"Whisking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Winnebagos bent low over their paddles, and the canoes leaped forward like hounds set free from the leash, and went racing along with the current, shooting past islands, whirling around bends, whisking through tiny rapids, wildly, deliriously, rejoicing in the thrill of the morning and the call of a world running over with joy. Soon they came to the place where they had first planned to camp, and there were the primroses, a-riot with bloom, ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... assumed the character of an old washerwoman. Sir Watkins Wynne rode into the hall on a goat, assuming the character of holy Saint David. The goat, more accustomed to browse in the pastures than take part in such high jinks, frightened by the blare of trumpets, the scraping of fiddles, and the whisking of the ladies' skirts as they went round in the dance, capered like mad, butted my Lady Winchester so that she fell flat upon the floor, upset holy Saint David, and kept the room in an uproar until a waiter seized the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... up from sleep, Saying, "Now for a frolic! now for a leap! Now for a madcap, galloping chase! I'll make a commotion in every place!" So it swept with a bustle right through a great town, Creaking the signs, and scattering down The shutters, and whisking, with merciless squalls, Old women's bonnets and gingerbread stalls. There never was heard a much lustier shout As the apples and oranges tumbled about; And urchins, that stand with their thievish eyes Forever on watch, ran off each with ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... brightness of her eyes by glancing up at the cornice. Madame Marneffe's triumph, however, was not face to face like that of other women. She turned sharply round to return to Lisbeth at the tea-table. This ballet-dancer's pirouette, whisking her skirts, by which she had overthrown Hulot, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... about it too, as he sat with his chin nearly down upon his knees, whisking the flies away from his ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... all their might. They find every crack in the rocks where there are a few grains of the nourishing substance they care for, and insinuate themselves into its deepest recesses. When spring and summer come, they let their tails grow, and delight in whisking them about in the wind, or letting them be whisked about by it; for these tails are poor passive things, with very little will of their own, and bend in whatever direction the wind chooses to make them. The leaves make a deal of noise whispering. I have sometimes thought ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... side to side, or dash forward and attack it in front, when its armed tail would have been of no avail. Presently the sable retired to a distance, and I thought would have discovered us, but at that moment it made a dash at the nose of the porcupine, who, whisking round its tail in an extraordinary fashion, sent a shower of darts into the body of its opponent. This did not, however, prevent the latter from seizing it with its sharp teeth and dragging it to ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... that they could see the end of the mop, when it whirled round upon her arm. They took it immediately—there was the broad-headed nail in the centre, which was as the body of the sun, and the thrums whisking round, flinging the water about every way by innumerable little streams, describing exactly the rays of the sun, darting light from the centre to the ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... Ericson; all of them demanding him! The five meek police of Onamwaska were trotting back and forth, keeping them behind the barriers. Carl was apprehensive lest this ten-thousandfold demand drag him out, make him fly, despite a wind that was blowing the flags out straight, and whisking up the litter of newspapers and cracker-jack boxes and pink programs. While he stared out, an official crossing the track fairly leaned up against the wind, which seized his hat and sailed it to the end ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... his second in command. These the colonel executed with much courtesy and gallantry, if not with grace, leaping from his horse with unexpected activity, and assisting Edith to dismount, which he effected by taking her in his arms and whisking her from the saddle with as little apparent effort as though he were ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... the earth Come with softest rustle; The shy, sweet feet of life; The silky mutter of moth-wings Against my restraining palm; The strident beat of insect-wings, The silvery trickle of water; Little breezes busy in the summer grass; The music of crisp, whisking, scurrying leaves, The swirling, wind-swept, frost-tinted leaves; The crystal splash of summer rain, Saturate with ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... of these it was who, going north-east, spread the alarm which made the herb-man go and tell what he had seen in the wood of Bondy. Little did the travelling party think how much faster the mounted messengers were going than they: and on they lumbered, the eleven horses whisking their tails, and the king taking his time in walking up the hills, while the alarm was ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... just get that feeling out of your bones right away!" commanded Tabitha, thrusting the last pin into her shining, black hair and whisking into her big, kitchen apron. "You must have the rheumatism and that is bad for one's health. One more meal after this, and—exit Tabitha Catt and ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... laughing jaws; 10 They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws; With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another, Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous 15 smother; The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air; Said Francis then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... for his supper, Janet Balchrystie saw no human being. She heard the muffled roar of the trains through the deep cutting at the back of the wood, but she herself was entirely out of sight of the carriagefuls of travellers whisking past within half a mile of her ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... now mounted Colesberg, and rode slowly toward them. They continued gazing at the wagons until I was within one hundred yards of them, when, whisking their long tails over their rumps, they made off at an easy canter. As I pressed upon them they increased their pace; but Colesberg had much the speed of them, and before we proceeded half a mile I was riding by the shoulder of the dark-chestnut old bull, whose head towered ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... grisola).—Late in summer these dainty little birds come whisking about the garden, perching on a rail, darting off after a fly, returning to the same post, or else feeding their young in nests on the side of the house. A pair built in 1897 in a flower-pot close to the window of ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... and Arthur were coming home from school, they stopped to look at a squirrel's nest in a hollow tree, just in the wood. A pretty striped squirrel was running up and down a tree at a little distance, whisking his bushy tail, and watching them with his large, bright eyes. They found a large store of nuts in the hollow tree, and Theodore proposed they should ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... little tricks and foibles that are characteristic of the genus waiter seemed to envelop him as though a fairy garment had fallen upon his shoulders. The folded napkin under his left arm seemed to have been placed there by nature, so perfectly did it fit into place. The ghostly tread, the little whisking skip, the half-simper, the deferential bend that had in it at the same time something of insolence, all were there; the very "Yes, miss," and "Very good, sir," rose automatically and correctly to his untrained ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... sleeves. Mr. Blyth has broken one of his tumblers, and has mutinously insisted on showing him how to draw the cork of the cowslip wine bottle. Mr. Blyth has knocked down a fork and two spoons, just as they were laid straight, by whisking past the table like a madman on his way into the garden. Mr. Blyth has bumped up against the housemaid in returning to the dining-room, and has apologized to Susan by a joke which makes her giggle ecstatically in Vance's own face. If this sort of thing is to go on for a day ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... aim at her ribs; these animals were changing their long winter's wool for sleek hair, and the former hung about them in ragged masses, like tow. Their calves gambolled by their sides, the drollest of animals, like ass-colts in their antics, kicking up their short hind-legs, whisking their bushy tails in the air, rushing up and down the grassy slopes, and climbing like cats to ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... they had walked a while they got upon the ice, and there they met a man who came whisking along in a sledge, and drove ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... plentiful, good, and well dressed; no tedious course, with long intervals between; no oppressive set-out of superfluous plate, and what, perhaps, is not the least agreeable accessory, no piebald footmen hanging over your chair, whisking away your plate before you have done with it, and watching every bit you put ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... thieving rats. Whisker and claw, they crouch in the night, Their five eyes smouldering green and bright: Squeaks from the flour sacks, squeaks from where The cold wind stirs on the empty stair, Squeaking and scampering, everywhere. Then down they pounce, now in, now out, At whisking tail, and sniffing snout; While lean old Hans he snores away Till peep of light at break of day; Then up he climbs to his creaking mill, Out come his cats all grey with meal — Jekkel, and ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... never!" ejaculated Mrs. Moss, whisking up a corner of her apron to wipe her eyes, for the thought of the poor little fellow alone there for two days and nights with no bed but musty straw, no food but the scraps a dog brought him, was too much for her. "Do you know what I'm going to do with you?" she asked, trying to look ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... yellow one on a side street. The upper part of the door was of glass, and it rang a bell as it opened. Lucindy had had very few occasions for going there, and she entered with some importance. The bell clanged; and Miss West, a portly woman, came in from the back room, whisking off her apron ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... was a clean, rosy old woman, whose unusual occupation attracted our spinster's attention. Whisking off the wheels of a diligence, the old lady greased them one by one, and put them on again with the skill and speed of a regular blacksmith, and then began to pile many parcels into a char apparently waiting ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... rather sleepy of countenance, but could assume an air of great consequence, and would receive his importuning visitor with unexceptional bows. 'Peppers I think you said?' Thomas would politely inquire, smoothing his chin reflectively, giving his ear a knowing cant, and concluding by whisking his fingers through his powdered hair. 'Mr. Peppers presents a little affair this morning;' he would announce blandly, having left the gentleman standing in the hall. Mr. Bolt, who occupied a sumptuous arm-chair in the parlor, and generally sat reading leisurely the Morning ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... on the sandy bank and falls asleep. While he is asleep, the boy gazes at the water, pondering. He has many different things to think of. He has just seen the storm, the bees, the ants, the train. Now, before his eyes, fishes are whisking about. Some are two inches long and more, others are no bigger than one's nail. A viper, with its head held high, is swimming from one bank ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Fort Brannon the council was at an end. Lanterns were whisking to and fro like giant lightning-bugs about the long garrison granary and the quartermaster and commissary storehouse, where wagons were being loaded with tents, ammunition, rations, and forage—enough for sixty days. ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... flashed into her mind. If by any means she could contrive to make Mrs. M'Crawney ashamed of herself, it might be more useful than medicine, might even work a cure, in fact; and that would be something worth doing, even though it entailed skirting the shore all the way home. To think was to act. Whisking off her coat and hat, she rolled up her sleeves, and for want of an apron pinned a big towel round her; a very dirty towel it was too, but something she must have to protect her frock, and it had to be ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... Trichinopoli. I believe this faithful creature worshipped the bull of our herd, and it was a great trouble to him that the Chinese cruelly cut off the tail of the poor animal, thereby depriving him of the means of whisking off the flies which sting so vehemently in ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... sweet-toned voice, and "Black Bess" turns her head sleepily at the sound, whisking the tiresome flies with her tail. So often Eleanor's tread at the door of her shed has meant ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... length of the court, whisking past the dimly-seen columns; swiftly she traversed the three small rooms at its eastern end, panting she plunged through the dark doorway ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... from all.' And, Nell, I've only time to say how are you, for I'm going to catch the Irish mail. Fact! Bardsley & Bardsley are sending me to some engineering work there. How's that for high? Ah, would you!" gingerly whisking his hat behind him. "Keep off; ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... seize the trail-rope which was fastened to his neck, and dragged about a dozen feet behind him. The chase grew interesting. For mile after mile I followed the rascal, with the utmost care not to alarm him, and gradually got nearer, until at length old Hendrick's nose was fairly brushed by the whisking tail of the unsuspecting Pontiac. Without drawing rein, I slid softly to the ground; but my long heavy rifle encumbered me, and the low sound it made in striking the horn of the saddle startled him; he pricked up his ears, and sprang off at a run. "My friend," ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... But with sudden movement she was gone, bending low, then crawling, then whisking from sight. Had she abandoned me, after all? Had she—no! God be thanked, here she came back, flushed and triumphant, a canteen ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... against the silver tipped horn or the heavy tapaderos. And then at last did the swift, certain suspicion of the truth flash upon him. He came upon a small soap box hidden far under the loose hay. He drew it out, whisking away the straw which half filled it. After the first start of amazement and a swift examination of ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... Anatomically belonging to this order, they externally resemble the squirrels so closely as to have been frequently mistaken for them. The grovelling Mole and creeping Shrew are as unlike the sprightly Tupaia, as it springs from branch to branch, whisking its long bushy tail, as it is possible to conceive. I intend further on to give an illustration of this little animal. The first we have on record concerning it is in the papers relating to Captain Cook's third ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... little care, for the tall ungainly beast realised directly that it was being pursued, and separating from the herd, went off at a clumsy gallop, its neck outstretched, and its tail whisking about as it kept looking back at ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... mosquitoes are no small torment. Whenever I do look forth at noonday, at which time the air is all aglow, with a certain glimmer and dazzle like that from an hot furnace, and see the poor fly-bitten cattle whisking their tails to keep off the venomous insects, or standing in the water of the low grounds for coolness, and the panting sheep lying together under the shade of trees, I must needs call to mind the summer season of old England, the cool sea ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... wiser word spoken, madam," said St. Leger, swiftly whisking himself round, and as if looking for some essential implement. "May be a mere twinge, accidental cold, rheumatism; or may be——My dear madam" (to the aunt), "I will trouble you; let me pass. I beg pardon—one word with you," and with his back to ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Yakov and went out. I did not want to stay—I was afraid of spoiling the impression I had received. But the heat was as insupportable as before. It seemed hanging in a thick, heavy layer right over the earth; over the dark blue sky, tiny bright fires seemed whisking through the finest, almost black dust. Everything was still; and there was something hopeless and oppressive in this profound hush of exhausted nature. I made my way to a hay-loft, and lay down on the fresh-cut, but already almost dry grass. For a long while I could not go to sleep; for a long ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... doing such remarkable varieties of work. Briareus, with all his fabled faculties, never had such numerous and supple fingers as this creature of human invention. When set a-going, they are clattering and whisking and frisking everywhere, on the barn-floor, on the hay-loft, in the granary, under the eaves, down cellar, and all this at the same time. It is doubtful if any stationary engine in a machine shop ever performed more diversified operations at ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... unwise.—How—but she must keep her own counsel. The wind, now at her back, glued the blue coat inconveniently against and even between her legs, unceremoniously whisking her forward. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... carried it into the shelter of a thin sprinkling of reeds. Compton responded, and in a few strides was so near that he flung himself forward in an effort to get astride the animal's back. The buck slipped forward, letting him down, and, when he rose he saw the white tail whisking round a corner in the reeds. On he dashed down a narrow path, which twisted and turned so sharply that he could only see a few yards ahead; but he was never in fault, as when he could not see the game he could hear it plainly, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... leaping, Sinking and creeping, Swelling and sweeping, Showering and springing, Flying and flinging, Writhing and ringing, Eddying and whisking, Spouting and frisking, Turning and twisting, Around and around With endless rebound; Smiting and fighting, A sight to delight in; Confounding, astounding, Dizzying, and deafening the ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... flounce, as I said, onto the piazza of Grass Cottage. She had been fearfully disturbed, but the instant she saw the Noisy Fly she broke into chirping merriment. The Noisy Fly had evidently been to last evening's concert and was trying to imitate Miss K. T. Did in the Fire-Fly Dance. He was whisking around at a great rate, his long legs looking very spindly under his fat black body. But what amused Mrs. Cricky most was the way, in trying to do the wing step, his legs got tangled up for all the world as if they were on sticky fly paper. Of course, ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... in horrified sympathy, but not a sigh of regret clouded the beaming face; the head was tilting to and fro in its usual complacent fashion, the shabby little flounce of a skirt was whisking to and fro. Such a depth of poverty seemed incomprehensible to the child of wealthy parents, and she was moved to an unusual desire to help. Never before had she been known to lend one of her possessions to another girl, but now ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... whisking about to go upstairs, but Pete had taken one step into the dining-room, and was gazing round ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... was warbling to herself, with rather shrill-throated gaiety, whisking her full skirt among the bamboo tables, when Lucilla returned to ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... dark husks and lifting up the beauty and fragrance of their hearts to solace passers-by. Therefore she ceased parting her hair in the middle and ordered a simple little frock from D——'s—hyacinth blue voile with a lining that should whisper and rustle like the glad winds whisking away last ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... milk and sweeten it with four ounces of sugar; strain it through a fine muslin bag and then mix it with a pint and a quarter of sweet thick cream; keep stirring until nearly or quite cold, then pour it gradually on the strawberries, whisking briskly together. Last of all add in small portions the strained juice of a fine large lemon. Mould blanc mange and set in a very cold place for twelve hours or more before serving. Strawberries, one quart; sugar, eight ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... to-night was the end of the oat-harvest, and they were carrying the last sheaves of Wroote glebe. After the carrying would come supper, and the worn-out cart-horse which had brought it afield from the Parsonage stood at the foot of the knoll among the unladen kegs and baskets, patiently whisking his tail to keep off the flies, and serenely indifferent that a lean and lanky youth, seated a few yards away with a drawing-board on his knee, was attempting ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... off to, Mr. Pertnose?" he asked, as the young traveler was whisking by. "I'm off to see the ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... this to everybody, I like it in him very much and feel as if Steve and I should get on beautifully. Here we are now, be sure not to breathe a word if we meet anyone. I want it to be a profound secret for a week at least," added Kitty, whisking her handkerchief out of sight as the carriage stopped before the fashionable store they ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... and the man's one, neck and neck, as neat as you like. The race course was along the high road; and, dog on it, they made a noise like thunder, throwing out their big heavy feet behind them, and whisking their tails from side to side as if they would have dung out one another's een; till, not being used to gallop, they at last began to funk and fling; syne first one stopping, and then another, wheeling round and round about like peiries, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... forecastle, while I kept close to his heels. We looked out a—head, and there we certainly did see a splashing, and boiling, and white foaming of the ocean, that unquestionably looked very like breakers. Gradually, this splashing and foaming appearance took a circular whisking shape, as if the clear green sea, for a space of a hundred yards in diameter, had been stirred about by a gigantic invisible spurtle, until every thing hissed again; and the curious part of it was, that the agitation of the water seemed to keep ahead of us, as if the breeze which impelled ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... being in company, where a lady whisking her long train [long trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine fiddle and broke it; Swift ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her husband some warm ale posset; but she was so annoyed to see the wench whisking and bustling about him, that she went up into the parlour and ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... You just add a line to your letter to that effect. Then we'll put the letter and biscuit in that little box, tie it up, address it, and Lance Darby will run out to the road and mail it for you. Be quick now," concluded Laura, whisking the pan out of the oven, "for ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... so closely round us in the twilight shadows, that now and then, to force a passage, Joseph was obliged to pull a slowly whisking tail, resembling almost exactly an old-fashioned bell-rope. Presently we had made our way past the herd, which was shut from our sight by the curtain of evening, though up on the mountain-tops it was ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... that its pleasant sound alone showed its locality; and its deep pool, where the trout loved to lie; and the cattle in the green meadow, seeking for shade under the tall elms, or with lazy strokes of their tails whisking off the flies; and the boys whistling in the fields; and the men, with long white smocks and gay handkerchiefs worked in front, tending the plough or harrow, or driving the lightly-laden waggon or cart with sturdy ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... heart, Sekoosew hovered near, whisking here and there but never coming nearer than half a dozen feet from Baree. His eyes were redder than ever. Now and then he emitted a sharp little squeak of rage. Never had he been so angry in all his life! To have ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... left the room and mournfully climbed to her own apartment. She was too utterly absorbed in her own desperate plight to observe Zany whisking away in ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... the beautiful bay through the narrow opening, with Carlisle Fort on the starboard and Camden Fort on the port hand. The students were intensely excited by the near view of the land, of the odd little steamers that: went whisking about, and the distant view of Queenstown, on the slope of the hill at the head of the bay. They ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... heard nothing, although Burton says he caught sight of her on the stairs just whisking into the flat above mine, which has been taken by a lovely actress, a cousin of hers, who has married a ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... best," he cried, and whisking up the ladder I stood admiring his great brown arms and the play of the muscles as he carried the ladder as if it had been a straw, and planted it, after thrusting the intervening boughs aside with the top to get ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... in the appearance of the fox between the beginning and the end of a run; a fresh fox slips away with his brush straight, whisking it with an air of defiance now and then; a beaten fox looks dark, hangs his brush, and arches his back as he ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... the cavity was unfit as a treasure hoard for a discreet squirrel, whatever its value as a receptacle for the love-tokens of incautious humanity, the little animal at once set about to put things in order. He began by whisking out an immense quantity of dead leaves, disturbed a family of tree-spiders, dissipated a drove of patient aphides browsing in the bark, as well as their attendant dairymen, the ants, and otherwise ruled it with the high hand of dispossession and a contemptuous ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... calico mare both gallops and trots While whisking you off to Bumpville; She paces, she shies, and she stumbles, in spots, In the tortuous road to Bumpville! And sometimes this strangely mercurial steed Will suddenly stop and refuse to proceed, Which, all will admit, ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... her cross the courtyard and enter the house; then Fauvette, scooting in by the back way, had the further satisfaction of seeing the tail of her skirt whisking up the attic stairs. She ran back to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... rest you. Did you ever think what all those whisking changes in your environment mean to the brain cells? And it isn't just travelling, with new scenes, new people; it is everything in your life,—every act from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. You are cramming those brain cells all the time, giving them new records ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... prattled without ceasing, and was always catching one's sleeve, and laughing at one's face.—And everywhere those flopping, wriggling petticoats were appearing and disappearing. One saw slack hair whisking by the corner of one's eye. Mysteriously, urgently, they were coming and going and coming again, and never, never ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... tell you that my little Jenny, as she is zealously and systematically arranging the fire, and trimly whisking every untidy particle of ashes from the hearth, shows in every movement of her little hands, in the cock of her head, in the knowing, observing glance of her eye, and in all her energetic movements, that ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... running beside chair-bearers, carrying exquisite ladies to routs and masques: of foot-pads, slinking into dark alleys and doorways as the watch comes tramping down the street. Visions of the press-gang, hunting stout lads, into every tavern, whisking them from their hiding-places and off to the ships: to disappear with never a word of farewell until, years later, bronzed and tarred and strange of speech, they returned to astounded families who had long mourned them ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... is good for one," said Bob. "Besides, there is another way of looking at it—isn't there, Nesta? It has been proved you are a witch. You ought to be brought back by main force to be punished for whisking these good people all ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... mouth and ugly little scowl tell, all too quickly, and even if I could not see your face, that little jerk and twist would tell the story. Do you not know when the dog is sick or tired, or full of fun? yet, his bright eyes, eager little nose, lively body and whisking tail, tell no more surely than your own face ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... of their way just in time, squaring his chin and holding his head a shade higher. The girl in red was whirled toward him in double-quick time, and he dodged, miscalculated his distance, but met the shock of her squarely, whisking Judith out ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... What can he be at? Is it a cat? Ah, my poor little brother, He's caught in the trap That goes-to with a snap! Ah me! there was never, Nor will be for ever— There was never such another, Such a funny, funny bunny, Such a frisking, such a whisking, Such a frolicking brother! He's screeching, beseeching! ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... green of twilight woods. Back at the camp, there would be the crackle of wood again, with all the other noises of the dying forest day. Good odors drifted about, broiling meat and cooking wild berries, chipmunks and gray squirrels and jays chattered from the trees overhead; there was a whisking of daring tails, a flutter ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... perch there for a minute, hop down again, and affectionately kiss the other young ladies, and say, "Good-by, dears! We shall meet again la haut." And then with a whir of their deliciously scented wings, away they fly for good, whisking over the trees of Brobdingnag Square, and up into the sky, as the ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was like a mountain, her husband I fancied scowled at me. Mrs. P. looked scared, and whisking past me in the farm-yard one day with a milk-pail, said in a low voice as she passed, "For God's sake keep away," and I did, feeling uneasy, In cold weather my aunt ceased to go to the farm-yard, our own shooting ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... gingerly to the little creature. He hopped up boldly and took it from her fingers, stuffing it into his baggy cheek. Then his bright little eyes spied the rest of the peanuts on Gladys's bed, and quick as a wink he was up after them, his tail whisking right into her face. Gladys screamed and wriggled, and he fled for his life, pausing a short distance from the tent to scold about the peanuts he had left ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... a car had drawn up hastily and the evil-faced crook whom the Clutching Hand had used to rid himself of the informer, "Limpy Red," had leaped out and hurled the stone through the window, as quickly leaping back into the car and whisking away. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... tors on the other, and round them billowy masses of heather, broken here and there by runnels of peat-stained water. If Egbert exceeded the speed-limit, he certainly had the excuse of a clear road before him; there were no hedges to hide advancing cars, neither was there any possibility of whisking round a corner to find a hay-cart blocking the way. In the course of an hour they had covered a considerable number of miles, and found themselves whirling down the tremendous hill that led to the seaside ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... farther end of an avenue of elms which framed them like a tunnel, was a band of horsemen. They were coming at an easy trot, half a dozen in single file on either side of the road. We could see their lances, held rakishly upstanding across the saddle, then the tail of the near horse whisking to and fro. One, crossing over, was outlined against the sky, and those who could see whispered: "One is standing sidewise!" as if this were somehow important. Tears rolled down the cheeks of the women huddled inside the door ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... and left me, as I thought. Then I could hear the whispered challenge at the door and one after another entering and crossing the bare floor on tiptoe. Hundreds were coming in, it seemed to me. Suddenly a deep silence fell in that dark place of evil. The blindfold went whisking off my head as if a ghostly hand had taken it. But all around me was the darkness of the pit. I could see and I could hear nothing but a faint whisper, high above me, like that of pine boughs moving softly in a light breeze. I could feel the air upon my face. I thought ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... text. In the sixth and last, the trivial armed figure of the pilgrim is seen kneeling with clasped hands on the betrodden scene of contest and among the shivers of the darts; while just at the margin the hinder quarters and the tail of Apollyon are whisking ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'Tis the modest man ripens, 'tis he that achieves, 980 Just what's needed of sunshine and shade he receives; Grapes, to mellow, require the cool dark of their leaves; Neal wants balance; he throws his mind always too far, Whisking out flocks of comets, but never a star; He has so much muscle, and loves so to show it, That he strips himself naked to prove he's a poet, And, to show he could leap Art's wide ditch, if he tried, Jumps clean o'er it, and into the hedge t'other side. He has strength, but there's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... demanded the reporter, pricking up his ears. He leaned forward with a new interest in his lively grey eyes. But Mr. Bingle was gone, his coat-tails fairly whisking around the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... happened that at the moment the Winchester was at Warren's shoulder, and his eye was ranging along the barrel, he caught a glimpse of the dusky body in the act of whisking over that of the pony. The glimpse was only momentary, but under the peculiar conditions it was just what was needed. The youth fired, and with such accuracy that the warrior lunged over his steed, and sprawled in the snow ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... squirrel, no doubt. At least, if we may judge from the way in which it glared and stared at the trapper—peeped at him round the trunk of the tree, and over the branches and under the twigs and through the leaves, jerking its body and quirking its head and whisking its tail—we have every reason to conclude that it experienced very deep interest and intense excitement. Pleasure and excitement being, with many people, convertible terms, we have no reason for supposing ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... know, but Miss Carlyle came whisking in again, and said: "The best rooms; those next the library. Should she go up ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Nan, this is really childish," said Mrs. William, whisking her bowlful of berries into the pantry. "You must let other folks be the judge of what is best for you now. You aren't strong enough to drive to Kensington, and, even if you were, you know well enough that William couldn't go to Kensington to-morrow night. He has got to attend ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... most unsuspecting of women, was whisking through her breakfast and her correspondence next morning with her customary celerity and method, when a servant appeared and offered her one of those leaves from Fritzing's note-book which we know ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... children, attracted by the nuts they threw down; and getting pretty close to them, before she would venture quite so far as where the nuts lay, she sat down on her haunches to look and see whether all were safe; curling her thick, light plume of a tail up along her back, or whisking it about in various lines of beauty, while her bright little black eyes took all the observations they were equal to. It was unending amusement for the children; and then to see Mrs. Bunny finally seize an almond and spring away with it, was very charming. So the afternoon sped; ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Florent seemed to make no progress; the avenue appeared to grow ever longer and longer, to be carrying Paris away into the far depths of the night. At last he fancied that the gas lamps, with their single eyes, were running off on either hand, whisking the road away with them; and then, overcome by vertigo, he stumbled and fell on the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... her steady, unwearied prosecution of a purpose, being just the qualities that he most honored; and he worshipped her reverently at a distance, like an old astrologer adoring some particularly bright fixed star. No whisking comets or changing ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... helmet for thirty years hath in some degree frayed it upon the top." He pulled off his velvet cap of maintenance as he spoke, and displayed a pate which was as bald as an egg, and shone bravely in the firelight. "You see," said he, whisking round, and showing one little strip where a line of scattered hairs, like the last survivors in some fatal field, still barely held their own against the fate which had fallen upon their comrades; "these locks need ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... across her back, and if he had been an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to break her back with one bite; but he was afraid of the terrible lashing return-stroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but did not bite long enough, and he jumped clear of the whisking tail, leaving ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... partner, Mr. Wilner. I was content to stand for an hour at a time watching him make potato chips. In his cook's cap and apron, with a ladle in his hand and a smile on his face, he moved about with the greatest agility, whisking his raw materials out of nowhere, dipping into his bubbling kettle with a flourish, and bringing forth the finished product with a caper. Such potato chips were not to be had anywhere else on Crescent Beach. Thin as ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... speak from observation and, being an old bach, I can speak impartial. The dudes on the water is just as bad. Them fellows were flirting with her all the time they was 'longside. Real men that means decent ain't called on to keep whisking their caps off and on all the time a woman is in sight—and I see one ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... minute, sharp-biting mosquito is found here: the women try to drive them out of their huts by whisking bundles of green leaves all round the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... out to ascertain whereabouts we were. I found that it had snowed heavily during the night; and we now seemed to be in a much colder and more desolate country. The wind felt dreadfully keen as I stood on the car platform and looked about; the dry snow whisking up from the track as the train rushed along. The fine particles somehow got inside the thickest comforter and wrapper, and penetrated everywhere. So light and fine were the particles that they seemed to be like thick hoar-frost ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... Poulain, who filled in the necessary information as to Pons' age and birthplace; the German knew but one thing—that Pons was his friend. So soon as the signatures were affixed, Remonencq and the doctor (followed by the stone-mason's man), put Schmucke into a cab, the desperate agent whisking in afterwards, bent upon ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... strollers; and for proof of its truth I can show you only the dark patch above the cast-iron of the stage-entrance door of Keetor's old vaudeville theatre made there by the petulant push of gloved hands too impatient to finger the clumsy thumb-latch—and where I last saw Cherry whisking through like a swallow into her nest, on time to the minute, as usual, to dress ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... bay at last, and sheepishly enough whisking off the heads of a dozen or two with his cane, "if they are not that, they are something ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... belonged to the great monastery of Jerpoint, the ruins of which are still the most interesting of their kind in this part of Ireland. They have long made a part of the estate of the Butlers. We rattled rapidly through the quiet little town, and whisking out of a small public square into a sort of wynd between two houses, suddenly found ourselves in the precincts of Grenane House. The house takes its name from the old castle of Grenane, an Irish fortress ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... not a German, he let his tongue rattle on with the freedom which is one of the peculiarities of his class. He confided to me that the best help to a man who walked much was absinthe. It pulled him up the hills and sent him whisking ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... appear as much inconvenienced by heat as any of the party: the former is whisking off the flies; and the latter creeps unwillingly along, and casts a longing look at the crystal river, in which he sees his own shadow. A remarkably hot summer is intimated by the luxuriant state of a vine, creeping over an alehouse window. On the side ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... that matter by whisking his tail over the lines and holding them firmly, in spite of the attempts his mistress made to free them once more. Finding her labors of no avail, she turned her attention ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... active (or perhaps lighter-hearted with the notion of the cloak in the distance), placed her basket on a gravelly bit of shore, and, giving a long spring, seated herself on a stone almost in the middle of the stream. Then she began dipping her little rosy toes in the cool rushing water and whisking them ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... fittings, its many luxurious knickknacks and elegancies—most of which I had given to my wife during the first few months of our marriage. By and by I heard the sound of violent hysterical sobbing, accompanied by the noise of hurrying footsteps and the rapid whisking about of female garments. In a few moments the doctor entered with an expression of sardonic amusement on his face. "Yes!" he said in reply to my look of inquiry, "hysterics, lace handkerchiefs, eau-de-Cologne, and attempts at fainting. All very well done! I have assured the lady there is no ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... an actual sand storm is food upon which the reminiscent may ruminate many a day, being much more pleasant in memory than in the making. First come the scurrying outriders, lithe and limber whisking gusts, dancing and whirling like Moslem dervishes, coyly brushing the traveler or boldly flinging fierce fistfuls of dirt into his eyes; then off with a swish of invisible skirts—vanishing possibly in the same direction whence they came. They go leaving him wiping his astonished eyes ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... tidy up after the day's work, to put his picture away if he be a painter, to put his writings away if he be a writer, and then the very serious question arises, with whom shall he dine? His thoughts fly through Belgravia and Mayfair, and after whisking round Portman Square, and some other square in the northern neighbourhood, they soar and go away northward to Regent's Park, seeking out somebody living in one of those stately terraces who will ask him to stay to dinner. At So-and-So's there is always ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... combat between the Scotch Lion, Wallace, and the English Bulldogs, for eight hundred guineas a side, while the spectators are a-looking on in the most facetious manner. Here you see the lion has got his paws on one of the dogs whilst he is whisking out the eyes of another ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... society, and know how ladies should be spoken to. But here—the Devil leads me into that cursed apple-basket, and now must I sit moping in solitude, with nothing but a poor pipe of——" Here the student Anselmus was interrupted in his soliloquy by a strange rustling and whisking, which rose close by him in the grass, but soon glided up into the twigs and leaves of the elder-tree that stretched out over his head. It was as if the evening wind were shaking the leaves; as if little ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... probability there was more than one 'possum in the great trees surrounding the opening, but Pomp was not there to find them, and I had no dog. I felt, too, that in all probability more than one bright pair of eyes were watching me from some bough, and their owners' bushy tails twitching and whisking about; but I could see nothing, and after a time, as a sudden thought struck me, I got down softly, and looked round for a stick. This was soon found, for whenever I cut one I generally left it thrust in somewhere among the ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... 'em all if you'll go home, my little chap; it's high time you were abed,' said John, whisking the damp papers into one pocket, and his purse out of another, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... fall'n, the wind not chill: Listening ever, but not catching 230 The customary cry, 'Come buy, come buy,' With its iterated jingle Of sugar-baited words: Not for all her watching Once discerning even one goblin Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling; Let alone the herds That used to tramp along the glen, In groups or single, 240 Of brisk ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... friends and families of the prisoners together on the public square. Then they dug five graves. Then five Japanese officers came stalking across the public square, whisking at the thistle-tops with swords as they came; and then walked up to these innocent Russian boys, and whacked ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... you're whisking through Marquise (While the patients sit at ease) Comes the awful sinking sizzle of a tyre, It is usual in such cases, That your jack at all such ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... employment of the telegraph for the apprehension of the nimble delinquent can scarcely be conceived. The sudden brush of the comet's tail, the instantaneous telegram to the opposite side of the world, and the glimpse thence of the vagrant luminary as it was just whisking itself off into space toward the star Theta Centauri, together constitute a passage that stands quite without a parallel in the ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... that little thing that swings and sways like this," cried Billy, dropping herself on to the piano stool and whisking about. Billy was not afraid now, nor defiant. She was only eager and happy again. In a moment a dreamy waltz fell upon Cyril's ears—a waltz that he often played himself. It was not played correctly, it is true. There were notes, and sometimes whole measures, that were very different ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... considerately improving a temporary absence of the owner for that purpose. It was a picture to please not only the eye, but the imagination; and before I could withdraw my gaze the mother bird was back again, whisking about my head so fearlessly that for a moment I stood still, half expecting her to drop into the nest within ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... wrinkled, and tanned to the tint of old oak; his eyes black, beadlike, and fierce, and a shock of sooty hair escaped from under his battered wide-awake nearly to his shoulders. This forbidding-looking person came stumping and jerking along toward me, whisking his stick now and then viciously in the air, and giving his fell of hair a short shake, like a wild bull preparing ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Harry's tame squirrel out in one of the barns that teases me considerably. He knows that I can't chase him, now that my legs are so stiff with rheumatism, and he takes delight in showing me how spry he can be, darting around me and whisking his tail almost in my face, and trying to get me to run after him, so that he can laugh at me. I don't think that he is a very thoughtful squirrel, but I try ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... never fails to intrude itself into our contemplations upon this mode of death, I suppose to be, the absurd posture into which a man is thrown who is condemned to dance, as the vulgar delight to express it, upon nothing. To see him whisking and wavering ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... stopping a moment, and then darting on again. The whole surface of the bay—and even out for some distance into the lake—fairly swarmed with these creatures; and it was in pursuit of them that Bruin was whisking his tongue so rapidly about, and bringing his jaws together in such sonorous concussion. The animal was simply indulging in a favourite meal—which in summer is furnished him not only on the shores of the Great Slave Lake, but most of the smaller ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... keener than usual, conjured up old pictures. He fancied he was harrowing on the hill with the two chestnuts who were whisking their tails under his nose; the sparrows were twittering, Stasiek gazing into the river; by the bridge his wife was beating the linen, he could hear the resounding smacks, while the squire's brother-in-law was wildly galloping up and down the valley. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... was at an end, and as he stood placidly whisking his long tail over his pretty back, Mrs. Raeburn mentally began to make apologies for him. Doubtless the men had teased him, and naturally the poor dear little thing had tried to ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... transparent water like gleams of silver light. Down in the meadows, where the ponds were, and the shady trees grew, the cows were so hot that they stood up to their knees in the muddy water, chewing their grass with half-shut eyes, and whisking their long tails about to keep the flies at a distance. But it was of no use to whisk, for every now and then a nasty, spiteful, hungry fly would get on some poor cow's back, creep beneath the hair, and force its horny trunk into the skin so sharply, that the ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... in a pretty little breakfast-cap, is moving about the room with a feather-duster, whisking invisible dust from the picture-frames, and talking with the Parson, who has just come in, and is thawing the snow from his boots on the hearth. The Parson says the thermometer is 15 deg., and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... herself, and I could not but fancy, and with less than our usual wilfulness when we fancy things about Nature's moods, that the Mother of men beheld this scene with half a smile, differently from the simple observation of those cows whisking the flies from their flanks at the edge of the shorn meadow and its aspens, seen beneath the curved roof of a broad oak-branch. Save for this happy upward curve of the branch, we are encompassed by breathless foliage; even the gloom was hot; the little insects that are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... face to say, too, that the cows laughed at our awkwardness at milking-time, and invariably kicked over the pails; partly in consequence of our putting the stool on the wrong side, and partly because, taking offence at the whisking of their tails, we were in the habit of holding these natural fly-flappers with one hand and milking with the other. They further averred that we hoed up whole acres of Indian corn and other crops, and drew the earth carefully about the weeds; and that we raised five hundred tufts of burdock, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sleeping accommodation here, but if there was, Sagno would be a very good place to stay at. They say that some of its inhabitants sometimes smuggle a pound or two of tobacco across the Italian frontier, hiding it in the fern close to the boundary, and whisking it over the line on a dark night, but I know not what truth there is in the allegation; the people struck me as being above the average in respect of good looks and good breeding—and the average in those parts is a very ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... lieutenants with sashes or epaulettes! The aides-de- camp and narrow-waisted lieutenants waltzed better than he did; and as one after the other whisked round the ball-room with Marian firmly clasped in his arms, Maurice's feelings were not of the sweetest. Nor was this the worst of it. Had the whisking been divided equally among ten, he might have forgiven it; but there was one specially narrow-waisted lieutenant, who towards the end of the evening kept Marian nearly wholly to himself. Now to a man in ...
— Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica • Anthony Trollope
... years, had associated with hearing somebody retort to somebody that somebody was "another." "Oh I stick to the old!" Mrs. Beale had then quite loudly pronounced; and her accent, even as the cab got away, was still in the air, Maisie's effective companion having spoken no other word from the moment of whisking her off—none at least save the indistinguishable address which, over the top of the hansom and poised on the step, he had given the driver. Reconstructing these things later Maisie theorised that she at this point would have put a question to him had not the silence ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... my sweete nephew in these cooling shades, Free from the murmure of these running streames, The crye of beasts, the ratling of the windes, Or whisking of these leaues, all shall be still, And nothing interrupt thy quiet sleepe, Till I returne and take thee ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... dozed off for a little, for when he woke with a start it was very still and dark, as if the moon had gone away, had been and gone again, and he heard a cautious little mouse gnawing at the baseboard in his room, gnawing and stopping and gnawing again, then whisking over the lath like fingers running a scale on the piano. He had watched Miss Lynn do ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... sleep, apparently, and were trying to charm away the trouble of insomnia by a little whispered talk at that ghostly hour, were referring in some way or other to Almayer. It was really impossible on board that ship to get away definitely from Almayer; and a very small pony tied up forward and whisking its tail inside the galley, to the great embarrassment of our Chinaman cook, was destined for Almayer. What he wanted with a pony goodness only knows, since I am perfectly certain he could not ride ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... charmingly, as at some gentle pleasantry in his own mind—something he had remembered from a book, no doubt. It was a wonderful smile, and vanished slowly, leaving a rapt look; evidently he was lost in musing upon architecture and sculpture and beautiful books. A girl whisking by in an automobile had time to guess, reverently, that the phrase in his mind was: "A Stately Home for Beautiful Books!" Dinner-tables would hear, that evening, how Talbot Potter stood there, oblivious of everything ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington |
