as you're no doubt well aweer, Mr. Eldrick, he were a reight hand at talkin', were yon Parrawhite—he'd t' gift o' t' gab reight enough, and talked well an' all. And of course him an' me, we hed bits o' conversation at times, 'cause he come to t' house reg'lar and sometimes o' week-nights an' all. An' he tell'd me 'at he'd had a deal o' experience i' racin' matters—whether it were ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... him to show us the scold's, or gossip's, bridle. This is a rare curiosity, which is kept in the vestry. It would seem, from all that can be learned, that two hundred years ago there were in England viragoes so virulent, women so gifted with gab and so loaded and primed with the devil's own gunpowder, that all moral suasion was wasted on them, and simply showed, as old Reisersberg wrote, that fatue agit qui ignem conatur extinguere sulphure ('t is all nonsense to try to quench fire with brimstone). For such diavolas they had made—what ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... choose. Them ez hez, must lose. Them ez knows, won't blab. Them ez guesses, will gab. Them ez borrows, sorrows. Them ez lends, spends. Them ez gives, lives. Them ez keeps dark, is deep. Them ez kin earn; kin keep. Them ez aims, hits. Them ez hez, gits. Them ez waits, win. Them ez ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... gone over an hour, children," said Curly. "Cards don't draw me like a good gab round the fire. And Diana's our ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... down, Mr Mooney-Rollyno, or whatever you are," said Andrew, "you've got to stay here; and Dawn, hold your mag! You'd give any one the pip with your infernal gab." ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... expressing what they wish to say, will—if we except the dozen leading men on each side of the House of Commons—compare with that of the more august assemblage. Nine-tenths of the Victorian members possess at least the gift of the gab. In the excitement of the moment, grammar goes to the winds, and h 's fall thick as leaves in Vallombrosa, but they neither hesitate nor falter in their speech, and are nearly all possessed of a good deal of useful practical information. Their behaviour is certainly open to exception, but so ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... was dangerous, and reminded him of his mother-in-law. He was a baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to understand them, but up to the present he had failed. And this did not surprise him exactly, since, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of many tongues, (All over tongues, like rumor) This tributary verse belongs To paint his learned humor. All kinds of gab he knows, I wis, From Latin down to Scottish— As fluent as a parrot is, But far more Polly-glottish. No grammar too abstruse he meets, However dark and verby; He gossips Greek about the streets And often Russ—in urbe. Strange tongues—whate'er you do them call; In short, the man is able To tell ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... circumstance of such a state of mind is that it rejects consolation; it feels an indulgence in its own wretchedness.' His hustings appearances would appear to have been at least marked by fluency, for Burns, his junior by eighteen years, declares his own inability to fight like Montgomerie or 'gab ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... despairingly. "It won't matter what becomes of me. I won't go to the devil for you or any woman if I can help it; and I—but where's the good of saying IF you refuse. I know I don't express myself properly; I'm a bad hand at sentimentality; but if I had as much gab as a poet, I couldn't be any fonder of you, or think more highly ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... a gab-wireless operating along-coast and sailors don't always keep their yawp closed after they have taken a man's money to keep still," stated Captain Wass, pointedly. "I wouldn't blame you for grabbing in. You're good-looking enough to do what others ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... chatter at these musters; but on the other hand one seldom seemed to find oneself much forrarder. That is the worst of getting together a swarm of thinkers who are furnished with the gift of the gab and are brimming over with brains. Nothing happens. If a decision was by any chance arrived at, it was of a non-committal nature. The spirit of compromise asserted itself and the Committee adopted a middle course, a course which no doubt fits in well with many of the problems with which governments ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... neist, wi' bleth'rin' gab, Wha speeches wove like ony wab; O' ilk ane's corn aye took a dab, And a' for a fee; Accounts he owed through a' the toun, And tradesmen's tongues nae mair could drown; But now he thought to clout his goun Wi' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... a young man—a callant, the folk said—fu' o' book learnin' and grand at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae leevin' experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi' his gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the days o' the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... notes which are here and there scattered throughout this catalogue, render it of estimation in the opinion of the curious.——BALUZE. Bibliotheca Balusiana; seu catalogus librorum bibliothecae D.S. Baluzii, A. Gab. Martin, Paris, 1719, 8vo., two vols. Let any enlightened bibliographers read the eulogy upon the venerable Baluze (who died in his eighty-eighth year, and who was the great Colbert's librarian), in the preface of the Bibl. Colbertina (vide post), and in the Dict. Hist. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Koenig in Thule, Gar treu bis an das Grab, Dem sterbend seine Buhle Einen goldnen Becher gab. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... it would 'a' been any comfort to Ivory. I guess Aaron 'n' Jake Cochrane was both of 'em more interested in savin' the sisters' souls than the brothers'! Aaron was a fine-appearin' man, and so was Jake for that matter, 'n' they both had the gift o' gab. There's nothin' like a limber tongue if you want to please the women-folks! If report says true, Aaron died of a fever out in Ohio somewheres; Cortland's the place, I b'lieve. Seems's if he hid his trail all the way from New Hampshire somehow, for as a usual thing, a man ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the baronial park-trees of England, and their descendants promise to abide for as many generations to come. In size, form, and color they differ but little from the American crow, but are swifter on the wing, with greater "gift of the gab," and less dignified in general deportment, though more given to aristocratic airs. Although they emigrated from France long before "La Democratic Sociale" was ever heard of in that country, they may be considered the founders of the Socialistic ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... Seligkeit und ein Meer von bitteren Leiden Die Italienerin gab—Seligkeit, Seligkeit nur Laessest Du mich entzuendend, begeistert, befaendig empfinden, In der Spanierin fand Liebe ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... give you the tip: this move, you know, to Ballarat, that he's drivin' at: what'ull you bet me there isn't a woman in the case? Fact! 'Pon my word there is. And a devilish fine woman, too!" He shut one eye and laid a finger along his nose. "You won't blow the gab?—that's why you couldn't have your parleyvoo this morning. When milady comes to town H. O.'s NON EST as long as she's here. And she with a hubby of her own, too! What 'ud our old ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... taken too much to drink,—which he did, after the Danish fashion, far oftener than the rest of Baldwin's men,—he grew rude, boastful, quarrelsome. He would chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades, simply to laugh down a fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty of a true knight. Bitter it was to ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... forty-five retainers had just done dinner and were drinking the Duke's health, singing and speechifying with vociferous applause, shouting, and clapping of hands. I never knew before that oratory had got down into the servants' hall, but learned that it is the custom for those to whom 'the gift of the gab' has been vouchsafed to harangue the others, the palm of eloquence being universally conceded to Mr. Tapps the head coachman, a man of great abdominal dignity, and whose Ciceronian brows are adorned with an ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... qlk daye Mr. Hew Binnen made his Latin lesson, de scientia media, and sustenit the disputt thairupon, and was approven in both. The following ministers were present, Mr. Patrik Gillespie, Mr. David Dicksone, Doctor Jhone Strang, Mr. Zach. Boyde, Mr. George Young, Mr. Hew Blair, Mr. Gab. Conyngham, Mr. David Benett, Mr. Matthew Mackill. Mr. Wm. Young, Mr. Arch. Dennestoune, Mr. Jhone Carstaires, Mr. James Hamilton." The presbytery "ordaines Mr. Hugh Binnen to make ye exercise this daye fyfteen dayes, and the rest of his tryels to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... knapsack a' in order; His doxy lay within his arm; Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm She blinkit on her sodger; An' aye he gies the tozie drab The tither skelpin' kiss, While she held up her greedy gab, Just like an aumous dish; Ilk smack still, did crack still, Just like a cadger's whip; Then staggering an' swaggering ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... that," said the delighted Bailie, "for it's a fact. Ye're a fine laddie and have a fearsome power o' the gab (mouth); I expect to see ye in the pulpit yet; but keeps a' it's time I was at the Black Bull, so ye micht juist slip in and tell the Rector I'm at the ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... especie de batalla campal! Oh! (Prestando atencin, como si oyese algn ruido, y mirando otra vez muy sobresaltado hacia la puerta del foro.) No, nada. Se me ha colgado de los faldones del gabn..., de la corbata, que si tira algo ms me ahoga. ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... came no summons to join the soldier master. There had come instead, when Nixon urged that he be permitted to lead forth both his own troop horse and Deltchay, the brief, but significant reply: "Shut yer gab, Nixon. There's no horse goes till the captain ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... gentleman of a supercargo. He is just like any mortal: he has taken a drink of their Lethe up there, and forgotten to come back to us. He'll be wrestling with the lads, or playing on his lyre, or giving his precious gift of the gab a good airing; or he's off after plunder, the rascal, for what I know: 'tis all in the day's work with him. He is getting too independent: he ought to remember that he belongs to us, one ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... he is the more watchin' he'll bear," remarked he. "There's many a villain with an oily gift of gab." ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... haven't you had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, mind; ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... Captain Zeb, mopping his forehead. "How be you, Keziah? What? You ain't all alone! Thought you'd have a cabin full of gab machines by this time. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... said his mother, "that fools spake mighty sinsible betimes; but their wisdom all goes with their gab. Why didn't you take a betther grip of your luck when you had it? You're wishing you wor a gintleman, and yet when you had the best part of a gintleman (the property, I mane) put into your way, you let it slip through your fingers; and afther lettin' a fellow take a ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... altogether talk, March," answered Remsen, "that makes a good lawyer. Brains count some. If you get where you can conduct a case to a successful result you will never miss the 'gift o' the gab.' Talking's the little end of the horn in my ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... "On to more than you'll ever be. You have to empty the gab from your head to leave room ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... like it." Jock was in arms at once against any suspected criticism. "He's got more sand than many a blasted heavyweight. You ought to hear his gab—it's the newest thing in soul-saving. Sort o' homeopathic doctrine. Tastes good, but bitter as pisen under the coating. Real stuff inside, and all that. Get's working after it's taken, and the sweet taste lasts in your mouth while your innards ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... 'Stow this gab,' roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. 'You, boy,' he said, addressing John, 'you look as if you had a little pluck in you. Didst never want to ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... The crew of a certain brig came to see her on the day before sailing, and she reproached one of the lads for keeping bad company. "Avast, there, granny," interrupted another, who took the chiding to himself. "None of your slack, or I'll put a stopper on your gab." The old woman sprang erect. Levelling her skinny finger at the man, she screamed, "Moon cursers! You have set false beacons and wrecked ships for plunder. It was your fathers and mothers who decoyed a brig to these sands and left me childless and a widow. ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... "band, cord," so that the word really signifies "speech-band." If it is cut in children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot take hold of the mother's breast, but always slips off. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... light: By which heroic Tam was able To note, upon the haly table, A murderer's banes, in gibbet-airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape— Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had strangled; A knife a father's throat had mangled, Whom, his ain son o' life bereft— The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft; ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Sansculottismus. See above, p. 4. Regarding Lessing he made this remark to Eckermann (February 7th, 1827): "Bedauert doch den ausserordentlichen Menschen, dass er in einer so erbaermlichen Zeit leben musste, die ihm keine bessern Stoffe gab, als in seinen ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... Kirby had any—the one he had hardest was the belief he could talk any crowd into any notion, or out of it, either. And he loved to do it jest fur the fun of it. He'd rather have the feeling he was doing that than the money any day. He was powerful vain about that gab of his'n, ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... gets all the limelight and blank verse. He had the "gift of the gab" all right. Old Cassius referred to it later on in one of those "words-before-blows" barneys they had on the battlefield where they hurt each other a damned sight more with their tongues than they ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... wir koennen die Kinder nach unserem Willen nicht formen, So wie Gott sie uns gab, so muss man sie lieben und haben, Sie erzielen aufs best ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... boarders, it's your place to put out a hand first, and I think I can promise that the day-boys will shake it. Bah! I know I can never talk you round; it's no good attempting to. I'm not in a comic mood, and can't make you laugh, like Cadbury, and I haven't Vickers's gift of the gab. But wasn't last Friday's lesson enough? Wasn't the ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... benches from dirt to canvas. Honest, we could! Say, Mister, lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent end, while you do the polite gab at the main entrance, and if we don't lug away the daily receipts in sugar barrels I'll own the boxin' kangaroos for first cousins. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime! What do ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... vodka, he would break down the ceremonious reserve of the severest old patriarch in the whole Greek Church, and completely carry him by storm; while I could only sit by and smile feebly, without being able to say a word. Great is "the gift o' gab." ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... is the real Hotspur did not talk much, but Shakespeare had the gift of the gab, if ever a man had, and Hotspur was a mouthpiece. It is worth noting that though the dramatist usually works himself into a character gradually, Hotspur is best presented in the earlier scenes: Shakespeare began the work with the Hotspur of history and tradition ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... exquisite! It is worth coming a thousand miles by stage coach and flatboat, to meet so droll an adventure with such a nondescript amphibian. He has a prodigious gift of gab, plain and ornamental. Did you take note of his metaphors? 'Rose of Sharon' is good.—By the way, we can't be far from the Bower of Bliss. We must tie up our Argo there as Brackenridge recommended, and go in quest of those ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... his jaw with your scarf, Jim,' said Murgatroyd. 'When Venables comes he will soon find a way to check his gab. Yes,' he continued, looking at the back of my papers, 'it is marked, as you say, "From James the Second of England, known lately as the Duke of Monmouth, to Henry Duke of Beaufort, President of Wales, by the hand of Captain Micah Clarke, of Saxon's regiment of Wiltshire foot." Cast off the lashings, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... About the ocean an' the skies; An' gab an' gas f'um morn till noon About the other side the moon; An' 'bout the natur of the place Ten miles beyend the end of space. An' if his wife she'd ask the crank Ef he wouldn't kinder try to yank Hisself out-doors an' git some wood To make her kitchen fire good, So she c'd bake ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... 'like a horse;' spent his mornings in the schools, his afternoons in the cottages; preached four or five extempore sermons every week to overflowing congregations; took the lead, by virtue of the 'gift of the gab,' at all 'religious' meetings for ten miles round; and really did a great deal of good in his way. He had an unblushing candour about his own worldly ambition, with a tremendous brogue; and prided himself on exaggerating ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... privation which left its impress so deeply on the German as to make thrift his first characteristic. A spirit of lofty, self-sacrificing patriotism imbued the whole people. Young girls cut off their long golden hair to be sold for the Fatherland. Jewels were given by all who possessed them. "Gold gab ich fuer Eisen" (I gave gold for iron) became a saying based on the readiness with which the rich made sacrifices to the cause of country. And with this patriotism, and with this penury, came into every home a more intimate ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... everything. Eloquence implies wisdom—at least all the wisdom which is supposed to be necessary in making lawyers and law-makers—a precious small modicum of a material by no means precious. I was supposed to have the gift of the gab in moderate perfection, and my hearers were indulgent. My name obtained circulation, and, in a short time, I discovered that, in a professional as well as personal point of view, I had no reason to regret the change of residence which I had made. Business began to flow in upon me. Applications ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... how I wanted to be a lawyer and go into politics? I still think I might have made a go of it. I've kind of got the gift of the gab—anyway, I can think on my feet, and make some kind of a spiel on most anything, and of course that's the thing you need in politics. By golly, Ted's going to law-school, even if I didn't! Well—I guess ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... will be all the breakfast he wants," Elizabeth's uncle said, with his meager chuckle. "David's as big a donkey as any of 'em, though he hasn't the gift of gab on the subject." ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... all this queer gab?" he asked. "An' you're takin' some liberty with Miss Hammond, who never seen you before. Sure I'm makin' allowance fer amazin' strange talk. I see you're not drinkin'. Mebbe you're plumb locoed. Come, ease up ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... replied Fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, Charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers—"Artful Dodger—shrieks of laughter—here the court ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Ross had sech a gift o' gab," said Shif'less Sol. "He stirs me all up, he makes me want to hev some lady buy a ship fur me an' start me out to discoverin' continents. Do you think, Paul, thar's any lady who would sell her earrings an' finger rings fur me ez that Spanish ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Miss. The bunch here reckoned as I, bein' gifted with the knack of gab, it fer me to speak for 'em. They're tongue- tied when there's a woman on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... more of your gab to me," returned the Scotsman, "and I'll show ye the wrong side of a jyle. I've heard tell of the three of ye. Ye're not long for here, I can tell ye that. The Government has their eyes upon ye. They make short work of damned beachcombers, I'll say ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... phrases that have come directly to us from England may be mentioned "throw up the sponge," "draw it mild," "give us a rest," "dead beat," "on the shelf," "up the spout," "stunning," "gift of the gab," etc. ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... take from the profits of his faces. A son of his, one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He has his gift—he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and Biting Giles, but that grin ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... British side were injured. Meanwhile the force under Major Peakman was protesting at Carter's Farm. The enemy there made a bold effort to silence Peakman. But a Maxim gun has a remarkable gift of the gab; the Major had one with him, and he let it do all the talking—with results that quickly drove the Boers beyond the range of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... a half hour or so to talk, Mr. Philander, sir?" he asked. "I've got a couple of ideas I'd like to gab with you about, that I think might speed ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it, I could git boosted into th' House or Sennit,— Nut while the twolegged gab-machine's so plenty, 'nablin' one man to du the talk o' twenty; I'm one o' them thet finds it ruther hard To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard, An' maysure off, accordin' to demand, The piece-goods el'kence that I keep on hand, The same ole pattern runnin' thru an' thru, An' nothin' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to be [1] True to this fraternity; That I will in all obey Rule and order of the lay. Never blow the gab or squeak; [2] Never snitch to bum or beak; [3] But religiously maintain Authority of those who reign Over Stop Hole Abbey green, [4] Be their tawny king, or queen. In their cause alone will fight; Think what they think, wrong or right; ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... he agreed; "but a fellow needs some help sometimes, if he ain't over handy with the gift of gab." ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... they don't act up to it theirselves, though. Look at them there Labour members of Parliament—a lot of b—rs what's too bloody lazy to work for their livin'! What the bloody 'ell was they before they got there? Only workin' men, the same as you and me! But they've got the gift o' the gab and—' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... ey hadn," replied Ashbead. "Theawst hear aw abowt it if t' will. Ey wur sent be t' abbut down t' hill to Owen o' Gab's, o' Perkin's, o' Dannel's, o' Noll's, o' Oamfrey's orchert i' Warston lone, to luk efter him. Weel, whon ey gets ower t' stoan wa', whot dun yo think ey sees! twanty or throtty poikemen stonding behint it, an they deshes ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... gab' is in this case, as in many others, a very great resource. A striking remark or bon mot will easily mystify the spectators, and attract their attention from what you are DOING. Hence all prestidigitators are always well stocked with anecdotes and funny observations; indeed, they talk incessantly: ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... had gone all on a sudden as cool as Dick, and nothing but his stertorous breathing hinted of the rage which filled him. 'That's it, is it? Then, if you're finished, hear me. I ain't got the gift o' the gab as free as you, but I can mek plain my meanin', p'raps. I'd rather see her a-layin' theer '(he pointed with a trembling hand at the ground between them); 'I'd rather lay her there, dead afore my eyes, an' screw her in her coffin a'terwards, than you or any o' ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... PERNELLE You're a servant wench, my girl, and much Too full of gab, and too impertinent And free with your advice ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... leader," replied Dunkirk. "Roebuck is far too shrewd for that. No, he has put forward as the decoy my colleague, Croffut,—perhaps you know him? If so, I needn't tell you what a vain, shallow, venal fellow he is, with his gift of gab ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... The mouth. Gift of the gab; a facility of speech, nimble tongued eloquence. To blow the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... been, old lady? Where are you going? We know, we know! She's been to gab with spirits. Look at the old fool! getting ready to cry! What have you got in an envelope, old lady? A lock of hair? An ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... here in connection with the brave exploits which Christian knights, while in their cups, may boast that they will accomplish (F.). This practice of boasting was called indulging in "gabs" (Eng. "gab"), a good instance of which will be found in "Le Voyage de Charlemagne a Jeruslaem" ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... It's the gift of the gab, nothing more and nothing less. What has your knack of fine talking to do with the truth, any more than playing the organ has? I've never been in your church; but I've been to your political meetings; and I've seen you do what's ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... Uncle Gab. (to himself). For all the notice that stuck-up young swell takes of me, I might be a block of wood! I'll make him listen to me. (Aloud.) Ahem! My Lord, I've just been telling my niece here the latest scandal in high-life. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... look up this business of securities, and then if the young feller's talked straight, we'll try to work it through him, if we can get to him, and I guess we can, so long as I ain't lost the gift of the gab in twenty years. We'll be as good, sorrowing heirs as ever Jimmy ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... do you know about it?" said Farrington fiercely, turning on the man. "What do you put in your gab for?" ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... a nation that loves to laugh, and you make sport with yourselves, and with others, by telling what is impossible, and reporting what never chanced. Thou art one of the knights of France, who hold it for glee and pastime to GAB, as they term it, of exploits that are beyond human power. [Gaber. This French word signified a sort of sport much used among the French chivalry, which consisted in vying with each other in making ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the late Monsieur Noverre. Oh, if you could only know the tricks played on poor Father Chevrel by that Monsieur Noverre, by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and especially by Monsieur Philidor! They are a set of rascals; I know them well! They all have a gab and nice manners. Ah, your ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... as much. That man has the gift of gab. He can wrap you right around his finger, I ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... arrow-heads hired a chap with a gift of the gab to tell the others how wrong it was to want things someone else had collared. That was the first lesson in morality, and the preacher, seeing there was money in the game, started the first priesthood. Yes, morality owes its existence to the fact of the well-to-do requiring ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... the scientific branches of amputation, from the scalp-lock to the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... damned!" cries he. "It's the Campbells, man! You'll have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will the Advocate too, poor body! It's extraordinar ye cannot see where ye stand! If there's no fair way to stop your gab, there's a foul one gaping. They can put ye in the dock, do ye no' see that?" he cried, and stabbed me with one ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... agent. You look as if you had a gift of the gab. A successful life insurance agent will make a good deal more than ten ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... guarded growl, "quit your gab there! We're gettin' nigh, bhoys—here's th' brush forninst his place . . . must go mighty quiet ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... 'My father has some winter fruit that in December grew; My mither has a silk mantil the waft gaed never through; A sparrow's horn ye soon may find, there's ane on ev'ry claw, And twa upo' the gab o' it, and ye shall get ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... is there? There's time for everyone to give out their chat and their gab, and to do their business and take their ease and have a comfortable life, only the King! The beasts of the field have leave to lay themselves down in the meadow and to stretch their limbs on the green grass ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... every one in the whole room burst out laughing, and even dowager lady Chia broke out in laughter while she observed: "Do you listen to that mouth? I myself am looked upon as having the gift of the gab, but why is it that I can't talk in such a wise as to put down this monkey? Your mother-in-law herself doesn't dare to be so overbearing in her speech; and here you are ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... he possessed the gift of gab, as the silver in the tongue and the gold in the full or thick-lipped mouth are oftentimes contemptuously characterized. And like many of his race he was a devoted student of the Bible to whose interpretation he brought like many other Bible students, not confined to the ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... off the track, turned upside down and its wheels making a thousand revolutions a minute. A kite in the air without a tail. A ship without a rudder. A clock without hands. A sermon that is all text; the incarnation of gab. Handsome, vivacious, versatile, muscular, neat, clean to the marrow. A judge of the effect of clothes, frugal in food and regular only in habits. With brains enough in his head for twenty men all pulling different ways. A man not ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... gab and he made eloquent public speeches, tellin' what boons saloons and kindred places wuz to the community. I spoze there never wuz a more ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... to acknowledgin' Him, deacon, only—I'm not the man to talk out much before them that I know is my betters. I ain't got the gift o' gab. I couldn't never say much to the fellers in the saloon along around about election-times, though I b'lieved in the ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... brave boy. I've heard of what you did, an' you don't talk much. I'm glad of that. I can do all the talkin' that's needed by the three of us. The Lord created me with a love of gab." ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... has to toil at that and really to know things. But a Prime Minister should never go beyond generalities about commerce, agriculture, peace, and general philanthropy. Of course he should have the gift of the gab, and that Plantagenet hasn't got. He never wants to say anything unless he has got something to say. I could do a Mansion House ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... didn't mean it that way," she cried. "But from what you tell me I imagine that all a man needs is a front and plenty of punch. You've got the front all right with your looks and gift of gab, and I leave it to Young Brophy if you haven't got ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... say that since the tremendous enlargement of the American colony, the whole pace of London drawing-room talk has enormously improved. We British are not by nature a sprightly and speechful race, with the gift of gay gab, but under the American woman's cheerful influence we are enjoying ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... delegation. The mouth may be opened for two purposes, viz., speech-making and swallowing; and it never appeared to us that there was any lack either of Bolting or Bellering in the House of Representatives. However notably Honorable Gentlemen may play the game either of Gab or Grab, it isn't so clear that their constituents are much benefited by these accomplishments. If all they want is an open-mouthed Member, why don't the Massachusetts men import a first-class crocodile, and send him to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... erhob das Wort, Heribrands Sohn: 30 "Das wisse Allvater oben im Himmel, Dass nimmer du Worte bis heute gewechselt Mit so nah gesipptem Mann." ... Da wand er vom Arme gewundene Ringe, Aus Kaisermnzen[5] gemacht, wie der Knig sie ihm gab, 35 Der Herrscher der Hunnen: "Dass ich um Huld dir's gebe!" Hadubrand erhob das Wort, Hildebrands Sohn: "Mit dem Ger soll man Gabe empfahen,[6] Spitze wider Spitze. Ein Spher bist du, Alter Hunne, (heimlich)[7] lockst du mich 40 Mit ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... would begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, "Come have a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up." And so they would drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently wretched-looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might have two; and if they were to discover that they were from the same country, or had lived in the same city or worked at the same trade, they might sit down at a table and spend an hour or two in talk—and before they got through the saloon-keeper would have taken ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... "Why, Uncle Cornelius was the hit of the season with Uncle Peter, though, of course, Aunt Flora didn't make good with that 'You betcher sweet!' monologue of hers. How could she? Even at that, she stands better with me than some conversational queens I know who get so busy with the gab ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... 'broke,' and you're twenty-five and pretty. He evidently, being a newspaper man, has that peculiar gift of gab that we call romantic expression. So I guess I'm not blind. You both think you've fallen in ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... shall hyeah his thundah, Lak a blas' f'om Gab'el's ho'n, Fu' de Lawd of hosts is mighty When he girds his ahmor on. But fu' feah some one mistakes me, I will pause right hyeah to say, Dat I 'm still a-preachin' ancient, I ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... he said, "I am going to make a balloon excursion to-morrow. I didn't mention it to the society because these fellows gab so. There'd be a great crowd round, and I'd only have been hampered. When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better. That is what I have always found. Ever ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... Walker answered, 'there's some hev a talent fer sawin' wood, but we don't count that. It's war an' speakin', they are the two great talents of the Yankee. But his greatest talent is the gift o' gab. Give him a chance t' talk it over with his enemy an' he'll lick 'im without a fight. An' when his enemy is another Yankee—why, they both git licked, jest as it was in the case of the man thet sold me lightnin' rods. He was sorry he done ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... Owd Sammy, "an' so tha'rt th' new rector, art ta? I thowt as mich as another ud spring up as soon as th' owd un wur cut down. Tha parsens is a nettle as dunnot soon dee oot. Well, I'll leave thee to th' owd lass here. Hoo's a rare un fur gab when hoo' taks th' notion, an' I'm noan so mich i' th' humor t' argufy mysen today." And he took his pipe from the mantelpiece and strolled out with an imperturbable air. But this was not the last of the matter. The Rector went again and again, cheerfully persisting in bringing ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... expedient, and unburthened the tumult of his thoughts to his confidential friend. "This," cried he, "is a new artifice of the fellow, to prove his imagined superiority. We knew well enough that he had the gift of the gab. To be sure, if the world were to be governed by words, he would be in the right box. Oh, yes, he had it all hollow! But what signifies prating? Business must be done in another guess way than that. I wonder what possessed me that I did not kick him ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... not a preacher or a Mormon. I haven't got the gift of gab. Charleton is a good talker. Let him ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... prepared to leave, "to look sharp if you see a forty-five-year-old damsel, with a little bright red face, all ears an' no chin, like the ace o' hearts. That'll be Miss Pickett. She'll have with her, like as not, a stout married lady, all gab an' gizzard, like a crow, an' a mouth like a new buttonhole. That'll be Mrs. Pennycook. Look out ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... rouse him up, and see if we could bring any thing out of him by speering cross-questions. Tommy and Benjie trembled from top to toe, like aspen leaves, but fient a word could we make common sense of at all. I wonder who educates these foreign creatures? it was in vain to follow him, for he just gab-gabbled away, like one of the stone masons at the Tower of Babel. At first I was completely bamboozled, and almost dung stupid, though I kent one word of French which I wanted to put to him, so I cried through, "Canna ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... putting on the brogue so easily that it seemed natural to him—which indeed it was, as he was born not twenty miles from Cork, in the neighbourhood of which is situated the far-famed "Blarney stone," that is supposed to endow those who kiss it with the "gift of the gab;" and Charley must have "osculated it," as a Yankee would say, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... zehn Gebot', Die uns gab unser Herre Gott Durch Mosen, seinen Diener treu, Hoch auf ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... experiences were trying and some were amusing. Discussion was often relieved by rare bits of eloquence and surprising use of language. Pronunciation was frequently original and unprecedented. Amazing ignorance was unconcealed and the gift of gab was unrestrained. Nothing quite equaled in fatal facility a progress report made by a former member soon after his debut: "We think we shall soon be able to bring chaos out of the present disorder, now existing." On one of our trips of investigation the City Engineer had ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... him," said he. "You were all having such a love feast gab-fest when I blew in. This is Mr. Orde, who bosses this place—and most of the country around here. If you want to do good to humanity on this meadow you'd better begin by being good to him. He controls it. He's humanity with ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... under; a disposition fiery, mercurial, sanguine, witty; he was made, according to Billy Fairfax's dictum, of "wire and brass tacks," and he possessed what Honey Smith (who himself had no mean gift in that direction) called "the gift of gab." He lived by writing magazine articles. Also he wrote fiction, verse, and drama. Also he was a painter. Also he was a musician. In short, he was ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... we have enough trouble with our telephone even with Carrie to supply discretion for the whole town. Party lines and rubber ears are the source of all our woe. You know what a party line is, of course. It's a line on which you can have a party and gab merrily back and forth for forty minutes, while some other subscriber is wildly dancing with impatience. Most of our lines have four subscribers apiece, and it's just as hard to live in friendliness on a party ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... didn't know," said Endicott evasively, "that Michael has a great gift of gab! Would you like to stop and have ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... was not the man who in new surroundings would be quick to every whisper of opinion. But he had been born and bred in Barbie, and he knew his townsmen—oh yes, he knew them. He knew they laughed because he had no gift of the gab, and could never be Provost, or Bailie, or Elder, or even Chairman of the Gasworks! Oh, verra well, verra well; let Connal and Brodie and Allardyce have the talk, and manage the town's affairs (he was damned if they should manage his!)—he, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... into you?" he hissed. "You're cross-grained lately. You're sore. Any more of this and I'll swear you're a disorganizer.... Now, Budd, you keep your mouth shut. And you, Cleve, you pay no heed to Budd if he does gab.... We're in bad and all the men have chips on their shoulders. We've got ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... called, and, for 'arf-a-quid, say, he'd frighten Uncle Dick 'arf to death. He's big and ugly, and picks up a living by selling meerschaum pipes he's found to small men wot don't want 'em. Wonderful gift o' the gab ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... anent the Bradley-Martin ball—all the preachers and teachers, editors and other able idiots pouring forth voluminous opinions. A tidal wave of printer's ink has swept across the continent, churned to atrous foam by hurricanes of lawless gibberish and wild gusts of resounding gab. The empyrean has been ripped and the tympana of the too patient gods ravished with fulsome commendation and foolish curse, showers of Parthian arrows and wholesale consignments of soft-soap darkening the sun as they hurtled hither and yon through the shrinking atmosphere. A man dropping ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... rode into Pitt just before we left, that you had new friends here by that name. This fellow was a handsome chap, no common sort, but lordly, dissipated and reckless as the devil. He had a servant traveling with him, a sailor, by his gab, who was about the toughest customer I've met in many a day. He cut a fellow in bad shape at Pitt. These two will be on the next boat, due here in a day or so, according to river and weather conditions, an' ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... From gab of jay and chatter of crake The dusk wood covered me utterly. And here the tongue of the thrush was awake. Flame-floods out of the low bright sky Lighted the gloom with gold-brown dye, Before dark; and a manifold chorussing ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the defensive, her chin thrust out, her features convulsed, said nothing, not having yet acquired the Paris gift of street gab. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... who I mean. Why, she's even taught me to cut out slang. Say, Bobby, I didn't know how much like a rough-neck I used to talk. I never opened my yawp but what I spilled a line of fricasseed gab so twisted and frazzled and shredded you could use it to stuff sofa-cushions; but now I've handed that string of talk the screw number. No more slang ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... 'I were as young and as supple as you, and had the gift o' the gab as weel.'"—Heart ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... little cook-shop where he habitually took his meals, the people round him had taken to taunt him with the remissness of the police. More than that one of his pals, a man he'd always looked up to, because the young fellow had the gift of the gab, had actually been among those who had spoken at the big demonstration in Victoria Park, making a violent speech, not only against the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, but also ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Dinna claver in that feckless fashion! It's months, lad, sin' ye opened y'r mouth wi' onything but daft gab." ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... veteran? Only a boy On a three-legged crock? Well, I own you are older, And watching your riding's a thing to enjoy; There isn't a Jock who is defter and bolder; Your power, authority, eloquence—yes, For your gift of the gab is a caution—are splendid; But—the youngster may teach you a lesson, I guess, As to judgment of pace ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... captain stood on the carronade: 'First lieutenant,' says he, 'Send all my merry men aft here, for they must list to me; I haven't the gift of the gab, my sons—because I'm bred to the sea; That ship there is a Frenchman, who means to fight with we. And odds bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, I've fought 'gainst every odds—but ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... of their low sties, With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail 400 Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps Of one another's ears between their teeth, To catch the coming hail of comfits in. You, Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab, Make them a solemn speech to this effect: 405 I go to put in readiness the feast Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine, Where, for more glory, let the ceremony Take place of the uglification of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... too much talk nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort on any thought, just like walking, the motion just ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... For now, said he, procrastination and the conciliatory demeanor of the Evangelicals, especially of Melanchthon and Brueck, had made it impossible to rouse the Emperor to such a degree as the exigency of the case demanded. (Plitt, 63.) Luther wrote: "For that shameless gab and bloodthirsty sophist, Doctor Eck, one of their chief advisers, publicly declared in the presence of our people that if the Emperor had followed the resolution made at Bononia, and, immediately on entering Germany, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... Canada, and I trust they will, by all Christian means and measures, support Her Majesty's Government in Canada. May the Holy and Blessed God give us peace, and good government in our day. I have been a little vexed with the travelling gab of one of our own former friends, who is pleased to inform the people that you were the sole cause of the late rebellion. I must tell him, the first time I meet with him, that the meaning of his sing-song is not understood, and that if he will explain his hidden meaning, it will ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Er gab dem Knaben warmes Blut, Des Rosses Kraft, des Adlers Muth, Im Felsennacken freien Sinn, 15 Des Falken ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... easy to tackle, and Mrs. Biggs was there with her gab, if she is my niece, and said I got ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... raten an den triuwen min, So spraeche ir haut den armen zuo: se, daz ist din, Ir zunge suenge, unde lieze mengem man daz sin, Gedaehten daz ouch si dur Got waeren almuosenaere. Do gab ir erste teil der Kuenik Konstantin, Het er gewest, daz da von uebel kuenftik waere, So het er wol underkomen des riches swaere, Wan daz si do waren kiusche, und uebermuete laere. Hagen, Minnesinger-Sammlung, Leipsic, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... the delightful stranger, "let's you and me have a talk. There's a nice cool spot under these laurels; I'll stake out Pepita, and we'll just lie off there and gab, and not care if ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... within the Gab-ri[1] wild, A seer is resting on a rock; exiled By his own will from all the haunts of men, Beside a pool within a rocky glen He sits; a turban rests upon his brow, And meets the lengthened beard of whitest snow. This morn an omen comes before his eyes, And ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... to talk, eh?" jibed the slattern. "Well, before you get out of here you'll be tickled enough to shoot off your gab. Bah! You an' your airs! If you want any grub this mawnin' you'll come down an' grab it ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... to say, your honor?" asked Chips, scratching his head. "I haven't got the gift of the gab like you ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... misunderstood. Your silence and seclusion in the country, at the time when you might be in Paris enjoying all the Parliamentary honors of the Comte de l'Estorade, cause me serious anxiety. You know that your husband's "gift of gab" and unsparing zeal have won for him quite a position here, and he will doubtless receive some very good post when the session is over. Pray, do you spend your life writing him letters of advice? Numa was not so ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... Daunton grew more and more sleek, and pale, and fat. He throve upon our miseries. He played his part at length so well, as to avoid thrashings. He possessed, in perfection, that which, in classic cockpit, is called "the gift of the gab." He was never in the wrong. Indeed, he began to get a favourite with each of the individuals over whom he was so mercilessly tyrannising, while each thought himself the tyrant. All this may seem improbable to well-nurtured, shore-bred young gentlemen ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... gab aber im Alterthum noch einen erlaubten Ausweg fuer die Verbindung vorneluner Maenner mit geringen (freien und selbst unfreien) Frauen, den Concubinat, der ohne feierliches Verloebniss, ohne Brautgabe und Mitgift eingegangen wurde, mithin keine wahre und ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various
... Hey!" roared Mr. Pawket, with sudden severity. "None of that talk here! You mind your own business, young man. Don't you give us none of that gab." He turned to Mrs. Pawket: "What did I say about that new young feller that's come to teach school? He ain't here for no good—that's what I said!" Mr. Pawket studied the face on the envelope with a sort of curious horror, concluding, "Ef she's what you say she is, see to it that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and shifted his quid and spoke. "Tell ye what 'tis, all of ye," said he—"it's mighty easy talkin' an' givin' away gab instead of dollars. I'll bet ye anything ye'll put up that there ain't one of ye out of the whole damned lot that 'ain't got any money that would give it ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... provocative Elias and pin him down to something definite; the flashes of shrewd sanity in the fanatic's mouthings had encouraged Frank to believe that the Prophet was not quite as much of an ingenuous lunatic as his gab and ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... over my mistake," grinned Sanderson. "You couldn't be anybody but Bransford, or you wouldn't shoot off your gab that reckless. If you're Bransford, I'm apologizin' to you for talkin' back to you. But if you ain't Bransford, get off your hind legs an' talk like ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... him. He calls himself 'a curious old bitch', but he is a flat old dog. I should like to employ Caliph Vathek to kick him. Oh, the flummery of a birthplace! Cant! cant! cant! It is enough to give a spirit the guts-ache. Many a true word, they say, is spoken in jest—this may be because his gab hindered my sublimity: the flat dog made me write a flat sonnet. My dear Reynolds, I cannot write about scenery and visitings. Fancy is indeed less than a present palpable reality, but it is greater than remembrance. You would lift your eyes from Homer only to see close ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Uncle Gab. (out of temper, on the hearth-rug). Seven minutes past the hour, MONTY—and, if there's a thing I'm particular about, it's not being kept waiting for my dinner. Are you expecting somebody else? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various |
