"Sputter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tumbled up, Jacka had his helm up, and the Van der Werf, with sheets pinned, was leaning to it and knocking up the unholiest sputter. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... but of course to her he's only a kid," he volunteered. "She's funny about that, too. She's emotional, of course, full of genius, and full of temperament. She says she needs a safety-valve, and Gardner is her safety-valve. She says she can sputter and rage and laugh, and he just listens and quiets her down. To-night she called him ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... sputter over his cooking, Seagraves took his slow way off down toward the oxen grazing in a little hollow. The scene was characteristically, wonderfully beautiful. It was about five o'clock in a day in late June, and the level plain was green and yellow, and infinite ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... resolved, and therein set forth, that Aldermen Pennyworth, of the Sixth Ward, and Brandybottom, of the Second, together with Councilmen Bluster and Sputter, (the last named gentleman being clever at a speech,) be a committee of reception, invested with power to draw up and present a suitable address on behalf of the citizens of "this great metropolis." It ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... a sputter, for a moment its fiery blowing filled the deck with smoke, then it darted skyward, with a tremendous swis-s-sh! Up, in a long black column it went, into the very heart of the hot brazen sky, then it exploded with a faint pop, and ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... him off my system and sent him down here as soon as I got Kirk's idiotic, impudent letter—" The old man began to sputter with indignation. "What d'you think he wrote me, Mrs. Cortlandt? He had the impudence to turn down a good job I offered him because 'his wife might not like our climate!' Imagine! And I had positively begged him to come back—on any terms. Of course, it gave me an awful scare, ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... holy and the awful,— I praise the heart, and pity the head of him, And refer myself to THEE, instead of him, Who head and heart alike discernest, Looking below light speech we utter, When frothy spume and frequent sputter Prove that the soul's depths boil in earnest! May truth shine out, stand ever before us! I put up pencil and join chorus To Hepzibah Tune, without further apology, The last five verses of the third section ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... and arrayed ourselves in various garments—which speedily fell to pieces—and appropriated gim-cracks of all sorts. There were some arms, but the ammunition had gone bad. Perdosa, out of forty or fifty mis-fires, got one feeble sputter, and a tremendous bang which blew up his piece, leaving only the stock in his hand. A few tinned goods were edible; but all the rest was destroyed. A lot of hard woods, a thousand feet of chain ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... no power belongs To pitchfork me to Heaven upon the prongs Of a bad pen, whose disobedient sputter, With less of ink than incoherence fraught Befits the folly that it tries to utter. Brains, I observe, as well as tongues, can stutter: You suffer from ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... the Good who insist on minding their private business and who are letting the country be gobbled up—just go and grab 'em right up by the scruff of the neck and fling them into politics head over heels. They would sputter and froth and flop for a little while—and then they'd strike out and swim. They couldn't help swimming! They'd know that the folks were looking on. And then a lot of the sinking and drowning poor devils, like you and me and the folks in the tenements, ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... apparently from the woods, and cried loudly, "Be calm! I will save her!" And, flinging his coat off, he sprang into the water before anyone could say Jack Robinson. He swam out to the form bobbing in the current, her arm thrown up as if for help; grasped that arm and then uttered a long, choking sputter, shoved Eeny-Meeny violently away from him and swam back to shore. They made valiant attempts not to laugh when he crawled out on the ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... old lady tells us this story in the late autumn evenings. Now the harvest is in, huge haycocks shelter the gable, the honey is strained and put by in jars, the apples are ripened and stored; the logs begin to sputter and sing in the big parlour at evening, hot cakes to steam on the tea-table, and the pleasant lamp-lit hours to spread themselves. Indoor things begin to have meaning looks of their own, our limbs grow quiet, and our brains begin to work. The moors beyond the window take strange expressions ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... think that," grinned Dick, "but wait until you tell Dad that Lola is sick and hear him sputter. You will believe then that there is quite a bit that can be said. And if you get my mother to add her comments you will have plenty to relay over ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... me wild to have a man sputter at me. I'm an electrical and civil engineer, I tell you, and my two years of travel have been spent studying the installation and construction of big plants abroad." He commenced to chuckle softly. "I've known for years that our sawmill was a debilitated old coffee-grinder and would have to ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... manage it, and by Thursday night the party was actually assembled at 'The Breakers.' There was a sou'easter on that night, but the drift-wood burned stoutly in the wide chimney-piece, with now and then a cheerful sputter as a few stray drops sought to immolate themselves in the ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... passion. What it was based on, what it arose from, he could not say. But in the flood-tide of his own tumultuous conquest he had watched her abandoned weeping and her tumbled brown hair. And as he watched, a vague and troubling tingle sped like a fuse-sputter along his limbs, and fired something dormant and dangerous in the great hulk of a body which had never before been stirred by its explosion of emotion. It was not pity, he knew; for pity was something quite foreign to his nature. Yet as she lay back, limp and forlorn against his shoulder, ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... eat some I gave some to my man, who seemed very glad of it, and liked it very well; but that which was strangest to him was to see me eat salt with it. He made a sign to me that the salt was not good to eat; and putting a little into his own mouth, he seemed to nauseate it, and would spit and sputter at it, washing his mouth with fresh water after it: on the other hand, I took some meat into my mouth without salt, and I pretended to spit and sputter for want of salt, as much as he had done at the salt; but it would not do; he would never care for salt with meat or in his broth; at ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... lights begin to leap along the lines, Leap up and hang and swoop and sputter out; A bullet hits a wiring-post and whines; I wish to Heaven that I was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... directly, and began to sparkle and sputter, Mark holding it firmly, but feeling as if he were the victim of some horrible ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... which proceeds from spiritual debility, and causes more; it is like the sleeplessness and tossing of exhausted nervous patients, which arises from weakness, and aggravates its occasion. As few things are equally wearisome, so few are equally wasteful, with a perpetual indistinct sputter of action, whereby nothing is done and nothing let alone. Half the world breaks out with action; its performance is cutaneous, of the nature of tetter. Hence is it that in the world, with such a noise of building, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... sunlight in the east was mixing the morning with fresher air, and new odors for the new day that was dawning, when Marcia awoke. The sharp click of spoons and dishes, the voices of the maids, the sizzle, sputter, odor of frying ham and eggs, mingled with the early chorus of the birds, and calling to life of all living creatures, like an intrusion upon nature. It seemed not right to steal the morning's "quiet hour" thus rudely. The thought flitted through ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... and Clay is as cunnin' as a coon too, if he don't get the word g'lang (go along) and the Indgian skelpin' yell with it, he knows I ain't in airnest, and he'll allow me to beat him and bully him like nothin'. He'll pretend to do his best, and sputter away like a hen scratchin' gravel, but he won't go one mossel faster, for he knows I never ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the kitchen, at that moment, something happened. Perhaps the old hands slipped in their eagerness, or perhaps the old eyes judged a distance wrongly. Whatever it was, there came a puff of smoke, a sputter, and a flare of light; then red-yellow flames leaped to the flimsy shade at the window, and swept on to the ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... plop of liquid in a pitcher. So if I spill my milk, I have not the excuse of ignorance. I am also familiar with the pop of a cork, the sputter of a flame, the tick-tack of the clock, the metallic swing of the windmill, the laboured rise and fall of the pump, the voluminous spurt of the hose, the deceptive tap of the breeze at door and window, and ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... gasped Kate. "We have been hoping for a revolution, but had given up the idea—until after the war. Your Socialists either eat out of the Kaiser's hand or sputter and fizzle out. And all your able-bodied men are at ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... in the steady breeze, the privateersman rolled ominously towards the lolling Delft. A crash, a sputter of pistols, a crushing of timber, and grappling hooks had pinioned the two war-dogs in a sinister embrace. And—with a wild yell—the Frenchmen plunged upon the reddened decking of the flagship of the courageous ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... last man had passed, applied a lighted match to the train, which began to fizz and sputter, and then ran out and followed the rest, shutting the door of the magazine as he went out, in order that the burning fuse should ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... It took a little perspicacity to see that something was weighing on the good man's mind; something he had come to say and for his honest life could not get out. His plight became more pitiable as the interview proceeded, and when he rose to go, he grew as red as a turkey-cock and began to sputter. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... frying-pan is only useful for sauteing in little fat. Articles to be fried must be immersed in fat, and no frying-pan is deep enough to do this safely. Put two to three pounds of clarified dripping or lard into the kettle, and let it get very hot. This will be after it ceases to sputter—some time after, perhaps; but you must now begin to watch for smoke to rise from the centre. Have near you some little squares of bread crumb; drop one in from time to time; only when it colors immediately is the fat hot enough. At this point no ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... at my feet to the one giving its last sputter in the tumbler on the dressing table, I ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... him. Instantly he had a scheme. In a subdued growl, yet distinctly, he threw over his shoulder an order that eight men should go to the right and eight to the left. Then, on his feet, he sent into the darkness a stern "Halt!" Instantly there was a sputter, arms thrown up, the inevitable "Kamerad!" and Hirondelle ordered the first German to pass him, then a second. Out of the darkness emerged a third. Hirondelle waved him on, and with that there ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... and fat kine—I wished Jordan and Marsh could hear that, or Stewart's in New York, or Wanamaker's in Philadelphia. I never thought of Brother Gerrish once; and I don't presume one out of a hundred did either. I—" The electric light immediately over Gates's head began to hiss and sputter, and to suffer the sort of syncope which overtakes electric lights at such times, and to leave the house in darkness. Gates waited, standing, till it revived, and then added: "I guess I hain't got anything more to say, Mr. Moderator. If I had it's gone from me now. I'm more ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... muttering of the cockatoo, the tinkle of the fountain as the water fell into the basin, the scrape and slither of sandals beyond the lattice partitions, the rattle of a gun butt somewhere in the outer corridors—these sounds she heard. Once she thought she heard the sputter of rifle shots afar, but ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... mouthful of the cologne with a furious sputter, and springing to his feet: 'Why, you've given me the cologne to DRINK, Agnes! What are you about? Do you want to poison me? Isn't it enough to be robbed at six o'clock on the Common, without having your head soaked ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... chamber for himself just under some snow-packed spruce tips, with a foot of snow for a blanket over him. When I fell forward, disturbing his rest most rudely ere he had time to wink the snow out of his eyes, he burst out with a great whirr and sputter between my left hand and my head, scattering snow all over me, and thundered off through the startled woods, flicking a branch here and there with his wings, and shaking down a great white shower as he rushed away for deeper solitudes. ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... and frequent small quick squalls of sleet which brought the wind to us in sharp guns, yet as we could see where we were going, I got the schooner before it, heading her east-north-east, and under a reefed topsail, mainsail, and staysail, the old bucket stormed through it with the sputter and rage of a line-of-battle ship. There was a log-reel and line on deck, and I found a sand-glass in the chest in my cabin in which I had met with the quadrants, perspective glass, and the like, and I kept ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... furious sputter of hoofs, a rush of excited steeds up the gentle slope, a glad outburst of cheers as they sweep across the ridge and out of sight, then the clamor and yell of frantic battle; and when at last it dies away, the Riflers are panting over the hard-won position and shaking hands with ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... with that passion which, in it, took the place of all love. This Roman woman had aroused desires that he had never known in the gardens of Ashera; her face was to the faces of the courtesans who thronged the sacred woods on feast days, as the glory of the crescent moon was to the sputter of the rancid oil in the lamp that illumined the cell of Fancula Cluvia. Cunning beyond his race, learned in the strange learning of the East that had come to a few in Egypt and to fewer yet in Phoenicia, Iddilcar read the struggle ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... pine cones and other fallen wood, and with the help of the matches soon had a fire. Then they cut strips of bacon and fried them on the ends of sharpened sticks, the sputter making the finest music in ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... George Bevan's train was leaving Waterloo, a grey racing car drew up with a grinding of brakes and a sputter of gravel in front of the main entrance of Belpher Castle. The slim and elegant young man at the wheel removed his goggles, pulled out a watch, and addressed the stout young man at ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... him now with eyes that shone with a deep understanding. Under the sputter of the lamp above their heads the two men clasped hands, and the Little Missioner's grip was ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... spectral; the shadows were thick, moving, changing. Flickering lights from the camp-fire circled the huge trunks and played fantastically over the brooding men. This camp-fire did not burn or blaze cheerily; it had no glow, no sputter, no white heart, no red, living embers. One by one the outlaws, as if with common consent, tried their hands at making the fire burn aright. What little wood had been collected was old; it would burn up with false flare, only to ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... corner, and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire revenge of going to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we get our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has more than enough household matters to mind, goes bustling hither and thither as a hiss or a sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers is boiling over, and before bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold, and gulp down ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... about this to Sallie?" he asked weakly as he dipped the end of his cigar into his glass of water and watched the sputter with ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... fall on her than you would have laughed to see how the rosy color came back to the dear child's cheek, and how she began to sneeze and sputter, and how astonished she was to find herself dripping wet and her father still throwing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... tricky things for young hands to deal with. Maisie could not explain how it had happened, but a veil of reeking smoke separated her from Dick, and she was quite certain that the pistol had gone off in his face. Then she heard him sputter, and dropped on her knees beside him, crying, 'Dick, you aren't hurt, are you? I didn't ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... disputed marble, or a questioned run at cricket, has thus broken up the harmony of many a holiday; but we hope that such feuds will now cease; for the "Boy's Own Book," will settle all differences as effectually as a police magistrate, a grand jury, or the house of lords. Boys will no longer sputter and fume like an over-toasted apple; but, even the cares of childhood will be smoothed into peace; by which means good humour may not be so rare a quality among men. But to complete this philanthropic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... sole delight (Why, pipe, you sputter so!), Whose angel visage bright (And at me ashes throw!) Shall never rival fear. You're jealous now, ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... swim. so we went down to the gravil and i peeled off my close and got ready, now said he, you jest wade in up to your waste and squat down and duck your head under. i said the water will get in my nose. he said no it wont jest squat rite down. i cood see him laffin when he thought i wood snort and sputter. so i waded out a little ways and then div in and swam under water most across, and when i came up i looked to see if father was supprised. gosh you aught to have seen him. he had pulled off his coat and vest and there he stood up to his ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... is steamin' An' de bacon good an' fat, When de chittlin's is a-sputter'n' So's to show yo' whah dey's at; Take away you sody biscuit, Take away yo' cake an' pie. Fu' de glory time is comin', An' it's proachin' very nigh, An' you' want to jump an' hollah, Do you know you'd bettah not, When you mammy ses de blessin' An' ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... "There isn't a noise in the world that I'm afraid of! Not thunder! Not guns! Not ANYTHING! Noises are my friends! In the night I take torpedoes and crack 'em on the hearth just to hear them sputter! I've got three tin pans tied on a string! I've ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... wonderfully pleased and seemed to like it very well: but what was the most surprising to him was to see me eat salt with it: upon which he made me understand, that the salt was very bad for me; when putting a little into his mouth, he seemed to nauseate it in such a manner as to spit and sputter at it, and then washed his mouth with fresh water: but to shew him how contrary his opinion was to mine, I put some meat into my mouth without salt and feigned to spit and sputter as much for the want of it, as he had done at it; yet all this proved of no signification ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... from his heart. Most excellent truth may be so spoken as to be wrong; and it is so, if spoken heartlessly, regardless of sympathy, and flung at sufferers like a stone, rather than laid on their hearts as a balm. God lets a true heart dare much in speech; for He knows that the sputter and foam prove that 'the heart's deeps boil ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the surges; and Polly shaking the wet from her feathers, and shouting: 'Polly tho dram dry!'—which struck on the nob of Jack's memory, to revive all the liquorly tricks of the cabin under Salvationism, and he began heaving, and at last he shook in a lazy way, and then from sputter to sputter got his laugh loose; and he sat up, and cried; 'That did it! Now to business!' for he was hungry. 'And when I catch the ring of this world's laugh from you, my friend . . . !' Simeon's application of the story ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... supply pipes. Such heating should be done close to the boiler to minimize radiation loss. If the temperature is raised to a point where an appreciable vaporization occurs, the oil will flow irregularly from the burner and cause the flame to sputter. ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... us?" she gasped. "I fear 'tis for naught ye ventured yer life, bravest of men. I fear we'll soon both sputter ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... Arthur, through superior knowledge not touching his, was highly amused by the grimaces of the others. Indeed, the captain had swallowed a huge gulp of it before he realized fully its strange flavour, and then could but sputter and scour his moustache and lips with his handkerchief. Mr. Bunting looked on ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... blue scum atop. The laughing sound came from the noise of a little spring, spouting half-way down one side of the well. Sometimes as the black things circled round, the trickle from the spring fell upon their tightly-stretched skins, and then the laughter changed into a sputter of mirth. One thing turned over on its back, as I watched, and drifted round and round the circle of the mossy brickwork with a hand and half an arm held clear of the water in a stiff and horrible flourish, as though it were a very wearied guide paid ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... meant much innocent merriment among her guests, and with the lighting of the last lantern, her own day was done. So the brilliant eyes flashed with a fresh fire, and the olive cheek glowed anew. All the men and women laughed as children sputter laughter, when they are both pleased and yet a little ashamed to show their pleasure. It was so very ridiculous, this journey up a rock with a Chinese lantern! But just because it was ridiculous, it was also delightful. One—two—three—seven—eight—they were all ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... a sputter and roar which brought a shouting figure to the door of the house, but Renwick was beyond stopping and turned blindly at the next turning and followed the street through the sleeping town into a well-traveled country road, which led straight onward ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... in order that Andy might prepare supper. When this was almost ready peal after peal of thunder suddenly crashed among the cliffs, which seemed to collapse and fall down upon us, and a flood from the sky descended. The fire died without a sputter, everything not in rubber was soaked, and all we could do was to stand in the darkness, cold and hungry, and wait for the deluge to cease. At last we were able to start the fire once more, and had a half-cooked supper before hunting the soft sides of ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... window on summer nights enraptured over the organ-man who turns poor lost Lilian Dale round and round with his inexorable crank. It does not disturb me that his organ wheezes and sputters and grunts. Indeed, there is for me absolutely no wheeze, no sputter, no grunt. I only see dark eyes of Italy, her olive face, and her gemmed and lustrous hair. You mutter maledictions on the infernal noise and caterwauliug. I hear no caterwauliug, but the river-god of Arno ripples soft songs in the summertide to the lilies that bend above him. ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... no war, after all; sputterings of war twice over,—1718, Byng at Messina, as we saw; and then, in 1727, a second sputter, as we are to see:—but the neighbors always ran with buckets, and got it quenched. No war to speak of; but such negotiating, diplomatizing, universal hope, universal fear, and infinite ado about nothing, as were seldom heard of before. For except ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... know Mrs. Frankland can't help being eloquent. Everybody present was deeply affected as she pictured the scene. As soon as the meeting closed, Mrs. Maginnis, all in a sputter of excitement, I fancy, sailed up to Mrs. Frankland, and laid her troubles before her, and wondered if Mrs. Frankland couldn't get her young friend to pray for her daughter Hilda. Phillida, by solicitation of Mrs. Frankland, visited the Maginnises every ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... and who knows that long ago you used to make elf-knots in the manes of mares at the crib, drink the milk from the skimming-pails, slip graines-a-gratter down the backs of our great-grandmothers, make the hearth sputter in the faces of the old folks, and, in short, fill the house with disorder and gaiety. You can also boast of giving the nicest frights in the world to lovers who stayed out in the woods too late of evenings. But I thought you had vanished ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... the crackling stopped and the spark went out with a sputter. The man stopped writing and wheeled about in his seat. He saw them ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... heavier, the wrath in Jimmy's cup began to sputter, dissolving into that which in his older sister's heart would have been tears; in Jimmy's heart, it took the form of convulsive sniffling. The boy could hear his sister clattering the breakfast dishes in the kitchen. The thing that ground ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... with a loud, fine, piercing whistle, and ended with an abrupt staccato gurgle much lower in the musical staff, sounding precisely as if the soloist's performance had been suddenly choked off by the rising of water in the windpipe. It was something after the order of the purple martin's melodious sputter, only the tones were richer and fuller and the music better defined, as became a genuine oscine. His sudden and emphatic cessation seemed to indicate that he was in a petulant mood, perhaps impatient with the intruder, or ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... the case," said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet how people do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use to make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot: what do I say?—why, almost without a desk to lean their ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... playing tricks with Ferris's mind—it seemed to him that he could still see those deep-set dark eyes staring up at him through the murk, with that same fearless and yet piteous look in their depths. It was a look that the brief sputter of match-light had ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... gossips. And yet their condition would be much better were they only full of words and not so given to scolding that they most obstinately hack and hew one another about a matter of nothing and make such a sputter about terms and words till they have quite lost the sense. And yet they are so happy in the good opinion of themselves that as soon as they are furnished with two or three syllogisms, they dare boldly enter the lists against any man upon any point, as ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... of dawn. Yet he stopped with half his clothes removed, and, going to an improvised shelf in the corner, took down a battered volume. It was not until the lamp warned him of the spent hours with its dying sputter that he laid aside the resonant sentences in which Carlyle had been talking to him of heroes and their worship. In another room across the hall he had heard stirrings for an hour after the silence of sleep had fallen on ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... the Tugendbrunnen in Nuremberg. One of the best classic examples is the drunken Silenus of Herculaneum. Water when combined as a mobile element with immobile works of art, can run, trickle, dash, splash, spray, bubble up, or rise up in a splendid jet. It can hiss and sputter and foam. From the drinking bottle of the drunken Silenus in Herculaneum it must have popped. I have had a plaster-cast model made of the little Pompeian figure of Narcissus at the spring in Naples. It is exquisitely beautiful. I am going to place it somewhere in my villa. My gardens ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... people who feel that if they do not get an immediate answer at the telephone they have a right to demand and get good service by means of an angry telephonic sputter. ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... not resist the temptation long. There was the sputter of a match, the puff of a flame, and the little stove was roaring away so effectively that one of old Jeremy's sayings rose to her lips. Jeremy ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mother bird, to my great astonishment, flashed out of sight under water. What could it mean! But there was little time to wonder. Suddenly a catapult seemed to strike the muskrat from beneath and lift him clear from the water. With a tremendous rush and sputter Hukweem came out beneath him, her great pointed bill driven through to his spine. Little need of my help now. With another straight hard drive, this time at eye and brain, she flung him aside disdainfully and rushed to her shivering little ones, questioning, chiding, praising them, all in the same ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... dawn by the rapid sputter of rain on the roof. It dribbled through several holes and spread across the floor. He sat up shivering. Shera was a glowing cigarette near ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... long time watching the candle sputter, then he pulled off his boots and tiptoed to Patsy's bedside. He leaned over her. "Po' little baby," he said; "what do she know about a step-mothah?" And Patsy saw him and heard him, for she was awake then, and ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... cautiously he seized the end of a fuse projecting from one of the canisters and held the crimson end of his cigar against it until a sputter of sparks showed that it had caught. From this fuse he turned to the one in the second can and ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... within reach of the life-belt. But here the demented man managed to wreathe his legs and arms in another and more terrible hold. The pair of them were now cursing horribly, cursing whenever a wave left choking them, and allowed them to cough and sputter for breath. They fought as two men whose lives had pent up an unmitigable hate for this moment. They fought, neither losing his hold, as their strength ebbed, and the weight of their clothes dragged them lower. Dick Rendal's hand still clutched the cord of the life-belt, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... much more than that—a being of a wholly unsimilar construction and constitution, and being of no more blood and kinship with men than are the serene eternal lights of the firmament with the poor dull tallow candles of commerce that sputter and die and leave nothing behind but a pinch of ashes ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... under the shelter of the stockade. The soldier rushed upstairs to say a few words of comfort to the trembling Adele, and then throwing himself down upon a couch he slept the dreamless sleep of an exhausted man. When at last he was roused by a fresh sputter of musketry fire from the woods the sun was already low in the heavens, and the mellow light of evening tinged the bare walls of the room. He sprang from his couch, seized his musket, and rushed downstairs. The defenders ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... very dark and windy, with dull clouds moving heavily across the sky and a constant sputter of rain. Yet a little after daybreak Monmouth's bugles were blowing in every quarter of the town, from Tone Bridge to Shuttern, and by the hour appointed the regiments had mustered, the roll had been called, and the vanguard was marching briskly out through the eastern gate. It went forth ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Crick, crack, sputter, and then report after report, as loud as those made by a revolver, while each steam-shot was followed by a ball of white vapour which came rushing up as from the mouth of ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... provisions for the night, and the thought of hot tea was infinitely seductive. Perhaps somewhere one might find a few soldiers round a kettle in some friendly dugout. We groped our way along, holding our breath at times as a shell came sweeping overhead or burst with a sputter of steel against the ramparts. It was profoundly dark, so that only the glowworms glittered like jewels on black velvet. The moon had gone down, and inside Ypres the light of the distant flares only glimmered ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the peace and commercialism of the present days would be disappointing to one who knew it when each day was filled with trouble and threats of trouble; when the city lay always as if under an impending cloud and when the borders of the bay rang with the thunder of guns and the sputter ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... speckled tails advance to steer their course, And on the sounding shore the flying billows force. And now the strand, and now the plain they held; Their ardent eyes with bloody streaks were fill'd; Their nimble tongues they brandish'd as they came, And lick'd their hissing jaws, that sputter'd flame. We fled amaz'd; their destin'd way they take, And to Laocoon and his children make; And first around the tender boys they wind, Then with their sharpen'd fangs their limbs and bodies grind. The wretched father, running to their aid With pious haste, but vain, they next invade; ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... me to say that Bridget's complaints were essentially true. Knowing the poor Irish girl's weak side (her quick temper), Oscar had for some time taxed his ingenuity to torment her, for the sake of hearing her "sputter," as he termed it. He was not only impudent, and applied offensive names to her, but sometimes he purposely put her to extra labor and trouble by misplacing articles, making dirt about the house, &c. These things were a sad annoyance to Bridget, and she soon came to ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... projecting rock, a continuation of the high ground that closed in that side of the long slope of V. Beach, and from here came that infernal shower of bullets that was causing such terrible havoc. From the "Clyde" one could easily tell where the bullets were coming from by their sputter in ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... Lysander, hastily executing his own order, as the blue sputter kindled up into a flame that lighted the room. "It ain't quite time for me to be seen ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... this world so good for people as taking a dose of their own medicine. The difference is that I am honest. I just say in plain English, 'if they don't treat you right, come to me.' They have only said it in actions and inferences. I want to teach Mag Sinton how her own doses taste, but she begins to sputter before I fairly get the spoon to ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... bustes out like a lot of scent fountings a-play— 'Taint oder colong, though, by hodds; sulphur strong seems the local bokay. They call this the "Needle Bath," CHARLIE. It give me the needle fust off; 'Cos the spray would git into my eyes, and the squelch made me sputter and cough. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... seat in the hollow of the bank, and he suggested that they should sit there a while before they returned. Beth acquiesced; and soon the sputter of the little spring bubbling into its basin, the chitter of birds in the branches above, the sunbeams filtering from behind through the leaves, the glint of the Beck below slipping between its banks, soundless, to the ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... was cranking with the pedals. The engine began to pop and sputter and was finally crooning its steady song of speed. Clancy had likewise ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... part in a way to make me shiver. The great pines, the shady, brown trails, the sunlit glades, were as real to me as if I had been among them. Most vivid of all was the lonely forest at night and the campfire. I heard the sputter of the red embers and smelled the wood smoke; I peered into the dark shadows watching and listening ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... once stir Up and out of his den the old monster. They opened a hole in the wire-work Across it, and dropped there a firework, And fled: one's heart's beating redoubled; A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled, 40 The blackness and silence so utter, By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter; Then earth in a sudden contortion Gave out to our gaze her abortion. Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot (Whose experience of nature's but narrow And whose faculties move in no small mist When he versifies David the Psalmist) I should study that brute ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... bottles of sulphuric acid. The splinter was expected to blaze when dipped into the acid. Sometimes it did blaze, and sometimes it did not; but it was reasonably certain how the acid would behave, for it would always sputter and do its best to spoil some one's clothes. Nevertheless, even such matches as these were regarded as a wonderful convenience, and were sold at five dollars a hundred. With the next kind of match that appeared, a piece of ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... right," cried King. "Where can we go? Be quick, Hobbs! Think! Don't sputter like that. I want to be personally conducted, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... while as soon as Vince saw this he bent down and blew, with the result that it began to glow and increase in size so much that when the brimstoned point of the match was applied to the glowing spot still fanned by the breath the curious yellow mineral began to melt, sputter, and then burst into a soft blue flame, which was gradually communicated to the wood. This burned freely, the candle in the lanthorn was lit, the door shut, and the tinder-box with flint and steel closed and smothered out and returned ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... A sputter of musketry broke out in the thick vegetation of the river-bed, crackled and spread, as Subedar-Major Mir Daoud Khan (once against the civilized, brave and distinguished officer) and I sprang to our feet and hurried to our posts—I, even at that moment, thinking ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... Pierrette ran at once to gather sticks and leaves. These they brought to their Father, and soon a cheerful fire flamed red against the shadows. Then the smell of coffee floated out upon the evening air, and the sputter of frying eggs gave further ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... crackled with hiss and sputter, and fragrant wood-smoke filled the air. Steaming kettle, and savory steaks of venison cheered the hungry travelers, making them forget for the time the desertion of their guide and the fact that they might ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... strengthened their outlying parties in the jungle ahead of us, for they suddenly attacked one of our pickets, wounding Crockett seriously. He was brought in by the other troopers. Evidently the Spanish lines felt a little nervous, for this sputter of shooting was immediately followed by a tremendous fire of great guns and rifles from their trenches and batteries. Our men in the trenches responded heavily, and word was sent back, not only to ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... of dissipation or expansion, especially a quick one, particularly if there be an r, as if it were from spargo or separo: for example, spread, spring, sprig, sprout, sprinkle, split, splinter, spill, spit, sputter, spatter. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... interest in Jack and germs is almost as great as mine. Jack has been in Peking. He thinks the revolution of the Chinese against the Manchu Government is going to be something far more serious this time than a flutter of fans and a sputter of shooting-crackers. The long-suffering worm with the head of a dragon is going to turn, and when it does, there will not be a Manchu left ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... T-t-seu-oo!"—they went like cloud after cloud of lightning-winged insects, and passing, by God's mercy and the Spaniard's bad marksmanship—passing high. Between two crashes, came a sudden sputter, and some singing thing began to play up and down through the trees, and to right and left, in a steady hum. It was a machine gun playing for the range—like a mighty hose pipe, watering earth and trees with a steady, spreading jet of hot lead. It was like some strange, ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... to sputter, when I threw an orange at Tommy, explaining to our agitated guest that he was a cut-up devoid of ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... revivals of old melodramas. Again we catch a very faint northerly breeze from Ibsen, or a southeaster from Maeterlinck and Hauptmann. Sometimes we set our sails to woo that ever-clearing breeze of Shakespeare, only to be forced out of our course by a sputter of rain, an Irish mist, and half a squall from George Bernard Shaw; but the greater part of the time the ship of the stage is careering wildly under bare poles, with a man lashed to the helm (and let us hope that, like Ulysses, he has cotton wool in his ears), before ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... A broad arid plain, swelling into stony hills, surrounded them on every side. Here and there in the extreme distance, mounted figures moved over the vast expanse—Boer scouts who marked in amazement the advance of this great array. Once or twice these men gathered together, and a sputter of rifle fire broke out upon our left flank, but the great tide swept on and carried them with it. Often in this desolate land the herds of mottled springbok and of grey rekbok could be seen sweeping over the plain, or stopping with that curiosity upon which ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of machine guns from all sides. Now I realized what it meant. It was war. The Austrians had taken this way to acknowledge Italy's defiance. The enemy had threatened to destroy Venice, and this was their first attempt. Above the sputter of the machine guns and the occasional explosions of shrapnel could be distinguished the buzz of an aeroplane that moment by moment approached nearer. Soon the machine itself became visible, flying oddly enough from the land direction, not from the Adriatic. It flew ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... any certainty to a root such as mal, to be soft, let us take another word, such as feather. Here, again, we find that Mr. Wedgwood connects it with such words as Bav. fledern, Du. vlederen, to flap, flutter, the loss of the l being explained by such words as to splutter and to sputter. We have first to note the disregard of historical facts, for feather is O.H.G. fedara, Sk. pat-tra, Gr. pteron for peteron, all derived from a root pat, to fly, from which we have also penna, old pesna, pet-omai, peto, impetus, etc. The root pat expresses violent motion, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... for the bitterest invectives against one to whom he professeth the greatest friendship; provided he acts in the dark, so as not to be discovered. But in the midst of caresses, visits, and invitations, to run into the streets, or to as public a place, and without the least pretended excitement, sputter out the basest and falsest accusations; then to wipe his mouth, come up smiling to his friend, shake him by the hand, and tell him in a whisper, it was "all for his service;" this proceeding, I am bold to think a great failure in prudence; and I am afraid lest such a practitioner, with ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... good deal of' the preceding hours—a volume would not contain it. There is some notion that the Duke of Bedford and your cousin Halifax are to be the secretaries of state—as Witwould says, they will sputter at one another ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... lookout for plays to suit cash customers, and of course, the Bard of Avon had first call, because his plays went on the various stages like a torchlight procession, while those of his so-called compeers, struggled through the acts and scenes with only the flicker and sputter of tallow ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... could tell him, and Sticky-toes continued to scold and sputter and swell himself up with anger. But everybody forgot Sticky-toes when they heard the voice of Blacky the Crow calling "Caw, caw, caw!" from the very same hemlock-tree. Now no one knew that Blacky ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Mocker • Thornton W. Burgess
... towns, where they choke and sputter and gasp, the big snow turns to horsepondine. With us it stays still: but wind, sun, and rain get to work upon it, lest the texture and colour should not change daily. Rain makes a granulated crust ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... red sulky faces were hidden in the dark, watching candle after candle sputter, brighten, and twinkle, till the trembling shadows began to flit away like ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... up astonished. She had sacrificed her own plans and come to bed for Ethelinda's sake, and now here was the electric light blazing full in her eyes, utterly regardless of her comfort. She was about to sputter an indignant protest when she looked up at the picture. It seemed to smile back at her as if it were a real person with whom she might exchange amused glances. "Did you ever see such colossal unconcern?" she whispered, as if ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the war-sucked air in drought, but he yells defiance at the red-eyed eagle, and in his ears are the bells of new philosophies, and their tinkling drowns the sputter of the burning sword. He shrieks, "God damn you! When you are broken, the word will strike out ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... and we to wave our hands, when she was astern and out of sight in a haze of spray. Presently a collier named the Fanny, with her foretopgallant-yard gone, passed us. She was cracking on to bring the news of the wreck to Ramsgate, and was making a heavy sputter under her topsails and foresail. They raised a cheer, for they knew our errand, and then, like the smack, in a minute she was astern and gone. By this time the cold and the wet and the fearful plunging ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... should be applied whenever there is any doubt about the matter. To make this test, place the fat in a tablespoon or a small dish and heat it directly over the flame until it boils, stirring it occasionally to assist in the melting. If it is oleomargarine or process butter, it will sputter noisily and take on a curdled appearance; whereas, if it is butter, it will melt and even boil without sputtering although it foams ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... Baron, as the permit was not forthcoming, "I thought as much. I appoint you witness, Monsieur le Cure, the fellow has no permit." And we swelled the merriment with a forced sputter ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... hard or unripe parts, and put them on one side. Take a frying-pan and put into it one scant tablespoon of butter and the chopped ham fat. When the grease is colored put in the sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper. When the tomatoes are cooked and begin to sputter put the macaroni into the pan with them, mix well, add grated Parmesan cheese, ...
— Simple Italian Cookery • Antonia Isola
... way, the trenches stretch in a comparatively straight line for miles, facing one another squarely, and giving little opportunity for tactical enterprise. The infantry blaze and sputter at one another in front; the guns roar behind; and that is all there is to be said about it. But here, the line follows the curve of each little hill. At one place you are in a salient, in a trench which runs round the face of a bulging "knowe"—a tempting target for shells of every kind. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... heard the bacon sputter on the fork, And heard his mother's step across the floor. Where did you get ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... to my knowledge, nor within the memory of any man alive today. He was always vivacious, pugnacious, hardly sagacious. He would sputter with rage if you suggested that he was aged enough to be called "venerable." How old was he—for he died suddenly last September at his home somewhere in southeastern Europe? I don't know. His grandson, a ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... bird wanting to go to Paris by motor!" Then to show how little he thought of the ground he advanced his throttle rapidly and took off on far less space than should ever be attempted by one who knows, from experience, how suddenly a crowded Clerget-motored Camel can sputter and incontinently die. And as a parting defiance to his knowledge, Larkin pulled back his stick and zoomed. Altitude was what McGee wanted, eh? Well, here was the way to get altitude ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... Under the green-white sputter of a street lamp, Mallare halted. His mind was preoccupied with unraveling the mystery of Rita. He stood, a tall figure without a hat, a slant of black hair across his forehead, and ignoring eyes. A beggar in a ragged overcoat shuffled, head down, ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... take it. They began at the bow of the barge and walked to the stern, making one after another of the excursionists deliver his valuables, and then slipped quietly over the stern of the barge; the pirate craft began to spit and sputter furiously; and the next moment it was tearing through the water like a ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... fall on her than you would have laughed to see how the rosy colour came back to the dear child's cheek! and how she began to sneeze and sputter!—and how astonished she was to find herself dripping wet, and her father still throwing ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... prates Of matters far beyond their pates. The grave old man he makes a bustle, And his wise sentence in must justle. Up starts th' Apprentice boy and he Says boldly so and so't must be. The dealer in old shoes to utter His saying too makes no small sputter. Then comes the pert mechanick blade, And contradicts ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... honey, and tea for their midnight luncheon. Emma and Hippy were first to try the bacon, but no sooner did they taste of it than they began to choke and sputter. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... replied Rhoda, as she accommodatingly handed over a small glass bowl from which Bess helped herself to a generous double spoonful. One swallow of her cocoa, and she began to sputter and gasp, and finally made a frantic grab for a tumbler ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... His mother's sputter of indignation died rapidly away. It was, indeed, her notion that the guardians of the public peace should show some degree of sobriety, respect, neatness, and self-control, as well as a reasonable familiarity with the accents of the country; but her Arcadia ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... gift of silence, so he made no comment at all when he was alone with Bill and Bill commenced to sputter and fuss about the change in Frank. He just stared ahead, gazing off across the prairie or carving delicately on another length of chain which Mrs. Sherman had asked him to make for her sister back ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... rose, leaving the little fire to sputter out. General Johnston was very grave, and so were all the others as they started toward their divisions, except Beauregard, who said ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Before the sputter of the match had died out, Viner had recognized the man who lay dead at his feet. He was a man about whom he had recently felt some curiosity, a man who, a few weeks before, had come to live in a house close to his own, in company with an elderly lady and a pretty girl; Viner and Miss Penkridge ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... dwell too long on the shots that missed. As with a refractory engine that will suddenly sputter, there came some elements of success. The point to learn was, why? Concentrating on the shield bud entirely we determined to find these whys. So we tried taking big slabs of bark along with the bud, peeling out the wood, breaking off the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... We could hear the sputter and crackle of road-surfacing machines—the cheap Western type which fuse stone and rubbish into lava-like ribbed glass for their rough country roads. Three or four surfacers worked on each side of a square of ruins. The brick and stone wreckage crumbled, slid forward, and presently spread out ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... the "sputter," because it sounds like nothing else on earth, is a sort of "retching" note followed by several sputtering utterances, hard to describe, but not unpleasant to hear, perhaps because it suggests the meadow ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... says I. "And let's pipe the aforesaid fires clean down into the tailin's." So there we sat, thinking better of each other and all creation. The fires of animosity went out with a sputter and we talked large and fine. I don't care; I like to once in a while. I don't travel on stilts much, yet it does a man good to play pretty now and then; besides, you can say things in the Spanish that are all right, but would sound simple-minded in English. English is the tongue ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... racing current, were seized, and spun around and around. Above the drone of the waters he heard the roar of a whirlpool, coming rapidly nearer. The firm clutch of Miss Vost's hand on his collar was not loosened. Occasionally he heard her gasp and sputter as a ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... lies in your tilting your nose at their ways and ideas, and insisting upon your own. That rouses the sense of individuality in them and they then fight for their ways and ideas—then there's boil and bubble and sputter and ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... inducing the inhabitants to suppose that the world has reached its conclusion. The billets are usually piled up on end, so that the flames rise and twine round them with a fierce intensity that causes them to crack and sputter cheerfully, sending innumerable sparks of fire into the room, and throwing out a rich glow of brilliant light that warms a man even to look at it, and renders candles ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... was heard, save the weird howling of the wind outside, with an occasional sputter as a stray gust of snow swept down the broad chimney to the roaring fire. Every Grammar School boy, as he dropped off to sleep, knew that a big ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... papers flashed madly across her mind she almost leaped out of bed. She had got her eight hundred! The drawers upstairs! How was it she had not thought of them before? There she lay, till day dawned and the night-light went out with a sputter, content and motionless, arranging what she should do, with the look of a thief in ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... of the room. Was it by accident or design that as he reached the table he threw his broad-brimmed hat, down with such an unnecessary flourish of the arm that he knocked over one of the heavy pewter candlesticks, so that it rolled down upon the floor, causing the tallow candle to sputter and die out with a weird ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... were two female neighbors at their windows, holding candles, which the fog caused to sputter. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... no time in putting this to the proof. That same evening I lay in wait after dusk at the study window, protecting my mother's repose. As soon as I heard the long-drawn wail, the preliminary sputter, and the wild stampede that followed, I let fly in the direction of the sound. I suppose I must have something of the national sporting instinct in me, for my blood was tingling with excitement; but the feline constitution ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... the old cock was staked upon a bamboo spit, and set over the fire, where he soon began to sputter, sending out a savoury ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid |
