"Sputter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he stood there, watching the sparking sputter of the powder as it slowly ate its way along the little paper tube. Then, suddenly, a dreadful thought occurred to him. The girl! What if Madge Brierly should come to meet the lowlander before the bomb exploded, should see him lying there, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... the real facts in the case. Candor compels 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 regard Oscar as "the plague ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... There was a sputter and a series of jerks. Then he had weight again as roarings began once more. This was not the ghastly continued impact of the take-off, but still it was weight—considerably greater weight than the normal weight of Earth. Cochrane ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... save us?" she gasped. "I fear 'tis for naught ye ventured yer life, bravest of men. I fear we'll soon both sputter on the coals." ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... damn the irrefutable thing. Why you wanted Brian to paint pictures," went on Whitaker, ignoring Kenny's outraged sputter, "when he couldn't, is and always has been a matter of considerable worry and mystery ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... and the worst of them able to outchat a hundred of the best picked 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 ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... 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 ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... 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. I went ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... irritated the tree tops, which bent away from its touch and scattered moisture on the fire and the frying pan. There was a sputter and sizzle and Leff muttered profanely before he took up the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... 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 more water ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and then, with the absurd vagary of a crowd, they broke into loud laughter and slouched back to work, two of them dragging the cause of the outburst to the water-faucet, where they held his head under the stream until he began to sputter and squirm. Before those at the gangway had noticed the disturbance it was all over, and thereafter Boyd experienced no trouble. On the contrary, they worked the better for his proof of authority, and took him into their fellowship as if he had qualified to their entire satisfaction. ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... 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 stomachs ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... 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 ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... 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 ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... tortoise-shell, gray, maltese, yellow, every color, size, shape of cat that was ever seen. And they were plunging and leaping and racing about so, that it looked like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a dozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow, miaow," they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... later on, when he became an old hand, he used to think it fun to board a streetcar and see what happened. Now, however, he was too ill to notice it—how the people in the car began to gasp and sputter, to put their handkerchiefs to their noses, and transfix him with furious glances. Jurgis only knew that a man in front of him immediately got up and gave him a seat; and that half a minute later the two people on each side of him got ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... his stomach. There was a great shout of laughter, but in a moment every one was calling, "Swim, Hughie!" "Keep your hands down!" "Don't splash like that, you fool!" "Paddle underneath!" But Hughie was far too excited or too stunned by his fall to do anything but splash and sputter, and sink, and rise again, only to sink once more. In a few moments ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... 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
... of Vesuvius was only a little sputter to what followed. For a moment we had hopes that old Scroggs would explode. I think if he had had us there alone he would have tried to hang us. But every tyrant has his master, so before long we began to see the halter on old Scroggs. And his daughter held the leading rope. She let him rave about ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... was very dark. There was service in the church, and the building glimmered through all its crevices like a dim Kirk Allowa'. I saw few other lights, but was indistinctly aware of many people stirring in the darkness, and a hum and sputter of low talk that sounded stealthy. I believe (in the old phrase) my beard was sometimes on my shoulder as I went. Muller's was but partly lighted, and quite silent, and the gate was fastened. I could ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... down the stair. The door at the foot of it opened. The earl entered a step or two, then stopped. Through the darkness Donal seemed to know exactly where he stood. He knew also that he was fumbling for a match, and watched intently for the first spark. There came a sputter and a gleam, and the match failed. Ere he could try another, Donal made a swift blow at his arm. It knocked the ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... for everybody she could think of—that time had no time to be counted at all, but flew by with feathers unheeded. The mutter of the sea became a roar, and the breeze waxed into a heavy gale, and spray began to sputter through the air like suds; but Mary saw the rampart of the rocks before her, and thought that she could easily get back around the point. And her taste began continually to grow more choice, so that she spent as much time in discarding the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... their blankets and overcoats, slept upon the deck that night, with scores of others strewed about them. They were awakened after eleven o'clock by a sputter of rifle shots. Dick sat up in a daze and heard a bullet hum by his ear. Then he heard a powerful voice shouting: "Down! Down, all of you! It's only some skirmishers in the woods!" Then a cannon on one of the armor clads thundered, and a shell ripped its way ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... liquor, for which I was sincerely grateful. We broke into the boxes, 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 cable, and a fairly good anchor might ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... let go all holts and dropped backwards, trusting to my thick head for easy lighting. Then I heard a little fizz and sputter from below. At that my hair riz right up so I could feel the breeze blow under my hat. For about six seconds I stood there like an imbecile, grinning amiably. Then one of the Chiricahuas made a sort of ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... 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 ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... him to witness the miraculous operation of shaving. Nay, more—Coppy had said that even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would rise in time to the ownership of a box of shiny knives, a silver soap-box and a silver-handled "sputter-brush," as Wee Willie Winkie called it. Decidedly, there was no one, except his father, who could give or take away good-conduct badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and valiant as Coppy with the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast. Why, ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... paws like a cat. There Miss Crawley lay for days—ever so many days—Mr. Bute reading books of devotion to her: for nights, long nights, during which she had to hear the watchman sing, the night-light sputter; visited at midnight, the last thing, by the stealthy apothecary; and then left to look at Mrs. Bute's twinkling eyes, or the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw on the dreary darkened ceiling. Hygeia herself would have fallen sick under such ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... broken candle at my feet to the one giving its last sputter in the tumbler on the dressing table, I owned ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... are all simpletons," he exclaimed. "I am not like you, thank fortune! I do not sputter over my soup. Long life to women! Yes, all of them, pretty and otherwise! For, upon my word, there are no ugly ones. I do not notice that Miss Keepsake has feet like the English, and I forget the barmaid's ruddy complexion, if she is attractive otherwise. Now do ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... 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 to tell the ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... steamin' An' de bacon good an' fat, When de chittlins is a-sputter'n' So's to show you whah dey's at; Tek away yo' sody biscuit, Tek away yo' cake an' pie, Fu' de glory time is comin', An' it's 'proachin' mighty nigh, An' you want to jump an' hollah, Dough you know you'd bettah ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... the orchestra box two or three men, one in his coat sleeves, were disputing over an opera score. High up in the topmost gallery some one was experimenting with the calcium machine; a fan of light occasionally swept the house, or a man's profile was silhouetted against a sputter of ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... did 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
... to the ground and set off two rockets at once. Straight across the sandy beach they flew, directly toward the crowd of natives on the ship. Right into the midst of the savages the trailing comet of fire shot, with a hiss, roar and sputter that was enough to strike ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... heard the bacon sputter on the fork, And heard his mother's step across the floor. Where did you get that song?—'tis ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... when the horses turned their heads to see what was the matter they found they had no driver; she also who was cooking for the hands "fled from the path of duty" (no Casabianca nonsense for her!), leaving the "middling" to sputter into blackness and the corn-pones to share its fate. Mothers had gathered up their children of both sexes, and grouped them in little terrified companies about the yard and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... stand at the ultimate curbstone by the stars, Above dead matches, and smears of paper, and slime; Would the secret of his desire Blossom out of the dark with a burst of fire? Or would he hear the eternal arc-lamps sputter, Only that; and see old shadows crawl; And find the stars were ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... with a very large nose, got his hand up to my throat, and I felt that I was a chicken in his grasp. "Rendez-vous, coqin; rendez-vous!" said he, and then suddenly doubled up with a scream, for someone had stabbed him in the bowels with a bayonet. There was very little firing after the first sputter; but there was the crash of butt against barrel, the short cries of stricken men, and the roaring of the officers. And then, suddenly, they began to give ground—slowly, sullenly, step by step, but still to give ground. Ah! it was worth all that we had gone through, the thrill of ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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
... stood beside 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 like the grip ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... a sharp sputter of musketry. "Firing! Who are they firing at? There aren't any rebels—we ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... 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 time must ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... warm heart under his faded livery and it went out now to Robin because she looked very small and very much alone in the big room. He had heard Mrs. Budge's hostile sputter and he knew the lawyer man was going the next day; little Miss Gordon would be quite without friends at Gray Manor. So he stepped closer to the divan and in a very human, friendly way he added: "Excuse me if I'm so bold as to say, you just count ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... I can get along, in a little way." She looked intently out of the window at the arc streetlamp that was just beginning to sputter. "But it's silly to live at all for little things," she added quietly. "Living's too much trouble unless one can get something big out ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... name, and her anger at Sally Gardner was suddenly turned against Patricia Langdon, with tenfold force and vehemence. It is an axiom that blue-eyed women have more violent tempers than black-eyed ones, once they are thoroughly aroused. Your brunette will flash and sputter, and say hasty things impulsively, or emotionally, but her anger is likely to pass as quickly as it arises, and it is almost sure to leave no lasting sting, behind it. Your fair-haired, fair-skinned, man or woman, when thoroughly aroused, is inclined ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... all, while their Prince was clearly 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wolfs by fire, so dey pen 'em all in a big kyave on de mountain an' dey bring bresh an' wood an' pile in front uv hit, a pile mos' ez high ez de mountain, an' den dey set fire to hit, an' de wolfs howl an' de fire hit spit an' sputter an' hiss an' crack an' roar, an' all de creeturs on de mountain set up a big cry an' run dis-a-way an' dat ter git outen de fire; dey wuz plumb 'stracted, an' hit soun' lak all de wil' beas'es in creation wuz turnt aloose an' tryin' w'ich kin ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... 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, ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... did 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 Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... passed through Bridgeport it was so late that the electric lights of Fairview Avenue were just beginning to sputter and glow in the twilight, and as they came along the shore road into New Haven, the first car out of New Haven in the race back to New York leaped at them with siren shrieks of warning, and dancing, dazzling eyes. It passed like a thing driven by the Furies; ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Germans coming toward 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 was a fourth. And a fifth. Behold a sixth. About then Hirondelle judged it wise to give more ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... 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
... flashlight, feared to press the button. There was not a sound, save a little sputter which they rightly laid to the wireless machine which the Weasel had told them about. In a moment, (it seemed years) Hen decided that they must have light, even at the risk of discovery, and his flashlight illumined the room in which they stood. Immediately ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... years a clerk in Syvert Thorolfsson's warehouse. While not tall he was neither stunted nor crippled, and easily kept pace with Thorolf. As he set out the silver-bound horn cups to drink skal[1] with his friend in his own lodging, the croak and sputter of German talk sounded ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... Then, with an ominous sputter, the port engine conked out. The plane lurched and slipped into a dive. Down it whirled again into the steady light of ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... do anything—really?" 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 ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... out Frohman and hid behind a lifeboat to await the result. Soon he heard a sputter and a shriek of rage, and the two men came racing down the boat as if pursued by some terror. Up came Frohman, his ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... hardly given it, the fusee had barely ceased to sputter, before a company doubled out on the open space behind the bonfire. That company had barely formed up, before another ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... the dark files streamed forth from their toil. Within fifteen minutes the lights were turned out, the watchman was making his first round. Instead of the sounds of a vast industry, nothing was heard but the sz-szz-szzz of the vanishing trams, the sputter of an arc-light, the barking of a dog. The gray twilight of a bleak March day shut down rapidly over frozen field and ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... disturbing; it might mean only the lull and crash of the breaking night-gusts, and it might mean the north wind, storm, and snow. It whooped down the hollow, scattering the few scrub-oak leaves; it whirled the red embers of the fire away into the dark to sputter in the snow, and blew the burning logs into a white glow. Mescal slept in the shelter of the spruce boughs with Wolf snug and warm beside her. Hare stretched his tired limbs in the heat ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... hiss and sputter of the torches, an upward leap of canoe and savage, capsize and panic and fear, and the night screamed ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... at the ripping of the tires, for the rubber is to a motorist as a baby to a loving mother. But in a moment came the sputter and roar of the motors, and the men had gone again back the road ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... always gay at this performance—for it 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. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... 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 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 ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... three square, sunken hollows, each lined with tiling and bottomed by an iron grating. Into these have been thrown small embers from the fire; the draught fans them into a flame, and above, three flat pans make their toothsome holdings to sizzle and sputter with infinite zest. This arrangement serves to the full every purpose of an oven, and does away with the range and all its cumbrous accompaniments. One is impressed with its obvious but ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... played in public 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 man already well advanced in years, wouldn't or couldn't give me any precise ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... mistake, go on preaching to him! what's the use of coming out with all you've said? Let him go wherever he pleases; for there are still our lady and Mr. Chia Cheng to keep him in order. But you go and sputter him with your gigantic mouth; he's at present a master, and if there be anything wrong about him, there are, after all, those to rate him; and what business is that of yours? Brother Huan, come out with you, and follow me and let ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... are little sapless twigs, chatterboxes, who twitter like the swallows, destroyers of the art, whose aptitude is withered with a single piece and who sputter forth all their talent to the tragic Muse at their first attempt. But look where you will, you will not find a creative poet who gives vent to a ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... 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 ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... 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 ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... so amazed and delighted that he forgot that he was in the water and started to speak. Of course, the water poured into his open mouth and he began to sputter and choke. ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... year!" Pap 'u'd say, and snap his eyes ... Row o' apples sputter'n' here Round the hearth, and me and 'Lize Crackin' hicker'-nuts; and Warr'n And Eldory parchin' corn; And whole raft o' young folks here. "Chris'mus ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... 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 ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... theatre with a real blue silk curtain that would roll up, and a real set of foot-lights that would burn, and when he contrived, with some resin and brimstone and salt put in a cup and set on fire, to produce a diabolical sputter and flare and bad smell, significant of the blowing up of the mill in "The Miller and his Men," great was our exultation. This piece and "Blue Beard" were our "battle horses," to which we afterwards ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... convertible, parked near the yacht club pier, they found the car completely waterlogged. Its electrical system gave not even a faint sputter or spark. ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... his wallet the golden snare. Coiled in the hollow of his hand and catching the red light of the pitch-laden fagot it shone with the rich luster of rare metal. Not until the pitch was burning itself out in a final sputter of flame did Philip replace ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... 1685, broke 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
... 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
... 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
... 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. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... to sputter. "I'm done," he said. "I have no other proposition to make. But remember what I say. You are going to leave ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... 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
... around 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 Van Wassenaer, who cried, "Never ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... in a tempest, to despair. The flame also with smoke attended is, And in our holy lives there's much amiss. Sometimes a thief will candle-light annoy, And lusts do seek our graces to destroy. What brackish is will make a candle sputter; 'Twixt sin and grace there's oft' a heavy clutter. Sometimes the light burns dim, 'cause of the snuff, Sometimes it is blown quite out with a puff; But watchfulness preventeth both these evils, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... o'er the waves afar, Both sail and sail-yard fell into the flood. 380 Long time submerged he lay, nor could with ease The violence of that dread shock surmount, Or rise to air again, so burthensome His drench'd apparel proved; but, at the last, He rose, and, rising, sputter'd from his lips The brine that trickled copious from his brows. Nor, harass'd as he was, resign'd he yet His raft, but buffetting the waves aside With desp'rate efforts, seized it, and again Fast seated on the middle deck, escaped. 390 Then roll'd the raft at random ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... know the 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 many other ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... of the captain's whistle. I knew he was on his feet behind me, then heard his voice through the sputter of fire that was beginning from our own line. "Cease firing!" Over my shoulder I looked at him, a fine manly figure in the attitude of command, one hand stretched threateningly ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... 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 ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the long whine and shriek of sirens at the arsenal, also the crackle 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 ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... sinful experiment with the handkerchief I discovered by accident that I was not the only doubter in Polotzk. One Friday night I lay wakeful in my little bed, staring from the dark into the lighted room adjoining mine. I saw the Sabbath candles sputter and go out, one by one,—it was late,—but the lamp hanging from the ceiling still burned high. Everybody had gone to bed. The lamp would go out before morning if there was little oil; or else it would burn till Natasha, the Gentile chorewoman, came in the morning to put it ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... particular topic untactfully was broached in his presence Mr. Lobel, recalling the fate of the elaborate feature entitled Let Freedom Ring, had been known to sputter violently and vehemently. Upon this production—now abiding as a memory only, yet a memory bitter as aloes—he had spared neither expense nor pains, even going so far as personally to direct the filming of all the principal scenes. And to what ends? Captious critics, including those who wrote ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... a smooth bed in the glowing coals, sliced the pork thin, laid some slices in the pan and set that upon the coals, where the pork began to sputter almost ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... 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 ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... to be beat at fust, so as to lead 'em on, 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
... in wholemeal flour and milk, add a little pepper and salt, thin with hot water, and thus produce a sauce that helps down vegetables and potatoes. In making a brown sauce we put a little butter or olive oil in the frying-pan; let it bubble and sputter, dredge in Allinson wholemeal flour, stir it round with a knife until browned, add boiling water, pepper, salt, a little ketchup, and you then have a nice brown sauce for many dishes. If we wish to make it very tasty we fry a finely chopped onion first and add ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... some sleep. He went to his quarters at Company House, downed a spaceship-captain's-size drink of honey-rum, and slept until 1600. As he dressed and shaved, he could hear, through the open window, the slow sputter of small-arms' fire, punctuated by the occasional whump-whump-whump of 40-mm auto-cannon or the ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... 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 in brandy, and your ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... no hesitation about describing the impious behavior of little Ginx. Whatever swaddled infant could do in the way of opposition, with hands, and legs, and voice, was done by that embryo saint. The incense made him cough and sputter; the lights and singing raised the very devil within him. His cries drowned the prayers. He frightened his conductress by the redness of his face. He ruined the red cross with ejected matter. You would have taken him for an infant demoniac. Mother Suspiciosa, though annoyed, was encouraged. ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... 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 ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... 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 blizzard was still ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... falls to forty degrees below zero, without 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 ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... more ado, put the loose end of the slow-match into a pot of live coals near by, and when it began to spit and sputter, he cast it off. His experts fled. Only Mahommed remained with him; and no feat of daring in battle could have won the young Padishah a name for courage comparable to that the thousands looking on from a safe distance now ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... set in gusty and tempestuous, and the moon was all girt with ragged clouds. The wind blew in melancholy gusts, sobbing and sighing over the moor, and setting all the gorse bushes agroaning. From time to time a little sputter of rain pattered up against the window-pane. I sat until near midnight, glancing over the fragment on immortality by Iamblichus, the Alexandrian platonist, of whom the Emperor Julian said that he was posterior to Plato in time ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... But if they Clam, the harsh sound spoils the sport, And 'tis like Women keeping Dover Court For when all talk, there's none can lend an ear The others story, and her own to hear; But pull and hall, straining for to sputter What they can hardly afford time to utter. Like as a valiant Captain in the Field, By his Conduct, doth make the Foe to yield; Ev'n so, the leading Bell keeping true time, The rest do follow, none commits a Crime: But if one Souldier runs, perhaps a Troop Seeing him gone, their hearts ...
— Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing - Wherein is laid down plain and easie Rules for Ringing all - sorts of Plain Changes • Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman
... 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 a black head of smoke expanded at a prodigious ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... 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 ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe |
