"Boss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a "thrashing-bee" of the day before, and, while we were playing at bagatelle, one of the gentlemen assistants came to the door, and asked if the "Boss" were at home. A lady told me that, when she first came out, a servant asked her "How the boss liked his shirts done?" As Mrs. Moodie had not then enlightened the world on the subject of settlers' slang, the lady did not understand her, and asked what she meant by the "boss,"—to which she replied, "Why, lawk, missus, your hubby, to ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... of that very fascinating novel, "The Honorable Peter Stirling," by Paul Leicester Ford. It may give them some new light on the subject of "a government of the average," and show them what is meant by the saying, "The boss who does the most things that the people want can do the most things that the people ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... prey on and we aren't big enough for them to work in and hide in. We all live in the open and we're mostly seasoned American stock who won't be driven like a lot of foreign cattle. This city isn't a country town any longer, but it's still American. I don't know of any boss here." ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... is cheaper, Come where the pots 'old more, Come where the boss is a bit of a joss, Come to ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... asked Tom if he got good pay for making those jackets. He clipped off his thread with his great shears, and, shaking his head, said, "My boss is ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... said the Dragon-Fly. "It's because men were made to boss creation. See? You're one of the bosses, you are. You've been led to expect a lot, and because you haven't had it you feel you've been cheated. Life is like that. It's just a thing that ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... have been where warriors wrestled, High in Erin sang the sword, Boss to boss met many bucklers, Steel rung sharp on rattling helm; I can tell of all their struggle; Sigurd fell in flight of spears; Brian fell, but kept his kingdom Ere he lost one drop ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... boss would have liked to go back and lick him, but I was hired to go a-fishin', not to watch a one-sided prize fight, and I thought 'twas ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... obliged to turn men away because of physical incapacity. One instance of this I shall not soon forget. It was when I overheard, early one morning at a factory gate, an interview between a would-be laborer and the boss. I knew the applicant for a Russian Jew, who had at home an old mother and a wife and two young children to support. He had had intermittent employment throughout the winter in a sweater's den, {5} barely enough to keep them all alive, and, after the hardships of the cold ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... big-feeling," said Ben, using a boy's word, "and likes to boss all the rest of the boys. He thinks he is far ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... is our Scythianess? Why are you staring? First lay the shield, boss downward, on the floor ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... Republican "Boss" of the Twenty-first District, evidently eyed Roosevelt with some suspicion, for the newcomer belonged to a class which Jake did not desire to see largely represented in the business of "practical politics," and so he treated Roosevelt with a "rather distant affability." ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... ashore, together with what cooking things they needed, the boys began preparations for supper. Many hands make light work, and Jack utilized every one for some purpose. Some laid in a supply of wood, others opened cans, while Josh, being the boss cook of the crowd, ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... got a daily phone call from Paul Cleary. That I could have snarled off, but Sylvia always came on the line first, and there was a minute or so of chit-chat before she cut her boss in on the line. I'm sure she listened to all the calls. But her first words were deadly. ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... de boss man at der registerin' he ax me fer my las' name, an' I tell him I hadn't got none, jes so. Den Sheriff Gleason, he put in his oar, jes ez he allus does, an' he say my name wuz Desmit, atter ole Mahs'r. Dat made me mad, an' ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... morning about a week after Hawkesbury's arrival, "come up to my diggings this evening. The other fellows are coming up, and the new boss too." ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... these fatigue men!" Tirloir bellows. "An abominable race—all of 'em—mucky-nosed idlers! They roll over each other all day long at the rear, and they'll be damned before they'll be in time. Ah, if I were boss, they should damn quick take our places in the trenches, and they'd have to work for a change. To begin with, I should say, 'Every man in the section will carry grease and soup in turns.' Those ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... so mean as that darned skunk. It makes me mad whenever I look at this consumptive boss ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... her a good many times—and she came here once or twice. She made out that she and Singapore Charlie were prepared to give away the boss ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... lightning express to this city were laid by Negro hands after he had tunneled the mountains, leveled the hills, and filled the hollows. And if those iron rails were made South and the Negro did not forge them, it was because the boss had an acute attack of colorphobia and gave the job to some nondecitizenized, ready-to-work emigrant. Some people used to say that the Negro was lazy, and that if freed he would perish. I have traveled all over this country and through many others, and I have seen thousands of tramps, ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... know about that part of it," said Dan; "but I know one thing: he'll be chief of the clan, boss of the shanty, or he'll know the reason why.—O Shenac, dear, I'm sorry for you; your reign is over, I doubt. You'll be ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... a 'reg'lar' woman, as the boys say," he observed. "I like her. Does she always, so to speak, boss ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to lose my temper when I'm in the middle of a white-hot, impassioned business appeal and the office boy bounces in to say to the boss: "Mrs. Jones is waiting. She says you were going to help her pick out wall paper this morning;" and Jones says, "Tell her I'll be there in ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... a step towards him) Don't let the boss hear, and I'll tell it to you, Mr. Albert. (He holds the brush in his hands and is about to begin the recitation when Crofton Crilly enters from the Master's apartments. Crofton Crilly has a presentable appearance. ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... your whip over that man's head and turn him from what in his heart and conscience he knows is right; you can crack your whip over the men who call themselves free-born American citizens and who have made you their boss—sneer at them if you like, but you have no collar on my neck. If you are a leader, why don't you lead your people to what is good and noble? Why do you stop this man in the work God sent him here to do? You would make a party hack ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... me out, boss," said old Samson, finally. "I ain't got no place to go an' hide when I fights, now. It makes me ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... our skins," replied his father, "to make us fight these foreigners on their own level. I'm going to bed. No use waiting for Mama. There's a hard day ahead in the quarry tomorrow. That break set us back on a rush order. The boss was crazy. I told him as I told him forty times before that he'd have to get a new derrick, but he won't. Not so long as he's got me to piece and contrive and make ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... or the boss's son either," said Bob, "I wouldn't get up till I was good and ready. I'd have my breakfast in bed if I had a mind to, an' my dinner too, an' my supper. An' I wouldn't do no work, an' I'd go to the theayter every ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... listen," continued the big trackman fiercely, as the rest gathered about him. "I didn't tell everyt'ing. Besides disa man Hennessy he say cuta da wage, an' send for odders take your job, he tella da biga boss you no worka good, so da biga boss he no pay you for all da ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... pass. I wanted him to sell her, but he wouldn't hear to it, so I had to put up wid what I could git. Marse Robert war mighty good to me, but ole Gundover's wife war de meanest woman dat I eber did see. She used to go out on de plantation an' boss things like a man. Arter I war married, I had a baby. It war de dearest, cutest little thing you eber did see; but, pore thing, it got sick and died. It died 'bout three o'clock; and in de mornin', Katie, habbin ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... Came sort of near starving before I got out. I sold my outfit and went back to Cripple and struck another job with the shovel and pick, digging prospect ditches. It was pretty tiresome work and pretty cold, too. So when I'd got a month's wages I told the boss he'd either have to put me underground or I'd quit. I said I was a miner and not a Dago. You see, I felt independently rich with a month's wages in my jeans—pockets, that is. The boss said I could quit. I've been wondering ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... what if you wanted to quit? Suppose you didn't like your shift boss or somebody? You go down and get your time, and they hand you your draft notice. Me, I liked it better in '46. ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... result will be falsified in a degree enormously disproportionate to their magnitude. The adoption, for instance, of system of declinations as much as 1" of arc astray might displace to the extent of 10 deg. north or south the point fixed upon as the apex of the sun's way (see L. Boss Astr. Jour., No. 213). Risks on this score, however, will become less formidable with the further advance of practical astronomy along a track definable as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... her if the boss was in. He did all the talking. I saw a little girl, rather plump, with a complexion like a New England or Blue Mountain girl, or a girl from Tasmania or from Gippsland in Victoria. Red and white girls were very scarce in the Solong district. She had the biggest and brightest ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... with one eye Staring to threaten and defy, That thought comes next—and instantly The freak is over, The shape will vanish, and behold! A silver shield with boss of gold That spreads itself, some fairy bold In fight ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... coves now, if we'd all been on the same footin' then. But that we never were. I was overseer at the principal out-station—a good enough billet in its way—and Minchin was overseer in at the homestead. But Steel was the boss, damn him, trust Steel to ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... body, and filled with as much as two horses could pull. I never knew until then how far a man's prejudice could overcome him. Our mess had concluded to treat itself to a turkey dinner on Christmas. Our boss of the mess was instructed to purchase a turkey of the next wagon that came in. Sure enough, the day came and a fine fat turkey bought, already dressed, and boiling away in the camp kettle, while all hands stood around and drank in the delightful aroma from turkey and condiments ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... I'm boss of the Blue Star Navigation Company, am I not? The man was in charge of the Shanghai office before you ever opened your mouth to discharge ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... Kirkwood said it. He's the boss one of the whole lot to my thinkin'. He's got that way with him some folks has! We had some real good talks, evenings, down on the rocks under the old bridge,—I told him about ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... of Brigal So his good shield is nothing worth at all, Shatters the boss, was fashioned of crystal, One half of it downward to earth flies off; Right to the flesh has through his hauberk torn, On his good spear he has the carcass caught. And with one blow that pagan downward falls; The soul of him Satan away hath ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... preparing to feed his boss," surmised Frank. "Well, those chicken sandwiches look all right. I'm goin' to ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... Mars, are you?" Mother Corey asked. The whine was entirely missing from his voice now, though his face seemed as expressionless as ever. "What does your boss Jurgens figure on doing, punk? Taking over all the rackets ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... delight at the stately trees, heavy with summer foliage, the herds of deer, the calm lake, with kingly swans gliding over it. Perhaps her greatest surprise was that all this fair domain belonged to one individual. Why, the richest "boss" in Canada possessed no more than a few acres of lawn and pleasure ground, with ornamental trees and shrubs,—all looking new,—the production of a self made man, grown rich within a few years. These stately oaks and beeches must have seen generations live and die, lords of the manor, and ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... this yeah ve'y mawnin' I banked nigh on to a thousan' dollehs fu' de young boss. En w'en I tell you mo'n two hundred stamps is passed my mouth this yeah blessid evenin', 't will give you some slight idee of the magnitude of the duties I has to puffawn. W'y, gentlemun, I is drank wateh, an' I is drank beeh, but my mouth hain't ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... "Get this, both of you!" he snapped. "What I said to those crawlers down below goes for you too. I'm the boss of this outfit and you don't even guess about what we're going to ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... still, even when touched, its eyes being half closed, as, guided by instinct, it tried to "play possum." One of the men picked it up. It neither squealed nor resisted. Then Jake, realizing ever the importance of "standing in with the boss," said: "Say, let's keep that 'un for the children." So the last of the family was thrown alive into the same bag with its dead brothers, and, bruised and frightened, lay there very still, understanding nothing, ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... Ferris joined his boss when the latter went to his room. Ferris stopped with the postmaster down the street, as he had stopped for twenty years when he ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... involuntary separation that grew out of a poker game with a tough crowd. The tumultuous events of that night sent me North in undignified haste, for I am not warlike by nature, and Texas was no longer healthy for me unless I cared to follow up a bloody feud. But I'd left Mac a trail-boss for the whitest man in the South, likewise engaged to the finest girl in any man's country; and it's a far cry from punching cows in Texas to wearing the Queen's colors and keeping peace along the border-line. I knew, though, that he'd tell me the how and why of it ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... D. is rather full up just now," he remarked. "I'm walkin'-boss there. The roads is about all made, and road-making is what a greenhorn tackles first. They's more chance earlier in the year. But if the OLD Fellow" (he strongly accented the first word) "h'aint nothin' for you, just ask for Tim Shearer, an' I'll try ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... figures that they have in the windows," explained Fred. "It was in a place where they make them that Sam Hodge worked and he made us all laugh when we took him on at Henderson Harbor. He was telling us about the boss throwing his leg at him and Sam told us he fired a foot back and before he had gone very far we had the air full of eyes, heads and legs and arms, feet and hands and everything else that goes to the making of a dummy. In fact I have ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... to have it done by Saturday morning,' replied Baxter. 'The train with the wire fence and posts is scheduled to arrive here at eleven o'clock to-night, and work will begin immediately. Paulo Montani, the Italian boss who has worked for me before, has taken this contract, and will put twelve hundred ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... about the Reformatory between Editor West and his Dog-like Admirer, the City Boss; and a Briefer Conversation between West and ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... to the S.E. the cleft in the wooded hills through which the Are breaks its way, a cleft up which the Teutons trudged with their wives and children and the spoil of Gaul, to their destruction. To the south-east also a quaint chain of hills that rise above Gardanne, with a boss like a great snuff-box on the top, the Pillon du Roi. At one's feet is Aix, with its many towers, surrounded by silvery olive orchards, and away to the south is the red hill above Les Milles where Marius was encamped the night after ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... cavallard drivers (who cared for the loose cattle), night herders, and sundry extra hands, all under the charge of a chief wagon-master, termed the wagon-boss, his lieutenants being the boss of the cattle train and the assistant wagon-master. The men were disposed in messes, each providing its own wood and water, doing its own cooking, and washing up its own tin dinner service, while one man in each ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... "Most generally, Boss, it are; but you see Bre'r Green, what was to preach the ole 'oman's sarmont, had a big baptizin' for two Sundays han' runnin', and he was gwine to Boston for a spell, on the next comin' Saddy, so bein' as our time belonks to us now, we was free ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... nothing to it. The thing you must think and believe is that your body is one thing and your spirit is another thing. You are you, and your body is something else that don't amount to shucks. Your body don't count. You're the boss. You don't need any body. And thinking and believing all this you proceed to prove it by using your will. You make your ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... "Boss shoot lion," said the black in a quiet, contented way; and from out of the darkness beneath the great wagon came the sound of the foreloper settling himself down once more to sleep. I remember wondering whether ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... a year, one Robin Boss had been town drummer; he was a relic of some American-war fencibles, and was, to say the God's truth of him, a divor body, with no manner of conduct, saving a very earnest endeavour to fill himself fou as often as he could get the means; the consequence ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... uniform tint, more or less indicative of shade, and then scratch out a white spot or streak in it of any shape; by putting a dark touch beside this white one, you may turn it, as you choose, into either a ridge or an incision, into either a boss or a cavity. If you put the dark touch on the side of it nearest the sun, or rather, nearest the place that the light comes from, you will make it a cut or cavity; if you put it on the opposite side, you will make it a ridge or mound; and the complete success of the effect depends less on depth ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... door. Because, as we have seen, in this Court—unlike the Courts of Law or Her Majesty's Court of St. James's—the kitchens opened right on the street. Not but what, for all that, there was the number where you would expect, on a shiny boss you could rub clean and give an appearance. Aunt M'riar said so, and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... will never realize, the importance politically of that act. Mr. O'Hara refused to come, but it was hinted about that Perkins had summoned him, and there was great joy among the rank and file, and woe among the better elements, for O'Hara was a boss, and a boss whose power was one of the things Thaddeus was trying to break, and the cohorts fancied that the apostle of purity had realized that without O'Hara reform was fallen into the pit. Furthermore, ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... misgivings about the end of this jaunt, our companions had none. They plunged with hearts almost jocular into the woods on Lochaber's edge, in a bright sunshine that glinted on the boss of the target and on the hilt of the knife or sword, and we came by the middle of the day to the plain on which lay the castle of Inverlochy—a staunch quadrangular edifice with round towers at the angles, and surrounded by a moat that smelled ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... be told in a word. But it was in this affair that Solon Denney won his title of "Boss of Little Arcady," a title first rendered unto him somewhat in derision, I regret to say, by a number of our leading citizens, who sought, as it were, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... are," said Paul. "If he thinks he's boss of me he's mistaken." He glared wrathfully at Neil, and yet with a trifle of uneasiness. Paul was no coward, but physical conflict with Neil was something so contrary to the natural order that it appalled him. ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... strengthen the wall. The next three windows are of splendid design, resembling that of the clerestory of the nave, but richer. All the mouldings are of the same character. Under the windows runs an arcade of blind tracery, two lights to each division, with a cinquefoil ornamented with a sculptured boss above. These bosses contain alternately foliage and human heads wreathed in foliage. The capitals are also ornamented with leaves and curious animals. The vault is of richly-moulded ribs, and on each side ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... minds promptly and acted vigorously. As for me, I never, shirked work of any kind. A gentleman on a newspaper never does. The more of a snob a man is, the more afraid he is of damaging his dignity, and the more desirous of being "boss" and captain. But though I have terribly scandalised my chief or proprietor by reporting a fire, I never found that I was less respected by the typos, reporters, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... you might call kind of an assistant boss pretty much all my life; at least, ever since I could vote; and I was something of a ward-heeler even before that. I don't suppose there's any way a man of my disposition could have put in his time to less advantage and greater cost to himself. ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... was a large copper shield, in the form of an oval salver, in the middle of which is a knob or boss encircled by a small furrow. It is a little less than twenty inches in length, is quite flat, and surrounded by a rim one and one-half inches high; the boss is two and one-third inches high and four and one-third inches in diameter; the furrow encircling it ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... on the walls, some stuck full of various coloured pins denoting the condition of the canvass. A map of the city in colours, divided into all sorts of districts, told how fared the battle in the stronghold of the boss, Billy McLoughlin. Huge systems of card indexes, loose leaf devices, labour-saving appliances for getting out a vast mass of campaign "literature" in a hurry, in short a perfect system, such as a great, well-managed business might have been proud ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... a huge propeller having four tremendously broad sickle-shaped blades, the palms of which were so cunningly shaped and hollowed as to gather in and concentrate the air—or water, as the case might be—about the boss and powerfully project it thence in a direct line with the longitudinal axis of the ship. To give this cigar-shaped curvilinear hull perfect stability when resting upon the ground, it was fitted with a pair of deep ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Boss of the Beldams found That without his leave they were ramping round, He called,—they could hear him twenty miles, From Chelsea beach to the Misery Isles; The deafest old granny knew his tone Without the trick of the telephone. "Come here, you witches! Come here!" says ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... families," he said. "Even to the houses. And there's the real key. What a dope!" He snapped his fingers. "The head! Polly! Your mother's the grand boss woman, ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... in the edifice were mournful and grotesque. What was now the Hall, had evidently been the atrium; the round shield, with its pointed boss, the spear, sword, and small curved saex of the early Teuton, were suspended from the columns on which once had been wreathed the flowers; in the centre of the floor, where fragments of the old mosaic ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... manners to me," retorted Buckrow savagely. "I ain't goin' to stand for none such from ye, Red. Yer sidin' with Thirkle, and I know that, and I'm as good a man as Thirkle; and I'm boss here, even or no even. I'm boss! Understand that? Thirkle and ye can have yer votes if ye want; but I'm boss, and I'll drill the ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... fiercely loyal to Shakespeare and cordially scornful of Bacon and of all the pretensions of the Baconians. So was I—at first. And at first he was glad that that was my attitude. There were even indications that he admired it; indications dimmed, it is true, by the distance that lay between the lofty boss-pilotical altitude and my lowly one, yet perceptible to me; perceptible, and translatable into a compliment—compliment coming down from about the snow-line and not well thawed in the transit, and not likely to set anything afire, not even a cub-pilot's self-conceit; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have been joined to the mainland in the memory of the fathers of this generation; and on shore, composed, I am told, of the same rock, that hill of San Fernando which forms a beacon by sea and land for many a mile around. An isolated boss of the older Parian, composed of hardened clay which has escaped destruction, it rises, though not a mile long and a third of a mile broad, steeply to a height of nearly six hundred feet, carrying on its cliffs the remains of a once magnificent vegetation. ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... boss is a very notionate old party. He might let me go wandering on like this for several weeks longer or he might suddenly decide to send for me, and I should have to go hiking back in the ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... true and sacred, if I had let it pass. I said to them that there was one more word for me to add, and that was, that every one of them was as much entitled to his freedom as I was to mine, and I hoped they would all now secure it. "Believe you, boss," was the general response, and each one with his rough gravelly hand grasped mine, and with tearful eyes and broken utterances said, "God bless you!" "May we meet in Heaven!" "My name is Jack Allen, don't forget me!" "Remember ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... a rake in the embers with his pipe and said: "Yas, sar; my 'pinion 'bout dat place, boss, am dat it was dug out." Here Uncle Jim broke in. "What de matter wid you, Tony? How many niggers do you 'spose 'twould take tu dig a hole big nuff tu hole all dat water?" "Dats a fac, Jim," cried Uncle Tony, "I forgot ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... Dictaphone of Fate." It was founded upon one of his few remaining impressions of that six weeks in Wall Street the year before. It purported to be the sunny tale of an office boy who, quite by accident, hummed a wonderful melody into the dictaphone. The cylinder was discovered by the boss's brother, a well-known producer of musical comedy—and then immediately lost. The body of the story was concerned with the pursuit of the missing cylinder and the eventual marriage of the noble office boy (now a successful composer) ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... when he got out, and Henrietta was relieved, though she cried with vexation and disappointment when he was gone. As for Rob, he went home in great doubt whether it was worth while trying to be something. Of what use was it to seek to get to be a boss, a builder, or the owner of a quarry? Things were ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... side porch. The billiard room opens on to it. I'd been told by the corral boss earlier in the evening that he'd seen a man skulking around the house. There'd been a report like that once or twice before, and I set a watch. I put Ben Haggerty at the kitchen wing with a gun, and I took up a stand on the porch. Before ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... they can't. Off the drunks perhaps. Put down three and carry five. What is that, a bob here and there, dribs and drabs. On the wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the town travellers. Square it you with the boss and we'll split the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... must either cast a pulley out of babbitt metal, or else go to a machinist and get a collar turned, with a boss and a set screw, and with three small screw holes around the edge. Cut out a small wood wheel and screw the collar fast to it, fasten it to the shaft of the turbine and turn on the steam. Then take a knife or a chisel, and, while it is running at full speed, ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... hollar like you done 'fore I was touched," he retorted. "Wal, we got his goat good that time, didn't we, Butch? Better come in an' git yore shirt on 'fore the boss sees yuh ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... and I used to be in the circus business together. He took care of the grafters when I was boss canvas man. I never could see any good in shaking down the rubes for all the money they had and then taking part of it. He used to run ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... with a pin that didn't belong to 'em at our emporium, the fact ain't never been known. I've seen the boss chargin' customers with the cracker they eat when samplin'. We got orders to make light weight if they buy. But about this rumpus; they's a child ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... use to worry. We'll stick around with them and sort of boss the job. I am glad you invited them to ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... boss," insisted Margaret, rolling up her sleeves with more gusto than seemed necessary, for in the process her fist came ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... say, and say some more, that all the salesmen in a store will emulate their boss; if he is sour on all the works, you may be sure his string of clerks will ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... the first "bent," as it was called, was put together and pinned by oak pins that the boys brought. Then pike poles were distributed, the men, fifteen or twenty of them, arranged in a line abreast of the bent; the boss carpenter steadied and guided the corner post and gave the word of command,—"Take holt, boys!" "Now, set her up!" "Up with her!" "Up she goes!" When it gets shoulder high, it becomes heavy, and there is a pause. ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... high an office," interposed Michael with a twinkle in his eye. "I wouldn't exactly care to have her for my boss." ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... the Old Path Guide, in Louisville. I was owner, proprietor, editor, bookkeeper, treasurer, mailing clerk, general agent, and special "boss." This required all my time, except what I had necessarily to give to preaching on the Lord's day and the preparation therefor. The Guide was a success, financially, from the beginning. I put money in bank the first three months of each year to ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... had defined his own trade to a nicety. There might be detectives whose work was above this reproach, but he was a confirmed creeper, and he knew it. It wasn't his fault. The boss told him to creep, and he crept. If he declined to creep, he would be sacked instanter. It was hard, and yet he felt the sting of her words, and in his bosom the first seeds of dissatisfaction with his occupation ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... place of distinction in Winesburg, and to Seth Richmond he talked continually of the matter, "It's the easiest of all lives to live," he declared, becoming excited and boastful. "Here and there you go and there is no one to boss you. Though you are in India or in the South Seas in a boat, you have but to write and there you are. Wait till I get my name up and then see what fun I ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... Cody, driven to speech by curiosity. "Say, Fom, do you let your sister boss you like that? I thought you ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... resort has an Indian legend, and the first thing I did after getting my dinner was to look up the legendist. I wanted to hear how it was that the Indian had ceased to frequent this spot. So in looking for the boss legendist I struck Judge Lamoreaux, of Dodge county, who had been herewith a party of friends, Mr. Hayes, and Mr. Van Brunt, with all their wives. They had been searching for ferns and legends and they had a car load. The Judge had heard of the legend, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... of his camp. After these repeated insults he sought another white friend, and told of his grievances. "Look here," said Satank, "I asked Peacock to write me a good letter, and he gave me this; but I don't understand it! Every time I hand it to a wagon-boss, he gives me the devil! Read it to me and tell me ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... minute there was trouble. I figure it out this way: Halim was sent by Nahoum Pasha to bring letters that said one thing to the Saadat, and, when quite convenient, to say other things to Mustafa, the boss-sheikh of this settlement. Halim Bey has gone again, but he has left his tale behind him. I'd stake all I lost, and more than I ever expect to get out of Mexico on that, and maybe I'll get a hatful out of Mexico ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... still with indignation against the lord chancellor, representing the necessity of an immediate parliament. It was circulated about the kingdom for subscriptions, signed by a great number of those who sat in parliament, and presented to the king by lord Boss, who with some others was deputed for that purpose. The king told them they should know his intention in Scotland; and in the meantime adjourned their parliament by proclamation. The people exasperated at this new provocation, began ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Alderman, for I've got some other things on your man Morgan. This political stuff is beginning to wear out," snapped Sawyer. "There are too many big citizens getting interested in this dope trade and in the gang work for you and your Boss to keep ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... promised the rider, "if you say so, Boss. Only don't talk about firin' me, then. I'm ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... residence in Edinburgh she was honored with the friendship and counsel of many persons of distinction and piety. The Viscountess Glenorchy, Lady Boss Baillie, Lady Jane Belches, Mrs. Walter Scott, mother of the poet, Mrs. Dr. Davidson, and Mrs. Baillie Walker, were among her warm personal friends. The Rev. Dr. Erskine, and Dr. Davidson, formerly the ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... driving all day and camping at night through all weather; but the hardest part of it was that men and boys all had to take their turn standing guard over their cattle at night. After Bro. Butcher was taken sick on that first trip, father acted as his boss, and on all his later trips he went as wagon-boss of some large train owned by Atchison freighters, also taking along two ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... boss appeared at my desk. One look at his face convinced me of the truth of Tagore's saying that great activity is poison to the soul. Certainly ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... the Senate, with the same interests as their own, to represent them. They chose Hanley. He picked out of the candidates for the presidency the man he thought would help the interests. He nominated him, and the people voted for him. Hanley is what we call a 'boss.'" ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... 'Didjer know boss's two sons had got commissions? Joined the Sappers an' tried to raise a company out o' the works to join. Couldn't though. ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... you fellows," said Lee from the doorway. "The boss of the outfit, the real owner, you know, just blew in. Up at the house. Says you boys are to stick around to take orders straight from headquarters. You, Benny," to the cook, "are to have a man's-size breakfast ready ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... were a lot of fresh young fellows, and they only laughed at me and said I was too suspicious," grumbled Jed Kessler. "But that is where I made a mistake. I should have gone right to the offices and reported to the head boss." ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... compartments. Let one represent to himself the pillars retreating step by step, accompanied by little, slender, light-pillared, pointed structures, likewise striving upwards, and furnished with canopies to shelter the images of the saints, and how at last every rib, every boss, seems like a flower-head and row of leaves, or some other natural object transformed into stone. One may compare, if not the building itself, yet representations of the whole and of its parts, for the purpose ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... a stool, near the car, a little blonde chorus chicken, shaking and twitching, while the chauffeur and the garage boss held her up. I says, 'What's this?' and Van Cleft tells me all he knows, which ain't nothing. Them guys in that garage was wise, for it meant a cold five hundred apiece before I left to keep their lids closed. Van Cleft begs me to hustle ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... of Trubiggs's cattlemen who left for Portland by night steamer, Friday, was headed by a bulky-shouldered boss, who wore no coat and whose corduroy vest swung cheerfully open. A motley troupe were the cattlemen—Jews with small trunks, large imitation-leather valises and assorted bundles, a stolid prophet-bearded procession of weary men in tattered derbies ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... jars,' said Dallas. 'Knowing that Vaughan was keen on being head of the House he actually went to the Old Man and persuaded him that it would be better to bring in some day boy who was a School-prefect than let Vaughan boss the show. What do ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... own idea, the clearest, most convincing descriptions of every town, mountain, plain, or river. I wish my bitterest foe no worse fate than the reading of them. Frigid? Caspian snows, Celtic ice, are warm in comparison. A whole book hardly suffices him for the Emperor's shield—the Gorgon on its boss, with eyes of blue and white and black, rainbow girdle, and snakes twined and knotted. Why, Vologesus's breeches or his bridle, God bless me, they take up several thousand lines apiece; the same for the look of Osroes's hair as he swims the Tigris—or what the cave was like ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... as I be, you'll have some sense, mebby," Applehead quelled. "Course you think Annie's all right. She's purty,'n' purtyness in a woman shore does cover up a pile uh cussedness—to a feller under forty. You're boss here, Andy. When she comes back, you ask 'er where she's been, and see if you kin git a straight answer. She'll lie to yuh—I'll bet all I got, she'll lie to yuh. And when a woman lies about where she's been to and what she's been doin', you can bet there's something scaley ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... was already seeing his candidate. As political boss of his party, he had little regard for such a formality as being announced to any person on whom he might call—so he had walked through ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... listen! You can take possession of the house; you can stand behind the bar and take every cent that comes in; you can prevent anything going out; but as long as Mr. Mayfield and his family stay here, by the living God—law or no law—I'll be boss here, and they shall ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... a man of monumental patience, and no word of complaint passed his lips. It was just at this time that a crushing blow had been dealt the hopeful, cheery little wifey, who had always been laughingly termed "boss of the ranch," "head of the house," and suchlike terms, but whose right to these titles had never been disputed by the indulgent husband or devoted sons and daughters, for her ready hand always carried with it relief, and her merry ...
— Grandfather's Love Pie • Miriam Gaines
... stock of meat for my ranch on the Little Missouri, sometimes in the bright fall weather, sometimes in the Arctic bitterness of the early Northern winter. He was the most loyal and simple-hearted of men, and he had come to join his old "boss" and comrade in the bigger hunting which we were to carry on ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... deserts the girl, he won't be so hard to find as formerly. You see, it's like this. The boss says to me: 'Higg, here's a guy we want back. He's down in Patagonia somewhere.' So I go to Patagonia. I know South America and Canada like the lines in my hand. This is my first venture over here. The point is, I know ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... must tell you how I enjoy YOUNG PEOPLE. My good uncle Henry takes it for me. I must tell about my pet geese. Their names are Boss and Susan. They are very gentle, and as smart as they can be. I have a puppy named Bang-up. My grandpa named him. I am six years old, and my mamma is ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "Why couldn't it?" shouted Eskew. "It was! Do you think my eyes are as fur gone as yours? I saw him, I tell you! The same ornery Joe Louden, run away and sellin' tickets for a side-show. He wasn't even the boss of it; the manager was about the meanest-lookin' human I ever saw—and most humans look mighty mean, accordin' to my way of thinkin'! Riffraff of the riffraff are his friends now, same as they were here. Weeds! and HE'S a weed, always was and always will be! Him and his kind ain't any more ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... explaining; you wouldn't get me," she went on, impatiently. "But here's something even you can understand. I'd look nice opening the boss's mail, wouldn't I? Now you've read the worst of it you might as well dip into it far enough to find out just when she's coming. Somebody'll have to drive over to Conejo for her as long ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... Joe told him that Chicago was his destination, and innocently added that he intended to find employment in the city. "Say, kid," the good-natured brakeman advised him, more as a huge joke than in a serious vein, "if you cannot find anything better, hit my boss for a job." And then he gave Joe the ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... come home, and Mr. Henley, my boss, insisted upon proving to me it would be the most foolish thing I could do. He was so much in the right, that I resented it ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... that of Des Moines. It was in this year that General Custer was killed by the Sioux; that the flimsy iron railway bridge fell at Ashtabula; that the "Molly Maguires" terrorized Pennsylvania; that the first wire of the Brooklyn Bridge was strung; and that Boss Tweed and Hell Gate were both put out of the way in ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... to play none. Our boss hired us out lots of times. I don' know what he got for us. We farmed, cut wood, grubbed, anything. I herded sheep and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... "Oh yes, boss! I accidentally shot the last man I hunted with— killed him." Kirk stared tragically at his companion, but Allan was not to ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... make out to us that he's the chief, boss, sachem, or whatever they call it, of the crowd that was aboard yesterday," ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... he has to pay to the keeper of the church one measure of barley, and eighteen groats for his clothes yearly, and every Martinmas he is to pay to the cantor sixty soldi, and he shall place a {64} . . . or boss {65} in the choir during Lent. Also he must do one O in Advent and take charge of all the ornaments of the altars and all the relics. Also on high days and when there is a procession he is to keep the paschal candle before the altar, as is customary, but on other days he shall ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... rather masterful disposition, and squabbles almost invariably ensued before the two had been long together. With the three girls who shared her dormitory she was on quite friendly, though not warm, terms. They had at first considered Marjorie inclined to "boss", and had made her thoroughly understand that, as a new girl, such an attitude could not be tolerated in her. So long as she was content to manage her own cubicle and not theirs they were pleasant enough, but they united in a firm triumvirate of resistance ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Every herd has its ringleader, its unruly spirit—one that plans all the mischief and leads the rest through the fences into the grain or into the orchard. This one is usually quite different from the master spirit, the "boss of the yard." The latter is generally the most peaceful and law-abiding cow in the lot, and the least bullying and quarrelsome. But she is not to be trifled with; her will is law; the whole herd give way before her, those that have crossed horns with ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... popes were in those days, as now, generally called bulls. The reason why they were called by this name was on account of their being authenticated by the Pope's seal, which was impressed upon a sort of button or boss of metal attached to the parchment by a cord or ribbon. The Latin name for this boss was bulla. Such bosses were sometimes made of lead, so as to be easily stamped by the seal. Sometimes they were made of other metals. There was one ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... This applies to a blade of a propeller or air-screw which is nothing but a revolving surface set at angle of incidence, and which it is impossible to construct without a good deal of detrimental surface near the central boss. ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... approached them, Patsey caught him by the arm, and, with a most knowing look on his broad, Irish face, exclaimed, "Didn't I tell yez the boss wuz crazy, an' I wouldn't git ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... laughed. "Blackie's just—Blackie. Imagine taking offense at him! He knows every one by their given name, from Jo, the boss of the pressroom, to the Chief, who imports his office coats from London. Besides, Blackie and I are newspaper men. And people don't scrape and bow in a newspaper office—especially when they're fond of one another. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the American Department of Labor, the Negro wanted change because he was regarded in 1914 as the man requiring a boss of another color. He was not regarded as a master mechanic, manufacturer, artist or journeyman, unless the labor union, to which he was ineligible, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... can speak to them if it is necessary. But he says it isn't often necessary to speak to a horse. The less you talk to them the better trained they are. And Hess is daddy's boss wrangler." ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... all air leanin' toward promises of little work an' lots of pay," answered Jerry, with a laugh. "Morgan's on the fence about joinin'. But Andrew agreed. He's Dutch an' pig-headed. Jansen's only too glad to make trouble fer his boss. They're goin' to lay off the rest of to-day an' talk with Glidden. They all agreed to meet down by the culvert. An' thet's what they was arguin' with me fer—wanted ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... you are," growled the one addressed as Jeff. "See here, my buck, the boss don't want any slip-up on this job—see? He's been stung once too often. I'm goin' back to the boat, but you and Tim will stay here till daylight—right here, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... You're too early if you got a jane in your eye, bo," was the ribald reply. "The boss is a good guy." He sneered in the direction of the black-haired, coarse-looking man in the cashier's cage. "He hires them girls for five dollars less a week than he'd have to pay union waiters, and he ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... mind the figure if you're ashamed of it," said the stranger, calmly. "This is my offer. If you'll shake your boss and come to me, I'll double your pay every year so long as you stick to that 'Yes, sir, thank you, sir,' talk and manner. What do you say? Is it ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... camp was upset; a strange black fellow had arrived, and was said to have brought gooweeras. This reaching the boss's ears, confiscation would result in order to restore peace of mind in the camp. Before I left the station a gin brought me a gooweera and told me to keep it; she had stolen it from her husband, who had threatened to point it at her for ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker |
