"Puff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the touch of the stock as it fits itself against his shoulder, and the kindly give of the trigger, and then, oh thrilling sight! to perceive the wonderful and yet awful change from life to death, the puff of feathers, and the hurtling passage of the dull mass borne onward by its own force to fall twenty yards from where the pellets struck it. Next session the politician will be hooted down, next year perhaps the reviewers will cut the happy writer to ribbons ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... door of the Roman Catholic Church. He was not permitted to enter, because the priests are ashamed to show civilised people the credulity and crass ignorance of their congregation. At one of these services everybody held a lighted candle, and at a given signal, Puff! out went out the lights, and with them away went the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... provinces. Great generals with armies at their backs start into being from apparent nothingness, dispute the sovereignty of Italy in bloodless battles, found ephemeral dynasties, and pass away like mists upon a mountain-side beneath a puff of wind. Conflict, ruin, desolation, anarchy are ever yielding place to concord, restoration, peace, prosperity, and then recurring with a mighty flood of violence. Construction, destruction, and reconstruction play their part in crises that have to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... muddy, was a writhing, twisting, tangled mass of snakes of dozens of kinds, though the dirty, sickening-looking, stump-tailed moccasin predominated. There must have been thousands of serpents in the mass which covered a space twenty by thirty feet, from which came the sibilant hiss of puff adders, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... sprung; A mushroom in a bed of dung; A maggot in a cake of fat, The offspring of a beggar's brat. As eels delight to creep in mud, To eels we may compare his blood; His blood in mud delights to run; Witness his lazy, lousy son! Puff'd up with pride and insolence, Without a grain of common sense, See with what consequence he stalks, With what pomposity he talks; See how the gaping crowd admire The stupid blockhead and the liar. ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... the performance of which was accompanied by many curious gestures. Men and women danced indiscriminately. They were all dressed in the gayest manner imaginable. Each had, in his hand, a small skin of some kind of animal. They frequently ran up, pointed their skin, and gave a puff with their breath; on which the person blown at fell, and either appeared lifeless, or in great agony; but afterwards slowly recovered, rose, and joined in the dance. This was understood to be of a religious description; and the ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... Great Britain, he no sooner saw an armed vessel approaching, than he put his vessel in trim for action, and sent the crew to the guns. Nearer and nearer came the great English man-o'-war; and, as she came within range, a puff of smoke burst from her bow-port, and a ball skipped along the water before Perry's unarmed convoy, conveying a forcible invitation to heave to. Perry at once made signal to his convoy to pay no regard to the Englishman; and, setting the American ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the bottom he made a clutch— A heart or a puff-ball of sin? Eaten with moths, and fretted with rust, He grasped but a handful of dry-rotted dust: It was a horrible thing to touch, But he ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... There came a puff of smoke from the palisades at Jamestown, a heavy report of a cannon, and an iron ball ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... very sultry when we left Quebec, but about noon we struck much clearer and cooler air, and soon after ran into an immense wave or puff of fog that came drifting up the river and set all the fog-guns booming along shore. We were soon through it into clear, crisp space, with room enough for any eye to range in. On the south the shores of ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... other men were less apathetic, and had followed the brave man to the door. He had disappeared already, and as they came up a tremendous puff of smoke and ashes was blown into their faces, stifling and burning them, so ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... breeze in less than two hours," said he. "You've plenty of time, but if you're not back before the first puff, I'll sail without you, as sure as you're born." North assured him of his punctuality. "Don't wait for me, Captain, if I'm not here," said he with the lightness of tone which men use to mask anxiety. "I'd take him at his word, Blunt," ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... and the Magister, whom we were to meet again a week or two later, we hurried on board, and found to our joy that the unsteady Finlanders were not allowed to follow us. With a puff and a whistle the steamer left such undesirable passengers behind, and the last we saw of them was fighting and struggling with one another, each man apparently imagining, in his muddled imbecility, that his own ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... 'twould get out and I knew he'd never stand for me coming out to help. That's why I sent you no word," said Uncle Denny, beginning to puff up the ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... he used to wait on himself by going round the room on his hands ... like that. Lily was given, for nothing, a performance which was worth a whole music-hall program. To put everybody at their ease, Lily told them to smoke, took a puff or two at ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... shadows; would thicken and spread out; would draw together and rise in an irregular spiral column, curling, swaying, poising, as if uncertain what to do next; and at last, all at once making up its mind, (how like a younker or a prodigal!), would go sailing away, straggling away, amorphous, on a puff of wind, leaving the hillside clear again;—till, presently, the process would recommence ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... almost over. In the afternoon the French Canadians went to sleep. Benjamin intended to row down the shore for salt. He stood by his dory, ready to start, but he seemed to be waiting for something. At last it came: a faint train whistle blew, a puff of white smoke floated across a distant ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the country by the country (the people who deal with its soil, who live separate upon its separate farms) visited each other upon horses; and horses, unlike railway trains, cannot climb hills. They puff, they heave, they snort, as do railway trains, but they climb ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... maintain its screens or overcome by the awful forces playing upon it, flared from white into and through the violet and was hurled upward as though shot from the mouth of some Brobdingnagian howitzer. A door opened, and from its flaming interior four figures leaped out into the air, followed by a puff of orange-colored smoke. At the first sign of trouble, the ship next it in line leaped in front of it and the four figures floated gently to the ground, supported by friendly attractors and protected from enemy rays by the bulk and by the screens of the rescuing vessel. Two great airships ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... voice. "It is fortunate for us all that it is so. This is my observation window, Dr. Petrie, and you are about to enjoy an unique opportunity of studying fungology. I have already drawn your attention to the anaesthetic properties of the lycoperdon, or common puff-ball. You may have recognized the fumes? The chamber into which you rashly precipitated yourselves was charged with them. By a process of my own I have greatly enhanced the value of the puff-ball in this respect. Your friend, Mr. Weymouth, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... Puff Paste Common Paste Mince Pies Plum Pudding Lemon Pudding Orange Pudding Cocoa Nut Pudding Almond Pudding A Cheesecake Sweet Potato Pudding Pumpkin Pudding Gooseberry Pudding Baked Apple Pudding Fruit Pies Oyster Pie Beef Steak Pie Indian Pudding Batter Pudding ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... another one. No, Sir, Old Mr. Toad couldn't have swallowed another ant if he had tried. Of course they made his stomach stick out, but it wasn't the ants that puffed him out all over. Oh, my, no! It was pride. That's what it was—pride. You know nothing can puff any one up quite ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... Semyonitch's again. In her absence I begged her forgiveness, fell on my knees before her, assured her of my profound repentance—and once, when I met a girl in the street slightly resembling her, I took to my heels without looking back, and only breathed freely in a cook-shop after the fifth jam-puff. The word 'to-morrow' was invented for irresolute people, and for children; like a baby, I lulled myself with that magic word. 'To-morrow I will go to her, whatever happens,' I said to myself, and ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... exclaimed Orton excitedly. "Say, fellows, clear off these desks. Quick, before she gets up here. In the closet with these blueprints, Walter. There, that's a little better. If I had known she was coming I would at least have had the place swept out. Puff! look at the dust on this desk of mine. Well, there's no help for it. There they are at the door now. Why, ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... themselves in the snow-capped hills. Here and there the bogland showed a darker tint, and at his feet, cupped out in the smooth greystone, lay a sheet of water. It was dark and evil-looking, and every now and then a puff of wind eddied down from the hills and ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... wouldn't be so inconsistent, letting boys go to destruction and then expecting us girls to receive them like decent people." Rose spoke in an energetic whisper, but Annabel heard her and exclaimed, as she turned round with a powder puff in her hand: "My goodness, Rose! What is all that ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... full of an unconscious realism, as though she were looking in the face one of life's sordid facts, and making the best of it. In youth her cheeks had been of cream and roses, but they were mottled now by middle-age, and again that hard, ugly directness came into her eyes as she dabbed a powder-puff across her forehead. Putting the puff down, she stood quite still before the glass, arranging a smile over her high, important nose, her, chin, (never large, and now growing smaller with the increase of her neck), her thin-lipped, down-drooping mouth. Quickly, not to lose the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... minded so much if he'd really done it—the smoke out of his ears, I mean; but not one teeniest little puff came. I watched so ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... to that it seemed a very probable contingency, and she was beginning to weary of plodding over the boggy land, alternately slapped by outstanding branches or—when a little puff of wind raced overhead—drenched by a shower of garnered raindrops from some tree which seemed to shake itself in the breeze just as a dog may shake himself after a plunge in the sea, and with apparently the same intention ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... Kioto a great physician, called Imaoji—I forget his other name: he was a very famous man. Once upon a time, a man from a place called Kuramaguchi advertised for sale a medicine which he had compounded against the cholera, and got Imaoji to write a puff for him. Imaoji, instead of calling the medicine in the puff a specific against the cholera, misspelt the word cholera so as to make it simpler. When the man who had employed him went and taxed him with this, and asked him why he had done so, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... pushed the cribs and cots all together into a "special" with observation-cars; then, changing into an engineer, and with a call to Toby to jump aboard, she swung herself into the caboose-rocker and opened the throttle. The bell rang; the whistle tooted; and the engine gave a final snort and puff, bounding away ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... spring, and he leaned forward a little. Yet this meant nothing. Any good man on guard would be attentive to every sound of the forest, whether the light noise made by a squirrel, as he scampered along the bark of a tree, or a stray puff of wind rustling ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... follows the tumbler, and when receding the tumbler follows the shadow; and as the tumbler is moved around the light, the shadow will swing round from one side to the other. If the tumbler be held so that a puff of smoke can be blown into the transmitted rays, the particles of smoke will reflect the transmitted light, and will illustrate my idea of what constitutes a comet's tail. A dark band may be observed in this stream of light, as also in the light ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... to spin, Stevie," came thoughtfully from Royce with a great puff of smoke. "You better listen in on ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... that they adopt no standard of action for their government; but allow themselves to float along the current of time like a mere straw on the surface of the waters, liable to be veered about by every puff of wind and whirling eddy! If the current in which they float happens to waft them into the smooth waters, and the calm sunshine of virtue and respectability, it is a matter of mere fortunate chance. If they are drawn into the dark stream ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... of young lollypop when he have got his mouth fixed on a nice old-fashioned pound-cake woman," he added in a ruthful tone of voice as he and Rose Mary both laughed over the trying plight in which he found his misguided love affairs. "There comes that curly apple puff now. Howdy, Louisa Helen; come across the plank and I'll give you this ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... den up there, with book-shelves set into the logs, two deep bunks, a few bright rugs on the rough floor, some soft, ponderous leather chairs and a crackling little stove on which we cooked delicious suppers. Later out on the narrow porch we would puff lazy smoke wreaths and watch the vast valley of lights below, from the distant twinkling arch of the Bridge to the sparkling towers of old Coney. Down there like swarms of fire-flies were countless darting skurrying lights, ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... spear. I turned my head aside and felt sick as death. I could not bear to see him stab her. Glancing up again, to my surprise I saw the Masai's spear lying on the ground, while the man himself was staggering about with both hands to his head. Suddenly I saw a puff of smoke proceeding apparently from Flossie, and the man fell down headlong. Then I remembered the Derringer pistol she carried, and saw that she had fired both barrels of it at him, thereby saving her life. ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste, &c. &c. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... discussed the matter afterward, "if that young puff-ball rolls himself over here, you can have the pleasure of entertaining him. I'm quite ready to admit that another season of his ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... that," said Archie; "she always scares the wind into coming up immediately. There's a puff now. The very mention of Cricket's ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... Knox's visitors desired him to praise God for the good he had done. He answered, "Flesh of itself is too proud, and needs nothing to puff it up," and protested that he only laid claim to the free mercy of God in Christ among others. To the earl of Morton (who was then about to receive the regency, the earl of Moray being dead) he was heard to say, "My lord, God hath given you many blessings; he hath given you ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... the lads over the age limit bought and owned the cigarettes, and with fine capitalist instinct let them out to the youngsters at a farthing the puff. Albert when under age had instituted the puff, and when over it had organized the tariff. By the puff-a-farthing method the cigarettes could not be confiscated, for they belonged only to those who had a prescriptive right to ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... hast made his mouth Avid of all dominion and all mightiness, All sorrow, all delight, all topless grandeurs, All beauty, and all starry majesties, And dim transtellar things;—even that it may, Filled in the ending with a puff of dust, Confess—"It ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... with respectability, or with the opinion of the world; and, in the end—oh!—fall with tears; or—oh!—begin to brave it; or, which is still more frequent, the implacable fate cuts short her or his life at the most—oh!—necessary moment, when it only lacks a light puff of wind for the ripened fruit to fall. And yet all of his personages still thirst after this shameful love; weep radiantly and laugh joyously from it; and it shuts out all the world for them. But since boys think entirely differently than we grown-ups, and since everything that ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... desperate and reckless with rage, they suddenly, as though moved by a common impulse, rushed forward and rained stones and missiles of every kind on the soldiers. Seeing that their object was to seize the guns and turn them on the troops, the word to fire was given. The next moment a puff of smoke rolled out, followed with a report that shook the buildings. As the murderous shot tore through the crowded mass, they stopped, and swayed heavily back for a moment, when the pieces were quickly reloaded, and again sent their deadly contents into their midst, strewing the pavements with ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... could not but rejoice that the purring monster could tell no tales. How disconcerting it would be should the scarlet devil suddenly shout aloud: "Well, Steve, don't you hope we do not get stalled to-day the way we did going to Torrington?" Mercifully there was no danger of that. The engine might puff and purr and snort but at least it could not talk, and his secret was quite safe. This reflection lighted his face with courage and when the family came out to join him no one would have suspected that the slender boy waiting on the doorstep harbored a thought of ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... almost anywhere, and at any season of the year. They are all minute and exist in countless numbers, and their devices for securing wide dispersion are so various as to entitle them to first rank in this respect. Some send off spores with a sharp puff, as if shot from a little gun. Some of these spores float on water, and some are sticky and thus gain free rides. It is not at all improbable that some are carried by the winds across oceans ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... blew the muslin curtains softly across his face. It had driven Miss Eunice and Macklin from the porch. Alec could hear their voices in the sitting-room. Suddenly another puff of wind blew the hall door shut, and ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a lot of battles there were! Austerlitz, where the army maneuvered as if on parade; Eylau, where the Russians were drowned in a lake as if Napoleon had blown them in with a single puff; Wagram, where we fought three days without flinching. In short, there were as many battles as there are saints in the calendar. And it was proved then that Napoleon had in his scabbard the real sword of God. He felt regard for ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... soft black masses rising here and there out of the white mist, which seemed to have crept up to within a few yards all round him unawares. There was no sound now but the gentle murmur of the water and an occasional rustle of reeds, or of the leaves over his head, as a stray wandering puff of air passed through them on its way home to bed. Nothing to listen to and nothing to look at; for the moon had not risen, and the light mist hid everything except a star or two right up above him. So, the outside world ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... horrible grinding, crashing, and splintering, a mad surging of brown waters, and then the little showboat passed beneath the monster that had crushed out its life. It was gone as utterly as the flame of a candle is extinguished by a puff of wind, and the great river was its grave, as it has been of thousands of other craft, and will ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... a sly pinch to make her move to a more tolerable distance, shall the teacher utter his rebuke in tones which might possibly be appropriate if a murder was about being committed? I have known a schoolmaster "fire up" like a steam-engine, and puff and whiz at the occurrence of some such peccadilloes, and the consequence was that the whole school was soon at a stand-still as to study, and the askance looks and suppressed titter of the little flock told you that the teacher had made no capital that time. I have seen essentially ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... "Hatty" which plied between Jacksonville and Enterprise was late, and the people who had come down from the Brock House to the landing had waited half an hour before a puff of smoke in the distance told that she was coming. There had been many conjectures as to the cause of the delay, for she was usually on time, and those who had friends on the boat were growing nervous, fearing an accident, and all were getting tired, when she appeared in the distance, ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... confirmation of health; nor now, that by thy mercy I am brought to see that thy correction hath wrought medicinally upon me, presume I upon that spiritual strength I have; but as I acknowledge that my bodily strength is subject to every puff of wind, so is my spiritual strength to every blast of vanity. Keep me therefore still, O my gracious God, in such a proportion of both strengths, as I may still have something to thank thee for, which I have received, and still something ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... artistic parodies were unknown. Bon Gaultier's verses are not as a rule much more than rough-and-ready imitations; and, like so much of the humour of their day, and of Scotch humour in particular, they generally depend for their point upon drinking and drunkenness. Some of the different forms of the Puff Poetical are amusing, especially the advertisement of Doudney Brothers' Waistcoats, and the Puff Direct in which Parr's Life-pills are glorified after the manner of a German ballad. The Laureate is a fair hit at ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... by the heat, G. W. reached the summit, only to sink down at once in the tangle of bushes and pant and puff. But after a while he revived; and then peering through the undergrowth he gazed down upon the plain below that stretched beyond ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... conundrum quaint. But I, whom griping Penury surrounds, And Hunger, sure attendant upon Want, With scanty offals, and small acid tiff, (Wretched repast!) my meagre corpse sustain: Then solitary walk, or doze at home In garret vile, and with a warming puff Regale chilled fingers; or from tube as black As winter-chimney, or well-polished jet, Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent! Not blacker tube, nor of a shorter size, Smokes Cambro-Briton (versed ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... denial, neither bowed his head. Already while they spoke his thoughts had gone Far from his eagle, leaving it for a sign Loyally wrought of one deep breath of life, And played about the image of a toad That crawled among his ivy leaves. A queer Puff-bellied toad, with eyes that always stared Sidelong at heaven and saw no heaven there, Weak-hammed, and with a throttle somehow twisted Beyond full wholesome draughts of air, and skin Of wrinkled lips, the only zest or will The little flashing tongue searching the leaves. And king and priest, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... but she was tireless, and must needs start out to sit hens soon after the Andersons were laid low. Now, of all unreasoning, stupid, obstinate, contrary beasts, a sitting hen is well qualified to carry off the first prize. Nannie had been told that when a hen began to puff up her feathers until she was swollen to about three times her natural size, and make a noise that sounded as if she had tried to say something and the word caught on a hook in her throat, she was ready to sit. Having three feathered ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... and the light puff of smoke from each rifle rose at once into the air, giving Charlie a fine view of the field; and the simultaneous springing up of so many astonished savages, their queer grimaces, and the grotesque manner in which they scrambled out of range, struck the lad as irresistibly ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... "They puff and blow like boasters braggin' that they extract from the ocean the means to make it help to subdue itself. It is a war in the elements, fire and water contendin' for victory. They are black, dingy, forbiddin' looking sea monsters. It ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... after the insertion of the items, and not unfrequently spent the night in the printing-office to make sure that their contributions were not omitted; sometimes putting in a long article, obtained heaven knows how, sometimes a few lines of a puff. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... full pitch, and the finger on the trigger ready for any emergency. We had thus advanced for about half an hour, during which I frequently applied my nose to within a foot of the ground to catch the scent, when a sudden puff of wind brought the unmistakeable smell of decomposing flesh. For the moment I halted, and, looking round to my men, I made a sign that we were near to the carcase, and that they were to be ready with the rifles. Again I crept gently forward, bending, and sometimes crawling, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... off to attend to the needs of such Turkish reinforcements as were to be found. We had not long to wait before an enemy aeroplane arrived and, locating us at once, dropped a smoke bomb. Hardly had the little puff dispersed when the first shell arrived with a hideous, screaming whine, and exploded with a shattering roar on the hillside some hundred and fifty yards in our rear. It was followed instantly by another which burst a similar distance in front—a perfect bracket, and ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... 16th of July, when all was still and quiet in camp, a puff of blue smoke from a hill about three miles off, followed by the roar of a cannon, the hissing noise of a shell overhead, its loud report, was the first intimation the troops had that the enemy had commenced the advance, it is needless ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... said a rather rollicking voice, with a rank puff and a shower of sparks, as the cautious steps ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... lodge, the whole family arose and went about the affairs of the day as though they had been slumbering only for a single night. The rest of the Old Spirit seemed to have done him much good, for he was very cheerful; and, first putting his head forth from the window for a puff at a sand-hill, which was his prime luxury in a morning, he said to Wassamo, "Son-in-law, you have been very patient with our long absence from your company, and you shall be rewarded. In a few days you may start with your wife to visit your relations. ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... waves on the right bank of the Rhine will be the signal of explosion. I say more; that if the effect is to be permanent, pure, or beneficial, it will not be the result of the tricolor. The French conquests have always been brilliant, but it was the brilliancy of a soap-bubble. A puff of the weakest lips that ever breathed from a throne, has always been enough to make the nation conquerors; but the hues of glory no sooner began to colour the thin fabric, than it burst before the eye, and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... matter?" cried Dick. His voice quavered a little, but he tried to speak boldly. Pussy was displeased at the question. She hissed, put up her back, swelled her tail to a puff, and fled to a distant part of the roof, where, from some hidden ambush, Dick ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... will not make pretense to pant And puff as some light-footed messenger. In sooth my soul beneath its pack of thought Made many a halt and turned and turned again; For conscience plied her spur and curb by turns. "Why hurry headlong to thy fate, poor fool?" ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... uttered in the ears of the Arcadians were sufficient to puff them up with pride. They were lavish in their love of Lycomedes, and thought there was no one his equal. He became their hero; he had only to give his orders, and they appointed their magistrates (23) at his bidding. But, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... he spread the golden net upon the ground, and into it he threw a few grains of credulity, which his father had left him, and which he kept in his breast-pocket. They were like white puff-balls, and when you trod on them a brown dust flew out. Then he sat by to see what would happen. The first that came into the net was a snow-white bird, with dove's eyes, and he sang a beautiful song—'A human-God! a human-God! ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... The wind was a trifle light for sailing, so the gentlemen pulled, but very lazily and not at all in good "form," as the object of each oarsman seemed to be to do as little work as possible. However, we got on somehow, a light puff helping us now and then, but our progress was hardly perceptible. I had been for a long time gazing down into the clear blue depth of water, every now and then seeing a flash of the white sand shining at the bottom, when I ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... examples of the ingenuity of children. In Mrs. Bergen's (400) list of popular American plant-names are included some which come from this source, for example: "frog-plant (Sedum Telephium)," from the children's custom of "blowing up a leaf so as to make the epidermis puff up like a frog"; "drunkards (Gaulteria procumbens)," because "believed by children to intoxicate"; "bread-and-butter (Smilax rotundifolia)," because "the young leaves are eaten by children"; "velvets (Viola pedata)," a corruption of the "velvet ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... cooked rice for the men, while hollow bamboos were used equally to bring water from below, to hold sheaves of chopsticks where the traveller helped himself, and to receive the cash. Trade was busy. Muleteers are glad to rest here after the climb, if only to enjoy a puff of tobacco from the bamboo-pipe which is always carried by one member of the party for the ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... ballast for the road bed. I looked anxiously for the passenger. Seconds dragged like hours. Would she never come? There was a curve not far from the station, and the passenger could not be seen until it almost reached it. I listened. I could hear the low tremulous noise of the rails, a puff of black smoke went up from behind the curve—at last it was in view, engine No. 8. On seeing me the engineer came to a sudden stop. I hurriedly told him what to do. He was to back onto the siding and let me pass, then pull out and follow me back to Pampa de Avieras, where I told him the government ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... beaches, certainly, there were tents and stores and men moving. But the rolling countryside beyond seemed bleak and deserted. Only occasionally a high-explosive shell threw up a spout of brown earth, or a burst of shrapnel sent a puff of white smoke to float like a Cupid's cloud along the sky. And yet two armies were hidden here, with their rifles, machine-guns, and artillery pointed at ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Gradually I came to know that my grandmother—dead so long ago that I laughed at the idea—was in the room. She stood beside her old-fashioned spinning-wheel, and quite near me. She wore a plain muslin cap with a high puff in the crown, a short woolen gown, a white and blue checked apron, and shoes with heels. She did not regard me, but stood facing the wheel, with the left hand near the spindle, holding lightly between the thumb and forefinger ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... you never given it a serious thought, dear? To begin with, you are fifty years old. Then you have just the sort of face to put on a fruit stall; if the woman tried to sell you for a pumpkin, no one would contradict her. You puff and blow like a seal when you come upstairs; your paunch rises and falls like the diamond on a woman's forehead! It is pretty plain that you served in the dragoons; you are a very ugly-looking old man. Fiddle-de-dee. If you have any mind to keep my respect, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... in fine fettle. How they skimmed across the snow, raising it in little puff-puff-puffs, each time their nimble feet went down. This way and that, swerving and dodging, went the chase. Everything favored the Dog,—his empty stomach, the cold weather, the soft snow,—while ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... by comparison with the most unsteady elements of the physical world. We say "Fashion that fluctuating lady," alluding to the ebbing and flowing of the tide—and "Fashion that weathercock," implying that she veers about with every puff of wind. There are some few cases, however, on the other hand, in which she may be compared to a rock, because she stands immovably fixt to her seat; supplying, according to the idea of the philosopher ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... that quiet corner of the garden, near the hedge, and the cherry tree was in bloom and showered its delicate blossoms down upon them with every puff of air that stirred the branches; while, in the hedge nearby, a little brown bird was putting the finishing touch to a new nest. The boy's shepherd dog, who sat up when you told him, was the minister; and all the dollies ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... the east could be seen a great number of sailing-boats and steamers. Just at seven o'clock a great puff of white smoke broke out from the black side of the Invincible, which was carrying the admiral's flag, and even before the sound reached the ears of the little party on the hill similar bursts of smoke spurted ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... and the author of this pamphlet believes his reputation will warrant the assertion and belief, that he could not be hired to puff an unworthy article, or write a book to induce American farmers, to purchase an article which would not prove highly beneficial ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... New Englanders had "Apple, Pear and Quince Tarts instead of their former Pumpkin Pies." They had besides apple-tarts, apple mose, apple slump, mess apple-pies, buttered apple-pies, apple crowdy and puff apple-pies—all differing. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... you! Give me six months, then go, see 345 Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! Bless the nuns! They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint God in the midst, Madonna and her babe, Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood, Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 350 As puff on puff of grated orris-root When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer. And then i' the front, of course a saint or two— Saint John, because he saves the Florentines, Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white 355 The convent's friends and gives them a long day, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... answered his innumerable questions and he found the chuckling laugh irresistibly infectious. The stranger's brown hands moved with steady skill among the horde of crawling insects, until the last frame was set in place, the last puff of smoke blown, and ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... vigorous puff and pull, the brother and sister, for such they were, seemed to be fastening something to their feet—not skates, certainly, but clumsy pieces of wood narrowed and smoothed at their lower edge, and pierced with holes, through which ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... came to us in flaws from every point of the compass, we did not come to an anchor until nearly midnight. We had a boat ahead all the time that we were working in, and those aboard were continually bracing the yards about for every puff that struck us, until about 12 o'clock, when we came-to in 40 fathoms water, and our anchor struck bottom for the first time since we left Boston—one hundred and three days. We were then divided into three watches, and thus stood out the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... shone hot in that pocket; the arid slopes reflected the glare; heat waves lifted; the snow-peak was shut out, and when a puff of wind found the gap it was a breath from the desert. Miss Armitage, who had trailed pluckily after Tisdale through the sage-brush and up the steep face of the bench, rested on the level, while he hurried on to find the easiest route to the high plateau and the spring. He had left ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... boss swallowed quite a little smoke, but recovered and passed over his cigar. Tim took his light from it, said "Thanks!" briefly, and—puff-puff—contemplated the boss's stout henchman in the rusty clothes, who was still standing irresolutely ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... condition of supine inaction and ignorance and to have taken their share in the intellectual labours and stern activities of their race, Greece would never have fallen, as she fell at the end of the fourth century, instantaneously and completely, as a rotten puff-ball falls in at the touch of a healthy finger; first, before the briberies of Philip, and then yet more completely before the arms of his yet more warlike son, who was also the son of the fierce, virile, and indomitable Olympia. (Like almost all men remarkable for either good or evil, Alexander ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... thinking power!" He caught his wife's arm. "See! see, Sidonie, my dear! See her enhancing in magnitude so fastly approaching!" As he spoke a puff of white vapor lifted from the object and spread out against the blue, the sunbeams turned it to silver and pearl, and a moment later came the far-away, long, wild scream of ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... and enterprising citizens, and when a fellow came to town to buy a side of bacon or a sack of flour on time he was alluded to as being on a business trip; and when nothing else good could be said of a fellow, we would puff him on his enthusiastic and steadfast Democracy. The way to run a county paper is to brag on all the people all the time and keep a good list of subscribers, and the patent medicine fellows will pay the running expense. So one winter, as I was ranging around ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... It may, indeed, be said that all such ideas were to him absurd, and the fact that they should be held by his friends and supporters was an inconvenience. He was not in accord with those who declare that a Parliament is a collection of windbags which puff, and blow, and crack to the annoyance of honest men. But to him Parliament was a debating place, by having a majority in which, and by no other means, he,—or another,—might become the great man of the day. By no other than parliamentary means could such a ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... you here, sir," the captain was proceeding, leisurely emphasizing each word with a puff of tobacco smoke. ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... tell you," replied the Prefect, as he gave a long, steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. "I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold, were it known that ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... body to this point; but had she intended this end? Or was some part of it an accident? Had she meant to take him with her? Had she meant to stay behind herself? No word came from these dead to answer us. But as we stood speaking there, a giant puff of breath rose up to us between the ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... conumdrum quaint; But I, whom griping penury surrounds, And hunger sure attendant upon want, With scanty offals, and small acid tiff (Wretched repast!) my meagre corps sustain: Then solitary walk or doze at home In garret vile, and with a warming puff. Regale chilled fingers, or from tube as black As winter chimney, or well polished ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... confoundedly sick If they were not his own by finessing and trick; He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back. Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind: If dunces applauded, he paid them ...
— English Satires • Various
... blew round the children's faces, and every fresh puff brought a waft of fragrance from the fir trees. Clara drew it in with delight and lay back in her chair with an unaccustomed feeling ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... and summer: jet black with ashy-white rump and shoulders; some light edgings on the back, wings, and tail-feathers, and a buff patch on the back of the neck, like a cream-puff baked just right. ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... of its nest. Last spring I chanced to be sitting near a tree in which a wood thrush had concluded to build. She came with a piece of paper nearly as large as my hand, placed it upon the branch, stood upon it a moment, and then flew down to the ground. A little puff of wind caused the paper to leave the branch a moment afterward. The thrush watched it eddy slowly down to the ground, when she seized it and carried it back. She placed it in position as before, stood upon it again for a moment, and then ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... my wife a bit at times, And is too deep just now in the old book; But do not blame her greatly; she will grow As quiet as a puff-ball in a tree When but the moons of marriage dawn and die For ...
— The Land Of Heart's Desire (Little Blue Book#335) • W.B. Yeats
... he says that Ladysmith was in far worse case than Mafeking when relieved. The latter could have held out months longer, he thinks, and they all looked well. In Ladysmith you could have blown any of them over with a puff of air, and the defence ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... During the three days we had now been among the reefs and islands, we had only seen a single small canoe, which had approached pretty near to us, and then, notwithstanding our signals, went off in another direction. The shores seemed all desert; not a house, or boat, or human being, or a puff of smoke was to be seen; and as we could only go on the course that the ever-changing wind would allow us (our hands being too few to row any distance), our prospects of getting to our destination seemed rather remote and ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... cried: 'Pity, pity for the children! They are innocent!' as she dropped on her knees and stretched out her hands in supplication to us. The short-haired girl laughed out of impudent eyes and blew a puff of smoke into my face. I was forced ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... really was a whale, and a big one too, became very apparent three minutes later, for it thrust a great blunt nose, like the end of a large boat, out of the water, and gave a prolonged puff. A few minutes later, and the nose appeared close off the starboard bow, then it came up not far from the larboard quarter; so they were convinced that the creature was taking a survey of the yacht. Perhaps it took it for another whale, and felt ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... divinity student mind in him to read that letter, to understand it, and to translate it. Beattie had an excellent intellect, and his excellent intellect had not been laid out at college on those windy fields that so puff up a beginner in knowledge and in life; his whole mind had been given up already to those terrible problems of the soul that both humble and exalt the man who spends his life among them. Beattie's future congregation will not vaunt themselves about their minister's ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... might be drawn from these archives of political lying, during their flourishing era. We might discover principles among them which would have humbled the genius of Machiavel himself, and even have taught Mr. Sheridan's more popular scribe, Mr. Puff, a ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... who made so light of boyish expectations would knock the logs together and take a puff or two at his pipe before coming to the climax of his remarks, which varied according to the lesson he wished ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... "Chug! chug! Puff! puff!" sounded the returning launch. Dick glanced apprehensively at Dr. Bentley and the ladies. Did the coming of the launch mean that it was about time for the pleasant evening ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... until such time as she could think of him, without effort, from a point of view that in no way lowered her self-esteem. She had been artificial in her strivings after sincerity; now, for the last time, she was real in her acceptance of unreality. Lightly dabbing her eyelids with a pocket powder-puff, she went ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... be supposed, caused consternation for a moment among the advancing Sioux. The warrior immediately behind the leader stopped his pony abruptly, stared at the tuft of grass above which the faint puff of smoke was curling; and then, fearful of a second shot aimed at himself, whirled his animal about and sent him at one bound up the bank of the stream, where his companions, no less dismayed than he, threw themselves forward on the backs ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... with Punch," "in distinct terms that none but themselves can write a pantomime, and modestly entitled the one they did write 'Punch's Pantomime' ... which they laboured so lustily, but so vainly, to puff into notoriety." It was written in 1842, by Lemon, Jerrold, and Henry Mayhew; but when it was read by the first-named to the Covent Garden Company, by whom it was produced, it was found to contain a great deal of wit, but very little fun. It was extensively amended ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... a blowing out, as of a candle in the wind; a puff—then darkness, without a trace. A sense of your own safety may suggest the method. ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... dragoons mounted the hill, two regiments of cuirassiers on the right, and a regiment of lancers on the left fell on their flanks like lightning, and before they had time to look, they were upon them. We could hear the blows slide over their cuirasses, hear their horses puff, and a hundred paces away we could see the lances rise and fall, the long sabres stretch out, and the men bend down to thrust under; the furious horses, rearing, biting, and neighing frightfully, and then men under the horses' feet were trying to get up, and sheltering ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... sudden amazement, indignation and pride that made lightning in their tender blue. Then,—deliberately choosing a cigarette from the silver box which had been placed on the table before her, she lit it,—and began to puff the smoke from her rosy lips in delicate rings, turning to Lord Roxmouth as she did so with a playful word and smile. It was enough;—the 'lead' was given. A glance of approval went the round of her London lady guests—who, exonerated by her prompt action from all responsibility, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... over-capitalized for the benefit of the promoters—of whom, remember, Alan, you will appear as one. Now time's up. Perhaps you will take my advice, and perhaps you won't, but there it is for what it's worth as that of a man of the world and an old friend of your family. As for your puff article and your prospectus, I wouldn't put them in The Judge if you paid me a thousand pounds, which I daresay your friend, Aylward, would be quite ready to do. Good-bye. Come and see me again sometime, and tell me what has happened—and, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... short time I thought myself in Elysium, and wondered I had never tried them before. Thou fragrant weed! O, that I were a Dutch poet, I exclaimed, that I might render due honor to thy unspeakable virtues! Ineffable tobacco! Every puff seemed like oil poured upon troubled waters, and I felt an inexpressible calmness stealing over my frame; in truth, it seemed like a benevolent spirit reconciling my soul to my body. But moderation, as I have before said, was never one of my virtues. I walked my room, pouring out volumes like ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... pods, which contain the seeds. From the seeds grow long vegetable hairs, which form white locks in the pods. These fibres are the cotton. When the pods become ripe and open, the cotton bursts out and covers them with a puff of ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... real dreams of the nursery at home, and baby there, and little brother, and papa and mamma, and the long time ago, hours and hours ago! when I said good-bye, and Bobbie kissed his hand out of window, and the carriage took me off—a happy little woman, really going in the puff-puff! Oh, how could I ever have felt so happy then and be so miserable now? Had I ever thought that I was coming away from them all, with nobody at all but Jane, the new nursemaid, to take care of me? Had I ever thought how quite alone ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... solitary match; instinctively he flourished this on the leg of his baggy trousers, and applied the flame to the empty briar-root, that protruded on its short stem from his substantial mouth; but after a vain puff or two, he flung it impatiently away and replaced the time worn pipe within the flavored precincts of his ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... thinking about enlarging the work so as to double or treble it? 5. Is not this a delusion of Satan, an attempt to cast me down altogether from my sphere of usefulness, by making me to go beyond my measure? 6. Is it not also, perhaps, a snare to puff me up, in attempting to build a very ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... with the teeth, by the tongue with the teeth or hard-palate, and the root of the tongue with the soft-palate. The interruption may be complete, as in p or t, or only partial, as in th. The sound of the consonant results from the slight explosion or puff which follows the recoil of the movable parts from the ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... There was a minute pink gleam among the dark trees in the distance, and a little puff of pale grey that began to drift and vanish eastward. The man in white jumped and continued running. Presently the ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... purchasers are admirers. Some will buy your book, because they have heard of opinions in it that offend them, and because they want to find matter in it for abusing you. Let them: the more it is discussed, the more strongly Will your fame be established. I commend you for scorning any artifice to puff your book; but you must allow me to hope ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... it was your fault," broke in the commander quickly. "I was giving you a copy of the sailing orders for the day. I wouldn't have bothered you if I had known a puff of wind and a big wave were coming along together, to snatch the wheel out of your grip. But it wasn't your fault. However, no harm is done. You had better get below, Mr. Jepson, and put on some dry clothes. Mr. Lacomb will stand ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... at once, a puff of wind—not a cream puff, you understand, but a wind puff—came in the window, and rolled up the wallpaper in a tight little roll, and the worst of it was that Papa No-Tail was asleep inside. Yes, fast, fast asleep, and he never knew that he was wrapped up, just like ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... up the hollowed mast, the bottom of which is immersed in the water in the boat. There is a small hole in the bottom of the boat through which the water in it leaks away. This lowers the water until it has cleared from the bottom of the mast through which a puff of air goes up into the shell, allowing some of the water in the shell to pour out into the water in the boat. Now the water from the shell pours out in greater volume into the boat than the water that is leaking ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... hands and drew the burning brazier close to his feet; then, suddenly, from a sleeve of his robe he took a little box of the sacred tortoise-shell, pressed his lips to it, opened it, poured its contents upon the flame, leaned over with his face close to the brazier and inhaled the little puff of smoke that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Garden, like every garden, has its charms. I have lounged through it on a summer's day, mixing with pretty women, looking upon choice fruit, smelling delicious roses, with now and then an admixture of sundry disagreeables, such as a vigorous puff out of an ugly old woman's doodeen, just as you are about to make a pretty speech to a much prettier lady—to say nothing of the unpleasant odours arising from heaps of putrescent vegetables, or your hat being suddenly knocked ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... what you're feeling," he said, as Max threw himself back in his chair and inhaled a first deep breath of smoke. "You feel that that little white curl from the end of your cigarette is the last puff of smoke from the boats you have burned; and that, with your own four walls around you, you can snap your fingers at the world. I know! God, ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... But, listen! That puff of the breeze was louder. It had a tone unlike the dreary and sullen one which has bemoaned itself, and afflicted all mankind with miserable sympathy, for five days past. The wind has veered about! It now comes boisterously from the northwest, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... these woods the night before, and have hemmed the enemy in the open beyond. We now knew that the foe was in our immediate front. We marched down the field, the right wing deployed as skirmishers, the left wing in close battalion front following a few rods in its rear. By and by a puff of smoke from the green wall in front of us and a second or two afterwards the crack of a rifle. The fight had begun; another puff, another crack then more and more, multiplying as we approached. The bend in the road is now disclosed, the enemy's skirmishers disappeared from our front to reappear ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... want you, my dear," said I, "to dry my hair." She quickly set to work with powder and powder-puff in hand, but her smock was short and loose at the top, and I repented, rather too late, that I had not given her time to dress. I felt that all was lost, all the more as having to use both her hands she could not hold ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... him as a complete surprise: that morning, as he strolled back to the house with Owen Leath and Miss Viner, he had had a momentary intuition of the truth. But it had been no more than an intuition, the merest faint cloud-puff of surmise; and now it was an attested fact, darkening over ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... But a puff or two on his pipe soothed him, "Red's" bark was always worse than his bite. He was the best-natured chap in the world, and he idolized Gilbert Jones. There was a big packing-case in the middle of the room, and ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... frenzy, and that they would take immediate steps to abate the nuisance in their own simple way. But that, my brothers, is where we are wrong. Where bees are concerned, the 'smoker's' fumes are of a soporific and soothing nature. Indeed, before a puff of its smoke a bee's naughty malice and resentment disappear, and the bee itself sinks, gently humming, into the peaceful, contented slumber of ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... powder, and their eyebrows strongly pencilled, and they each had a yellow orchid in their black hair, and their dresses were of silks of infinite variety of tint—primrose, rose, and delicate white—"soft as puff, and puff, of grated orris root" and they glittered with diamonds and emeralds, and each held a silver bowl marvellously embossed, filled with petals of flowers and gold leaf. Their attitudes were studied to their finger tips, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... little; though very many people do so, themselves prompting and reminding their praisers of others of their own acts and virtues, till by their own praise they spoil the effect of the praise that others give them. For some tickle and puff themselves up by self-praise, while others, malignantly holding out the small bait of eulogy, provoke others to talk about themselves, while others again ask questions and put inquiries, as was done to the soldier in Menander, merely to poke fun ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... I'm off? Danged if I ain't jest about gettin' my hide full uh this here danged fool REELISM you're hollerin' fur all the time. 'F you send me down there to come haulin' that there burro back up here so's the camery kin watch me sweat 'n' puff my danged daylights out—before I git a drink uh water, I'll murder ye in cold ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... seemed the boat to be swept. The island was soon so far off that Robinson could hardly see it, and he was quite exhausted with the hard struggle to paddle the boat against the current. He was in despair, and giving up paddling, left the boat to drift where she would. Just then a faint puff of wind touched his cheek, and Robinson hurriedly hoisted his sail. Soon a good breeze blew, which carried him past a dangerous reef of rocks. Here the current seemed to divide, the part in which he now was began to swing ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... remarkable performances, and made up in vigour for what they perhaps lacked in elegance and finesse. Carter would at times put in an appearance, mostly with a view to leaning up against a type-rack or other suitable article of furniture, and there between one puff and another at his pipe would grumble at the constitution of the universe and the impertinent exactions of landlords. Another Englishman who in the earlier days frequented the Tocsin was a tall, thoughtful man named Wainwright, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... following description: “Grand it was, while dark green alders and pale green reeds stretched for miles . . . where the coot clanked, and the bittern boomed, and the sedgebird, not content with its own sweet song, mocked the notes of all the birds around . . . far off upon the silver mere would rise a puff of smoke from a punt, invisible from its flatness. Then down the wind came the boom of the great stanchion-gun; and after that another sound, louder as it neared; a cry as of all the bells of Cambridge, and ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... which latter case the dynamo would come to a stop. If by any chance the little water wheel was given a chance to maintain itself against the blow for an instant, the dynamo, rated at 50 amperes, would do its best to deliver the 70,515 amperes you called for—and the result would be a puff of smoke, and a ruined dynamo. This is called a "short circuit"—one of the first "don'ts" in ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... of all the employes into animated sign-posts, that waved their arms wildly; the grunt and wheeze from the engine, as if from a giant in pain; the sharp jerk, and then the steady pull at the carriage in which I was sitting; the "pant, pant! puff, puff!" of the iron horse, as he buckled to his work with a will; and then, finally, the preliminary oscillation of the ponderous train, the trembling and rumbling of creaking wheels along the rails—as we glided and bumped, slowly but ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... A sudden puff of wind blew in through the open window, disarranging the grouping of a vaseful of flowers, and Ann crossed the room to rectify the damage. Lady Susan's eyes followed her meditatively. She liked the girl's supple ease of movement, the clean-cut lines of her small, pointed face. There was something ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... point of the ice-axe along behind me in the soft snow, for there was no longer any landmark; all was cloud on every side. Suddenly to my astonishment the ground began to fall away to the north; I stopped; a puff of wind drove off the mists on one side, the opposite side to that by which I had come, and showed the Araxes plain at an abysmal depth below. It ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... silence the people headed back, but even then the first fierce squall struck them, and some of the frail canoes began to fill at once. "I MATAGI! I MATAGI! (head to the wind)" a man called out; "head to the wind, or we perish! 'Tis but a puff and ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... always grand, sad, noble, or emotional? There must be another violent head shaking here. The air from Oberon, Ocean, thou mighty monster, is so grand that scarcely a singer can be found today capable of interpreting it, although many sopranos puff and steam through it, for all the world like pinguid gentlemen climbing the stairs to the towers of Notre Dame. The Fifth Symphony of Beethoven is both grand and noble; probably no one will be found who will deny that it is supermusic, ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... something in the fellow's simile. When an idea gets hold of us in Troy, we puff at it, we blow it out and distend it to a globe, pausing and calling on one another to mark the prismatic tints, the fugitive images, symbols, meanings of the wide world glassed upon our pretty toy. We launch it. We follow it with our eyes as ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... himself, I should have suggested his taking a walk in the opposite direction, returning, say, in half an hour, and pretending to have just arrived. By that time Robina, with the assistance of Janie's brush and comb, and possibly her powder-puff, would have been feeling herself again. He could have listened sympathetically to an account of the affair from Robina herself—her version, in which she would have appeared to advantage. Give her time, and she has a sense of humour. She would have made it bright and whimsical. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... Cole, with many a puff That haloed his urbanity, Would smoke till he had smoked enough, And listen most attentively. He beamed as with an inward light That had the Lord's assurance in it; And once a man was there all night, Expecting ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... tincture of it; and he seemed at last, in his dealings with individuals, to have no conscience. What he called his religion had no effect whatever upon the conduct of his life; it made him go to church, talk piously, puff the clergy, and "patronize Providence,"—no more. He would accept retaining fees, and never look into the bundles of papers which accompanied them, in which were enclosed the hopes and the fortune of anxious households. He would receive ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... honest Hamburgher, who appeared to have an equally beloved wife in every land and in every place we came to; nor the would-be dandy, who lit cigars innumerable, and invariably flung them overboard after the first puff; nor the priests, who seemed to possess the gift of invisibility, so rarely did they show themselves; nor the hundred thousand events and personages that flash upon our path for a moment on our journey through life, and then linger in ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... happen to get five cents more, you'll puff out with pride till you most bust.... Anyway, it won't take much more to buy grub for a kid with an appetite like a bird.... Come on! I'll wheel you to the kitchen so you can have a ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... said, a Mohawk Injun.) A poem's like a cruise for whales: Through untried seas the hunter sails, His prow dividing waters known To the blue iceberg's hulk alone; 160 At last, on farthest edge of day, He marks the smoky puff of spray; Then with bent oars the shallop flies To where the basking quarry lies; Then the excitement of the strife, The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... could move she had caught my two hands in hers, and turned the palms up. Indeed, they were only scorched, not burned deep, though they stung smartly enough; but black they were, and the skin beginning to puff into blisters. But now came the tap of a stick on the stone, and Mme. de Lalange came hobbling out. "What is this?" she cried, seeing me standing so, pale, it may be, with the young lady holding my blackened ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... brief exchange of courtesies, Yavapai Joe had not moved, except to puff at his cigarette; nor had he ceased to regard Patches with a stupid curiosity. As Phil and Patches moved away, he still sat gazing after the stranger, until he was aroused by a sharp word from Nick, as the latter turned his horse toward Tailholt Mountain. ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... worked as though inspired; but to no purpose in the end. For the flames increased. Puff after puff of wind drove the fire on, scattering brands from the blazing pine; and now another, and another, tree caught. The ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... a puff, and she leaped forward, dashing upon the big leg that entered and digging her claws into ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... my idee, now, Master Tongs. A song is a main fine thing, now, to fill up the chinks. First a glass, then a puff or two, and ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... horses, and rode off down the Arkansas Lane, to have a gallop and a peep at the gunboats from the levee. But mother's entreaties prevented us from going that near, as she cried that it was well known they fired at every horse or vehicle they saw in the road, seeing a thousand guerrillas in every puff of dust, and we were sure to be killed, murdered, and all sorts of bloody deaths awaited us; so to satisfy her, we took the road about a mile from the river, in full view, however. We had not gone very far before we ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... years since, is now regarded as an old fogy, because he assumed that the spores of smut travel from the manure and seed of the previous crop in the circulation of the plant to the capsule, and thus convert the grain into a puff-ball, so also the ears of corn, the oats, and rye. This monstrosity on the rye grains is called ergot, or spurred rye, and when it is eaten by chickens or other fowls their feet and legs shrivel or perish with dry gangrene, not because ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... he spoke, there came a little puff of wind, and lo and behold! a nice piece of paper was blown right down out of a tree, where it had been caught on a branch. Right at Uncle Wiggily's side it fell; that ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... absurd story, untrue story, false story, trumped up story, trumped up statement; thing devised by the enemy; canard; shave, sell, hum, traveler;s tale, Canterbury tale, cock and bull story, fairy tale, fake; claptrap. press agent's yarn; puff, puffery (exaggeration) 549. myth, moonshine, bosh, all my eye and Betty Martin, mare's nest, farce. irony; half truth, white lie, pious fraud; mental reservation &c (concealment) 528. pretense, pretext; false plea &c 617; subterfuge, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... fooled me!" hissed Jean, and quickly as he leaped behind the pine he was not quick enough to escape the cunning rustlers who had waylaid him thus. He felt the shock, the bite and burn of lead before he heard a rifle crack. A bullet had ripped through his left forearm. From behind the tree he saw a puff of white smoke along the face of the bluff—the very spot his keen and gloomy vigilance had descried as one of menace. Then several puffs of white smoke and ringing reports betrayed the ambush of the tricksters. Bullets barked the pine and whistled by. Jean saw a man dart from behind a rock ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey |
