"Loafing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with these police horrors and not do something to help. To-morrow I begin life as a salesman in Clarke & Stebbin's. The salary is not great, but every little helps and I don't dislike the business. But father does. He had rather see me loafing about town setting the fashions for fellows as idle as myself than soil my hands with handling merchandise. That's why we quarreled. But don't worry. Your name didn't come up, or—or—you know whose. He hasn't an idea of why I want to work—There, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... extent, in a much looser sense than the Eugenists assume, but still in some sort of sense, the types that were inadequate or incalculable or uncontrollable began to increase. Under the hedges of the country, on the seats of the parks, loafing under the bridges or leaning over the Embankment, began to appear a new race of men—men who are certainly not mad, whom we shall gain no scientific light by calling feeble-minded, but who are, in varying individual degrees, dazed or drink-sodden, or lazy or tricky or tired ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... nothing of the sort here, let me tell you," snapped the unreasonable old man. "I can't afford to do business at cost just to please a lot of harum-scarum boys, who want to spend days loafing in the woods when they ought to be earning an honest ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... get some men out of town to work with me on it. But they get lonely. Don't like working on a ranch. Besides, they had a scrap with me. I wouldn't have 'em loafing around the job. Rather have no help at all than have a loafer helping me. So they quit. Then I tried to get my cowhands to give me a lift, but they wouldn't touch a hammer. Specialists in cows is what they say they are, ding bust 'em! ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... "That's the man who wrote about 'gilded subalterns loafing luxuriously in cushioned cars in a giddy round of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... received upon leaving, gave the officer new strength and determination, so he shut his teeth and spurred his rebellious limbs into swifter action. There was no longer any opportunity of riding the sled, even where the trail was hard, for some of the Police dogs were limping and loafing in their collars. This was indeed a race, a Marathon, a twenty-three-mile test of courage and endurance, and victory would go to him who could call into fullest response his last uttermost ounce of ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... Bog Hollow) because he thought it a literary thing to do. He used to take a book along with him when he drove over to Redfield for supplies; sometimes the wagon would be two hours late coming home, with old Ben loafing along between the shafts and ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... emphatic negation. "And do you understand why? It's simply because every girl knows that the manager of her department would think he could get along without her, if he were to see her sitting down ——loafing, you know! So, she would be discharged. All it amounts to is that, after being on her feet for nine hours, the girl usually walks home, in order to save carfare. Yes, she walks, whether sick or well. Anyhow, you are generally so tired, it don't make ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... have been done in a moment of abstraction, and then I hailed the "cab runner" who was loafing down the road; and, what with him and a messenger boy in a hurry, we got the basket down and lifted it into a big square hall and laid it almost at the foot of the staircase, up which we should have ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen, Boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing on somebody, headway, man before and man behind, Good day's work, bad day's work, pet stock, mean stock, first out, last out, turning-in at night, To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers, and he there ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... was even more afraid of work than he was fond of drink. Whenever want pressed too hard, he worked a few days; but, as soon as he had earned ten francs, good-by! Off he went, lounging by the road-side, talking with the wagoners, or loafing about the villages, and watching for one of those kind topers, who, rather than drink alone, invite the first-comer. Trumence boasted of being well known all along the coast, and even far into the department. And what ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... ten o'clock at night, and they were loafing indoors. Above the high tops of the pines the sky was still bright, but it was night in the cabin. They were lighted by the fire and by a stable lamp on the table. They had gradually fallen into the habit of lying abed late, and consequently ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... myself," the latter explained. "But I'm loafing this summer. I'm in town only because there's talk that St. Mark's is going ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... what sailors are, my dear sir. Let me just show you by an instance. One day in dock at home, while loafing on the forecastle head, I noticed two respectable salts come along, one a middle-aged, competent, steady man, evidently, the other a smart, youngish chap. They read the name on the bows and stopped to look at her. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... occupied in reading books, papers, letter writing, needlework, etc. Loafing or wasting time ...
— How Department Stores Are Carried On • W. B. Phillips
... we were absolutely idle—idle to the point of blushing with shame when the thought struck us that all the time our salaries went on. Young Cole was aggrieved because, as he said, we could not enjoy any sort of fun in the evening after loafing like this all day; even the banjo lost its charm since there was nothing to prevent his strumming on it all the time between the meals. The good Paramor—he was really a most excellent fellow—became unhappy as far as was possible to his cheery nature, till one ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... much time on verses the last few years, Sam," answered Songbird. "I've been too busy attending to business. But maybe I'll get back to it while loafing around ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... "What a set of loafing swine you are!" he coolly remarked. "It's not to the point that I'm no better, but if any of you feel insulted, I'll be happy to make what ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... his wild hair, while his plump feet mechanically felt for his slippers. He looked regretfully at the blanket—forever a suggestion to him of freedom and heroism. He had bought it for a camping trip which had never come off. It symbolized gorgeous loafing, gorgeous cursing, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... usual, was for the sea. He said he knew a yacht, just the very thing—one that we could manage by ourselves; no skulking lot of lubbers loafing about, adding to the expense and taking away from the romance. Give him a handy boy, he would sail it himself. We knew that yacht, and we told him so; we had been on it with Harris before. It smells of bilge-water and greens to the exclusion of all ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... when Mrs. Thornton suggested that he should be asked for a visit during September, the doctor put the question off with irrelevant excuses; they had had too many people; September was his time for a rest; young Long should be getting down to hard work, not loafing in ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... the last word I ever heard from him before the trial was over, and I had to be running over to the neighbors for all the news I got. A reporter came to ask me one day if I had seen a strange man loafing in the meadows the evening the thing happened. He was a red-haired, freckled young man who kept pushing his hat, first to one side of his head and then the other, and talking first to one side and then the other of a pencil held in his teeth, so I could ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... such sentiment. It was solely because the men were so lazy and unreliable that the perpetuity of the race was endangered. The fathers of the children were here to-day and away to-morrow. They spent their time in loafing, drinking, gambling and plotting "revolutions." The women, anchored by the love for their children, lived in the little huts on their small plantations, raising yams and bananas, and if the men became too drunken and abusive ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... in the streets of Bidwell at night as he had walked in the streets of towns in Indiana and Illinois. He approached groups of men loafing on a street corner and then went hurriedly past them. On quiet streets as he went along under the trees, he saw women sitting in the lamplight in the houses and hungered to have a house and a woman of his own. One afternoon a woman school teacher came to ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... healthy, feel pretty strong, but not so young. Right now, I would like to take a few thousand dollars out of that gulch before snow flies, for we are going to have a lot of enforced loafing. We are in good shape to loaf however, all bills are paid and I still have thirty-five dollars ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... away, looking forward to where two or three men were loafing about on the forecastle, hard at work ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... journey's end until we could made out the dim outlines of the houses. At the inn at San Andres we found that we could have no rooms, as all the little windowless dens were occupied by people from the country who had come in for a fiesta. There were indeed a good many men loafing about the courtyard, but scarcely any women, and we could hardly understand a fandango happening without them. They thought otherwise, however; and presently, hearing the tinkling of a guitar, we went out and saw two great fellows in broad hats, jackets, and serapes, solemnly dancing opposite ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... one to make sure the man could appreciate a good story. For all editors I would have that kind made compulsory. Here is one chiding me in his paper,—oh! a serious paper that calls upon parents to "insist that children's play shall be play and not loafing" and not be allowed to obscure "their more serious responsibilities,"—chiding me for encouraging truancy! "We are quite sure," he writes, "that no really well-brought up and well-disposed boy ever thinks of such a thing." Perish the thought! And yet, if he should ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... toward the right bank; and Charley, looking, saw a cluster of thatched huts there. A number of other canoes were tied at the bank, and their boatmen and passengers were loafing among the huts. A loud dispute was going on between some boatmen and passengers. As Charley's boat glided up, and Francisco leaped ashore to hold it, the long-nosed man's angry tones sounded loud and familiar. It was he and his two partners who were ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... way to solve this problem of living," he said, "is to see how much we can work, and not how little. Germany's working ten hours a day, and producing. We're talking about six, and loafing and ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... having spent a term in our Illinois State University at Champaign, married a beautiful neighbor girl and moved to Missouri. Here he lived off the money of his father's estate, practicing his early-learned habits of drinking, gambling, and loafing. He moved from State to State until, finally left in poverty, he tended bar in a saloon. While visiting with relatives in his old neighborhood a few years ago he stole a watch and some money from ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... "There isn't going to be any loafing at Killykinick for me. I'm for boating and fishing and clamming and digging up those garden beds. I don't know what those others are paying," said Dan, who had fallen behind with Captain Jeb; "but I've got no money, and am ready to earn ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... fun. For the humans went ridiculously slowly, and had an eccentric way of bunching together, every now and again, and then of stringing out into a shambling line. Still, it was a walk, and therefore better than loafing behind in the trenches. And Bruce had kept his noiseless place at the ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... ministers of state and discuss those varied attainments, which one acquires in an official career, so that you also may be able in time to have some idea about matters in general; and that when by and bye you've made friends, they may not see you spending the whole day long in doing nothing than loafing in our midst, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... grouped in villages. There were commonly no towns near the stations, which were not always uncheerful; sometimes there were flower-beds, unless my memory deceives me. Perhaps there would be a passenger or two, and certainly a loafer or two, and always of the sex which in town life does the loafing; in the background or through the windows the other sex could be seen in its domestic activities. Only once did we see three girls of such as stay for the coming and going of trains the world over; they waited arm ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... of you smarties who talk so much about the wonderful things you can do make yourselves receiving sets! Too lazy? Baseball and swimming and loafing around are all you think about. But leave it to the girls; Dot and I ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... later in the evening that the woman came along to give chin-music through the window. I am bound to say," added the captain generously, "that no one I can place my hand on saw his lorship loafing about the hotel after dark. But what of that? He may have laid his plans, and arranged for the corpse to be found later, in ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... life in Winesburg. He did odd jobs, such as cutting wood for kitchen stoves and mowing the grass before houses. In late May and early June he picked strawberries in the fields. He had time to loaf and he enjoyed loafing. Banker White had given him a cast-off coat which was too large for him, but his grandmother cut it down, and he had also an overcoat, got at the same place, that was lined with fur. The fur was worn away in ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... damned well what you're doing. You're loafing!" Bangs fired the word at him as if it were a shell from a Big Bertha. "You're loafing till it makes us all sick to look at you. We thought a week or two of it would be enough, when you realized the conditions; but it's gone on for a month; and, instead ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... That was not all they did. But while resting and eating and loafing and sleeping and enjoying each other's company, both watched Operation Moon closely enough to be completely informed as to everything ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... three fellows, tall as trees, were also loafing round. They were the three Kings: Top had turned his big jacket and blackened his face; Grendel wore a white sheet over his back and blew the horn; and Wulf had a mitre on and carried a great star with a lantern on a stick. So they dragged along the ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... there are pages that I am not sure that I understand. One looks into its depths of suggestion as one looks into a clear but very deep lake; one can see far down, but not to the bottom of it, which remains mysterious. He invites his own soul, but there is no loafing. Indeed his mind seems preternaturally active, as in a combination of ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... have found a vessel by which I can return to the Eastern Gulf squadron, father," said Christy one morning, with more earnestness than usual. "I begin to feel guilty of neglect of duty while I am loafing about home." ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... the vista of chimneys without speaking, and Moffatt continued: "I don't suppose you care to hear the story of my life, so I won't refer you to the back numbers. You used to say out in Apex that I spent too much time loafing round the bar of the Mealey House; that was one of the things you had against me. Well, maybe I did—but it taught me to talk, and to listen to the other fellows too. Just at present I'm one of Harmon B. Driscoll's private secretaries, ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... a matter of pride with us—frequently expressed in disparagement of our European contemporaries—that we are a nation of workers; that to hold any position in the community every man must have a job or otherwise lose caste; that we tolerate no loafing. We do not conceal our contempt for the chap who fails to go down every day to the office or business. Often, of course, our ostentatious workers go down, but do very little work. We feel somehow that every man owes it to the community ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... Loafing under ledge and tree, Leaping over boulders, Sitting on the pasture bars, Hail-fellow with storm or stars— Three of us alive and free, ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... everything to degrade, the race; who choose the sunny side of the street corners in winter and the shady side in summer; who use all kinds of vulgar and indecent language, insulting ladies as they pass. It is this loafing, nomadic young class that drifts to crime, caused by idleness, evil associations, and the fact that this class does not know the value of a dollar or the enormity of a crime. These young men are millstones welded by chains around the necks of ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... of it is certainly degrading. He does not read, and so knows nothing of the inspiration of literature, and the past is to him a closed book. He comes across nothing artistic, and he hears no concerts. He never goes to church, and you can see him by the thousand loafing about in any large town on a Sunday. "The modern townsman... has forgotten the habits and sentiments of the village from which his forefathers came. An unnatural and unhealthy mode of life, cut off from the sweet and humanising influences of nature, has produced an unnatural ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... Cuthbert said when they informed him of their intention, "it is early yet, but it is warm enough even for loafing on the rocks, and I hate London when it's full. I will go for a fortnight anyhow," and so with Wilson and two younger men, he started for Newquay, on the north of Cornwall. Once established there the party ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... a long journey, Al," said Dick with some satisfaction, "but it's not hard on us. It's more like loafing along on ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... Macedonia had dwindled to a dim blot on the north-eastern horizon. Of the steamer herself nothing was to be seen. We had been loafing along, till now, our sails shaking half the time and spilling the wind; and twice, for short periods, we had been hove to. But there was no more loafing. Sheets were trimmed, and Wolf Larsen proceeded to put the Ghost through her paces. We ran ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... a way often impossible otherwise, as the natives themselves admit. At Nethy Bridge, a fine hall, with club-room, has been recently erected, largely owing to the enthusiasm of a London lady resident in the vicinity. She was distressed to see the young fellows of the place loafing aimlessly about at night, and proceeded to organise some rational amusement for them. Her philanthropy has been greatly appreciated. At Kilmartin, the jubilee of Queen Victoria was signalized by the erection of the Poltalloch Victoria ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... been known to loaf up and down the wilderness as far north as the Gulf of Tonkin. Neither did he disdain a spell of civilisation from time to time. And it was while loafing and cadging in Saigon, bearded and dignified (he gave himself out there as a bookkeeper), that he came ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... vehemently. "I don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to interfere with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly that in my opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets him into idle, loafing habits." ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... Wally! G'wan, now—faster! No loafing, Bo, or I'll wallop you!" Nor did he cease until they both paused from exhaustion. Even then he would not allow his charge to do more than regain his ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... was her own home station. As in a dream, she saw in the twilight the familiar red road shambling over the hills, the dingy little station with men and boys loafing on the platform, the houses scattered here and there among trees and gardens. It all came back to her. This was the route she and her mother had often travelled. A little way off was the water-tank set in a clump of willows by the roadside. 'Lewis Hall' was on the hill just beyond. In the ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... a quiet one. At the corner some untidy little girls danced on the pavement, while a group of boys stood by, loafing against the window of a small liquor shop, and occasionally scattering the girls by some threat of ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... it," replied Leopold; "my stomach is loafing, too. 'Twouldn't be fair to make it work and do nothing myself. Just as much obliged. Some other day. Don't forget the book," he cried, as ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... suddenly changing the subject, "talking about nerves reminds me that when the holidays are over you and I are going away on a honeymoon. After this we are to have one a year. We'll drop everything and indulge in the heaven-given luxury of loafing. You need it. Your eyes are too big and your face too pale. I don't see what has ailed me not to notice before. But right after Christmas, dear, I'm going to run away with you.... What are ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... as blessed in either of her two elder daughters. And her sons were quite frankly a trouble to her. The eldest, Sarah's junior by a year and a half, had just left Oxford suddenly and ignominiously, without a degree, and was for the most part loafing at home. The youngest, a boy of fifteen, was supposed to be delicate, and had been removed from school by his mother on that account. He too was at home, and a tutor who lodged in the village was understood to be preparing him for the Civil ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... really waste your time like this—loafing longshore, and sailing boats, and—and driving an automobile. Why! you are a regular beach comber, Mr. Tapp. It's not much of an outlook for a man ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... have a nice loafing spell over Sunday for a change now," remarked Jack on the following morning when, having partaken of breakfast, they moved down to a position nearer the river, where they could ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... the woods again, and took a cautious reconnaisance of the road from the underbrush before venturing upon it—the world was filled with ghostly light now. It was well that he did so, for he saw a burly individual loafing in the highway, with his eye on the end of the wood track. He wore civilian clothes, but "policeman" was ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... just sweeps over you. (Looking up.) Like with me fifty years ago. Instead of the loafing chairs we still had rusty old sabres then. Devil, but you've brought it pretty far! ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... gives you strength to "work"—the answer comes from your Larger Self—which is the Spirit of God "brooding" over all and pouring strength into all. But do not fly in the face of DEITY by expecting it to "do the work" for you while you go about loafing after offering your prayer. Nonsense. That man prays who works constantly, ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... dark yet, and there's the wire waiting for the paddock fence," he said. "I regret to see you addicted to loafing. And Mrs. Coombs has no ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... was over lots of the slaves would try to figger out when would the next one be and worry some afraid they'd be standing up there waiting for the buyers to punch and slap to see is they sound of limb and able to do the days work without loafing ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... so that poverty and squalor of the slum type is practically unknown. The communistic idea of homes in common, which has received so much attention of late years, was not adopted by the founders of this city, who, however, took excellent precautions to stamp out loafing, begging and other accompaniments of what may ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... sometimes quitting work because he is discharged and sometimes because, like most boys and men, he does not like to work. His playground is the street, the railroad yards or vacant lots too small for real play, and fit only for a loafing place for boys like himself. These gather nightly and talk of the incidents that interest most people, mainly the abnormal things of life and generally the crimes that the newspapers make so prominent to satisfy the public demand. He learns to go into vacant buildings, steals ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... about and pick up what you can—sooner than serve His Majesty. Well, well, there's no compulsion—not yet; but you should think over it. Come and see me, if you like, when you've done your time, and we'll see what can be done. That'd be better than loafing about and picking up tins ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... partitions. Three bells tingled all day long, and the only thing that saved Thomas from the "sickbay" was the fact that the bar closed at eleven. And a rough passage added to his labors. No Henley this voyage, no comfy loafing about the main-deck in the sunshine. A busy, miserable, dejected young man, who cursed his folly and yet clung to it with that tenacity which makes prejudice ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... rapture.] — And I'll have your words from this day filling my ears, and that look is come upon you meeting my two eyes, and I watching you loafing around in the warm sun, or rinsing your ankles ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... you brought him! You did, hey? Well, did n't I tell you to let no lazy, loafing bumboat-man set foot on board? Do you laugh at my orders, you good-for-nothing scum of the sea? And above all things why did you ever drag such a creature as this down between decks to disgrace the whole of His Majesty's navy? Get ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... comforting faith, stand theological incomprehensibilities on the one hand, and scientific skepticism on the other. The former would have us believe that the soul is a mere vapor, a cloud of something ethereal, of which can be expected nothing more useful than 'loafing around the Throne,' while the latter asks us to recognize the existence of nothing which the eyes cannot see and fingers touch; to cease imagining that there is a soul, and to regard the mind as merely the product of the brain; secreted ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... came to the Prison of Mazas, which in ordinary times would have been strongly guarded; but now, save for a few National Guards loafing about, it was deserted—the criminals all being liberated and set plundering and ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... rode out with Pasquale to review the troops. It was an entirely informal proceeding. The youthful army was happily engaged in loafing and in play. A bugle blew. There was an instant scurry for horses. They swung into line, stood at attention, and at a second blast charged yelling across the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... not fail to write about his trip. He could not help doing that, and he began "Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion" as soon as he landed in Hartford. They were quite what the name would signify—leisurely, pleasant commentaries on a loafing, peaceful vacation. They are not startling in their humor or description, but are gently amusing and summery, reflecting, bubble-like, evanescent fancies of Bermuda. Howells, shut up in a Boston editorial office, found them delightful enough, and very likely his ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... further question, helped the old man up the stairway to his bed and then returned to the barroom, in which several of the regular boarders were loafing. One or two greeted him familiarly, and it was evident that they all knew something of the capture and were curious to learn more. His answers to their questions were brief: "You'll learn all about ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... "No, not loafing. But you could transfer your work to San Francisco, couldn't you?" Martin smiled a deep, wise, long- ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... drained his vitality away. If I met him now I should think him a pitiful little creature and be extremely sorry for him. Then I felt only a wondering aversion. He sniffed horribly, he was tired out by a couple of miles of loafing, he never started any conversation, and he seemed to prefer his own company to mine. His mother, poor woman, said ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... disappointed, Theodore, if very few boys spend their evenings in this room for a while. Most of the boys in this neighbourhood are so used to loafing about the streets, that they like that best, especially in hot weather, and, of course, few of them care much for reading. They will have to be educated up ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... rigged up a tackle to try and draw the carcass out. We were all ready at daylight and the crowd was bigger than ever. Say, if you want to count the idle people in New York just get up a free show at any hour of the day or night and they will all come. There must have been over a thousand loafing about the street all night. We were just getting ready to make a try for the horse when the idlers outside gave a cheer, and I saw an express wagon loaded with nets and ropes and all sorts of animal catching stuff drive up. Tody Hamilton, ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement. The woman stood a little apart from the others. Coldly indifferent alike to the man's cursing and coughing and to the daughter's ejaculations, she appeared to be looking at the mountains. But the young man fancied that, once or twice, as he faced ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... to—to start something! I'd like to get away somewhere and do things. I'm tired of loafing around in white flannels all day and keeping my hands clean. And I'm tired of dabbing whitewash on my shoes! Didn't you fellows ever think that you'd like to get good and dirty and not have to care? Wouldn't you like to put on an old flannel shirt and a pair of khaki trousers and some 'sneakers' ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the boys amusing themselves by exploring their little island, fishing from the bank, and loafing in the shade of the solitary palm, at whose base was supposed to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... when the landing was reached. Half a score of men were loafing about the woodyard on shore. Mr. Cavendish made fast to a blasted tree, then he climbed the bank; the men regarding ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... recent years the store circle has degenerated. The better class of habitual members has organized its lodges or found satisfaction in the grange, while the hangers-on at the store, barber-shop, or other loafing-place indulge in small talk on ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... been berries enough for the bears and for the Indians. Now that the salmon run was heralded in the Columbia by the little fish scouts, all of the scattered members of the Flathead tribe not otherwise engaged coagulated from their several loafing grounds and headed for Memloose Island to pay their annual respects to the ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... The climate gets into their blood. Do you know what I think? I think that, in seven cases out of eight, it's a case of a man wanting an excuse for loafing. I knew a chap once who went down to that part of the world. Got to drinking too much, threw up his job, used to loaf all the time, married some sort of a half-black woman who had a bit of coin, and went to ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... Cultivation has much increased. Many of the old jungles have been reclaimed, and I fancy many more pigs are shot by natives than formerly. A gun can be had now for a few rupees, and every loafing 'ne'er do weel' in the village manages to procure one, and wages indiscriminate warfare on bird and beast. It is a growing evil, and threatens the total extinction of sport in some districts. I can remember when nearly every tank was good for a few brace of mallard, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Noon found them loafing on the great square in front of the Palace of the Two Kings of the Sea and the Islands. All were disguised as Waterfolk. Before they'd left the castle, they had grafted webs between their fingers and toes—just as Amphib-changelings who weren't ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... place has got to be the local diplomatic corner grocery, where all the village loafers come to do their heavy loafing. They bring in all the fantastic rumours that are abroad in the land, and discuss them with all solemnity. In the last day or so we have had it "on the best authority" that the Queen of Holland has had her consort shot because of his pro-German sympathies; that the ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... now to inquire too closely into the springs of Philip's resolve to take service under a foreign flag. Perhaps the irksome state of affairs at Las Flores, where there was no mean between loafing and soldiering, was intolerable to a spirited youngster. Perhaps San Benavides, constantly riding in from the front, irritated him beyond endurance by his superior airs. Or it may be that a growing belief in Iris's determination to sacrifice herself ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... arms lie abroad from this in one direction, and the legs in the opposite quarter. It is a very lank and shambling figure, without elegance or much proportion, and the attitude is the last wantonness of loafing. We followed our lout up the right leg, which is a gentle and easy ascent in the general likeness of a street. World-old stone cottages crouch on either side; here and there is a more ambitious house in decay; trees wave ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... previous, he said, he had chanced to arrest an Irish mechanic who, during the season, had been employed at the neighboring hotel in replacing some plaster that had fallen by reason of leakage. Since then, a hard drinking man, he had been idly loafing, occasionally jobbing, about the country, but the offence charged was that of being concerned in a wholesale dynamiting of fish in the Tennessee River some months ago. The man protested violently against his arrest, being unable to procure ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... fortnight has passed since I left Brookline, without my being able to get at my work. This loafing about and waiting upon the movements of Government officials is the hardest work I ever ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... mistress behaved as though she saw no one, and the solicitor's clerk, after one or two attempts at polite formality, adopted a like demeanour. The man's proximity caused his neighbour a ceaseless irritation; of all objectionable types of humanity, this loafing and boozing degenerate was, to Miss Rodney, perhaps the least endurable; his mere countenance excited her animosity, for feebleness and conceit, things abhorrent to her, were legible in every line of the trivial features; and a full moustache, evidently subjected to training, served ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... his tribe lived and died on the sea-bottom, successive generations piling higher on the skeletons and lifework—or the life-loafing, for they were lazy atoms—of those that went before. At last the coral reef crawled upward until in uncharted waters it was tall enough ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... Corbin," responded he bravely. "I'll peg away at being lazy for another spell. But don't keep me loafing any longer than you have to, will you? You see, just lately I have begun to be anxious to get back to my books. There are lots of things I want to ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... before yesterday she had given him to understand that if he could not find her a thousand francs to pay a bill with she would not receive him any more. For two days he had been loafing about the town in quest of the money and had at last made the sum up ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... picketed. "I will go in first and see who is here, Tom. There are usually a lot of loafing Indians about these forts, and though it is safe enough to leave our traps, out on the plain, it will not do here. We must stay with them, or at any rate keep them in sight; besides, these two horses would be a temptation to any redskin who happened ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... Loafing round the hotel is dreary and my job's not getting on. Although I'm ordered to lie off, this won't count for much. I'll be made accountable for ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... government, as well as philanthropic societies, is doing everything that it can to provide such places, to protect the enlisted man as far as possible from the temptations to which he is subjected, and to furnish him a loafing place where he will feel at home, where he may do as he likes to all reasonable limits, and where he can obtain a moderate amount of pure liquor without feeling that he is violating regulations and ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... exactly the time to choose for loafing,' answered Lady Maud. 'By the bye,' she added, 'you may as well know. Poor Leven is dead. I had a telegram a few minutes ago. He was killed yesterday by a bomb ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... of the loafing stride characteristic of the professional roundsman. They wore gray-green khaki, tan shoes, tan leather leggings, and the military cap; and a better set up, smarter, abler body of law preservers it would be difficult to find. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... My parents, loafing North, via Hot Springs, were delighted to see me. As soon as courtesy to my mother made it possible, I got my father aside, and told him that my real purpose in coming was to raise ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... who owns it," said he, "a genteel dilettante with a bank account and an easy conscience, a steam-yacht ain't in it with a camera. You see a man doing nothing but loafing around making snap-shots, and you know right away he reads up well in 'Bradstreet.' You notice these old millionaire boys—soon as they get through taking everything else in sight they go to taking photographs. People are more impressed by a kodak than they are by a title or a four-carat ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... was all alone, and began to feel that the hours which I knew must pass before the missing train could come would never make away with themselves. There were many others stationed there as I was, but to them had been given a capability for loafing which niggardly Nature has denied to me. An American has the power of seating himself in the close vicinity of a hot stove and feeding in silence on his own thoughts by the hour together. It may be that he will smoke; but after awhile ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... the skirmishers went on in the direction of the village, and found the battalion in the woods near the main road. Fires were burning, and those who had been fortunate enough to find anything eatable were cooking. Federal troops were riding up and down the road and loafing about the camps trying to be familiar. They seemed to think that "How are you, Johnny?" spoken in condescending style, ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... felt sure would catch Dave napping. Earlier in the game it might have done so, but Ted's right "wing" was now drooping. Hi did his best, but Dave reached and clubbed the leather. In raced Greg, while Dick had a loafing time on his way to third. Dave reached first in plenty ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... an hour I was at the store, as it was easy to find. As I ran into the store, I found five or six big farmers loafing about or buying groceries or getting their mail. It was not hard to distinguish the storekeeper, as he was the only man without a hat and, besides, he stood ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... heard?—you?" interrogated Rickart. "I thought it was funny you were loafing along so leisurely. Didn't you know to-day was the day for ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... A month's loafing in the Hollow. Nothing doing and nothing to think of except what was miserable enough, God knows. Then things began to shape themselves, in a manner of speaking. We didn't talk much together; but each man could see plain enough what the others was thinking of. Dad growled out a word now and then, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... window convinces the imagination, and we enter into all the sorrows of the imprisoned dame. We conceive the burthen of the long, lack-lustre days, when she leaned her sick head against the mullions, and saw the burghers loafing in Maybole High Street, and the children at play, and ruffling gallants riding by from hunt or foray. We conceive the passion of odd moments, when the wind threw up to her some snatch of song, and her heart grew hot within her, and her eyes overflowed ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... father's case. He's doing all he knows to get this new hotel of his finished, and what happens? A man gets fired for loafing on his job, and Connolly calls a strike. And the building operations are held up till the thing's ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... Government. Such trains as there are, run on time. The distribution of food is well controlled. Many industrial experts of the old regime are again managing their plants and sabotage by such managers has ceased. Loafing by the workmen during work hours has ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... off down the road, greatly at peace with all the world. He did not even rebuke his chauffeur when he caught him loafing on the grass. ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... golden day on all subjects, in the heavens above, on the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth! With what fresh delight, in keeping with the scene, we compared our favorite authors and capped each other's quotations! Rare Walt Whitman told Mr. Conway that his forte was "loafing and writing poems." Well, we loafed too, and if we did not write poems, we startled the birds, the sheep, the cattle, and stray pedestrians, by reciting them. I returned home with that pleasant feeling of fatigue which is a good sign of health—with ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... liefer see a young man rejoicing in his strength and improving his science, than loafing about with long hair and giving anxious thought to the colour of his necktie. It is a disinterested preference, as fighting was never my forte, any more than it was Artemus Ward's. At school I was "more remarkable for what I suffered than ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... enough. At least he turned out a good deal. But that was spasmodic—night and day for weeks, and then loafing for weeks more. That's how he always got into trouble: ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... Say, I bought that tobacco myself for my own personal use, and not for a lazy, loafing, cow-faced lump of slumgullion to glom and smoke. Why don't you spend something besides the evening now and then? Gawda-mighty, you sit on yore coin closer than a hen with one egg! I'll gamble that Robinson Crusoe spent more money in a week ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... were found where such habits as drinking and loafing around saloons and clubs and abusing the family have been checked on account of the gardener's time and attention being occupied in ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... hash to-morrow; and if you belong to a ship, you can tell him all about it; but you'll have the costs to pay anyhow. Just lay down upon that bench, and you can sleep there till morning; that's better than loafing about the streets," said the captain of the guard, a large, portly-looking man, as he pointed Tommy to a long bench similar to those ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... simply idling about the beach and "loafing," as if they had nothing particular to do but gossip with each other as to what meant the outlandish creatures, who had invaded their territory. Occasionally, two or three would proceed out together to fish in the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... tired of this sort of thing, Hal," whispered Bert, "I am afraid I was not cut out for a strenuous life. Do you think there are any Spaniards loafing around in ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... course you will be a prisoner there in Germany till the war is over and they make you work your head off without no food and they don't even feed the guards because they want to keep them mad at the prisoners so as they will make them work harder and every time you act like you was loafing or something the guards scratchs their initials in you ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... power in the present crisis to assist the government and, above all else, to help themselves by conserving food. The president of the conference said the colored people had to work harder than ever before with so many problems confronting their country. "It is no time for loafing," he said, "we must work early and late, and make our work count."—Savannah Morning ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... craft, have sought and found shelter on a coast which in certain conditions of the wind is fraught with danger. About the stores near the piers, Trinity men are busy with buoys, anchors, and cables; elsewhere labourers are toiling, idlers are loafing, and lifeboat—men are lounging about, leaning on the parapets, looking wistfully out to sea, with and without telescopes, from the sheer force of habit, and commenting on the weather. The broad, bronzed, storm-battered coxswain of the celebrated Ramsgate lifeboat, who ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... see them there, sir," said a convalescent Tommy, pointing to the grey cruisers flying the tricolour. "They've been bottled up there, since the submarines appeared off Helles and sank the Majestic and t'other boats. There's only destroyers loafing around Cape ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... and developed a spirit of self-help. The parents have been enabled to control indirectly the associations of their boys, and, in a very mixed boy-community, to have them in a measure under observation without in the least restricting their freedom. The habit of loafing, and the evils that attend it, have been avoided, a strong practical and even industrial bent has been given to their development, and much social morality has been taught in the often complicated modus vivendi with others that has ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... in The Rat, but no one else had. Policemen had moved him on whenever they set eyes on him, the wretched women of the slums had regarded him as they regarded his darting, thieving namesake; loafing or busy men had seen in him a young nuisance to be kicked or pushed out of the way. The Squad had not called "good" what they saw in him. They would have yelled with laughter if they had heard any one else call it so. "Goodness" ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... voluble to Whitson that night over his new acquaintance. Whitson listened with his usual impassiveness, and then asked Langley how it was that "an old loafing nigger," as he expressed it, had impressed him so remarkably. Langley replied that he did not quite know, but he thought the effect was largely due to the man's teeth. But all the same he was "a very entertaining ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... the checks not coming in regular as clockwork like yours, neither. Two months at a time I've seen 'em stick away. Why, when I worked on the lower West Side they used to stick away two and three months like that and then come loafing in one night just like nothing hadn't happened. You ain't got no ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... out of work and gradually drifts down to the cheap hotel. For months, possibly, he strives in vain to get work at his trade. He exists, however, by means of odd jobs picked up at random; he becomes shiftless; the life which consists of so much "hanging around" and loafing, decreases his efficiency, and, in this way, his standard is lowered. At the same time his character is affected, and even if no worse development takes place, he loses ambition, and that lowers his standard. Hence, in conclusion, we would say that the objection that the hotel movement of the ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb
... we separated with reciprocal wishes for good weather on the morrow. To-morrow is so manifestly determined to be as fine as any other 30th of September since the weather became on this planet a topic of conversation that I have had nothing to do but stroll about Lucerne, staring, loafing and vaguely intent on regarding the fact that, whatever happens, my place is paid to Milan. I loafed into the immense new Hotel National and read the New York Tribune on a blue satin divan; after which I was rather surprised, on coming out, to find myself staring at a green Swiss lake and not at ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the hole, and saw, following steadily one after the other, four of the great beasts, with the little, squat driver seated on the neck of the last; and after they had passed, loafing carelessly along as if he were too important and disdained to be driven, came the Rajah, muttering as if to himself, and walking straight up to the big stable door before going on to ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... thaw. Carl was tramping miles out into the hilly country north of Plato. He hadn't been able to persuade any of the Gang to leave their smoky loafing-place in the Turk's room, but his own lungs demanded the open. With his heavy boots swashing through icy pools, calling to an imaginary dog and victoriously running Olympic races before millions of spectators, he defied the chill ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... population there already," said Cochrane, apologetically. "It won't be long before a local television station will be logical. I was just thinking, Babs, that after we get bored with loafing, I could start a program there. Really sound stuff. Not commercial. And of course with the Dabney field it could be piped back to Earth if any sponsor wanted it. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the little beggar,' answered his particular friend, who was loafing away the earlier half of the afternoon in Mr. Wendover's chambers, smoking Mr. Wendover's cigarette, and sipping Mr. Wendover's Apollinaris slightly coloured with brandy—a very modest form of entertainment surely, and yet the ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... 2, Mrs. Holton drank a cup of bouillon at Struby's counter, informed the white-jacketed attendant that it was excellent, and crossed Main Street to Montgomery's Bank under the admiring eyes of a dozen young collegians who happened to be loafing in the drug-store. Amzi escorted his sister at once to his private room at the rear, poked the fire, buttoned his coat ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Allison had inherited, had become too general to be any longer spectacular. But Dexter Allison's garments had always retained their insistent note. Hunter himself had sold Allison the ground upon which the stucco house stood; he had heartily agreed that it was an ideal spot for a loafing place—and the fishing was good, too! Now whenever Caleb thought of those first conferences which had preceded the sale, and recalled Allison's accentuation of the natural beauties of the spot, Caleb allowed himself ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... here in a jiffy, my lady. You'll find the drive a beautiful if not a comfortable one." Then turning majestically to the huddled natives, he waved his slender stick over the boxes, big and little, and said: "Lively, now! No loafing! Lively!" ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... passion for martyrdom, from a craving for remorse, through moral sensuality. It was a laceration of the nerves... Defiance of common sense was too tempting. Stavrogin and a wretched, half-witted, crippled beggar! When you bit the governor's ear did you feel sensual pleasure? Did you? You idle, loafing, little snob. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... single line, all chained to a long heavy cable, and prepared to march. About the middle of the chain stood John Logan, now strong enough to walk. At the front were placed a few miserable, spiritless Indians, who had been found loafing about the miners's cabins—the drunkards, thieves, vagabonds of their tribe, such as all tribes have, such as we have, citizen-reader—while the rear was brought up by a boy and girl, Carrie and Johnny, a ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... shops on either side, hung to the roof with carpets, or brooms, or umbrellas, plastered with advertisements, and blazing with gas. While in the street between streamed the ever-moving crowd of East London folk, jostling, chattering, loafing, doing their business or their pleasure, and made perpetually interesting, partly by their frank preoccupation with the simplest realities of life: with eating, drinking, earning, marrying, child-rearing; still more, perhaps, by the constant presence among them of that "leisured class" ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... swore. The horrid smoke that always came from that rattletrap of a stove! And that wretched old fool of a husband was not man enough to fix it! Oh, no, he wasn't handy enough for that; he went at every blessed thing as if his fingers were all thumbs. And where could he be loafing tonight? Not home yet! Serve him right if she locked the house and allowed him to stay in the sheepcotes, or wherever it was he was dawdling. There now, those infernal brats were at the spinning wheel. Groa jumped up, darted into ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... don't want to see the man. What the deuce does he want? If he is one of those loafing scoundrels of undertakers' and mortuary masons' touts, just send him about his business; give him a glass of whisky and tell ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... in hopes he would move forward a foot or so; but apparently he had selected his loafing place with care, and liked it. The danger of a shift of wind was always present. Finally I slipped back over the brink of the ravine, moved three yards to the left, and crawled up through the tall dripping grass to a new ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... write as soldiers think, he spent long hours loafing with the genuine article. He watched them at work and at play and at prayer from the points of view of all his confidants—the combatant officer, the doctor, the chaplain, the drill sergeant, and the private himself. With the navy, with every branch ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... September this work was pushed rapidly forward. There were also trenches to be made in advance of the original firing-line, for the purpose of connecting up advanced points and removing dangerous salients. At such times there was no loafing until we had reached a depth sufficient to protect us both from view and from fire. We picked and shoveled with might and main, working in absolute silence, throwing ourselves flat on the ground whenever a trench rocket was sent up from the German lines. ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... many such centres of contemplation along the West Coast of Scotland. Few places are better loafing-ground than a pier, with its tranquil "lucid interval'' between steamers, the ever recurrent throb of paddle-wheel, the rush and foam of beaten water among the piles, splash of ropes and rumble of gangways, and all the ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... steps, loafing a few moments before jogging out to Bannister Field for a strenuous scrimmage under the personal supervision of Slave-Driver Corridan, the Gold and Green football squad had gathered. It was from these stalwart gridiron gladiators that the caustic ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... the waters, was a sad sight to see; but I heard no complaints. There was no tearing of hair and no gnashing of teeth; no bitter tears or moans of sorrow. The men who were not at work in the boats stood loafing about in clusters, looking at the still rising river, but each seemed to be personally indifferent to the matter. When the house of an American is carried down the river, he builds himself another, as he would get himself a new coat when his ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... with loafing, sleeping in the park, and leaving the gate open, were discharged, with a caution to take care how they interfered with corporation rights in future, or they would ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... kitchen at this time began to be haunted by those occasional hangers-on and retainers, of uncertain fortunes, whom a full experience of her bountiful habits led to expect something at her hand at this time of the year. All the poor, loafing tribes, Indian and half-Indian, who at other times wandered, selling baskets and other light wares, were sure to come back to Oldtown a little before Thanksgiving time, and report themselves in ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... complaining for myself. I asked for what I've got, and, dear Lady Cousin, I put up some cash for it, too, as a man should. No, I don't mind for myself, fond as I am of loafing, sort of pottering round where the streets are in the hands of a pure police; for I've seen more, done more, thought more, up here, than in all my life before; and I've felt a country heaving under the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... known that in all these transactions not a dollar in money changed hands. Men bought with promissory notes and sold for the same consideration. The mercantile venture was not successful. Berry was drinking and loafing, and Lincoln, who did not work as faithfully for himself as for another, was usually reading or telling stories. So when a couple of strangers, Trent by name, offered to buy out the store, the offer was accepted and more promissory notes changed hands. About the time these last notes ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... at the same speed at which he had galloped to the police station, overhauled one of the mounted troopers whom he himself had sent in search of Ranjoor Singh, rated him soundly in Punjabi for loafing on the way, and galloped on with the troop-horse laboring in his wake. He reined in abreast of the second trooper, who had halted by a cross-street and was trying to ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... impressionable years of his boyhood were spent in Hannibal, which he calls "a loafing, down-at-the-heels, slave-holding Mississippi town." He attended only a common school, a picture of which is given in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Even this schooling ceased at the age of twelve, when his father died. Like Benjamin Franklin and W. D. Howells, the boy then became a ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Charlie? I'm just getting things to going on the annex. We're going to make her jump, I tell you. I ain't allowing any loafing there." ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... a great many streets, as many as an important capital. By only circling the Square one can count the Main Street, Laurel Street, Christ Street, Merchants' Street, Forge Street, Shoemakers' Street, Loafing Street, Penitence ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... I had entered into the agreement I found I had a hundred things to do and little time to do it in. Old Tom Anderly had not come back to the boarding house and I could not wait for him to appear. Captain Tugg was already thinking of loafing along to the dock where his two-stick schooner was moored. I bundled up my dunnage and ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... window of the post-office, under the "NO LOAFING HERE!" sign, half a dozen of us discussed it while we waited for the noon mail. There seemed to be a half-formed belief that Potts might adroitly be made to perceive advantages in ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... devil are you doing, loafing aft here?" he demanded roughly, staring into my eyes. "Didn't you hear the orders, you damned shirker? I've seen you hanging about for ten minutes, never lifting a hand. Who the hell are ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... of clearing out to Sydney in a day or two, I've spent enough time loafing. The only thing that has kept me here so long is that I wanted to hear how Les. got on in his maiden speech. We're not much to each other, but when a fellow has no one belonging to him he feels a claim on the most distant connection," said Ernest on ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... sir—that is all. We need your muscle, not your brains. When we want your opinion on scientific matters, we will hasten to let you know. Your coolness is intolerable, too—loafing about here meddling with august matters of learning, when the other laborers are pitching camp. Go along and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... billboards and complaining because there aren't enough of them. You meet another member of the company on the same errand and say, "I don't see much paper out," this being the technical phrase. You both agree that the advance agent must be loafing. Then you set out to see what opposition you are playing against, and emit groans on learning that "The Million Dollar Doll in Paris" is also in town, or "Harry Bulger's Girly Show" will be there ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... Tartar population in Chengtu, and the Manchu quarter is one of the most picturesque parts of the city, with the charm of a dilapidated village set in untidy gardens and groves of fine trees. Loafing in the streets and doorways are tall, well-built men and women, but they had a rather down-at-heel air, for their fortunes were at a low ebb when I was in Chengtu. The military service they once rendered had been displaced by the new modern trained troops, and three years ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall |
