"Palaver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... English, and your high—flying dominie body, who whumles them outright. I speak in a figure. But all these are as dust in the balance to the wearisome man of ponderous acquirements, the solemn blockhead who usurps the pas, and if he happen to be rich, fancies himself entitled to prose and palaver away, as if he were Sir Oracle, or as if the pence in his purse could ever fructify the cauld parritch in his pate into pregnant brain. There is a plateful of P's for you at any rate, Tom. Beautiful exemplification of the art ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... to Toulouse for the purpose of beating the English there, to be sure;—a known fact, on which comment would be superfluous. However, we shall never get to Paris at this rate; let us break off further palaver, and away at once.... ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not waste any time in needless palaver. The hours were precious to him, and even an Indian can cut time when his ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... we can go to the devil and you'll take the gold. I know the palaver, Thirkle. If ye please, I'll take my chances alone with ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... day was practically a repetition of the first. They moved very slowly with frequent stops and once they landed in the Kro-lu country to hunt. Here they were attacked by the bow-and-arrow men, whom they could not persuade to palaver with them. So belligerent were the natives that it became necessary to fire into them in order to escape their persistent and ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nervous system, which never was particularly sensitive anyway, is completely blunted, so that she takes it as a matter of course to be sold again and again as a piece of property. One hears often enough of a 'woman palaver,' which is regarded exactly like a 'goat palaver,' as a damage to property, but one never, positively never, hears of a love-affair. The negress never has a sweetheart, either in her youngest days or after her so-called marriage. She is regarded, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Vicar's sister disapproves, because Betty is a grass-widow, and Penelope, the all-but-flapper, an insufficient chaperone. She expresses her disapproval with a hardy insolence which must be rare with vicars' sisters in these emancipated times. Naturally when you have a great deal of palaver about Betty's husband having deserted her two years ago after a serious tiff, and no word spoken or written since, you rightly guess that the expected new Adjutant, Captain Rymill, will be none other than the missing man. But you probably don't guess that Betty, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... was natural, heard much of her stage life. At first he took all this palaver with a grain of salt, the babbling of an ardent nature interested in the flighty romance of the studio world. By degrees, however, he became curious as to the freedom of her actions, the ease with which she drifted from place to place—Lane Cross's ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... you,' I began, when Buck, ever the man of action, with a scorn of palaver, strode past me, and, having prodded with the pistol that part of the bedclothes beneath which a rough calculation suggested that Mr Abney's lower ribs were concealed, ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... we won't. Them two sermons o' yours, p'r'aps they'd do down in some city place; but they're like your wife's bunnit here, they're too flowery to suit us. What we want to hear is the plain, old-fashioned Word of God, without any palaver or 'hems and ha's. They tell me there's some parts where hell's treated as played-out—where our ministers don't like to talk much about it because people don't want to hear about it. Such preachers ought to be put out. They ain't Methodists at all. What we want here, sir, is straight-out, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... strangers—white men. They were alone, but as they approached she learned from the talk of the natives that surrounded them that they possessed a considerable following that was camped outside the village. They were coming to palaver with The Sheik. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Castlereagh this morning, and am happy to say that his reception of me was as favourable as I could have wished. He began by a great deal of palaver about the obligation the Government were under to my family, and that he conceived I had an undoubted claim upon them. At the same time he said that he was not enabled to make any communication to me, but that he trusted soon to have it in his power. When ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... countra laird, May warstle for your favour; May claw his lug, and straik his beard, And hoast up some palaver. My bonnie maid, before ye wed Sic clumsy-witted hammers, Seek Heaven for help, and barefit skelp Awa' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... would have brought her down to the house for Sunday, and advertised her as a 'peach,' and a 'dandy good fellow,' and praised her eyes, and bragged about her cleverness, and generally done my best to smooth over all her little deficiencies with as much palaver as I could. And that little retriever of mine would have gone straight to work and ferreted out every single, solitary, uncomplimentary thing about Ella that she could find, and 'a' fetched 'em to me as pleased and proud as a puppy, expecting, for all the world, ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... may call a palaver of all small chiefs unless he notifies the government of his intention, for the government is jealous of self-appointed parliaments, for when men meet together in public conference, however innocent may ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... have thought on it, and will think on it. We be all determined, so there be an end of the matter, and an end of your palaver. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... rum-lookin' bitch, that I own to, and there is a fierce look in her eyes, But if any cove says as she's vicious, I sez in his teeth he lies. Soh! Gently, old 'ooman; come here, now, and set by my side on the bed; I wonder who'll have yer, my beauty, when him as you're all to 's dead. There, stow yer palaver a minit; I knows as my end is nigh; Is a cove to turn round on his dog, like, just ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... inconvenient house, full of small rooms all opening out of each other, and long, rambling passages; but dear mother and I were very fond of it. We liked the three-cornered little drawing-room with its bay-window, where we could sit and work and watch the old men in their grey smocks having a palaver under the big elm in the centre of ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... fixed in his mouth, and, having been placed on the mat in the same manner as when alive, his betel box is set by his side. The friends and relatives then go through the form of conversing with him, and offering the best advice concerning his future proceedings. This palaver over, the corpse is placed in a large wooden box, and kept in the house for several months. At the expiration of this time, the relatives and friends again assemble, and the coffin is taken out and deposited on a high tree. The deceased ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... a good little soul you are, Verity—you always say just the right thing! Tell Goliath, with my love, that I am busy, so there must be no pipe and no palaver to-night. I shall have to be up betimes too;" and then he took counsel with Verity as to the hour when his ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... thrown open, and several men entered, who dragged us out into the midst of a large crowd collected in the open space in front of it. Among them was the old chief whom we had seen on the day of our capture; a number of the men had hoes and other implements of agriculture. After a good deal of palaver, a hoe was put into Pember's hands, and signs were made to him that he was to go to work with it. Toby and Pat had hoes given to them also. Esse fancied that we should be allowed ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... sure that my temper hadn't grown much more amiable from being made a slave of, and this palaver about taming just made me worse than ever. I vowed by all that was holy I wouldn't be tamed, let 'em do what they would, and a pretty miserable time of it this stupid vow and my own obstinacy brought me. They used to amuse themselves ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... way we Americans have. We cannot stop to palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,—you are not an American, and therefore cannot claim even our remote connection with the Ten Lost ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... really surprised, but after some palaver he let me in together with the two loafers carrying my luggage. He grumbled at them however and slammed the gate violently with a loud clang. I was startled to discover how many night prowlers had collected in the darkness of the ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... was his custom when in earnest, "Jeekie think they just black niggers like the rest, thief people. There ain't a white man in this house, except you and Miss Barbara and me, Major. Jeekie learnt all that in servant's hall palaver. No, not now, other time. Everyone tell everything to Jeekie, poor old African fool, and he look up an answer, 'O law! you don't say so?' but keep his eyes and ears ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... And grasp his hand so warm he'll know he has a friend in you, An' ask him what's a-hurtin' him, and laugh his cares away, An' tell him that the darkest hour is just before the day. Don't talk in graveyard palaver, but say it right out loud, That God will sprinkle sunshine in the trail of every cloud. This world at best is but a hash of pleasures and of pain; Some days are bright and sunny, and some are sloshed with rain; An' that's jes' how it ought to be, so when the clouds roll ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... Le Roux," said Mackenzie, turning to his clerk, "here you and I shall part. This seems a good spot and a good opportunity for opening up the trade with these Indians. When the rest of them arrive we shall have a palaver, and then you shall remain to look after them, so, open up your packs, and get ready a few small ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... as each section in turn was startled, their cries were realistically given. Hearing which, on the scene came some armed black fellows, who, seeing what the birds had seen, started back in astonishment, seemed to have a great dumb-show palaver, then one by one, clutching their weapons, they came forward to more closely examine the new 'debbil debbil.' Here some one would stoke the fire, out would belch through the funnel a big smoke and a lapping flame, away went the blacks into the bush as if ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... tribe would turn out in full strength and enjoy the campaign, for they knew that their women would never be touched, that their wounded would be nursed, not mutilated, and that as soon as each man's bag of corn was spent they could surrender and palaver with the English General as though they had been a real enemy. Afterwards, years afterwards, they would pay the blood-money, driblet by driblet, to the Government and tell their children how they had slain the redcoats ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... Krumen engaged themselves for a two years' term of labour on the Island of San Thome, and when they arrived there, were set to work on coffee plantations by the Portuguese. Now agricultural work is "woman's palaver," but nevertheless the Krumen made shift to get through with it, vowing the while no doubt, as they hopefully notched away the moons on their tally-sticks, that they would never let the girls at home know that they had been hoeing. But ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Ryder, 'No, boys. Ye can't. The Signor is lying as low as a toad in a wheeltrack these days, because o' the pryin' and meddlin' disposition o' the local authorities. No,' he says, 'ye must have your palaver with the agent which she is a woman,' an' thereon I groans low ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... have me to learn to cut capers?-and dress like a monkey?-and palaver in French gibberish?-hey, would you?-And powder, and daub, and make myself ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... sentry fired at something moving on the river, and nearly killed a villager bringing in his women-folk in a canoe together with the best of his domestic utensils and a dozen fowls. This caused more confusion. Meantime the palaver inside Jim's house went on in the presence of the girl. Doramin sat fierce-faced, heavy, looking at the speakers in turn, and breathing slow like a bull. He didn't speak till the last, after Kassim had declared ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... following day Isaaco, having performed the task he had undertaken, of guiding them to the Niger, received the payment agreed on; and Park likewise gave him several articles, and told him that when the palaver was adjusted at Sego, he should have all the horses and asses ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the room, saying, 'Sit down there,' in a manner quite in keeping with his stogies raised on the desk directly in our face. Such freedom, nay, such bestiality, I could never tolerate. Indeed, I prefer the suavity and palaver of Turkish officials, no matter how crafty and corrupt, to the puffing, spitting manners of these come-up-from-the-shamble men. But Khalid could sit there as immobile as the Boss himself, and he did so, billah! For he was thinking all the while, as he told me when we ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... confidently, as one who could not be deceived. "Pooh!" she said. "That was only a try-on. That was only so that he could begin his palaver! Don't tell me! I may be a simpleton, but I'm not such a simpleton as he thinks for, nor as some other folks think for, either!" (At this point Hilda had to admit that in truth her mother was not completely a simpleton. In her ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers." Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... difficulties of speech or spelling will not readily daunt us in the time-honored pursuit of "what happens next"—certainly not if we know enough of our author to feel sure he will come to the point and tell us what happens next with the least possible palaver. We have a definite want and a certainty of being satisfied promptly. But with Spenser this satisfaction may, and almost certainly will, be delayed over many pages: and though in the meanwhile a thousand casual beauties may appeal to us, the main thread of our attention is sensibly relaxed. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "There, that is enough palaver," said the captain, in his offensive way. "Hoist the parson's traps aboard; and sheer off you. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... was revealed to Gladwyn the night before its proposed execution by an Ojibwa girl from the Pottawottomi village.[50] Gladwyn, thus warned, was forearmed. Pontiac and his six chiefs were admitted to the council-chamber. Pontiac began the harangue of peace and friendly palaver and was about to give the preconcerted signal when Gladwyn raised his hand and the sound of clashing arms and drum-beating was heard without. Pontiac feared he was foiled, and announcing that he would "call again," next time with his squaws and children, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... more intelligent parts of soldiering, so he encouraged these negroes, duller than oxen, and made them useful pioneers. Here is his own simple record of the way he got to the hearts of the Levy: "How they enjoy the palaver in which I tell them that 'they are the eyes to the body of the snake which is crawling up the bush-path from the coast, and coiling for its spring! The eyes are hungry, but they will soon have meat; and the main body of white men, armed with the best of weapons, will help them win the ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... "When the last great palaver of the Cree braves was held on the Blue-Pine Ridge," continued Okematan, "the chiefs chose me to go to Red River, and learn all that I could find out about the Palefaces and their intentions. I went, as you know. I attached myself to a family named ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... 1634 once more saw the city given over to the visiting Hurons. The old persuasive palaver was repeated, and this time with more success. When the trading fair was over, Brebeuf, Daniel, and Davost set off with the savage fleet, each in a different canoe, facing a journey of nine hundred miles fraught with many perils, but with none so ominous as the sullen and menacing mood ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... here where we saw the open spot, an' then of course we were stuck with nothin' to lift off with. It looked all right. We'd unload our goods, an' if the local crowd couldn't use them all, why they'd pass the rest on at a profit to themselves. So we come out to palaver, an' then they won't let us go back in the ship. We were just lucky my com man had sent out a landing report when it looked like we piled up, or the Space Force patrol never woulda ...
— A Transmutation of Muddles • Horace Brown Fyfe
... paper, if they had good things said about them in the magazines and if flaming posters went with them than to try to dish out oak-tanned soles with prime calf uppers at half price and with a good line of palaver. It's the lad who sticks type that, when you get right down to it, ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... impossible to allow this to continue. I gave the order, and once more the soldiers quietly surrounded the herd of cattle, and drove them to head-quarters as before. The old scene was re-enacted. The new sheik, Morbe, together with Allorron and many headmen, arrived. Again a long palaver took place, through the medium of Tomby, the interpreter, and the promises of good ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... stain on her flag if she sees this man go down without a hand lifted to save him. He is worth another Alma to her prestige. She can't afford to see him slaughtered here, where he's fighting the fight of civilisation. You see right through this thing, I know, and I don't need to palaver any more about it. It doesn't matter about me. I've had a lot for my money, and I'm no use—or I wouldn't be, if anything happened to the Saadat. No one would drop a knife and fork at the breakfast-table when my obit was read out—well, yes, there's one, cute as she can be, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have long, long intended to have a palaver. ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, arrayed for the hunt, with buglers and dogs attending, stood across the way, and with mighty ceremony and palaver admitted her to the City. Woe betide them, for all their gold collars and maces, had ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... of folks wantin' to palaver," he said lowly. "An' no one is crowdin' me. That's polite an' proper. Seems you all sort of guessed there's plenty of room, an' crowdin' ain't necessary. I'd thank every specimen to hook his thumbs ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... polite, even if she had butted in on me and come to live in my house for keeps— when I saw a queer expression come into her eyes. In the doorway stood an Indian boy. He looked like her, but was younger and slimmer. She took him into the kitchen and they must have had a great palaver, for he didn't leave until after dark. Inside the week he came back, but I missed him. When I got home, Paloma put a fat nugget of gold into my hand, which Vahna had sent him for. The blamed thing weighed all of two pounds and was worth more than five hundred ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... And what he is going to say is—But here comes the chief and his principal headmen to meet us. Now, Inaguy, you be very careful in your interpretation of everything that passes, for a good deal may depend upon it. And let's hurry; I want to get up as close as possible to that idol before the palaver begins." ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... palaver's this?" asked Mr. Dennis, with supreme disdain. "We ain't got no sentimental members ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the categorical native; but his attempts at palaver were eminently unsuccessful. The naked black man was master of ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... last four days; the colour is very dark brown, and large quantities of aquatic plants and trees float down. Mologhwe, or chief Ndambo, came and mixed blood with the intensely bigoted Moslem, Hassani: this is to secure the nine canoes. He next went over to have more palaver about them, and they do not hesitate to play me false by detraction. The Manyuema, too, are untruthful, but very honest; we never lose an article by them: fowls and goats are untouched, and if a fowl is lost, we ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... old palaver, talk is cheap, but it takes money to buy whiskey. Look as smart as you can (hands letter), and deliver this letter before it's too late. There's nothin' like doin' things with despatch when you're in a hurry. Wait, ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... heart,' he was frequently heard to observe in his morning rounds about this time. 'I used to think there was a great deal of palaver in her, but you may depend upon it there's no pretence about her. If he'd been the kindest husband in the world she couldn't have felt more. There's a great deal of good in Mrs. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... certain of it,' he smiled; 'and again I say, more emphatically than ever, that you're the very man I'm looking for. If you'll take that chair and pull up to the fire, I'll take the other and we'll have a bit of a palaver.' ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... fixed for holding a grand palaver at Wolf's Hope on the subject of Caleb's requisitions, and he was invited to attend at ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... brewery, at which Brougham was the magnus Apollo. Sefton is excellent as a commentator on Brougham; he says that he watches him incessantly, never listens to anybody else when he is there, and rows him unmercifully afterwards for all the humbug, nonsense, and palaver he hears him talk to people.... They dined in the brewhouse and visited the whole establishment. Lord Grey was there in star, garter, and ribbons. There were people ready to show and explain everything. But not a bit. Brougham took the explanation ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... the Three very angry (with the world so new-and-all), and they held a palaver, and an indaba, and a punchayet, and a pow-wow on the edge of the Desert; and the Camel came chewing on milkweed most 'scruciating idle, and laughed at them. Then he said 'Humph!' and went ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... after my arrival, amid the omnipresent murmurous palaver of conversation, there fell an unusual noise. The unusual is always formidable in jail. The noise was nothing in itself, and would have passed unheeded in a hotel dining-room. But over us, crowded ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... guess, would give all their old shews, if they'd a' kep away from the whelps. My gals is all in titters about it; and Beck Teezle, says she, 'I wonder, says she, if Des and Luce Faddle, says she, will feel above us now?' They couldn't git me to dew their dirty Work, with all their ile and palaver. I bought a pitchfork on 'em, once in hayin', and got a platter there when Josephyne was married, and I paid 'em tew in mink skins; and that's all I had to dew with 'em. You lost a good 'eal ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... palaver, for I'm not wantin' it," said Moll roughly, yet not ill pleased at her husband's judicious tribute to her smartness and her charms. "It's all very fine—you have everythin' nicely fixed up accordin' ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... The palaver was sawdust and treacle. Old Bottleblue buzzed for a bit, And a sniffy young Wiscount in barnacles landed wot 'e thought a 'it; Said old Gladstone wos like Simpson's weapon, a bit of a hass and all jor, When a noisy young Rad in a wideawake wanted ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... magazine fire into their midst, when suddenly one man stopped and the others gathered round him. This was when they were some 1,800 yards away, about on a level with the end of Incidentamba. They had evidently seen something and sniffed danger, for there was a short palaver and much pointing. A messenger then galloped back to the main body, which turned off behind Incidentamba with its wagons, etc. A small number, including a man on a white horse, rode off in a vague way to the ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... the sailor, as soon as the voice again ceased to be heard. "If that bean't the palaver o' a little girl, my name wur never Ben Brace on a ship's book. A smalley wee thing she seem to be; not bigger than a marlinspike. It sound like as if she wur talkin' to some un. What the Ole Scratch ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... you, young scapegrace? What did you come here for anyway? Not to palaver about how thankful you are that you got knocked out, stayed a week in bed and had your salary paid all the time. I'll bet you didn't come for that. Want a ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... called away. He had taken the liberty of waiting a few minutes in Mr Sharnall's room. He was anxious to have a few moments' conversation with Mr Sharnall, and so on, and so on. You know how I hate palaver, and how I disliked—how I dislike" (he corrected himself)—"the man; but he took me at a disadvantage, you see, for here he was actually in my room, and one cannot be so rude in one's own room as one can in other people's. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Mistah King, an' gin'l'min an' ladies," he say, "dis am a right bad case ob lazy majesty, 'ca'se de king been step on. Whin yevery li'l black boy whut choose gwine wander round at night an' stip on de king of ghostes, it ain't no time for to palaver, it ain't no time for to prevaricate, it ain't no time for to cogitate, it ain't no time do nuffin' but tell de truth, an' de whole truth, an' nuffin ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... carefully. These Mambari are very enterprising merchants: when they mean to trade with a town, they deliberately begin the affair by building huts, as if they knew that little business could be transacted without a liberal allowance of time for palaver. They bring Manchester goods into the heart of Africa; these cotton prints look so wonderful that the Makololo could not believe them to be the work of mortal hands. On questioning the Mambari they were answered ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... success equal to that which they had before obtained. As another day's paddling would take them to the rapids Mr. Goodenough now set up a negotiation for obtaining a sufficient number of carriers. After great palaver, and the presentation of three guns to the chief to obtain his assistance, thirty men were engaged. These were each to receive a yard of calico or one brass stair rod a day, and were to proceed with the party until such time as they could procure ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... as pale as a shroud, an' hair as black as a crow, an' eyes that looked at ye an' never seen ye. No more did she talk much, an' whin Paddy 'ud be sayin' his fine spaches, she'd listen wid her eyes cast down, an' whin she'd had enough av his palaver, she'd jist look at him, an' somehow Paddy felt that his p'liteness wasn't the thing to work wid. He cudn't undhershtand her, an' bedad, many's the man that's caught be not undhershtandin' thim. There's rivers that's quiet ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... life almost idyllic in its manner, to judge by a description from his own pen which Mr. Morley has incorporated in his lecture. It was there he wrote the book "The Prince," at forty- five, dedicating it to Lorenzo the Magnificent. The dedication was a bit of palaver to the tyrant who had destroyed Florentine freedom. It was several years before he was rewarded by a small employment and then he was commissioned to write the history of Florence which he finished and dedicated to Leo X, in 1527. Here, also, it is supposed, he wrote ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... he murmured. "Before they have finished their palaver as to how the accident happened and have repaired the damage, we shall have been here a full half-hour.... Jules will ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... beastly long way, and takes such a devil of a time to get there—fourteen hundred miles by steamer is no joke, and we have to be back in England in five months. So the governor is coming down here to have a palaver with us.' It hurt me, Tom, to hear these two youngsters talking like that, for Arlington is over seventy years of age. And they were good lads until he sent them to England to college with more money than was good for them. And it has done them harm—made cads of 'em," and he viciously ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... this very distinctly. They are for ever explaining that the present is 'an age of committees,' that the committees do nothing, that all evaporates in talk. Their great enemy is parliamentary government; they call it, after Mr. Carlyle, the 'national palaver;' they add up the hours that are consumed in it, and the speeches which are made in it, and they sigh for a time when England might again be ruled, as it once was, by a Cromwell—that is, when an eager, absolute man might ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... caught up the paddle, and sat down to palaver. A line was made fast to the canoe, and it drifted astern of the Okapi, which ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... Bill was, for all he was so sick; for he had great sperrits, and could argue somethin' surprisin' and grand. 'You're a good girl, Katie,' was the last words he ever said. I never was no hand to make a big palaver, so just as soon as the funeral was over I went right on with my sewin' and finished up everything I had in the house, for I needed the money to pay the expenses; and, besides, I made the first payment on the stone—it's a lovely one, John, cost me $300, but I don't ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... She guessed that the old lady had got some idea into her head about the property, or about her own will, or about the solicitor, or about a tombstone, and that it was worrying her. She and Miss Ingate (who had now returned home) had had a very extensive palaver, in low voices that never ceased, after the triumphant departure of Mr. Foulger. Audrey had cautiously protested; she was afraid her mother would be fatigued, and she saw no reason why her mother should be acquainted with all ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... an idle learning? Learn to split wood, at least. The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things, to the scholar is rarely well remembered; steady labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of one's style, both of speaking and writing. If he has worked hard from morning till night, though he may have grieved that he could not be watching the train of his thoughts during ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... I am chang'd, like shillings from the Mint Sent forth to find another one's protection! Chang'd as palaver which the members print And do not follow after their election! Ah! Mr. Cross, your gratitude is low, You might have ask'd me ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... a last palaver with our guide; he said that the extreme denseness of the fog gave assured token of ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... finish that palaver over there, Mr. Makola. I will come round when you are ready, to weigh the tusk. We must be careful." Then turning to his companion: "This is the tribe that lives down the river; they are rather aromatic. I remember, they had been once before here. D'ye hear that row? What a fellow has got to ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... must learn to bear arms, and that both man and woman must be prepared to make any sacrifice for their Fatherland. (2.) They have always held that national interests must be considered before international palaver. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... If charity-bazaars, pious palaver, and orphaned babies' diapers had not been the sole topic of conversation at court; if there had been intellectual enjoyment of any kind, Louise might never have taken up her pen. As it was: "This Diary is intended to contain my innermost thoughts, my ambitions, my promises for the future, ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... short preliminary palaver, a feast of baked pigs and various roots was spread before us; of which we partook sparingly, and then proceeded to business. The captain stated his object in visiting the island, regretted that there had been a slight misunderstanding during the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the gist of all this palaver? I'll be damned if I can stomach a sermon," Pancracio ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... wise in a minute, and some of the young hot-bloods was for smokin' us up, but the chief was a sport—I got to give the old bird credit. He rared back on his hind legs and made a stormy palaver; as near as I could judge he told his ghost-dancers they'd been cold-decked, but he expected 'em to take their medicine and grin, and, anyhow, it was a lesson to 'em. Next time they'd know better'n to monkey with strangers. Whatever it was he ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... towns and villages, and calling upon the kings and head men. On these occasions they were received in the "palaver house," by the chiefs arranged in true African style, regardless of taste. One was described as wearing "a silver-laced coat, a superb three-cornered hat, blue-bafta trousers, considerably the worse for wear, and no stockings or shoes." The insignia ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker
... love," said he succinctly. It was like a bomb, and a bomb is the very last thing in succinctness. It comes to the point without palaver or conjecture, and it reduces havoc to ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... replies of servants; also talk or palaver in order to amuse one intended to be cheated. Pattering of prayers; the confused sound of a ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... falsity, and electioneering beer and bribery and balderdash, which is terrible to think of, in deciding. Your National Parliament, in so far as it has only that question to decide, may be considered as an enormous National Palaver existing mainly for imaginary purposes; and certain, in these days of abbreviated labor, to get itself sent home again to its partridge-shootings, fox-huntings, and above all, to its rat-catchings, if it could but understand the time of day, and know ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... we passed had just seen two elephants, and a great palaver ensued, in which the word 'harden,' or some such equivalent for ivory, frequently occurred. Many of the trees on the line of route were very fine, specially the tapangs, the splendid stems of which, supported by natural buttresses, rose in several instances at least two hundred ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... our good chaplain palaver one day About souls, heaven, mercy, and such; And, my timbers! what lingo he'd coil and belay; Why, 'twas just all as one as High Dutch; For he said how a sparrow can't founder, d'ye see, Without orders that come down below; And a many fine things ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... as he's told and subscribe to the Cup," interposed Dick Derosne. And he added, "They are having a palaver. Old Perry's been in an ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... clogs, Pushed the brass-barr'd door of a public-house; The spring went hard against her; hand and knee Shoved their weak best. As the door poised ajar, Hullabaloo of talking men burst out, A pouring babble of inflamed palaver, And overriding it and shouted down High words, jeering or downright, broken like Crests that leap and stumble in rushing water. Just as the door went wide and she stepped in, 'She cannot do it!' one was bawling out: A glaring hulk of flesh with a bull's voice. He ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... calm himself," said Courtenay, coolly, when Christobal had translated this flow of guttural Spanish. "He has no cause to fear them now; let him nerve himself, and show a bold front. A palaver is the best thing that can happen. We must display all the arms we possess. Bid any of your invalids who can stand upright show themselves, Christobal. We must lift you outside, Boyle. Bring your camera, Miss Maxwell. If we could give these ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... cards, extinguished the lamp; and we neither heard nor saw more, till there came a shuffling on the companion, and Bartholomew crawled out with his face all blackened by the powder, and the blood trickling from his cheek, where the ball had grazed it. We all went for'ard, mates, and had a long palaver, and resolved to go ashore at daybreak, and leave a doomed captain and a doomed ship. But we didn't know our man. In the gray of the morning, we heard the handspike rattle on the hatch, and we tumbled up one after the other. The captain ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... wind, which is just the intolerable truth. Thanks to Maga for giving them the echo of their palaver! and may the first reformed Congress vote her a gold medal for the good she has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... scrabble. empty sound, dead letter, vox et praeterea nihil[Lat]; "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"; "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." nonsense, utter nonsense, gibberish; jargon, jabber, mere words, hocus-pocus, fustian, rant, bombast, balderdash, palaver, flummery, verbiage, babble, baverdage, baragouin[obs3], platitude, niaiserie[obs3]; inanity; flap-doodle; rigmarole, rodomontade; truism; nugae canorae[Lat]; twaddle, twattle, fudge, trash, garbage, humbug; poppy-cock [U.S.]; stuff, stuff and nonsense; bosh, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... hailed by the chief's deputy, who in an angry voice brought me to a halt. Perceiving that I was in trouble, I made signs for pardon, the safest thing to do, though I did not know what offense I had committed. My interpreter coming up, however, put me right, but not until a long palaver had ensued. The deputy's hail, liberally translated, was: "Ahoy, there, on the frantic steed! Know you not that it is against the law to ride thus through the village of our fathers?" I made what apologies I could, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... usual till then—she stood for an instant with the door in her hand. Mr Openshaw looked as if he were deep in his book, though in fact he did not see a line; but was heartily wishing the woman would go, and not make any palaver of gratitude. But ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... was afraid to adopt the only course an Indian respects,—prompt and forceful measures. "Talk" means to him delay, compromise, confession of weakness. "Well, if you must palaver," said Boynton, finally, "take me along. I've had more to do with those beggars than Davies, and," he added to himself, "I'll make it possible to ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... fruitless bargaining with the native chiefs, in all of which Coker regretted that the slave-traders had so ruined the people that it seemed impossible to make any progress in a "palaver" without the offering of rum. Meanwhile a report was circulated through the country that a number of Americans had come and turned Kizell out of his own town and put some of his people in the hold of their ship. Disaster followed ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... to sail next morning for the westward; so I was obliged to be content with the empty honour of the invitation; and, I dare say, my absence did not break his heart. I was more sorry to miss seeing Dicky Sharpe again, as I should have liked to have had another palaver with him; and before our return the Cynthia ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... I don't like them. Too much palaver! I've got 'em sized up. They're regular salt-water gipsies; I've heard of 'em before. They drift round from one place to another, fish a little, lobster a little, smoke a good deal, and drink more. They'd be ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... "better drop in an' hear the sky-pilot's palaver before you go. It'll do you a whole lot of good, an' it can't do you no ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... I will go up and talk with Lillie, and condole with her; and perhaps we shall bring her round. And then when my husband comes home next week, we'll have a family palaver, and he will find some ways and means of setting this business straight, that it won't be so bad as it looks now. There may be arrangements made when the creditors come together. My impression is that, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the band came upon a small palisaded village of thatched huts set in a clearing in the jungle close beside a placid river. At their approach the villagers came pouring out, and Usanga advanced with two of his warriors to palaver with the chief. The experiences of the day had so shaken the nerves of the black sergeant that he was ready to treat with these people rather than take their village by force of arms, as would ordinarily have ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a word, but ate his breakfast with an air of supreme indifference. Afterwards, as we were going out through the wood-shed, he remarked to me that it made him sick to hear Republicans palaver. "I'm a Democrat," said he. "I'm a 'Secesh,' too. I would be a Democrat anyway, if Ad was ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... bit skeered, Miss," said Baldy, calmly. "I'll palaver to 'em, and tell 'em we just come to pay ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... whims, mere fancies. Go to Africa! What does that mean! It will do for a lieutenant who is in debt. But a man like you! Are you thinking of presiding over a palaver, in a red fez, or of entering into blood relationship with a son-in-law of King Mtesa? Or will you feel your way along the Congo in a tropical helmet, with six holes in the top of it, until you come out again at Kamerun or ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... down to hold a palaver. While this was going on, Keona carried Alice in his unwounded arm to the other end of the cave, and, making his exit through a small opening at its inner extremity, bore his trembling captive to a rocky eminence, shaped somewhat like a sugarloaf, on the summit of which he placed her. So steep were ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the appointment of a parliamentary commission, in which they were joined by the artful and cunning suggestions and canting palaver of Mr. Wilberforce. The cry of a jacobinical conspiracy was loudly raised, and Colonel Wardle was reviled, taunted, and menacingly reminded of the great responsibility which he incurred, by making such charges against the illustrious Commander in Chief. The cunning, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... Cornets that he had not come to talk politics, but to complain of a theft. Those to whom he spoke looked upon the cattle raid not as robbery, but as "annexation" or "commandeering." A man, listening to the palaver, exclaimed: "Well, anyhow, we shall have cheap beef as long as Montsioa's cattle last." At the hotel of the place Mr. Mackenzie met some Europeans, who were farming or in business in the Transvaal. They ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... in which Jeff seeks his annual lonely holiday he is glad to palaver of his many adventures, as a boy will whistle after sundown in a wood. Wherefore, I mark on my calendar the time of his coming, and open a question of privilege at Provenzano's concerning the little wine-stained table in the corner between the rakish rubber plant and the framed ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... knowledge. The mind that is fed upon a diet of morning and evening newspapers, mainly or solely, will become flabby, uncertain, illogical, frivolous, and, in fact, little better than a scatterbrains. As one who listens to an endless dribble of small talk lays up nothing out of all the palaver, which, to use a common phrase, "goes in at one ear, and out at the other," so the reader who continuously absorbs all the stuff which the daily press, under the pretext of "printing the news," inflicts upon us, is nothing benefited in intellectual gifts or permanent knowledge. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... too clear. The palaver about "brains," and "Mind Master"—and those ape hairs in Bentley's hands. He wished he knew all that had led up to that story he had read in the paper just prior to the appearance of the naked man from the west door of the Flatiron Building. However, the killing ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... and have a palaver with you," continued Spofforth. "I was afraid that my men would spot my hands trembling. Hope the Boches are standing. Hang it all! Why did nature let me ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... you only knew what a palaver they've made about having you here, pretending as it's all charity and the like, when, of course, ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... then held a palaver as to the disposition of their prisoner. They finally left him tied with his own new rope to a huge drift log at the base of the pier, and went back ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... the Baronet from him, as if he had been a thing of straw; "you know my power, and you know my terms: there needs no more palaver about it." ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... (always toward the eyes) and taking in the slack with tincture of benzoin and electrolyzing moles—to what end? Looking handsome. Oh, what a mistake! It's the larynx that the beauty doctors ought to work on. It's words more than warts, talk more than talcum, palaver more than powder, blarney more than bloom that counts—the phonograph instead of the photograph. But I was going ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... delighted negroes went to mass as to their favorite Calenda; the tawdry garments and detestable drone of the priest, whose only Catholicism was his indiscriminate viciousness, appeared to them a superior sorcery; the Host was a great Gree-gree; the muttered liturgy was a palaver with the spirits; music, incense, and gilding charmed them for a while away from the barbarous ritual of their midnight serpent-worship. The priests were white men, for the negroes thought that black baptism would not stick; but they were fortune-hunters, like the rest of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... my man. Brought up with them 'ere fine creturs, how could you nail your nose to a desk? I'll take you without more palaver. What's your name?" ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... She tried to express her thankfulness for the kindness that had prompted the original proposal, and her sympathy with his natural vexation at finding that a traffic which he had really ameliorated at considerable loss of profit, was still considered objectionable; but he silenced this at once as palaver, and went off to fetch his wife to try ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... together with the water and milk necessary for our march, in readiness. He promised compliance and disappeared. About 3 P.M. the Bedouins, armed as usual with spear and shield, began to gather round the hut, and—nothing in this country can be done without that terrible "palaver!"—the speechifying presently commenced. Raghe, in a lengthy harangue hoped that the tribe would afford us all the necessary supplies and assist us in the arduous undertaking. His words elicited no hear! hear!—there was an evident unwillingness on the part ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... her taking him back upon a very small show of repentance if the needed emotions were in prospect. He had decided pretty finally that it would be Bessie rather than another when he received a letter from Mrs. Vostrand. It was dated at Florence, and after some pretty palaver about their old friendship, which she only hoped he remembered half as fondly as she did, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... palaver," returned Sam, in a loud and boisterous tone (to do him justice, he had never been taught any other); "down on your marrow-bones at once, or here goes for your gizzard!" and he drew his sword with ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... mind for an answer, I had given him my address in St. James' Square, and had again mingled with the crowd. Alas! I was not fated to get back to Flora so easily! Mr. Robbie was in the path: he was insatiably loquacious; and as he continued to palaver I watched the insipid youths gather again about my idol, and cursed my fate and my host. He remembered suddenly that I was to attend the Assembly Ball on Thursday, and had only attended to-night by way of a preparative. This put it into his head to present me to another young lady; but I managed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
