"Grumpy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a queer little bear cub that lived with Grumpy, his mother, in the Yellowstone Park. They were among the many Bears that found a desirable home in the country ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... no, We won't wage combat over this. You're right, Doubtless, as usual, Brander. I have not Your fortunate placidity of mind, And I get grumpy. ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... Tonnison was grumpy, and I felt out of sorts. It was a somewhat dismal day, and there was a touch of chilliness in the air. There was no mention of going out fishing on either of our parts. We got dinner, and, after that, just sat ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... much thanks, I believe," was my grumpy comment, which he unexpectedly chose to accept as an apology and with a large, fine, generous gesture ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... one may quarrel with it, The Peace of the Augustans is a book to read with delight—an eccentric book, an extravagant book, a grumpy book, but a book of rare and amazing enthusiasm for good literature. Mr. Saintsbury's constant jibes at the present age, as though no one had ever been unmanly enough to make a joke before Mr. Shaw, become amusing in the end like Dr. Johnson's rudenesses. And ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... take those arms," cried Niels. "Just see if you can stand up all right now. Oh, those arms there? Why, those are the arms I cut off your skeletons. Clever idea, wasn't it? You know how grumpy Solling gets if anything interferes with his tutoring. You see, I'd had the geese sent me, and I wanted you to all come with me to Mathiesen's place. I knew you were going to read the osteology of the arm, so I went up into Solling's room, opened it with his own keys and took the arms from ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... Despite his grumpy silence he showed an air of repressed excitement, sending frequent, shifty glances over the room; and that he possessed the temper of a fiend I did not doubt after seeing him turn upon the waiter for some trifling omission and reduce that usually ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... known among her sister states as "the meddler," the "maker of trouble," and the duke as "Old Grumpy"—Brummbaer. To use a familiar Yankee expression, Barscheit had a finger in every pie. Whenever there was a political broth making, whether in Italy, Germany or Austria, Barscheit would snatch up a ladle and start in. She took care ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... put on another exhibition of free-hand feeding, getting more grumpy and disgusted every minute. We were all ready to yell for mercy and put on our civilized clothes when we heard a terrific riot from outside. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... wanted drawing out; but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young Carr's disappointment. Indeed, he was quite silent and morose for a whole day about it, poor fellow. He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built, with the kind of sallow ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... "The grumpy old fellow with the bald head!" she said shortly afterwards to her bosom friend, not careful that her ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... where a young woman uses her father-confessor as a go-between for herself and her lover. In the Adelphi there are two old men of dissimilar character, who give a different education to the children they bring up. One of them is a dotard, who, after having for sixty years been sullen, grumpy and avaricious, becomes suddenly lively, polite, and prodigal; this Molire had too ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... sway from these who want to help you! I'm a grumpy old woman, but I can feel for you. Don't try and keep it all back, like this! A woman would cry, and it would all seem clearer at once. Now won't ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the only person in the kingdom who was not sharing the general joy. He was grumpy because he had lost all the honor of winning a bloody battle. Even the sight of all his army alive and well could not soothe the wound to his vanity; so when the Princess and the Wizard were exchanging the last courtesies, he strode forward, ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... suddenly till next day—till next week, as like as not! The neglected, uncared-for pen, flung away at the slightest provocation, and under the stress of dire necessity hunted for without enthusiasm, in a perfunctory, grumpy worry, in the "Where the devil is the beastly thing gone to?" ungracious spirit. Where, indeed! It might have been reposing behind the sofa for a day or so. My landlady's anemic daughter (as Ollendorff would have expressed it), though ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... man before all else, swallowed the mandarin's compliments for all they were worth, and I can imagine him giving a grumpy nod to the smiling minion of the Viceroy as he ordered "the prisoner" to be brought on deck, and the boat to be veered astern ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... there lived a family of bears in a thick wood. Grumpy-growly, the father, was a jolly, cross old fellow—oh! I guess he was! and the little ones didn't dare so much as to snap at a fly without permission, when ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow
... later I saw the grumpy old brute again in a curious way. I was sweeping the lake with my field glasses when I saw what I thought was a pair of black ducks near a grassy shore. I paddled over, watching them keenly, till a root seemed ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... the colonel had extracted the information he sent her FROM Briones. They had parted from Pendleton in London, as he was grumpy and queer, and, as Milly thought, becoming very miserly and avaricious as he grew older, for he was always quarreling over the hotel bills. But he had Mrs. Woods's New York address at Under Cliff, and, of course, guessed where she ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... is grumpy and stumpy, and old and gray, With a sleepy look in his lonely eye, (The other he lost at a matinee— Knocked out by a boot from a window high.) Wherever he goes, he never knows— Quarter or pause in the midnight spree, For the ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... converse on the way to the store. Zoeth made an attempt, but Shadrach refused to answer. He was silent and, for him, grumpy all the forenoon. Another fortnight passed before the subject of the decision which must, sooner or later, be given Judge Baxter was mentioned by either of ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... foreigners whom the grumpy officers jostle and hustle about. For neither poverty, nor oppression, nor both together can drive a man out of his country, unless the soul within him awaken. Indeed, many a misventurous cowering peasant continues to live on bread and olives in his little village, chained ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... one after another, on the various coasts,—solemn Frank, long Gus, gallant Ed, fly-away Molly Loo, pretty Laura and Lotty, grumpy Joe, sweet-faced Merry with Sue shrieking wildly behind her, gay Jack and gypsy Jill, always together,—one and all bubbling over with the innocent jollity born of healthful exercise. People passing in the road below looked up and smiled involuntarily at the red-cheeked lads and lasses, filling ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... and the infinite amusement of Lucian Gay's conversation and company. This was the genial hour when the good story gladdened, the pun flashed, and the song sparkled with jolly mirth or saucy mimicry. To-night, being Coningsby's initiation, there was a special general meeting of the Grumpy Club, in which everybody was to say the gayest things with the gravest face, and every laugh carried a forfeit. Lucian was the inimitable president. He told a tale for which he was famous, of 'the very respectable county family who had been established in the shire for several ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... self-possessed. He acted the role of an ordinary visitor, talking of the country and the news from Spain. The General, though extremely grumpy, was still capable of ordinary conversation, and his remarks, especially on the Spanish campaign, were those of an intelligent soldier ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... flash of the fired shot. Luckily his disengaged hand was ready to grip a bar of the gate. He held it with a terrible force, but his presence of mind was gone. He could make only a sort of gurgling, grumpy sound. ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... I'm only thinking,' he answered when Robert asked him what he was so grumpy about. 'I'll tell you when I've thought it ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... givin' up Number One to the other man gives him a chance to pose a lot, an' mebbe it's got a heap of effect on Number Two, who sort of thinks that if she gets tied up to such a sucker she'll be able to wrap him around her finger. But if he loves Number Two, he'll be mighty grumpy to the next fellow that goes to makin' ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Falkirk came to dinner that first day, he was very taciturn and grumpy indeed until soup and fish and third course were disposed of. Then when he got a chance with Dingee out of the room, Mr. Falkirk opened his mouth for the discussion of somewhat besides ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... took a very long time indeed to drive there in the rumbling old chariot, for the old horses were fat and wheezy, and the old coachman fat and wheezy too. Lady Lavander was, of course, old too—very old indeed, and rather grumpy and very deaf. Miss Grizzel and Miss Tabitha had the greatest respect for her; she always called them "My dear," as if they were quite girls, and they listened to all she said as if her words were of gold. For some mysterious reason she had been invited ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... She grinned applause when our labour was completed, but never uttered the slightest expression of gratitude for that, or for any thing else we could do for her. She was constantly asking us to lend her different articles of dress, and when we declined it, she said, "Well, I never seed such grumpy folks as you be; there is several young ladies of my acquaintance what goes to live out now and then with the old women about the town, and they and their gurls always lends them what they asks for; I guess you Inglish thinks we should poison your things, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... "Always feel grumpy until I eat," grumbled the blackbeard. "None of this coffee-cigarette breakfast for me. A real meal, coffee with gin in it, a cigar—then ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... that into your head? Your grumpy granny, I suppose. However, how is she? Margery, I have been thinking to- day—in fact, I was thinking it yesterday and all the week—that really we might settle our ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... being secretaries and things and doing very, very well indeed. Why, I declare it would do you good to have a lady secretary yourself in that big, dusty office of yours in the City, never dusted from one year's end to another, I'm sure! Laetitia, wouldn't it do your father good, the cross, grumpy old thing? Give your master some more of the sauce, Parker. Isn't that trout delicate and nice, Pyke? Trout for a pike! And I'm sure very like a nasty, savage old pike the way you tried to gobble up poor Rosalie, the dear child. Now, Rosalie, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... a time there was a King who was so morose and disagreeable that he was feared by all his subjects, and with good reason, as for the most trifling offences he would have their heads cut off. This King Grumpy, as he was called, had one son, who was as different from his father as he could possibly be. No prince equalled him in cleverness and kindness of heart, but unfortunately he was most terribly ugly. He had crooked ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... "Don't look so grumpy, old man," said he as he passed. Lars Peter had not time to answer before he was out again. He put the sack over the horse's head, measured the distance, and swung the ax backwards; a strange long-drawn crash sounded from behind the sack, and the horse sank to the ground with ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a good deal of truth in what Mr. Crow said. Timothy Turtle was grumpy. But it was not old age that made him so. He had been like that all his life. There never was a time when he Wasn't snappish, when he wouldn't rather bite a body ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... grumpy miser, Peleg Growdy," said the orator, waving his hands to emphasize his words. "He never had any use for boys, you know, and often says he wonders why the pests were ever born. I don't remember doing him any mean thing in my life, but he's got it in for the whole ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... worse; and those who were well enough enjoyed his discomfiture immensely. Going into Salle III where there were shouts of laughter (the convalescents were sent to that room) I saw a funny sight. One little man, who was particularly fussy and grumpy (and very unpopular with the other men in consequence), slept near the stove, which was an old-fashioned coal one with a pipe leading up to the ceiling. The concussion had shaken this to such an extent that accumulations ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... having tramped off to business and the very last crumb of the Macomber breakfast having vanished, the Macomber children proceeded to go through their usual morning routine. Lemuel, who did chores for grumpy old Captain Elijah Samuels at the latter's big place on the depot road, departed to rake hay and be sworn at. Sarah-Mary went upstairs to make beds; when the bed-making was over she and Edgar and Bemis would go to school. Aldora and ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... requires three directors," he said in his more usual grumpy voice, "or I wouldn't have bothered you. I'll leave it and you can sign it and send it ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... just like you do. He used to get very grumpy, and very, very unhappy. He begged and pleaded with me for understanding, and I couldn't give it to him. Then one day he got dreadfully drunk, after a whole year away from it. And mother's cousin came. He talked to father for five or six hours ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... what I mean. He's just as grumpy as Dr Gruffen, and thinks everybody is to do what he tells them. Of course, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... But Keith was grumpy and monosyllabic. He refused to discuss the situation or Mrs. Sherwood, returning with an obvious effort to commonplaces. Mrs. Morrell exerted all her fascination to get him back to the former level. A little cold imp sat in the ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... back we met old Yule; he seemed rather grumpy, I thought. I don't think she's the kind of girl to make a paying business of literature. Her qualities are personal. And it's pretty clear to me that the valley of the shadow of books by no means ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... "There was 'Young Grumpy,' now," he continued musingly. "As sober-minded a woodchuck as ever burrowed a bank. From his earliest days he took life seriously, and never seemed to think it worth his while to play as the other wild youngsters do. Yet in spite of himself he was ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the first things to remember in the cultivation of beauty is expression. Who doesn't enjoy looking upon the young girl, with a bright, cheerful face, laughing eyes and all that? Everybody! And when the grumpy lady or the whiney lady or the lady of woes trots in and sullies your near landscape, how do you feel? Just about as cheery as if she'd come to ask you ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... with the remark that "the tears of a son are seldom lasting." The terrible spectacle of the French Revolution excited in his mind only a feeling of self-pity because his retreat in Switzerland was invaded by the unhappy refugees, just as a grumpy country gentleman in England might complain that he was annoyed by the trippers. There is a touch of dislike in all the allusions which Boswell makes to Gibbon—often without even mentioning his name—and one cannot read the great ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... still rising behind the stove. There might be other things to be attended to. Not more than an hour would elapse before she was ready to go. She remarked that men were a very helpless lot whenever they were ill, and became grumpy and took ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... shadow, and mirage; the same occasional strips of green marking the watercourses and oases. As to smaller detail, we saw many interesting divergences. In the foreground constantly recurred the Bedouin brush shelters, each with its picturesque figure or so in flowing robes, and its grumpy camels. Twice we saw travelling caravans, exactly like the Bible pictures. At one place a single burnoused Arab, leaning on his elbows, reclined full length on the sky-line of a clean-cut sandhill. Glittering in the mirage, half-guessed, half-seen, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... base hemlock in the citron. Not so. She ate in the kitchen because she could not yet face that vacant chair in the dining room without choking and losing her appetite. She could not look at the chair without visualizing that glorious, whimsical, fascinating mother of hers, who could turn grumpy janitors into comedians and send importunate bill collectors away with nothing ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... bail out the ugly water, but it rose too fast, and soon the monkeyish boat began to sink. After it had sunk through the water about a mile, it struck plump on a rock, and then it glided into a dwarfish cave at the bottom of the sea. The grumpy and genial Cricket immediately fell out of the boat, in her surprise. Cunning Will jumped after her. The sugary party had come to a mountainous spot down below the sea, and they found a minute garden there, full of curly fruits. The aggravating ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... Grumpy. Extends from SE. 4 1/2 miles from Eastern Ear of Isle au Haute to SE. 1/4 E. from the western head of Isle au Haute, distant 7 miles. This ground is 2 1/2 miles long by 3/4 mile wide and has a small shoal of 14 fathoms on the northeast part. Over the rest of the ground the average depths ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich
... dining room. It was a long, melancholy room, ill lighted by tall, narrow windows, having in fact been used as a table d'hote for ecclesiastics until the Astiers took it. There she found her husband already at table, looking preoccupied and almost grumpy. In the ordinary way 'the Master' came to his meals with a smiling serenity as regular as his appetite, and with teeth which, sound as a foxhound's, were not to be discouraged by stale bread or leathery meat, or by the miscellaneous disagreeables which ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... in to Mr. Rattar, she seemed to read in his first glance at her the same expression that had disturbed her in the morning, and yet the next moment he was speaking in his ordinary grumpy, laconic way. ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... I was rather too grumpy In my last note to you. But my patience had been desperately tried. I have gone through a good deal; now at last I am recovering sanity, and can admit that you had no choice but to ask those questions. I know and care nothing about Mrs. Widdowson. By her eccentric behaviour ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... did not open the door there at the party. They said to one another, going home that night: "Well, I don't see's she minds it a bit. Isn't that pluck for you—not lonesome, not grumpy—just the same little body she was when we first saw her. Well—I know one thing—I couldn't ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... feel it," said Derec dismally. "I feel like a fool in the castle yonder. And the high police official I came here with has gotten grumpy and snaps when I try ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Tony were inclined to score Phil's folly in making a hermit of himself. His sisters attacked him that very night on the subject of Sue Emerson's dance and accused him of being a "Grumpy Grandpa" and a grouch and various other uncomplimentary things when he announced that he wasn't ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... lady; "he has no teeth. He is like one of the family, faithful and grumpy; but the latter is my grandchildren's fault, for they have teased him; they play at wedding, and want to give him the part of the bridesmaid, and that's too much for him, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... chalet in the wood, it was rather fun. Mr. Hodgkinson and Lord Doraine sat on either side of me. Lord Valmond came up with the last guns, rather late, and he looked round the table and frowned. He seems quite grumpy now, not half so good-tempered as he used to be. I expect it is because Mrs. ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... stupid for words. Since the trial and the bank failure I haven't been able to get a smile out of anybody! I hope the Turtle won't be grumpy." ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... now rose very high, and when Claude Locker came in with his shoes soaked from a tramp in the wet grass she greeted him in such a way that he could scarcely believe she was the grumpy girl of the day before. As they went into breakfast Mrs. Fox remarked to her husband in a low voice that Miss Asher seemed to have recovered entirely ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... all that our united efforts had been able to get out of the driver was a grunt to the effect that it was "'bout a couple o' miles." Then he said, or grunted, "'Tain't fur now," a couple of times, and refused to commit himself any further; he seemed grumpy about having committed himself ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... dad was grumpy, and wondered what we wanted riding the horses about when there was nothing to do and nothing to see. But Warrigal had made him a pot of tea, and he was able to smoke now; so he wasn't so bad after all. We made ourselves pretty comfortable—Aileen said she'd got a good appetite, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... matter off airily, but the boys were grumpy and would not speak. Meg kept looking at her with a peculiar expression, as if she were recovering from a shock. Altogether, Diana felt that her deed of daring had fallen very flat. She was annoyed that no one congratulated her ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... alone," whispered Otto. "Otherwise he'll get in one of his Berserker rages. Don't be so grumpy, old fellow," he said, laying his arm on Olsen's shoulders. "No one can compete with you in the art of tumbling ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... before night," Jimmy muttered gloomily, as he made his way down to the dining room, from which issued a tempting aroma of bacon. "It's all too good to be true." But then, Jimmy always did feel grumpy ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... it all over, and she came to this conclusion: Uncle Jabez had given his permission— albeit a grumpy one— and she would begin school on Monday. The black cloth dress that was so shabby and would look so odd and proverty-stricken among the frocks of the other girls (for she had watched them going to and from school, and already knew some of them ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... was dreadfully painful to her. She was not aware that a cat was kept below stairs, or she would not have allowed it, for she was very fond of mice. Mr. and Mrs. Mouse knew they were perfectly safe with her, but they were not at all as sure of her maid, who looked very cross and grumpy. So things went on for some time very happily, and Mrs. Mouse began to look about for a good place to put her babies in, for she had fifteen of them. She found a large bottle under the wardrobe at one end, and so she told her husband she would put ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... does she love him? Haven't you seen her so dumb at times? But nothing comes to pass—and when will there be anything? She gets her grumpy spells over these postponements—always postponements. You know young people are impatient. They don't understand such things. She wants to marry. Every young girl wants to marry and have children. ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... went far enough home to stir the fault-finders. Sawdy and Carpy took grumpy counsel together. Presently they hunted up Laramie, who in front of the ranch-house was talking horses with Kitchen and Doubleday. They told him the situation and asked for help: "Come over to the creek and show the bunch up, Jim," ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... has happened at last! The Leverings brought a friend to call this afternoon, who has just arrived in Lone-Rock to spend the rest of vacation with them; a grumpy, middle-aged, absent-minded, old professor from the East, who seemed rather bored with us at first. But when he was taken out to the side-show in the 'Zoo,' he waked up in a hurry. His very spectacles gleamed and his gray whiskers bristled with interest ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Jack near the garage. But she did not have much success with him. He was grumpy and, replying to Sara's assertion that the situation was rapidly becoming rife with disagreeable possibilities, he replied that he did not care a very little bit, and that Anne could marry all the princes in Christendom for all he cared. ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... giggling like an imbecile, bestowing sweetmeats. With them—for the most sinful motives, as Rashid averred, and, I suppose, believed—he was all sugar; but when he came back to the house he was as grumpy as could be. Rashid would have destroyed him at a nod from me one evening ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... grumpy," Mellicent complained to her mother. "She never laughs now, nor makes jokes, nor flies about as she used to do! She's just as glum and mum as can be, and she never sits with us! She is always in her bedroom with the door locked, so that we can't get in! She's there now! ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... know is, she will never pardon you for not asking her," said Lord Roehampton. "I saw Bicester the day I left town, and he was very grumpy. He said that Lady Bicester was the only person who understood tournaments. She ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... symbols of a vanished past—a day when fiction-writers impressed it, on their readers with every means at their command, that a hero was well-dressed, well-washed, and well-groomed. Such details have become unnecessary, and grumpy stand-patters no longer contemptuously mutter, 'Soap! Soap!' when a hero comes down to breakfast. Some of our older politicians, to be sure, still wear a standard costume of Prince Albert coat, pants (for so one must call them) that bag at the knee, and an impersonal kind of black necktie, sleeping, ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... said in a grumpy tone, "Ach! What is it? Yes?" And then her face cleared, and she even smiled ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... and, therefore, Thaddeus was grumpy. One premise only was necessary for the conclusion—in fact, it was the only premise upon which a conclusion involving Thaddeus's grumpiness could find a foothold. If Thaddeus felt rested, everything in the world ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... less expensive than we now can have any idea of; and that, after a little, people would rather be anxious to seek work than to avoid it; that our working hours would rather be merry parties of men and maids, young men and old enjoying themselves over their work, than the grumpy weariness it mostly is now. Then would come the time for the new birth of art, so much talked of, so long deferred; people could not help showing their mirth and pleasure in their work, and would be always wishing to express it in a tangible and more or less enduring form, and the workshop ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... with a feeble attempt at cheerfulness, "we are both hungry and consequently grumpy. Now, suppose you prepare lunch. We will feel ever so much better after ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... just as much as Falstaff belongs to Shakespeare, Sancho Panza to Cervantes, or Panurge to Rabelais. Whether Sganarelle is a servant, a husband, the father of Lucinde, the brother of Ariste, a guardian, a faggot-maker, a doctor, he always represents the ugly side of human nature, an antiquated, grumpy, sullen, egotistical, jealous, grovelling, frightened character, ever and anon raising a laugh on account of his boasting, mean, morose, odd qualities. Moliere was, at the time he wrote Sganarelle, more than thirty years old, and ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... Liverpool, Eng., Jan. 15, 1868. Educated in public schools; came to the United States 1887; been connected with newspapers in great variety of capacities; President of the American Press Humorists. Gray Days; Life; The Grumpy Guy. ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... of good that does, when he's never there!" flashed Evadna, unintentionally revealing her real grievance. "He just eats and goes—and he isn't even there to eat, half the time. And when he's there, he's grumpy, like all the rest." She was saying the things she had told herself, on the way up, that she would DIE rather than say; to Miss Georgie, of ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... good-looking young woman and this prince of the marvelous gifts proceeded to fall in love with each other in the most natural way in the world," Sir Peter went on. "Precisely so. In the most natural way in the world; as any one but a grumpy old fellow would have foreseen they would. And having fallen in love with each other, what in the world was there for them to do but to be married at once—eh? And yet, will you believe it?—there was a grumpy old fellow who wished to prevent it. Now, what could you say to an old fellow ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... have felt was carefully locked in his own breast. His underlings, the farm-labourers, found him a little more "grumpy" than usual, and his daughter scarcely dared open her lips to him for a month after the funeral. But from that time forward Miss Carley, who was rather a spirited damsel, took a very different tone with her father. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... humpbacked, hairy gnomes, bristling with anger, stretching forbidding arms downwards to bar our passage to their sacred heights. Sometimes an inviting vista through the branches would lure us in, when it would narrow, and at its upper angle we would find a solid phalanx of these grumpy dwarfs. Then we had to attack boldly, scrambling over the obstinate, elastic arms and against the clusters of stiff needles, till we gained the upper side ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... Hutchinson looked grumpy. He did not intend to leave the field clear and the stew to its fate if he could help it. He gave Ann a ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... physician, Is in so grumpy a condition I really more than half suspicion He nears his end; Who then would lie on earth to shave me, To feed me, coach me, and to save me From tedious cares that would enslave ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... for K. D. B., that's flat," declared Blix; "the idea, 'matrimony if suitable'—patronizing enough! I know just what kind of an old man B. P. T. is. I know he would want K. D. B. to warm his slippers, and would be fretful and grumpy. B. P. T., just an abbreviation of bumptious. ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... tears ever falling are turned into fog That hangs o'er the vale damp and chill, And in it the little folks shiver and shake Till they really are well-nigh ill! So I long to cry out to the sad little crew, "Come up to the sunshine, you grumpy ones, do! Your tears are all needless, if only you knew— Come out of the Valley of Grump, poor dears, Come out of the Valley ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 34, August 23, 1914 • Various
... that's different," observed Markham, altering his demeanor. "You mustn't mind my being gruff and grumpy, Mr. Forbes. I've just stopped smoking a few days ago, and it's got ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... very kind and good-tempered, and a very hard-working giantess, and she was very much to be pitied for having such a disagreeable, grumpy old husband. Cornelian, though, had one great fault, and that was that she was very, very inquisitive. I do not know that she ever did any harm to anyone but herself by it. It brought about ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Dick. My, but old Rick is getting more grumpy every day! If this railroad knows its business it will soon get another manager here," was Gilbert Ponsberry's comment, as he led the way to the ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... return to one of our characters whom we have been forced to neglect. The temper of Bilbil the goat was not sweet under any circumstances, and whenever he had a grievance he was inclined to be quite grumpy. So, when his master settled down in the palace of King Gos for a quiet life with the boy Prince, and passed his time in playing checkers and eating and otherwise enjoying himself, he had no use whatever for Bilbil, and shut the goat in an upstairs ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... you know, I had him card indexed as havin' more or less tabasco in his temper'ment, with a wide grumpy streak runnin' through his ego. And he is kind of crisp and snappy in his talk, I'll admit. Strangers might think he was a grouch toter. But that's just his way. It's all on the outside. Back of that ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... don't be so grumpy,' Randolph put in, 'and do fix what you're going to buy. There's something over here that papa would like, I know. A whistle, such a jolly strong one, and only two-pence. It would do for him to call me in by, and much less trouble than ringing ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... but fortunately Hannah had the sense to see that it's the man that's got to make his way in the world. Hannah is always certain of her bread and butter, which is a good deal in these hard times. Besides, she's naturally grumpy, and she doesn't go out of her way to make herself agreeable to young men. It's my belief she'll die an old maid. Well, there's no ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... they had spent all together for many years, and if they could only have forgotten Rotherwood, and their altered circumstances, they would have enjoyed it immensely. Mrs. Saxon, the unfailing sunshine-radiator of the household, tried to ignore the tone of discontent in her husband's voice, the grumpy attitude of Egbert, Quenrede's fit of the blues, and Athelstane's rather martyred pose. She insisted on bundling everybody out for a blow on ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Buttle wavered between gratification at its being supposed that he had "men" under him and grumpy depression because the illusion must ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... splendid inheritance love in youth and memory in old age, and we are to take one miserable little faculty, our one-legged, knock-kneed, gimcrack, purblind, rough-skinned, underfed, and perpetually irritated and grumpy intellect, or analytical curiosity rather (a diseased appetite), and let it swell till it eats up every other function? Away with ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... best clothes and go to one amusement after another. But Marouckla never complained; she bore the scoldings and bad temper of mother and sister with a smile on her lips, and the patience of a lamb. But this angelic behaviour did not soften them. They became even more tyrannical and grumpy, for Marouckla grew daily more beautiful, while Helen's ugliness increased. So the stepmother determined to get rid of Marouckla, for she knew that while she remained her own daughter would have no suitors. Hunger, every kind of privation, abuse, every means was ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... house-mouse had a very enjoyable time; and she had a good time also with regard to the people she lived with. True, the forester was a grumpy sort of man, who could not hear the word "mouse" mentioned without flying into a rage. But he was a very old man and the house was managed by his daughter. She never forgot the house-mouse; and this came of a meeting that once took place between the two. One ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... have been on shore and seen the inside as well as the outside of things," observed Cousin Silas, who had overheard us. We thought he was in what we used to call one of his grumpy humours, and did not heed him. We sailed on, and dropped our anchor opposite to the city of Funchal. A health-boat came off, but as no one was sick on board, the people in her did not trouble us much. When she went away, we were surrounded with other boats pulled by swarthy, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... Jaffery proclaimed himself the most care-free fellow alive. His hitherto grumpy and resentful attitude towards Liosha changed. He established himself as fellow slave with her under the whip of Susan's tyranny. It did one good to see these two magnificent creatures sporting together for the ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... always smiles. I am constantly wanting you to draw him for me, Margaret. It does not signify what he is doing; that very thing is prettiest, gracefulest, best. I think I love him a great deal better than my husband, who is getting stout, and grumpy,—what he calls "busy." No! he is not. He has just come in with news of such a charming pic-nic, given by the officers of the Hazard, at anchor in the bay below. Because he has brought in such a pleasant piece of news, I retract all I said just now. Did not ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... forgot to make them, no matter how busy or grumpy she might be, for the walk was long and bleak. The poor things got no other lunch and were ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... a sour, grumpy, old man," she was saying. "He always had been spoiled, because he was an only son, so he had a title, and a big estate. He would have just his way, no matter about his sweet little wife, or his boys, or anyone. So when his elder son ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... his comrade seemed disposed to be so grumpy, the sailmaker took a book and began to read. Huerlin sat opposite him and threw occasional glances of suspicious observation at him. Once, when the reader could not help laughing at something amusing, the other was very much tempted ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... of course," she owned lightly, as she shook hands. "I have met so many people, and am stupid at connecting names and faces. I recall Mr. McAllister perfectly." And straightway she plunged into New York and what was going on there. Had he seen "Grumpy" and wasn't it dear? And so on, and so on. Margaret Elizabeth could talk, and more than this she could look bewitching, and did, when she slipped out of her long coat, and with many graceful upward motions, removed her hat and ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... skulker, ma'am, I hope, but gradually turning into a grumpy, crusty, bottle-nosed ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... later, Janet took a plate of tongue over to his bunk, he was fast asleep. The others had a dismal, grumpy meal, and they were glad when the washing-up was done and it was bedtime. But no one had a good night. The rain dropped from the trees on to the Slowcoach's roof with loud thuds, and at midnight the thunder and lightning began, and Janet got up and splashed out in the wet to the tent ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... of a fellow being grumpy?" cried the middy. "Why, we're enjoying ourselves. This is one big adventurous game. I'm getting to be glad those women took me prisoner. I don't believe there ever were two who dropped in for such an adventure as this. But, I say, I don't think we'll try the diving ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... need to be so grumpy about it. Mr. Wentworth is awfully nice, and all the girls are crazy ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... tentative knock thereon the night before. The picture showed an anemic and woebegone couple haggling and shaking their fists at each other, while a large caption announced that "Thousands of Married Folks Lead a Cat and Dog Life—Are Cross, Crabbed and Grumpy!"—all of which could be obviated if ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... and talked and finally O'Malley joined in. It was clear that the boys had buried the hatchet, so he saw no reason for being grumpy. Besides, the cook had just made some blueberry pies and they were ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... beautiful new yellow and red and blue and black and white rattle, which rattles so beautifully, over to show to Grumpy Grundy, the Owl!" said ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... marched, and formed in line. Lieutenant Pendleton came and spoke to the captain, then walked away smiling. "The lieutenant says you did well," said the captain briefly. But he was so short that we thought him grumpy, especially since the lieutenant had never before been seen to give us anything else than his little ironical smile. Yet at company conference, in the evening, one of us ventured to ask the captain if we really had done badly. "No," said he. "I ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... laughed Tom—who had got out of his grumpy state quickly enough; for his disposition was almost as light-hearted as that of his friend, and it was only the heat and the confinement on board ship when in harbour that had previously oppressed his spirits—"let us look smart, and be off. Here's that fellow Tompkins just ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... Tai-yue smiled. "Yes," she observed, "your servant-girls must, I fancy, have been too lazy to budge, grumpy and in a cross-grained ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... bit grumpy at first, but I had my work to do, and took no notice, but when I had helped him upstairs and put him comfortable for the night, he waxed a shade more gracious and thanked me quite civilly. I fancy he is a character ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... mother a week later with a look in his face which made her want to take his young head in her arms and weep over it. A shadow had fallen on his comely youth. He looked "grumpy," as he had been accustomed to look in his darling childhood when he was about to have a croupy attack, at which times the sense of injury against all the world had been part humorous, whole poignant, ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... youngsters convulsed with laughter. The fun was over now as far as we were concerned, for Father Maguire, overcome by his own magic brew, was calmly sleeping, and no efforts of ours could elicit more than a grumpy, "Arrah, ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... opens, and Mr. Amherst enters, then Marcia. Philip straightens himself, and puts on his usual bored, rather sulky expression. Molly smiles upon her grumpy old host. He offers her his arm, Philip does the same to Marcia, and ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... was not pleasant to run two hundred miles with a grumpy cab comrade. Ralph wished they had given him some other helper. However, he reasoned that even a crack fireman might be proud of a regular run on No. 999, and he did not believe that Fogg would hurt his own chances by any ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... vividly apparent for that. "A perpetual eyesore," Marshall termed it in private. But then there was no accounting for the ways of folk in high places. Marshall did not pretend to understand them. He was, in his own grumpy fashion, sincerely attached to his master, and he never presumed to criticize his doings. He ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... on board our ship were in the same humour, and so were the crews of the rest of the squadron. We knew that we could trust our stout old admiral, for if he was at times somewhat grumpy, he was as gallant a man and as good an officer as any in the service. I heard it said, many years after, that when some of the Government gentlemen offered to make a lord of him, he declined, saying, "It ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... to get me started—an idea for another character?" The actor thought for a moment, and then answered, "I've always wanted to play a vieux grognard du premier empire—un grenadier a grandes moustaches."... A grumpy grenadier of Napoleon's army—a grenadier with sweeping moustaches—with this cue the dramatist set to work and gradually imagined the character of Flambeau. He soon saw that if the great Napoleon were ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... looked serious. "Why, my dear old boy," continued Wildney, "the Gordonites'll be the first to laugh at the trick when we tell them of it next morning, as of course we will do. There, now, don't look grumpy. I shall cut away and arrange it with. Graham, and tell you the whole dodge ready prepared to-night ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... was all radiance above, was all drizzling fog below, and we reached Ainepo in a regular Scotch mist. The ranchman seemed rather grumpy at our successful ascent, which involved the failure of all their prophecies, and, indeed, we were thoroughly unsatisfactory travellers, arriving fresh and complacent, with neither adventures nor disasters ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... the first call to the school connected the Mitchells with a grumpy-voiced janitor who growled that teachers and principals had headed for their hills of freedom and wouldn't be back until Monday Week. It took some calling to locate a couple of James Holden's classmates who asserted that he hadn't been ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... appointment at eight o'clock, and tried to behave as if nothing had happened; but I realised that I would have been a dead failure as an actor. I was grumpy and glum, and the coaxing, child-like ways which the Boy used for my beguiling were in vain. I did not say anything about my change of plans for Aix, but I brooded darkly upon them throughout the day, my mood eating away all pleasure in the charming scenery through which ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... his seat, nodding to the men. A slightly grumpy silence reigned. Collins and Fox had not yet appeared. Bob saw Roaring Dick at the other table, rather whiter than the day before, but carrying himself boldly in spite of his poor head. As he looked, Roaring Dick ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... gladly made their escape to outdoors, Una went to help Aunt Martha with the dishes—though that rather grumpy old dame never welcomed her timid assistance—and Faith betook herself to the study where a cheerful wood fire was burning in the grate. She thought she would thereby escape from the hated Mr. Perry, who had announced his intention of taking ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... scene a beginning is made by the entrance of a single shepherd, grumpy, frost-bitten, and growling rebelliously against the probably widely resented practice of purveyance whereby a nobleman might exact from his farm-tenantry provisions and service for his needs, even though the farmer's ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Woolwich once while Mary was with her grandparents, but it was not, from her point of view, a very satisfactory visit. Reggie was grumpy, and looked very tired and overworked. Moreover, Mary, though she could not have confessed it for the world, was just a trifle hurt that he never reminded her of that ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... collection of blue china, giving lessons in painting. There were weekly receptions at his house, where came Burne-Jones, William Morris, Madox Brown and many other excellent people. Down a narrow street near by, lived a grumpy Scotchman, by the name of Carlyle, whose portrait Whistler was later to paint, and although Carlyle had no use for Rossetti, yet Mrs. Whistler and her boy liked them both. It came time to return to America if the young man ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... to get on, Mr. Angus Field having telegrams following him all along the line, but we should not have detained them, and they would only have had to drop us at Laggan, where our own car was waiting. So we had to wait another night, and all went to bed very grumpy! ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... rather offended, till he explained how he had got it; and then she thanked him, of course, but not so very much, I fancy. He always says old people are grumpy—doesn't 'grogneur' mean grumpy, grandmother?—that they can't help it, and when his old woman is grumpy he only laughs a little. But you're not grumpy, grandmother, and you're old; at least ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... mind it in the least. This is a very simple case. Where both occupants of a room claim it all to themselves, and where both are angry and abuse me at the same time, then it gets a bit lively. I don't envy him his talk with the captain. If the old man happens to be feeling a little grumpy today, and he most generally does at the beginning of the voyage, Mr. Hodden will have a bad ten minutes. Don't you bother a bit about it, sir, but go down to your room and make yourself at home. It will ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... was a pity that in Pleasant Valley, where Farmer Green's meadow lay, there were many of the fat-loving kind. Not only Peter Mink and Tommy Fox, but Grumpy Weasel, Solomon Owl, Ferdinand Frog, Henry Hawk and even Miss Kitty Cat were usually on the watch for Master Meadow Mouse. Naturally, he soon learned to be on the lookout for them. And if he hadn't seen them first he would never have grown ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... haven't seen you without a hat in a month. Gone bald, or something?" He was often cross like this lately. Grumpy, Cora called it. Hats were one of Cora's weaknesses. She had a great variety of them. These added to Ray's feeling of restlessness and impermanence. Sometimes she wore a hat that came down over her head, covering her forehead and her eyes, almost. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... "or else address her, if you have any intentions that way. She does not look unapproachable; I fancy, although she appear to be a little bit grumpy." ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... And Dorothy kissed her. "And you coaxed Lorry to come to dinner, after all! I don't know what made him so grumpy, though. I would have been sorry if he hadn't come to dinner, even if ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... tenderly toward her sometimes, careless though you may be, and then is the time to tell her so. You don't want to wait until she is dead, and then buy a lily to put on her coffin. You'd better bring her the lily some time when you've been cross and grumpy. ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... said Anthea quickly. 'Robert dear, don't be so grumpy - we won't say a word, you shall be the one to speak to the Fairy and tell him what we've decided to wish for. You'll say it much better ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... hurry, one way or another. I don't say but that a husband is a good thing to have, mind you! I guess I'm like all other women and want to have one some time, but so long as I've got pa I'm in no hurry. He's as much trouble as a husband would be, and as grumpy when things don't go to suit him. Sometimes I feel like in the end I'd choose to marry the Colonel, since it wouldn't be so much of a change, the Colonel bein' like pa in some ways, such as bein' economical; and then again I feel like I'd prefer Skinner, just because he'd ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... felt its oppressiveness, and waited for it to break. I had grown used to many things of late; I had learned much from what I had seen at the Zasyekins; their disorderly ways, tallow candle-ends, broken knives and forks, grumpy Vonifaty, and shabby maid-servants, the manners of the old princess—all their strange mode of life no longer struck me.... But what I was dimly discerning now in Zinaida, I could never get used to.... 'An adventuress!' my mother had said of her ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... alluded to above was certainly startling. I was talking to an old man whom I had long known: a little wrinkled old man, deservedly esteemed for his integrity and industry, full of experience as well as of old-world notions sometimes a little "grumpy," a little caustic in his manner of talking, but on the whole quite kindly and tolerant in his disposition. You could often watch in his face the habitual practice of patience, as, with a wry smile and a contemptuous remark, he dismissed some disagreeable topic ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... grumpy individual, very busy with pencil and notebook over some freight; but he favoured us with his attention long enough to point with his pencil and say jerkily, "Young's? See that red house ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "He WAS grumpy this afternoon, wasn't he?" said Mary, without preamble. "But I've noticed once or twice lately that he can't take a joke any more. He's grown queer altogether. Do you know he's the only person who still persists in calling me by my old name? He was quite ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... the rude awakening," cried Du Meresq. "Dinner spoiled, and a very stern expression of paternal opinion to you, my poor Cecil. Very grumpy to me. By Jove, I won't tell him to-night! Here's your half-baked boots. We shall never get them on. Shall I carry you to the boat, and roll your ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... The wife of the "odious person" was witless and fatuously conceited. Of the two girls of the house one was pious and the other a romp; both were coarse-minded—if they may be credited with any mind at all. The rather numerous men of the family were dense and grumpy, or dense and jocose. None in that grubbing lot had enough humanity to leave her alone. At first she was made much of, in an offensively patronising manner. The connection with the great de Barral gratified their vanity even in the moment of ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... New York, the public were, for a long time, divided on the subject, the vast majority believing, and a few grumpy customers rejecting the story. One day, Mr. Locke was introduced by a mutual friend at the door of the "Sun" office to a very grave old orthodox Quaker, who, in the calmest manner, went on to tell him all about the embarkation of Herschel's apparatus at London, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... encampment, all is shrouded in darkness, and everyone naturally feels a little grumpy; but when the first streaks of dawn appear, and we have been an hour on the road, the welcome note is heard in the distance of the bugles sounding the 'halt.' With great rapidity it passes from regiment to regiment, and dies away in the rear. Cavalry dismount, infantry pile arms in ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... sentences of Feuerbach aroused in his seething brain. Feuerbach, however, was sent about his business as soon as Schopenhauer entered. Wagner immediately wrote enthusiastically to Liszt, telling how peace and light had come into his soul; and one might wonder what particular doctrine of the grumpy old pseudo-philosopher had this remarkable effect. (This is to assume it to have had the effect. As a bare matter of fact it hadn't. Wagner's soul knew no peace until he died.) It was the great gospel of Renunciation. After reading ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was going to the barn with a pail on ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson |
