"Gammon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inland. A snuff of the sea, my boy, is inspiration; and having been once out of sight of land, has been the making of many a true poet and the blasting of many pretenders; for, d'ye see, there's no gammon about the ocean; it knocks the false keel right off a pretender's bows; it tells him just what he is, and makes him feel it, too. A sailor's life, I say, is the thing to bring us mortals out. What does the blessed Bible say? Don't it say that we main-top-men alone ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... found it unwise to test her power too far; so she came down and palavered me,—assured me that I was personally all that heart could wish—she loved her dear child the better for valuing solid merit. Faugh! how could I stand such gammon? But I must perceive that she was peculiarly circumstanced with regard to Isabel's family, she must not seem to sanction an engagement till I could offer a home suited to her expectations. She said something of my Uncle Oliver; but I disposed of that. However, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Oh, gammon! Why not tell me at once that you are a winkle stall-keeper and be done with it? You can't tell a fish that another fish is a turnip—at least you can't and expect him to believe it. Own up, old ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... all gammon; never saw a man look as though he enjoyed his beef and beer better; no, go do my bidding, and in your effort to keep out Mormonism you will punish your foe ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... of them would weather upon any three Englishmen that ever were born. Now here is a book that as good as tells me it is a Yankee custom to disable their beasts of burden. Gammon! they can't afford to do it. I believe," continued this candid personage (who had never been in any of the States), "they are the cruelest set on the face of the earth, but then they are the 'cutest (that is their own word), and they are a precious sight too 'cute to disable the beast ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the taste, which is something like guff, Tho' with gammon 'twill also compare; The next is the sound, which is simple enough— It resembles ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... attacks upon them. "God's elect" are always irritating us. They are eternally lying in wait with some monstrous absurdity, to spring it upon us at the very moment when we are least prepared. They take a fiendish delight in torturing us with tantrums, galling us with gammon, and pelting us with platitudes. Whenever we disguise ourself in the seemly toggery of the godly, and enter meekly into the tabernacle, hoping to pass unobserved, the parson is sure to detect us and explode a bombful of bosh ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... got up. I said it was five minutes anyway, and I had them arguing whether it was five or ten minutes (it was really half an hour), when the officer said, "O'Brien, have you any witnesses?" I said, "Yes, Sir, Private Gammon." Officer: "Private Gammon, step forward. How long after reveille did O'Brien lie in bed?" "Fifteen minutes, Sir," said Gammon, and looked at me as though he were doing me a great favour. "Five days C. B.," said the Major; "right about turn, dismiss." Now, believe me, what I said to that boy wouldn't ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... Greek at his own Table; for which Reason he desired a particular Friend of his at the University to find him out a Clergyman rather of plain Sense than much Learning, of a good Aspect, a clear Voice, a sociable Temper, and, if possible, a Man that understood a little of Back-Gammon. My Friend, says Sir Roger, found me out this Gentleman, who, besides the Endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good Scholar, tho' he does not show it. I have given him the Parsonage ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... writers is that ordinarily the slaveholder's house was poor and that he lived in a very poor fashion. As for the twelve sons and daughters in the planters' families, and the fifteen to twenty-five children in the negro families, it is perfect gammon. Not one family in a thousand had such numbers. None but a very few of the richest planters lived in the profusion described on page four. As for the enrolment in colleges between 1859 and 1860, and the incomes ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... frog lived in the well, Heigh-ho! says Rowley; And the merry mouse under the mill, With a Rowley, Powley, Gammon, and Spinach, Heigh-ho! ...
— The Baby's Opera • Walter Crane
... one know how to mix spices so well as he who has been where they grow?—I have seen the sun ripening nutmegs and cloves, and here, it can hardly fill a peasecod, by Jupiter. Ah, Tyrrel, the merry nights we have had at Smyrna!—Gad, I think the gammon and the good wine taste all the better in a land where folks hold them to be sinful indulgences—Gad, I believe many a good Moslem is of the same opinion—that same prohibition of their prophet's gives a flavour to the ham, and a relish to the Cyprus.—Do you remember old Cogia Hassein, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... about the Land of Morn Above this world of Mammon, He'd shout, with an emphatic scorn, "Ah, gammon, gammon, gammon!" ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... Not a bit on't. You needn't come here with that gammon, missis, whoever you be. My wife's gone off to New Jerusalem ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... interpreted to Villa. "You know, when Australia went 'all white,' the Queensland plantations had to send all the black birds back. This Makawao is evidently one of them, and a hard case as well, if there's anything in Johnny's gammon about twenty pounds reward for him. That's a ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... first; and then we will see to the rest. My goodness, what a bundle: quackery, ignorance, quarrelsomeness, vainglory; idle questionings, prickly arguments, intricate conceptions; humbug and gammon and wishy-washy hair-splittings without end; and hullo! why here's avarice, and self-indulgence, and impudence! luxury, effeminacy and peevishness!—Yes, I see them all; you need not try to hide them. Away with falsehood and swagger and superciliousness; why, the three-decker ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... the directness of speech that is not merely excusable, but almost obligatory, in the political profession; "the votes aren't counted yet. You won't gammon me as to the result, either. A boy that I've palled with is going to fire a gun when the poll is declared; two shots if we've won, one ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... expected on the evening of our absence had however scared them a little; and it is probable that the man from Cudjallagong had given them new ideas about soldiers. Piper's watchword, also, when taking up his carabine, usually was "Bell gammon soldiers."* They left the neighbourhood of our camp on my return and we saw no more of the tribe ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... triangular ring formed on the end of a gammon-plate, for the gammoning lashing or chain ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... might be looking back on it with pleasure; but in her view it was a morning more completely misspent, more totally bare of rational satisfaction at the time, and more to be abhorred in recollection, than any she had ever passed. A whole evening of back-gammon with her father, was felicity to it. There, indeed, lay real pleasure, for there she was giving up the sweetest hours of the twenty-four to his comfort; and feeling that, unmerited as might be the degree ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... "Busby's tellin' ye gammon," roared Tom Green, who rode on the second sledge in rear of that on which Davie Summers sat. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Well, I knew the man was in a passion, and I did not care. I only said, 'How dare you, Sir?' and I threw the piece of iron just to frighten him. Well, to be sure, the blackguard fell down like a bull, and I thought it was a humbug. I laughed and said, 'None of your gammon;' but he was dead. I think the thing must have struck something on the way, and so swerved against his head. I wished not to kill the fellow—I ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... gammon,' all that, as the black fellows say," replied the other. "Truth is, people makes artificial wants, and then they must have artificial stimulants. We're no great scholars in our house, but we gets a good many books even out here in the bush, and reads ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... as we are; By thy fulsome Cretan lass; By the old man on the ass; By thy cousins in mixed shapes; By the flower of fairest grapes; By thy bisks famed far and wide; By thy store of neats'-tongues dried; By thy incense, Indian smoke; By the joys thou dost provoke; By this salt Westphalia gammon; By these sausages that inflame one; By thy tall majestic flagons; By mass, tope, and thy flapdragons; By this olive's unctuous savour; By this orange, the wine's flavour; By this cheese o'errun ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... to permit of his return. Nor was the Wager the only ship in the squadron that suffered in this tempest; for next day, a signal of distress was made by the Anna pink, and on speaking her, we found she had broken her fore-stay and the gammon of her boltsprit, and was in no small danger of all her masts coming by the board; so that the whole squadron had to bear away to leeward till she made all fast, after which we again ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... would a-wooing go, Heigho! said Rowley, Whether his mother would let him or no, With his rowly powly, Gammon and spinnage, ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... birds were irrational beings, and therefore couldn't come to an understanding with the others, as you and the young woman can. The birds fought fair; but I intend you and the young woman should fight cross." "What do you mean by cross?" said I. "Come, come," said the landlord, "don't attempt to gammon me; you in the ring, and pretend not to know what fighting cross is! That won't do, my fine fellow; but as no one is near us, I will speak out. I intend that you and the young woman should understand one another and agree beforehand which should be beat; and if you ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... being told at the same time by the keeper of the house that he couldn't board people for nothing, "Then sell out to somebody who can!" In other words, fly from a business which don't remunerate. But as we intimated before, there is much gammon in the popular editorial cry ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... and the coach of opposition come behind him in one narrow place. Well—then he twist himself round, and, with full voice, cry himself out at the another man, who was so angry as himself, "I'll tell you what, my hearty! If you comes some more of your gammon at me, I shan't stand, and you shall yourself find in the wrong box." It was not for many weeks after as I find out ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... and Mammon, Who, binding up his Bible with his Ledger, Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon, A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger, Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak, Against the wicked remnant of the week, A saving bet against his sinful bias— "Rogue that I am," he whispers to himself, "I lie—I cheat—do anything ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... breakfast—I'm partial to a bloater—it's black outside, as if it was done in the cinders; and then inside—well, I like them done all through, like any other man. Then I can't get her to get me gammon rashers. She will get these little tiddy rashers, with little white bones in them. Why, while you're cutting them out the bacon gets cold. You may think I'm fussy ... fiddly with my food. I'm not, ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... "Gammon, that's what makes my kisses so nice!" he answered; and, after holding me at arm's-length for inspection, "By George, you're a wonderful-looking girl! You're surely not done growing yet, though! You are such a little nipper. I could put you in my pocket with ease. You ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... you are a thoroughly good sort of girl when you like to be—that's a fact. And now you will see whether what I have said about Miss Rosewarne is all gammon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... drinking all his whisky, he luckily fell in with a shepherd, who led him on to a public-house somewhere near Exeford. And here he was so unmanned, the excitement being over, that nothing less than a gallon of ale and half a gammon of bacon, brought him to his right mind again. And he took good care to be home before dark, having ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... "None o' your gammon, Jake," the Virgin snapped back, with lip curled contemptuously for Vance's especial benefit. "I fancy it'd be more in keeping if you'd look to pore ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... from the army in Piedmont; and having told him I was going thither, he asked me, whether I had a mind to buy any horses; that he had about two hundred to dispose of, and that he would sell them cheap. I began to be smoked like a gammon of bacon; and being quite wearied out, both with their tobacco and their questions, I asked my companion if he would play for a single pistole at backgammon, while our men were supping; it was not without great ceremony that he consented, at the same time asking my ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... which cut through a pig. When it was explained that this is not allowed, he protested that a pig was no use until you cut its throat. "Begorra, if it's bacon ye want without cutting your pig, it will be all gammon." We will not do the Irishman the injustice of suggesting that the miserable pun was intentional. However, he failed to solve the ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... carpenter, or any hedger or ditcher that might be there, and point out bits of the wood, and say, "That branch looks pretty dicky. No harm to cut that off short and parcel and serve the end and cap it with a zinc cap;" or, "Better be cutting the Yartle Bush for the next fallow, it chokes the gammon-rings, and I don't like to see so much standard ivy about, it's the death of trees." I am not sure that I have got the technical words right, but at any rate they were more or less like that, for I have heard him myself time and again. I often used to go out with ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... not gammon. What it comes to in practice is this. The phagocytes wont eat the microbes unless the microbes are nicely buttered for them. Well, the patient manufactures the butter for himself all right; but my discovery is that the manufacture of that butter, which I call opsonin, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... thus lack the note of descent from hungry food-craving ghosts. In Australia, indeed, while ghosts are not known to receive any offerings, "the recent custom of providing food for it"—the dead body of a friend—"is derided by the intelligent old aborigines as 'white fellow's gammon'".(1) ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... am Gluttony. My parents are all dead, and the devil a penny they have left me, but a small pension, and that buys me thirty meals a-day and ten bevers,—a small trifle to suffice nature. I come [84] of a royal pedigree: my father was a Gammon of Bacon, my mother was a Hogshead of Claret-wine; my godfathers were these, Peter Pickled-herring and Martin Martlemas-beef; but my godmother, O, she was an ancient gentlewoman; her name was Margery March-beer. Now, ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... adventure, and begged him to conduct her home. To her surprise and grief, he refused to believe a word of the story, but, taking her for the little vagrant she seemed, gruffly ordered her to "move on," adding, "You can't gammon me: I 've heard too many ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... among his future constituents, so conspicuous had his name become. Grimes saw it, and was dismayed. At first, Grimes ridiculed the cry with all his publican's wit. "Unless he mean to drown hisself in the Reach, it's hard to say what he do mean by all that gammon about the River Bank," said Grimes, as he canvassed for the other Liberal candidate. But, after a while, Grimes was driven to confess that Mr Scruby knew what he was about. "He is a sharp 'un, that he is," said Grimes in the inside bar of the "Handsome Man;" and ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... care to go into the hut. It seems to float just round my nose! It has a strong scent, the damned stuff! (The guests are heard driving off.) They're off at last. Oh Lord! Merciful Nicholas! There they go, binding themselves and gulling one another. And it's all gammon! ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... dealing, insincerity, hypocrisy, cant, humbug; jesuitism, jesuitry; pharisaism; Machiavelism, "organized hypocrisy"; crocodile tears, mealy-mouthedness[obs3], quackery; charlatanism[obs3], charlatanry; gammon; bun-kum[obs3], bumcombe, flam; bam*[obs3], flimflam, cajolery, flattery; Judas kiss; perfidy &c (bad faith) 940; il volto sciolto i pensieri stretti[It]. unfairness &c (dishonesty) 940; artfulness &c (cunning) 702; misstatement &c (error) 495. V. be false &c adj., be a liar &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "Oh, gammon!" interrupted Mildred. "Don't be silly, mother. It isn't worth while for one woman to talk that kind of thing to another. I didn't fully know what I was doing when I married a man I didn't love—a ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... eldest of whom seemed scarcely more than twenty; and five cavaliers, young and handsome, whose jewelled vests and golden chains attested their degree. Wines and fruits were on a low table beside; and musical instruments, chess-boards, and gammon-tables, lay scattered all about. So fair a group, and so graceful a scene, Adrian never beheld but once, and that was in the midst of the ghastly pestilence of Italy!—such group and such scene our closet indolence may yet revive in the pages of ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... have extended about as far as Point Gammon, where, being "near the land," their Indian guide left them, as stated ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... Take cold Gammon of Bacon, fat and lean together, cut it small as for Sausages, season it with Pepper, Cloves and Mace, and a little Shelots, knead it into a Paste with the yolks of Eggs, and fill some Bullocks Guts with it, and boil them; but if you would have them to keep, then ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... with life. Thin, gaunt dogs barked and snarled in the narrow staired streets. Came the cry of the donkey-boys. Came the cry of the water-sellers. Came the shouts of the young Syrians over the gammon game. Loped the laden camels. Tramped the French soldiers. ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... it's all thrue enough at any rate; we're to have a religious field day here in the Sessions house of Castle Cumber; the whole thing is regulated—the seconds, and bottle houlders, and all is appointed. There's the Rev. Christopher Gammon, Rev. Vesuvius M'Slug, who's powerful against Popery, the Rev. Bernard Brimstone, and the Rev. Phineas Lucre, with many more on the side of truth. On that of Popery and falsehood there's the Rev. Father ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Oriental game, something like a rude out-door form of back-gammon, in which the players who throw certain numbers are dubbed Sultan ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... of such eloquence:—'You pilmillally jumbuck, plenty sulky me, plenty boom, borack gammon,' which, being interpreted, means—'If you steal my sheep I shall be very angry, and will ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... "All gammon!" cried Vince. "People used to believe in all kinds of nonsense—magicians, and fiery serpents and dragons, and things that we laugh about now. There, one can't help feeling a bit shrinky, after all we've heard and been frightened with by people ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... knock it out of these chaps' heads but that we were safe to be grabbed in the long run trying to make into the old home. This was what made them gammon to be surveyors when they first came, as we heard about, and go measuring and tape-lining about, when there wasn't a child over eight years old on the whole creek that couldn't have told with half an eye they wasn't nothing ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... chambermaid, Whose terrors not to be gainsaid In laughs hysteric were displayed, Was always there before them; This had its due effect with some Who straight departed, muttering, Hum! 642 Transparent hoax! and Gammon! But these were few: believing souls, Came, day by day, in larger shoals, As the ancients to the windy holes 'Neath Delphi's tripod brought their doles, Or to the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... called by name on all the Raggets, and Short, and Noggin to come to my assistance, and looked round, pretending that I expected them to appear. The wolf, I thought, winked his wicked eye, as much as to say, "That's all gammon; don't suppose you can do an old soldier like me;" but I cannot say positively, as it was growing dark. Still he would not move, and I had no wish to get nearer his fangs. I continued shouting, and he went on howling, and a sweet concert we must have made, for I had ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... Bill Gammon found Pete curled up by the stove. He took him out of doors and explained the business in hand. Bill prided himself somewhat on his ability to "git work out of Injuns." Pete muttered only "all right." He took the money Bill gave him, and then slunk away down the road for the forest, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... said, and drew her lips together and contracted her brows, "whatever father may scheme about making a will, it's all gammon and nonsense. I don't know whether he's said any tomfoolery about it to you, or may do so in time to come. Don't think nuthin' of it. Why should he make a will? He has but Iver to whom he can leave what he has. If he don't make a will—where's ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... Dick, the gammon worked. Half of them, at least, saw Tilly disappear in the air. They'd drunk my whiskey at Juneau and seen stranger sights, I'll warrant. Why should I not do this thing, I, who sold bad spirits corked in bottles? Some of the women shrieked. Everybody fell to whispering ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... scenic and character phrasing are memorable, as where the dyspeptic philosopher in "Feverel" is described after dinner as "languidly twinkling stomachic contentment." And what a scene is that where Master Gammon replies to Mrs. Sumfit's anxious query concerning his lingering at table with ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... thus to please him; but it was no use, for he now said he must have two deoles, or he would never allow me to leave his palace. Every day matters got worse and worse. Mfumbi, the small chief of Sorombo, came over, in an Oily-Gammon kind of manner, to say Makaka had sent him over to present his compliments to me, and express his sorrow on hearing that I had fallen sick here. He further informed me that the road was closed between this and Usui, for ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... undisguised disgust, and followed the surgeon. One, Two, and Three, invited to business by their illustrious friend, shook their thick heads at him knowingly, and answered with one accord, in one eloquent word—"Gammon!" ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... has gone away from here, and has entrusted to me the most important concern of catering. Immortal Gods! how I shall now be slicing necks off of sides; how vast a downfall will befall the gammon [1]; how vast a belabouring the bacon! How great a using-up of udders, how vast a bewailing for the brawn! How great a bestirring for the butchers, how great a preparation for the porksellers! But if I were to enumerate the rest of the ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... may seem to those who think that this narration is 'all gammon,' I had gone through the usual course of acquaintanceship with this airy nothing; was first distant and reserved; then slightly thawed, though still horrified at the thought of having all my thoughts read; and finally, after I felt that the invisible ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... Mark's Day, attended by the like number of persons, and on their return from his sermon, the people of Paris were so turned, and moved to devotion, that in three or four hours time, there were more than one hundred fires lighted, in which they burnt their chess boards, their back gammon tables, and their packs ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... said, "Hum," and "Hoity, Toit! A book is not a building block, a cushion or a quoit. Soil your books and spoil your books? Is that the thing to do? Gammon, sir! and Spinach, sir! And Fiddle-faddle, too!" He blinked so quick, and thumped his stick, then gave me such a stare. And he said, ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... hardly see; my mouth is bitter; my teeth are blunted; my jaws are clammy through fasting; with my entrails thus lank with abstinence from food, am I come... Let's cram down something first; the gammon, the udder, and the kernels; these are the foundations for the stomach, with head and roast-beef, a good-sized cup and a capacious pot, that council enough ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... just called me into her sitting-room, ostensibly to ask me to order breakfast, but really for the pleasure of conversation. Why she should inquire whether I would relish some gammon of bacon with eggs, when she knows that there has not been, is not now, and never will be, anything but gammon of bacon with eggs, is ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... be your own fault if you die this night. On one condition I promise to get you out of this hobble with a whole skin; but if you go to any of your d——d gammon, by G—, before two hours are passed, you will have as many holes in your ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... let Dahlia depart. The only opponents to the plan were Mrs. Sumfit, a kindly, humble relative of the farmer's, widowed out of Sussex, very loving and fat; the cook to the household, whose waist was dimly indicated by her apron-string; and, to aid her outcries, the silently-protesting Master Gammon, an old man with the cast of eye of an antediluvian lizard, the slowest old man of his time—a sort of foreman of the farm before Robert had come to take matters in hand, and thrust both him and his master into the background. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... signal for him to leave his roost. Then beware! little fishes and lizards—those red eyes are glowing for you! That long spear-shaped beak is ready to stab you to death! Froggy 'who would a-wooing go,' return quickly to your mother, without making any impertinent remarks about 'gammon and spinach' on the way, or something much more savage than the 'lily-while duck' will surely gobble you up! Stay in doors patiently, until sunrise sends the rough-clawed prowler back ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... beautiful thing!' observed Jawleyford, pointing to another group. 'I picked that up for a mere nothing—twenty guineas—worth two hundred at least. Lipsalve, the great picture-dealer in Gammon Passage, offered me Murillo's "Adoration of the Virgin and Shepherds," for which he showed me a receipt for a ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... gammon; wait till you're my age, my young friend, and as poor as I am," said Beresford Duff. And so the two friends talked on, Mentor and Telemachus—and we needn't ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... officer—indeed. These seas must be full of such yachtsmen. I consider you played a mean trick on me. I told my old man there was nothing in sight at sunset—and no more there was. I believe you blundered upon us by chance—for all your boasting about sunsets and bearings. Gammon! I know you came on blindly on top of us, and with muffled oars, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... this last group, had there not been stationed in each carriage an officer somewhat analogous to the Usher of the Black Rod, but whose designation on the railroad I found to be 'Comptroller of the Gammon.' No sooner did one of the long-faced gentlemen raise his note too high, or wag his jaw too long, than the 'Comptroller of the Gammon' gave him a whack over the snout with the butt end of his shillelagh; a snubber which never failed to stop his oratory for ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... and the lean was so ruddy. Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting 5 To spoil such a delicate picture by eating; I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view, To be shown to my friends as a piece of 'virtu'; As in some Irish houses, where things are so so, One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show: 10 But for eating a rasher of what they take pride in, They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in. But hold — let me pause — Don't I hear you pronounce This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce? Well, suppose it ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... bitterly and brokenly, till Freckle, not entirely sober, shouted, "Good God, is it that gammon-head, Hugenot, who has ruined us? Fetch him out from his ancestry; let me see him, I say! Where is the man who ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... "Gammon! I know where he is! Law bless you!—don't blush. I've been there myself a dozen times. We were talking about quod, Lady Thrum. Were ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he would a-wooing go; 'Heigh ho!' says Rowley; Whether his mother would let him or no, With a rowly, powly, Gammon and spinach, 'Heigh!' and ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... seven years. The mind with it, too, perhaps! Well, he had come to the last of his bodies, now! And that holy woman had been urging him to take it to Bath, with her face as long as a tea-tray, and some gammon from that doctor of his. Too full a habit—dock his port—no alcohol—might go off in a coma any night! Knock off not he! Rather die any day than turn tee-totaller! When a man had nothing left in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... don't mean for there to be! Just consider yourselves ketched! No gammon, or I whistles, and there'll be dozens of our chaps here in no time; and, if they comes and finds you're nasty, there won't be no mercy—and so ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... "Nonsense! no gammon with me! Take your chaff to the goslings. I tells you I can't do without that 'ere lad. Every ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a book, he talks," said Jack. "I never could read one myself, on account o' not knowing how, but I've heard 'em read, and that's just the sort o' incomprehensible gammon." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... reciprocal sentimentality. The odds are, that the old aunt is addicted to snuff, tracts, and the distribution of flannel, and before August, the fair Dorothea will be yearning for a sight of her adorer. You can easily gammon Anthony Whaup into a loan of that yacht of his which he makes such a boast of; and if you go prudently about it, and flatter him on the score of his steering, I haven't the least doubt that he will victual his hooker and give you a cruise in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... painfully trepann'd, 1055 And sprinkled in at second hand; As we have been, to share the guilt Of Christian Blood, devoutly spilt; For so our ignorance was flamm'd To damn ourselves, t' avoid being damn'd; 1060 Till finding your old foe, the hangman, Was like to lurch you at back-gammon And win your necks upon the set, As well as ours, who did but bet, (For he had drawn your ears before, 1065 And nick'd them on the self-same score,) We threw the box and dice away, Before y' had lost ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... to fush for the salmon? If ye'll listen I'll tell ye. Dinna trust to the books and their gammon, They're but trying to sell ye. Leave professors to read their ain cackle And fush their ain style; Come awa', sir, we'll oot wi' oor tackle ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... with a gleaming smile. "I was in two of the schools. Philander Smith College, at Little Rock, Arkansas, and Clark University, at Atlanta, Georgia. Then I got my theological course at Gammon, on the same campus ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... 'That's all gammon about their going to France. He hasn't money for travelling. She spent all hers in nick-nacks—to propitiate people, the ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... to interrupt you, Larry; but you know this is all gammon. These differences exist in all families; but the members rub on together all right. [Suddenly relapsing into portentousness] Of course there are some questions which touch the very foundations of morals; and on these I grant you even the closest relationships cannot ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... the black men now, and gammon you," said Corny. "Play away, man—what are you thinking of? is it of what Father Jos said? 'tis beyond the limits of the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... The Count Hogginarmo was extremely disgusted. "Pooh!" the Count cried. "Gammon!" exclaimed his Lordship. "These lions are tame beasts come from Wombwell's or Astley's. It is a shame to put people off in this way. I believe they are little boys dressed up in door-mats. They are no ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would a-wooing go, Sing, heigho, says Rowley; Whether his mother would let him or no: With a rowley, powley, gammon and spinach; Heigho, says ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... which gleams a really elegant mirror, set off by a background of decanters, cigar-vases, and jars of brandied fruit; the whole forming a tout ensemble of dazzling splendor. A table covered with a green cloth,—upon which lies a pack of monte-cards, a back-gammon-board, and a sickening pile of "yallow-kivered" literature,—with several uncomfortable-looking benches, complete the furniture of this most important portion of such a place as "The Empire." The remainder of the room does duty as a shop, where velveteen and leather, ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... the emperor's palace, and that must be the very gentleman himself, looking out of the window," said Gaspar. "How fortunate that uncle Gammon taught me Chinese!" He bowed and addressed the emperor, who was quite surprised to see such a very small foreign boy on such a very large horse, speaking his language so correctly. He came down to examine the horse, and when he found it went by machinery instead of being alive, expressed the ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... ladies, of romantic heroines, or of foreign counts and bandits, was gravely retailed and gravely listened to by a throng of admiring jacktars; while the old whaler smoked his pipe sulkily apart, gave now and then a scornful glance out of his weather-eye, and called it "all 'high-dic' and soger's gammon." ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... chyack me, though! My sisters were raving mad about it, for their chums kept asking them how they liked their new sister, and when it was going to come off, and who'd be bridesmaids and best man, and whether they weren't surprised at their brother Jack's choice; and then I'd gammon at home that it ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... "Gammon!" grunted Mr. Doss, with a dissatisfied air. "Did you see her as the 'Rabbit Queen,' sir? My! the patience that woman displayed in the training of them little furry animals would have astonished you. Struck the line, sir, ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... reverse of the medal, and upon my soul, it's equally good!" explained the Second-in-Command. "He's like poor old Barclay Gammon and Corney Grain and half a dozen of those musical-sketch men rolled into one. It's ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... "Gammon and spinach!" cried Miss Panney, throwing off the bedclothes as if she were about to spring into the middle of the floor. "I want no teas nor plasters. I have had as much sleep as I care for, and now I am going to get up. So trot downstairs, if you please, ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... in the garments of beauty, preparatory to their funeral. There was a good crop of grain that year, and hogs were brisk, and cattle lively, and all "looking-up," in the language of the prices current. This was long before the time when Mr. M—— made his famous gammon speeches; but the people had a presentiment of what was coming, and to crown the eventful anticipations of the season, there was quite a freshet in Salt river. The signs were all and everywhere favorable. Speculation was ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. That's the whole collection," said the old man, "all cooped up together, by my ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... people this frank, open avowal was very convincing; but there were certain obstinate persons such as are every where to be found, and who are fond of going against the general opinion, who did not hesitate to declare this was all gammon. They knew Jessup too well to 'allow' he cared any thing about it, not he. Nothing but the fear of that honest young Meeker led to the disgrace of Pease, who no doubt would now be made the scape-grace for all Jessup's shortcomings in the store-way. So it went. But in the balance ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various |
