"Puff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... movements of his bare feet on the carpet (despite her agony the old impulse started in her to caution him about his slippers). Then followed the brushing of his teeth and the deliberate bathing of his hands. Then was audible the puff of breath with which he blew out his lamp after he had turned it low; and then,—on the other side of the door,—just above her ear ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... from the deck of the Industry. They saw that she was a Spanish privateer; and she hoisted the Spanish flag and kept on. And, pretty soon, she was nearly abreast of the Industry; and she turned a little, and there was a little puff of smoke from her side, and the sound of the report came over the water a ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... 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, ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... of jeer and frown; The more the Philistines assail you, The more the doctors run you down, The more I puff you—and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... of the 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, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... then, drawing three shafts, he shot them off with such speed that the first had not reached the mark ere the last was on the string. Each arrow passed high over the oak; and, of the three, two stuck fair into the stump; while the third, caught in some wandering puff of wind, was driven a foot or two ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... should like to say a few words to those who are wholly ignorant of the devastating power contained in "giant powder"—which is dynamite. If you have never had any experience with the stuff, you are likely to go out with a bang and a puff of bluish-brown smoke when you go. On the other hand, you may believe the weird tales one reads now and then, of how whole mountainsides have been thrown down by the discharge of a few sticks of dynamite. Or of one man striking ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... in the spirit of detraction; for in the paragraph there was nothing of puff, though certainly something of oddity—but as a tint of character, indicative of the appetite for distinction by which, about this period, he became so powerfully incited, that at last it grew into a diseased crave, and to such a degree, that were the figure allowable, it might be said, the mouth ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... hangings parted, and Ribiera came into the room. He smiled nervously, and then, as Bell blew a puff of smoke at him and nodded ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... . . . 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 all the ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... been expecting the Commodore, and was waiting to pay him a dozen satirical compliments on the issue of the engagement. Triumph shone in his eyes. It went out like a candle-flame before a puff of wind. ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... allowed to bring home from the rubbish-heap of his employer's garden. I remember that when he showed them to me, gloating over them, he tried to excuse himself to me for neglecting his potatoes in their favour, and I did my best to encourage him and puff him up with pride. But it was of no use. This summer he is neglecting his roses, and is wondering if his potatoes will be ripe enough for digging before ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... he sat there in the snow, watching the puff of white deepen on the stalk of goldenrod, his god prevailed yet a little more, for, so far as Elizabeth was concerned, he did not try to fool himself: "she doesn't care a damn." But when he said that, he saw the task of his life before him—to make her care! It was like the touch of ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... said Lady Jane, in her very gravest tone, "not to puff up Caroline's imagination with a parcel of romantic notions.—I never yet knew any good done by it. Depend on it you will be disappointed, if you expect a genius to descend from the clouds express for your daughters. Let them do as other people do, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... belt a large pipe, gaudily painted, and from which depended a profusion of wampum, beads, and eagles' feathers. He lighted the pipe, and after taking a whiff, passed it to Ralph, who following his example passed it to me. After taking a puff I handed it to the Indian, who replaced it in his belt. This very important ceremony being finished, the Indian made known his business. After bestowing a thousand anathemas upon his red brethren, he informed us that he had left the red man forever, and was ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... last, taking his pipe from the mantelshelf, "I'll listen. Be so good as to make your story short. I have no time to waste." And then he rammed the tobacco into the bowl with his thumb in a suggestively decisive manner, lighted it, and proceeded to puff at his pipe with a sort of savage vigour. He sent out great clouds of smoke, which speedily filled the air and rendered speaking difficult to Dino, whose lungs had become delicate in consequence of his wound. But Percival ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the most dismal places ever seen by eyes. I see the houses with their roofs of dull black, their stained fronts, and their dark- rimmed windows, looking as if they were all in mourning. As every little puff of wind comes down the street, I see a perfect train of rain let off along the wooden stalls in the market-place and exploded against me. I see a very big gas lamp in the centre which I know, by a secret ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... deserts of the Southwest and the flawless sky of cornflower blue over sage-brush and painted butte; silent forests of the Northwest; golden China dragons of San Francisco; old orchards of New England; the oily Gulf of Mexico where tramp steamers puff down to Rio; a snow-piled cabin among somber pines of northern mountains. Elsewhere, elsewhere, elsewhere, beyond the sky-line, under larger stars, where men ride jesting and women smile. Names alluring to the American he repeated—Shenandoah, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the little terrace on which the house stood, pushed round either corner, rose again and stretched, as it were, yawning beneath the moonlight, joined other sheets waiting for them in unsuspected hollows, and lay out all in one. A puff of wind followed. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... under-cut, so as to give lightness and delicacy to the work. Of course, it is necessary to leave some clay here and there to attach the various forms to the slab. The under-cutting may be carried to such a pitch as to make the design look weak, and as though it would fall to pieces with a puff of wind. When this is the case, I reckon the finishing has been carried too far. Clay should always look strong enough to hold together, and I may say I never thought much of that fancy china one sees which is covered with flowers and foliage modelled ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... 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 were ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... enough for the folks anyway, and it did themselves no good either. The imaginative "Scoops" among the cub reporters and the violently inflamed imaginations and utterances of partisan politicians seeking to puff their political sails with stories of hardships of our men in North Russia, all these and many other very well-meaning people were doing much to aggravate the fears and sufferings of the people at home. Many a doughboy at the front sighed wearily and shook ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... tempered spirits rule; Stars do not trace their mystic lines In my confines; I take a double night within my breast A night of darkened heavens, a night of leaves, And in the two-fold dark I hear the owl Puff at his velvet horn And the wolves howl. Even daylight comes with a touch of gold Not overbold, And shows dwarf-cornel and the twin-flowers, Below the balsam bowers, Their tints enamelled in my dew-drop shield. Too ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... A sudden puff of wind brought the sail around, hiding his fallen countenance. The wind freshened, coming from the bay, and the boat was off like a startled deer. When I next saw him he had recovered his equanimity, and, with a smile upon his rugged features, was waving us ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... is sometimes found within the false nostril, under that part of the skin that is seen to puff or rise and fall when a horse is exerted and breathing hard. These tumors contain matter ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... it's your business to do, Dick," said the Bishop, quietly. "'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you'—what do you think that means? It's your very case. It may be the hardest thing in the world, but it's the simplest, most obvious." He drew a long puff at his cigar, and looked over the flowers to ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... almost ran to the road at the bottom and jumped into a waiting taxi, and once inside she brought out a gold case with mirror and powder puff, and red ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the door and led on till, rounding a corner, a puff of hot air brought a stench which caused Adams ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... it rains, may the lightning strike him! May evil nights be his!" It is believed that in the knot the sorcerer has bound up the life of his enemy. In the Koran there is an allusion to the mischief of "those who puff into the knots," and an Arab commentator on the passage explains that the words refer to women who practise magic by tying knots in cords, and then blowing and spitting upon them. He goes on to relate how, once upon a time, a wicked ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... shells. They came nearer and nearer to the hidden battery and at last he saw one fall plump where it was needed. There was a great puff of smoke, and when it had blown away there was only a hole in the ground where the ruins had ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... of the Rally Hall rooters became still deeper a few minutes later, when a beautiful drop kick of Fred's that was going straight for the goal was blown by a puff of wind just enough to graze the post on ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... according to size. Cooked haricot beans. 1 onion. About one tablespoon of chopped mint or parsley. Puff or ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... mountain; the animals are sometimes entirely hidden behind rocks, as they follow the windings and twistings of the trail down the rugged slope which the old Turk this morning thought would make me puff to climb. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... without an alarm, and then, just as we were passing into another and a wider river, there came from the jungly edge of the left bank a puff of smoke, and ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... Jackson's friend, had a duel with one McNairy, and was severely wounded. Finally, for no sufficient cause which the printed accounts discover, Jackson and Dickinson met in Kentucky, each bent on killing his man. The word being given, Dickinson fired quickly, and with perfect aim; a puff of dust flew up from the breast of Jackson's coat. But he kept his feet, drew his left arm across his breast, slowly raised his pistol, and pulled the trigger. The hammer stopped at the half-cock. He cocked it again, aimed deliberately, fired, and killed his man. ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... booby dense— You oaf immense, With no pretence To common sense! A stupid muff Who's made of stuff Not worth a puff Of candle-snuff! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Can he be angry? I haue seen the Cannon When it hath blowne his Rankes into the Ayre, And like the Diuell from his very Arme Puff't his owne Brother: And is he angry? Something of moment then: I will go meet him, There's matter in't indeed, if ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... to the professor of the science was applied. Every muscle was rubbed, every sinew was soothed. And from time to time, as at touch of the iron muscles and steel sinews the old fellow's ardor increased, he would straighten up and give a loud puff of satisfaction. ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... was due at sundown, and at sundown a puff of dust rose on the track, and as a cry of "Mail oh !" went up all round the homestead, the Fizzer rode ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... that gold now, and say I am a cannibal and negro, if you will. Ha, Baggs! Dost thou wince as thou readest this line? Does guilty conscience throbbing at thy breast tell thee of whom the fable is narrated? Puff out thy wrath, and, when it has ceased to blow, my Baggs shall be to me as the Baggs of old—the generous, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at the mountains for a few minutes, and turned back. Sit-in-the-Sun looked quickly at her, and at the same moment she tore the paper in two and her fingers opened to release one piece of the envelope upon which she had been writing. A puff of wind carried it almost directly in front of the girl. Lane was still yawning sleepily, his gaze directed toward the spot where he presently expected Rosario to step out and call him to breakfast. Melissy dropped her handkerchief, stooped to pick it up, and gathered ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... with a touch, made chickens and ducks hanging there, quite stiff and tasteless; he skipped to the cistern, and magically rendered the pump handle immovable; he ran about the streets and played tricks with the bright gas lamps, and they went out, as though a puff of wind had blown over them. And, last of all, he ran against a stout Burgomaster, returning homeward from a merry supper, and so pinched the end of his red bottle-nose, that ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... habit," said Jenkins, deprecatingly, as he began to puff. "But after a fellow has worked hard on some big deal, and is all strung up, it seems to offer a sort of relaxation. Of course, I think a man ought to smoke in reason. We are coarse brutes at the best—and need all the refining influences ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... Christmas Eve, when Leo knocked at the door of Mrs. Singleton's room. A dispirited expression characterized the countenance usually serene and happy, and between her brows a perpendicular line marked the advent of anxious foreboding. Her hopeful scheme had dissolved, vanished like a puff of steam on icy air, leaving only a teazing memory of mocking failure. Judge Dent's conference with the District Solicitor, had convinced him of the futility of any attempt to secure bail; moreover, a message from the prisoner earnestly exhorted them ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Face opened a humidor and took out a cigar. He lit it slowly and deliberately and looked at me sharply as he blew out the first puff of smoke. ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... indeed," she retorted. "Do you realize, young man, how much I've done the last three days? How about those muffins you had this morning for breakfast, and that cake last night? And didn't you yourself say that you never ate a better pudding than that date puff yesterday noon?" ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... beautiful. Miss Leicester suggested that they should sail a little farther before going in, and so they went as far as the next reach, a mile above the camp, on the accommodating west wind. It was a last puff before sundown, and by the time Harry had anchored the Starlight in deeper water than before, her sail drooped in the ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... open house that day. Before Follet's last smoke-puff had quite slid through the open window, Madame Mauer, who was perpetually in mourning, literally darkened my doorway. Seeing Follet she became nervous—he did affect women, as I have said. What with her squint and her smile, she made a spectacle of herself before she panted out her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sweltering afternoon of little air, and that little as hot and dry in the nostrils as the atmosphere of a laundry on ironing day. Beyond and above the trees a fiery blast blew from the north; but it was seldom a wandering puff stooped to flutter the edges of the tents in the little hollow among the trees. And into this empty basin poured a vertical sun, as if through some giant lens which had burnt a hole in the heart of ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... perfumes as they do silk stockings and violets. It's just "born in 'em," like their deep-rooted horror of mice and bills and burglars. From the time when the baby girl sniffs the sweetness of the powder puff as it fluffs about her soft, pretty neck until the white-haired lady lovingly fondles the lavender sachets that lie between the folds of her time-yellowed wedding gown, she loves ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... told him how he came to be there. 'Very well. That's right. If he should ask for Pancks, will you be so good as to say that Pancks is come in?' And so, with a snort and a puff, he worked out by ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... was intensely still, without a zephyr stirring among the trees, and of that wavering darkness caused by a half-clouded moon. On the black and green water close to the bank rocked a light birch-bark canoe, a ticklish craft, which a puff might overturn. The young man who had urged the necessity for silence was groping round it, fumbling with the sharp bow, in which he fixed a short pole or "jack-staff," with some object—at present no one could discern ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... emerged from the chimney now in a copious puff and then, for a space, would cease, only to roll forth once more in larger volume. The boys watched it ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... worrying me awfully, though, Henry. If poor old Maurice does puff out—I suppose ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... St. Paul says, Romans xii: "We are to be zealous to do good, not only before God, but also before all men." And II. Corinthians iv: "We walk so honestly that no man knows anything against us." But there must be great diligence and care, lest such honor and good name puff up the heart, and the heart find pleasure in them. Here the saying of Solomon holds: "As the fire in the furnace proveth the gold, so man is proved by the mouth of him that praises him." Few and most spiritual men must they be, who, when honored and praised, remain indifferent ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... tea-table had been silently gathering on its snowy plateau the delicate china, the golden butter, the loaf of faultless cake, a plate of crullers or wonders, as a sort of sweet fried cake was commonly called,—tea-rusks, light as a puff, and shining on top with a varnish of egg,—jellies of apple and quince quivering in amber clearness,—whitest and purest honey in the comb,—in short, everything that could go to the getting-up of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... and treated us with princely unconcern to ginger beer and a jam puff apiece. As we sucked our beer through straws, I smiled to think of Mary Ellen, doubtless preparing ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... being able clearly to see in what position the reptile was lying, or which way his head was pointed, I controlled myself, and remained rooted breathless to the spot. Straining my eyes, but moving not an inch, I at length clearly distinguished a huge puff-adder, the most deadly snake in the colony, whose bite would have sent me to the other world in an hour or two. I watched him in silent horror: his head was from me—so much the worse; for this snake, unlike any other, always rises and strikes back. He did not move; he was asleep. Not daring to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... of the marsh a thin puff of vapory smoke drifted across the face of a blackened stump and dissolved in the crisp air, and the sharp crack of a high-power rifle of small caliber raised scarcely an echo against the wall ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... the pleasures and the possessions of this inferior state of existence. They must die to be perfectly blest. This earth will not do for a Christian in the maturity of his character. It is too vile, and too transitory. Its gold is but dust—its applause, a puff of noisy air—its sparkling pleasures, but polluted cisterns—its richest gifts, but bubbles, which, if they reflect the fairest colours of the rainbow, break when they are grasped, or dissolve as we approach them, into mist and nothingness! "Set your affection ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... smoke-puffs was used as a warning signal, its meaning being: Look out, the enemy is near. One smoke-puff was a signal for attention; two puffs indicated that the sender would camp at that place. Three puffs showed that the sender was in danger, ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... was just in time as a rifle cracked in the bushes ahead of them, and Grosvenor distinctly heard the bullet as it hissed over their heads. Willet threw his rifle to his shoulder but quickly took it down again. The Indian who had fired was gone and a little puff of smoke rising above the bushes told where he had been. Then the five crept away toward the right and drew into a slight hollow, rimmed around with bushes, where ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sheets, plumping the new pillows into their cases, laying the soft, gay-bordered blankets and pretty white spreads, till each bed was fair and fit for a good night's sleep. And then at the foot of each was plumped, in a puff of beauty, the bright satin eiderdowns that Leslie had insisted upon. Rose-color for Julia Cloud's, robin's-egg blue for Leslie's, and orange and brown for Allison's, who had insisted upon mahogany and quiet colors for his room. Leslie's furniture was ivory-white, and Julia Cloud's room ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... ever-freshening breeze of wind that soon began to puff and gust. The cloud stuff flying across the sky foretold us of a gale. By midday Arnold Bentham fainted at the steering, and, ere the boat could broach in the tidy sea already running, Captain Nicholl and I were at the steering sweep with all the four of our weak hands ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... follow blindly our own appetites, and do just what we like, as brute beasts which have no understanding. And our flesh is to be subdued to our spirit for a certain purpose; not because our flesh is bad, and our spirit good; not in order that we may puff ourselves up and admire ourselves, and say, as the philosophers among the heathen used, "What a strong-minded, sober, self-restraining man I am! How fine it is to be able to look down on my neighbours, who cannot help being fond of enjoying ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... '85. DEAR CHARLEY,—The Committee of the Public Library of Concord, Mass, have given us a rattling tip-top puff which will go into every paper in the country. They have expelled Huck from their library as "trash and suitable only for the slums." That will sell 25,000 copies for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from Bud to Debutante to Ingenue to Fawn to Broiler to Kiddykadee back in 1880, he was a famous Beau with skin- tight Trousers, a white Puff Tie run through a Gold Ring and a Hat lined with Puff Satin, the same as ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... east side were there pits less than three hundred yards from the mesa, but here there was a dismal flat beyond the creek, affording a minimum of cover, and hardly a bullet whistled in from any direction so as to reach the quarters. Once in a while a little puff of dust flew up from the sandy slope without, but even that was enough to demand that the women folk should keep under shelter, and at the moment the firing began Lilian and her mother were seated by Willett's reclining chair, and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... that was playing truant round the steps did Ben a service without knowing it, for a sudden puff blew a torn leaf to his feet, and seeing a picture he took it up. It evidently had fallen from some ill-used history, for the picture showed some queer ships at anchor, some oddly dressed men just landing, and a crowd of Indians dancing about on the shore. Ben spelt out all he could about these ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... because you come from Kentucky, where they raise so much tobacco. When you see a thing so thick around you, you don't care for it. Well, we'll talk while I light mine and puff it. And so, young man, you ran ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... look," St. John said. She remembered how satisfactory her tininess had always been to him. "I think I could blow you away with a puff of smoke." ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... quarter and enduring a little longer than their predecessors, so continuing until at length we not only got way upon the ship but were able to maintain it during the lessening intervals between one puff and another. Finally a moment arrived when the cats-paws began to merge one into another, while the whole surface of the sea down in the south-eastern quarter lost its hateful mirror- like appearance and donned a tint of faintest, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... Morris Kelly! why didn't you tell me that before? The divil an ingine he'll get me on this day. [His ear catches an approaching teuf-teuf] Oh murdher! it's comin afther me: I hear the puff puff of it. [He runs away through the gate, much to Hodson's amusement. The noise of the motor ceases; and Hodson, anticipating Broadbent's return, throws off the politician and recomposes himself as a valet. Broadbent and Larry come ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... the firmest intelligence, men the most secure in their faith, now saw it dissolve at the first puff of reality, and stood turning this way and that, not daring to make up their minds, and often, to their immense surprise, deciding upon a course of action entirely different from any that they had foreseen. Some of the most ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... impressionist. The author is prone, unduly prone in my opinion, to make use of visual word-plays after the manner of Jules Renard. He is fond of "artistic writing," a typically Parisian product, a style which in ordinary times seems to "powder puff" the emotions, but which, amid the convulsions of the war, exhibits a certain heroic elegance. The narrative is terse, gloomy, stifling; but there come episodes of repose, which break its unity, and by these the tension ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... a mile and a quarter—it was a march of fully twenty minutes—to the edge of the woodland, the proposed cover of the column. Ten minutes before this point was reached a tiny puff of smoke showed on the brow of the hostile ridge; then, at an interval of several seconds, followed the sound of a distant explosion; then, almost immediately, came the screech of a rifled shell. Every man who heard it swiftly asked himself, "Will it strike me?" But even as the words were thought ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... hour, I went directly to her rooms, carrying the money in a small hand-bag that I had bought for the purpose. I found her waiting for me, gowned and hatted as if for a journey. She was standing before a mirror, dabbing her neck with a powder-puff—histronic to the last; she was showing me how she had to resort to this to cover up the marks of my assault. I have failed in my picture of her if I have not portrayed her as a woman of moods and lightning changes. There was no trace of the ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... puff of his cigarette. "Maybe he just wants to be sure," he said. "Funny things are happening all over." The cigarette tasted terrible and he put it out in an ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... giving out with a sigh a long puff of smoke, "I dare not assume the responsibility. I go with the majority, which has decided that we await in this city the threatened siege, and repulse the enemy by the power of artillery, and ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... however, have hit upon a plan for overcoming this heaviness and sogginess, and that is the rather ingenious one of mixing some substance in the dough which will give off bubbles of a gas, carbon dioxid, and cause it to puff up and become spongy and light, or, as we say, "full of air." This is what gives bread its well-known spongy or porous texture; but the tiny cells and holes in it are filled, not with air, ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... heard the chattering voices, and then a sound of laughter in the darkness. It made Hermione smile, but Artois moved uneasily. Just then there came to them from the sea, like a blow, a sudden puff of wind. It ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Christian subject of his Majesty's. There were turkeys, quails, poults, and plovers; but of pheasants only two, and one for the king. The greatest triumph, however, was reserved for the confections; an artificial hen was here served of puff-paste; her wings displayed, sitting upon eggs of the same materials. In each of these was enclosed a fat lark roasted, and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... which a fox-hunting parson preaches. I was present, once, when a real tally-ho was reading the service, and one of your godless squires got in the wake of a fox, with his hounds, within hail of the church-windows! The cries had some such effect on my roarer, as a puff of wind would have on this ship; that is to say, he sprung his luff, and though he kept on muttering something I never knew what, his eyes were in the fields the whole time the pack was in view. But this wasn't the worst of it; for ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... with the stupefaction of some strong young bull, taken straight from the meadow, where the rich grass stood up to his belly, taken and put in the truck of a railway train, and there, while smoke and sparks and gusts of steam puff out upon the sturdy beast, he is whirled onwards, whirled along with loud roar and whistle, whither—God knows! What Gerasim had to do in his new duties seemed a mere trifle to him after his hard toil as a peasant; in half-an-hour, all his work was done, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Sam, whose ear caught what I had meant for an aside. "He'll come out of it all right, Cousin Fred. We're bound to win too. Rah! rah! rah! Harv-a-rd!" Thereupon the engine gave a puff and a couple of snorts, and ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... information the face of Jacob Pacomb became a study. Savagely he bit off the end of a cigar, lit it, and began to puff away furiously. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... a modest man, as well as an honest one. Censure cannot move me by one hair's breadth from the narrow path of rectitude; praise cannot unduly puff me up. Had I been other than I am, this last week would have gone fatally near to ruining that timid and shrinking diffidence which (I say it without egotism) marks me off from the poisonous, pestilential, hydrocephalous, putty-faced, suet-brained reptiles ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... the wheat. It stretched before them in a vast parallelogram, and while the oats were the pale gold of the austral, there was the tint of the ruddier metal of their own Northwest in this. It stood tall and stately, murmuring as the sea does, until it rolled before a stronger puff of breeze in waves of ochre, through which the warm bronze gleamed when its rhythmic patter swelled into deeper-toned harmonies. There was that in the elfin music and blaze of color which appealed to the sensual ear and eye, and something which struck deeper still, as it did in the days ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... had encountered no resistance, struck against a harder material and rebounded. There was a sound of something falling in; and all that remained of the altar went tumbling into the gap after the block of stone which had been struck by the pickaxe. Beautrelet bent forward. A puff of cold air rose to his face. He lit a match and moved it from side to side ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... steeple top Had stood for many a day, And every year a coat of gold Increased his aspect gay. Subservient to the changing air, Each puff he'd quickly learn To obey with sycophantic ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... be thought out. Feelin's don't allers point the right trail to jedgment, an', as often as not, the blazes lead the wrong way. You're all right in your own way, Bob-Cat, but you're shy on roots, and your idees gets a windfall every time an extra puff comes along. You're like the trees settlers forgets about when they cuts on the outside of a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... see me there as that shadow of a name which will be my bridegroom. You will see my simulacrum, a plastered effigy of me. I shall be stiff with gold-dust and diamonds; a doll marrying a doll's bed-gown. Why should I be there if his ever-august Majesty is represented by a puff of silly breath? Pray, never look for Bianca Maria in the Queen of the Romans. The Queen of the Romans is a doll, windy ruler of the name of a people; Bianca Maria Sforza, daughter of thieves, has ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... left, some hundred yards distant, was a clump of osage brush. Even as he looked, there came a puff of smoke, followed by the evil song of a bullet. My hero's hat was carried away. He wheeled, dug his heels into his horse, and cut back over the trail. There came a second flash, a shock, and then a terrible pain in the calf of his left ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... cylinder, and passes the wand to the blower who is standing ready to receive it. The blower drops the cylinder of glass into a mold, which is held open for its reception by yet another man; the mold snaps shut; the blower applies his mouth to the end of the blowpipe; a quick puff, accompanied by the drawing away of the wand, blows the glass to shape in the mold and leaves a thin bubble of glass protruding above. The mold is opened; the shaped bottle, still faintly glowing, is withdrawn with a ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... cigarette, took a puff or two, and then threw it away. He was lounging back in his chair, and his face was pale and drawn hard by that mood of intense concentration which lurks under the sunny shallows of the vineyard. In his voice there was a longer ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... from between the dry lips. He stooped, his hand groping for the gun, his fingers closed uncertainly upon the butt, and as he straightened up, the muzzle swung slowly into line with his own forehead. And in that instant a light puff of cool air fanned his dripping forehead. The gun stopped in its slow arc. The lids closed for an instant over the horribly staring eyes. The shoulders stiffened, and the gun was laid gently upon the bar—for, upon that single puff of ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... is the very crown of character. It is the upholding law of man in his highest attitudes. Without it, the individual totters and falls before the first puff of adversity or temptation; whereas, inspired by it, the weakest becomes strong and full of courage. 'Duty,' says Mrs. Jameson, 'is the cement which binds the whole moral edifice together; without which, all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can have no permanence; ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... one detected the rumbling and quivering of machinery, all the noise and bustle of work. Black water flowed by at one's feet, and up above white vapour spurted from a slender pipe with a regular strident puff, as if it were the very breath of that huge, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... jug of cream. Mrs. Staunton was still in the larder making the raspberry tart. Effie went and watched her, as her long thin fingers dabbled in the flour, manipulated the roller, spread out the butter, and presently produced a light puff paste, which, as Effie expressed it, looked almost as if you could ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... extremely gay, And Hook extremely dirty; And brick and mortar still will say "Try Warren, No. 30;" And "General Sauce" will have its puff, And so will General Jackson— And peasants will drink up heavy stuff, Which they pay a heavy tax on; And long and late, at many a fete, Gooseberry champagne will shine— And as old as it was in Twenty-eight, It will be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... filled in the rest of my weeks by helping Fox and collaborating with Mr. Churchill and adoring Mrs. Hartly at odd moments. I used to hang about the office of the Hour on the chance of snapping up a blank three lines fit for a subtle puff of her. Sometimes they were too hurried to be subtle, and then Mrs. Hartly was ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... wire firmly over the glass pipe. When the glue is dry, remove the wires, and plane the wood round until it has a diameter of 1.5 in.; if smaller it will sag, and not do good shooting. Putty balls should be used, and blown with a quick puff, which is easily acquired by practice. The putty is thickened with whiting until the pellets will roll hard, but they should not be dry ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... deepened with the thickening air. Four times in the last ten days he had swung the pointer over the mapped table and sighted it upon brown puffballs that rose over the treetops—the first betraying marks of the licking flames below. He had watched the puff balls grow until they exploded into rolling clouds of smoke, yellow where the flames mounted high in some dead pine or into a cedar, black where a pitch stump ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... was gorgeously arrayed in a pale blue summer silk, puffed, frilled, and shirred wherever puff, frill, or shirring could possibly be placed. Her head was surmounted by a huge white chiffon hat, bedecked with three long but rather stringy ostrich feathers. A veil of pink chiffon, lavishly sprinkled with huge black dots, hung like a flounce from the hat brim to her shoulders and ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... also rest assured, 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 ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... 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 ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... conjectured correctly respecting the rifle-shot which announced the arrival of a messenger; a few minutes after the puff of white smoke on the crest of the rise had drifted away, a mounted man rode up to Grant at a gallop. His horse was white with dust and spume, but ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... Edinburgh. Also, as it appears three several and distinct times in one article (pp. 166, 174, and 183), we cannot but surmise that a main object of the critique was to advertise the volume. Men are crafty in these days when practicing the "puff indirect." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... chevaliers who would be honestly amazed if they were told they did not behave like gentlemen, who, sitting with a lady on a hotel piazza, or strolling on a public park, whip out a cigarette, light it, and puff as tranquilly as if they were alone in their rooms. Or a young man comes alone upon the deck of a steamer, where throngs of ladies are sitting, and blows clouds of tobacco smoke in their faces, without even remarking that ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... a fist, Annie. You see, it is hard enough to knock a fellow down, though it does not very often do that; but it hurts him a bit, without doing him any harm, except that it may black his eyes or puff up his face for a day or two—and no boy minds that. It accustoms one to bear pain, and is a splendid thing for teaching a boy to keep his temper, and I believe it is one reason why the English make such good soldiers. It is a sort ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... bunk on one side and Smith took the lower on the other. Steelman had the candle by his bunk, as usual; he lit his pipe for a final puff before going to sleep, and held the light up for a moment so as to give Smith the full benefit of a solemn, uncompromising wink. The wink was silently applauded and dutifully returned by Smith. Then Steelman blew out the light, lay back, and puffed at his ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... filled with tears at any chance allusion to him. Aunt Betsy nearly snapped her head off when she asked her a question, and Uncle Squire, chatty as he was upon every other subject, would squint his eyes in a knowing way, puff out his cheeks, and answer, "Lay o'ers ter ketch meddlers." Yes, there was one person she was sure she could coax into telling her why her papa never came home to see them all, and that was dear, good Mam' Sarah, the weaver. When Aunt Betsy scolded Mam' Sarah, she would get down on the floor by ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... curtain and his wrath became not less furious but better controlled. Clearly public attention was the last thing he desired in this affair. He leaned back, staring at Steele Weir insolently, and produced a cigarette, at which he began to puff. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... hottest part of the action at Algeziras, the Caesar broke her sheer,—that is, her situation was altered by a puff or flaw of wind so as to change the direction of her head, and turn her round, that her guns could not be brought to bear on her opponent,—the captain ordered the boat to be lowered down from the stern, to convey a warp to the Audacious; but ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... "Puff-ridden!" why to be sure they are. The nation is a miserable Sindbad, and its boasted press the loathsome, foul old man upon his back, and yet they will tell you, and proclaim to the four winds for repetition here, that they don't need their ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... you any rouge on hand? I'm growing pale. Please drop a little cologne on this handkerchief, my boy. May I borrow your powder puff? I've been sitting in the sun. Don't you want that gallon of stale buttermilk to take your tan ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... opinion with a wager. "I'll bet you"—he will exclaim, with all the energy of an English schoolboy. He enjoys a joke or witticism immensely, and leans back in his chair as he joins in the hearty peal about him. When cigars or cigarettes are handed round, he will take an occasional puff at one of the three or four cigarettes he allows himself during the evening, or sip at a glass of orangeade placed before him and filled from time to time. When he feels disposed he rises, and having shaken hands with his guests, now standing about ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... alongside, not ten foot off, going our way and trying to keep up, but losing ground all the time; and a railroad train doing the same thing down there, sliding among the trees and farms, and pouring out a long cloud of black smoke and now and then a little puff of white; and when the white was gone so long you had almost forgot it, you would hear a little faint toot, and that was the whistle. And we left the bird and the train both behind, 'WAY behind, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... charcoal, saltpetre, and sulphur ready to my hand,—all obtainable from natural sources close by; but the result of all my efforts (and I tried mixing the ingredients in every conceivable way) was a very coarse kind of powder with practically no explosive force, but which would go off with an absurd "puff." ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... and unpassioned, White-faced in the dusk of your hair— Your beauty so fleetingly fashioned That it filled me once with despair To look on its exquisite transience And think that our love and thought and laughter Puff out with the death of our flickering sense, While we pass ever on and away Towards some ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... and the seas, makes, by contrast with the great piles of bricks, the chains and cables of their moorings appear very necessary, as if nothing less could prevent them from soaring upwards and over the roofs. The least puff of wind stealing round the corners of the dock buildings stirs these captives fettered to rigid shores. It is as if the soul of a ship were impatient of confinement. Those masted hulls, relieved of their cargo, become restless at the slightest ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... I could hear him chuckling to himself, and tasting the words over again as though they were good wine. I sat fingering my pistol and waiting for him to speak again. When he did so, it was with another dry chuckle and a long puff of ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... came a peremptory whisper. He obeyed, but not quick enough. A pair of red lips emerged from the shadows. There was a puff, and the candle was extinguished. "I've got my reputation to consider. We mustn't ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... charming or instructive than the gift to a little girl, who will one day be a wife and a mother, of the miniature representation of a baby. There will be a bath provided, in which she may learn to wash it. Everything will be complete—soap, sponge, loofah, puff-box, and powder. The present will be accompanied by a layette, so that the child may learn to dress her infant and to change its clothes. Hair-brushes will teach her to keep the doll's hair neat; and probably ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... that is at intervals only,— Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri; And we believe we discern some lines of men descending Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming. Every ten minutes, however,—in this there is no misconception,— Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo's dome, and After a space the report of a real big gun,—not the Frenchman's?— That must be doing some work. And ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... the other, "ain't I the awful thing? Not a rat or a puff or a dab of rouge allowed in these here premises. I do look a sight—a fright. Gee!" She turned. "You're not so worse. A little ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... the Sea Eagle, which was now a half mile from shore, they saw a puff of smoke, and then a shell struck into the beach below them and exploding, sent a shower of sand over them and the horses. The latter, frightened, reared and plunged, but the boys soon got their animals under control, as they quickly tired of acting up in the heavy sand. Jim shook his fist in ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... the flower balloons enlarge and puff themselves up, the petals standing together at their tips; all the variety is united into a harmony of exuberance, color and form; then one day there is a shower of genial rain, a warm sun, birds in the air, bees released, grasses ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... were flying, and the weather cocks turned, creaking, around, and Gustave had to hold his head low for he was only a little boy and the wind nearly pushed him down. A bent old gentleman, walking with a cane, passed them. Puff, whisk, the wind took the old gentleman's hat and sent it racing ahead of ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... 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
... Clara J. that I would never again light a pipe at the race track, there I stood, one of the busiest puff-puff laddies on the circuit. ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... from whence he came; Has he forgot from whence he 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. How long shall vice triumphant reign? How long shall mortals bend to gain? How long shall ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous |
