"Cuss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... says to herself, "if he only would be cross! If he only would say something rough to us! If he only would cuss." ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... don't reckon there's a cuss on this gold, do you? Just see how many people it has killed. Dick Winters and Bill Frank and Jim and Haney, besides all the prospectors that have died huntin' for it. You-all don't reckon anything will happen to us, or to ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... a wolf, I remember, darting about his cage, slinking, furtive, ever on a futile prowl. He especially engaged the interest of Tom McNeil, who said admiringly, as I, too, looked through the bars, "Ain't he a prompt little cuss?" I felt that with Tom it was the fascination of opposites; he ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... says, 'There was a arrow fastened in its mane when I see it this mornin', but his dad took no notice whatsoever av the boy's sayin'; just went on that it was the one Jean Pahusca had stole when he was drunk last. What does it mean, Phil? Is Jean hidin' out round here again? I wish the cuss would go to Santy Fee with the next train down the trail an' go to Spanish bull fightin'. He's just cut out for that, begorra; fur he rides like a Comanche. It ud be a sort av disgrace to the bull though. I've got nothin' ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... put it to your nose once, you can't smell it a second time. Oh what beautiful galls they be! What a shame it is to bar a feller out such a day as this. One on 'em blushes like a red cabbage, when she speaks to me, that's the one, I reckon, I disturbed this mornin'. Cuss the rooks! I'll pyson them, and that won't make ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Little Stevie cuss! Better get in on it. Some fight! Tennelly sent 'Whisk' for a whole basket of superannuated cackle-berries"—he motioned back to a freshman bearing a basket of ancient eggs—"we're going to blindfold Steve and put oysters down his back, and then finish ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the night air, Sol,'—meaning Mrs. Sol,—I acted ugly. No, sir, it's human nature; and it was quite natural that Mornie, when she caught sight o' Mrs. Sol's face last night, should rise up and cuss us both. Lord, if she'd only acted like that! But the old lady got her quiet at last; and, as I said before, it's all right, and we'll pull her through. But don't YOU thank us: it's a little matter betwixt us and Mornie. We've got everything fixed, so that Mrs. Sol can stay ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... well enough," continued Sam; "but I don't take a cent's wuth of stock in thet thar father of her'n. He's in with them sharps, sure pop, an' it don't suit his book to hev Foster hangin' round. It's ten to one he sent that cuss to watch 'em. Wa'al, they're a queer lot, an' I'm afeared thar's plenty of trouble ahead among 'em. Good luck to you, Major," and he pushed back his chair and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... Fred Mitchell, half-sorrowing, yet struggling to conceal tears of choked mirth over his roommate's late exhibition, recognized this violent interrupter as one Linski, a fellow freshman who sat next to him in one of his classes. "What's that cuss up to?" Fred wondered, and so did others. Linski ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... you about, he turns out to be a true sport after all. Marches with the best of us, lives as dirty as we, enjoys it all. The young cuss, I've grown fond of him. What do you think his latest is? He's kept hammering at me till he's made me stop buying pies and things! Good for the pocket-book, but particularly good for my little insides. The last three days I haven't even had a hankering for something sweet. Tell Nelly she needn't ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... enjoyment, where no envious rule prevents; Sink the steamboats! cuss the railways! rot, O rot ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... there, so I had a chance to talk with him. He's been up to Boston and never got back till this afternoon, so I cal'lated maybe he hadn't heard about Cap'n Sam's app'intment. And I knew, too, how he does hate the Cap'n; ain't had nothin' but cuss words and such names for him ever since Sam done him out of gettin' the postmaster's job. Pretty mean trick, some folks call ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... ab rupt' dis cuss' a cross' a gree' an nul' de duct' a dopt' a sleep' con struct' in duct' a loft' es teem' in struct' re but' a non' de cree' in trust' re sult' be long' de gree' at tire' in vite' com port' dis close' en tice' o blige' re port' dis pose' en tire' per ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... long afore the news had spread the country over, And miners come a-flockin' in like honey-bees to clover; It kind uv did 'em good, they said, to feast their hungry eyes on That picture uv Our Lady in the camp uv Blue Horizon. But one mean cuss from Nigger Crick passed criticisms on 'er,— Leastwise we overheerd him call her Pettibone's madonner, The which we did not take to be respectful to a lady, So we hung him in a quiet spot that wuz cool 'nd dry 'nd shady; Which same might not ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... undertake to fulfil my part of the contract. I'll leave you to yours. Money down on delivery is the only terms. I want to know the money's there, and you want to know the goods are there. The name of the Count Ro-Say-No would be a sufficient guarantee for anybody in the world but a cuss like me. I'm business. In matters of business, gentlemen, delicacy and consideration for high-flown feelings don't enter into my composition, not for a cent's worth. If I was trading with Queen Victoria I should want to ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... says I, 'I never heared such a woman. 'Clect, at Oxford, hearing of an old Roman Catholic lady they called the Civil, as spoke in that 'ere fashion, and was a dealer in books and stationery, but, cuss me, if you doesn't beat her hollow. Whose blood do ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... really aware of his reflection in a looking-glass for twenty-five years. He saw now a lean, lined, sad face, a morose droop of thin and bitter lips; he saw gray hair standing up stiffly above a careworn forehead; he saw kind, troubled eyes. And as he looked, he frowned. "I'm an ugly cuss," he said to himself, sighing; "and I look sixty." In point of fact, he was nearly fifty. "But so is she," he added, defiantly, and took down his hat. "Only, she looks forty." And then he thought of Mrs. Maitland's "fair ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... fellow, too— almost a kid. When I got up this morning—" Billy shrugged his shoulders again and pointed to his empty pistol holster. "Everything was gone— dogs, sledge, extra tent, even my rifle and automatic. He wasn't quite bad, though, for he left me my grub. He was a funny cuss, too. Look at that!" He pointed to the bakneesh wreath that still hung to the front of his tent. "'In honor of the living,' " he read, aloud, "Just a sort of reminder, you know, that he might have ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... both got our warning. I've had yours and you've had mine. You're a mighty mean man, Tenney. A mean cuss, that's what ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... letter, dilated on state politics, set the Irish question on the right end, cleared Bacon[42] of all hostility to me, declined tea because he had insomnia and explained just how it works to keep you awake, danced more and declared himself happy and bowed himself out—well pleased. He's as funny a cuss as I've seen in many a day. Lord Cowdray, who was telling Mexican woes to Katharine in the corner, looked up and asked, "Who's the little dancing gentleman?" Suppose X had known he was dancing for—Lord Cowdray's amusement, what do y' suppose he'd've thought? There ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... save in Allauh, the Gloriose, the Great!" Now when she heard these words she shouted for joy, and fell to the ground fainting; and when her senses returned she asked, "O my lord, can it be true that thou hast power of speech?" and the King making his voice small and faint answered, "O my cuss! cost thou deserve that I talk to thee and speak with thee?" "Why and wherefore?" rejoined she; and he replied "The why is that all the livelong day thou tormentest thy hubby; and he keeps calling on 'eaven for aid until sleep is ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... to yuh a lot, then," he replied warmly. "Don't yuh never go near old Murton. In the first place, he ain't a cowman—he's a sheepman, on a small scale so far as sheep go but on a sure-enough big scale when yuh count his feelin's. He runs about twelve hundred woollies, and is about as unpolite a cuss as I ever met up with. He'd uh roasted yuh brown just for saying cattle at him—and if yuh let out inadvertant that yuh took him for a cowman, the chances is he'd a took a shot at yuh. If yuh ask me, you was playin' big luck when yuh ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... news last night myself," he continued. "One of my men has hit some good dirt, and we'll know what it means in a day or so. I'll gamble we're into the money big, though, for I always was a lucky cuss. Say, ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... explanation is that the Scotch are essentially such a devout people and live so closely within the shadow of death itself that they may without irreverence or pain jest where our lips would falter. Or else, perhaps they don't care a cuss whether Sandy MacDonald died or ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... privilege. The true interpretation of the obligations upon which the United States entered in this treaty of 1846 has been given repeatedly in the utterances of Presidents and Secretaries of State. Secretary Cuss in 1858 officially stated the position of this ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... swimmed over to our island, and tuck up his abode in a hole in a log. The cuss got kind of affectionate, and after a while crawled right into our hut to catch flies and other varmin. At last he got so tame he'd let me scratch his back. Then he tuck to our moss bed, and used up a considerable portion of ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... "He's a lean, blighted cuss," Murphy had explained; "what God intended for an engineer, but Nature stepped in and flambasted his constitootion, and so he took to preaching—that not demanding ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... exclusively an inspiration from the intellect which animated his, Farmer's, proper clod; nor was he greatly exhilarated when I narrated to him the tradition of the turnspit, whose memory, I regret to record, he spurned as that of a "mean cuss," destitute of that poetry which dwelleth in the pastoral associations ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... night! May life's patriotic cup for such Be filled with glory overmuch; And when their spirits go above in pride, Spirit of Patriotism, let these valiant abide Full in the sight of grand mass-meeting—I don't Want you to cuss them, But put them where they can hear politics, And ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... I suppose his real name is Thaddeus, or Tantalus, or something like it; I never knew, and I never liked him well enough to ask. Tank was a black-eyed little runt whom none of the boys liked, a grasping cuss, younger than Jim, and as selfish as ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... storekeeper growled. "You done first-rate, young man. You tole the ole cuss in plain words what we've bin a- thinkin' fer a coon's age. Help ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... that be meanness itself? Some time ago I had a ham that I couldn't and wouldn't eat, and they wouldn't take it back at the store, so I got some of the Lord's poor brethren to come to dinner, and I palmed it off on them. But I had to cuss myself the whole evenin' to pay up ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... them new apple-corers Than folks's oppersition views aginst the Ringtail Roarers; They'll take 'em out on him 'bout east,—one canter on a rail Makes a man feel unannermous ez Jonah in the whale; Or ef he's a slow-moulded cuss thet can't seem quite t' agree, He gits the noose by tellergraph upon the nighes' tree: Their mission-work with Afrikins hez put 'em up, thet's sartin, To all the mos' across-lot ways o' preachin' an' convartin'; I'll bet my hat th' ain't nary priest, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... cuss, Victor Dorn," said he "made a speech in the Court House Square to-day. Of course, none of the decent papers—and they're all decent except his'n—will publish any of it. Still, there was about a thousand people there before he got ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... a word which interested the policeman. When the ambulance clanged away, he turned to a fellow patrolman who had joined him. "Funny what he says to the little cuss that done the damage. That's all he did call him—'nothin' else at all—and the cuss had broke both his legs fer him ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... in this town stand on a street corner to-morrow, and utter an oath; she would shock every one within sound of her voice. A man can "cuss" to his satisfaction and, if not a church member, the community is not shocked. Let a young woman seeking a position in a public school in one of our cities, call a member of the school board into ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... a-come," whispered Sol; "but we decided that he was too tall an' somehow too strikin'-lookin' to come in here ez a common, everyday Injun, so it fell to me to loaf in, me bein' a tired-lookin' sort o' feller, anyway. But they're out thar in the woods a-waitin', Henry an' Tom Ross an' that ornery cuss, Jim Hart." ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... rookies!" replied grandfather tartly. "You'll be all right once you get going. You'll settle down to be real soldiers yet. And I'd like to hear a little more cussing. How the Hussars used to cuss! Too much reading and writing nowadays. It makes ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... he stated. "Not one little wrangle, even. Of course I was expectin' it. I've watched 'em come around too many times not to know how they can cuss a man cold one minute, and then make him plumb ashamed of mankind in general, with beggin' and pleadin'. I just beat him to it the morning he woke up; I told him what he could have, and what he couldn't, and he took it calmly enough. He just set there, pretty blue and shaky, and not quite clear ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... "what you ask is fair enough, and for my own part I'd be willing enough to let you have all you want, but I vow I don't just see exactly how I'm to do it. The key of the arm-chest is in the armourer's pocket, and I can't issue anything out of that chest without his knowledge. Now, I know that cuss, he's no friend of mine, and he'd just go straight away and tell Ralli what I'd done, and that'd set the Greek dead agin you all for a certainty and make things just as uncomfortable for you as could be. Besides which, Ralli 'd just take 'em all away from you again as soon as my back ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... tearin dogs to peaces, and I allers sposed from his gineral conduck that he'd hav no hesitashun in servin human beins in the same way if he could get at them. Excuse me if I was crooil, but I larfed boysterrusly when I see that tiger spring in among the people. "Go it, my sweet cuss!" I inardly exclaimed. "I forgive you for bitin off my left thum with all my heart! Rip 'em up like a bully tiger whose Lare has bin inwaded ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... " He's a sly cuss, anyhow." The railway man grinned. After an elaborate silence the wine merchant asked: " Know Miss Black long, Rufus?" Coleman looked scornfully at his friends. " What's wrong with you there, fellows, anyhow?" The Chicago man answered airily. " Oh, ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... nut, evidently!" murmured one of the young men contemptuously. "Come on, Stan. Don't let's miss that anthem, for this cuss." And off they ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... clear out of the State of California—show him up for what he is—a mean little cuss of a grafter; no friend of labor or anything else but his ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... Fox get mighty mad. Der never wuz a madder beas' dan he wuz des den. He rip, en he r'ar, en he cuss, en he swar, he snort, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... Marster, was born clubfooted. His hands and foots was drawed up evvy which a way long as he lived. He was jus' lak a old tom cat, he was such a cusser. All he done was jus' set dar and cuss, and a heap of times you couldn't see nothin' for him to cuss 'bout. He tuk his crook-handled walkin' stick and cotch you and drug you up to him and den jus' helt you tight and cussed you to yo' face, but he didn't never whup nobody. Our Mist'ess, Miss ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... returned the nugget to his pocket. "I call you a dam' amusin' cuss, I do that. You're a goer. There ain't no keepin' up with the likes o' you. You shall make what you blame well please—we'll talk about it by-and-by. But for the present, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... foraging on the outskirts of the camp for a stray bone, alone broke the silence, save when a vicious drop of rain detached itself meditatively from the ridge-pole of the tent, and fell upon the wick of our tallow candle, making it "cuss," as Ned Strong described it. The candle was in the midst of one of its most profane fits when Blakely, knocking the ashes from his pipe and addressing no one in particular, but giving breath, unconsciously as it were, to the result of his cogitations, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... ther damage, but his indifference about ther injury he done ter us riled us all up. Seein' as he didn't care a blame, our skipper sent ther friggte aflyin' arter him. Waal, sir, ther cuss cracked on sail an' fled. Arter him we tacked, detarmined ter punish ther swab fer his imperdence. It wuz a long stern chase wot lasted ten hours. ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... getting to be a regular old granny. What Master Frank needs is a first-class dressing-down, and here the little cuss has got me bluffed to a fare-you-well so that I'm mum as a hooter on the nest," he admitted to himself ruefully. "Just when something comes up that needs a good round damn I catch that big brown Sunday school eye of his, and it's Bucky back to Webster's unabridged. ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... git, an' de only time dat eber I cuss bad wuz when de Yankees come. Dey stold de meat an' things from de smoke house, an' eber thing else dat dey can git. Dey ain't done nothin' ter me, but de way dey done my white folkses made me mad, an' I jumps straight up an' down an' I yells, 'Damn dem Yankees ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... I reckon, when I knowed Nigh onto every dern galoot in town. That was as late as '50. Now she's growed Surprisin'! Yes, me an' my pardner, Brown, Was wide acquainted. If ther' was a cuss We didn't know, the cause ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... which we passed, carried our excitement, which had been cruelly growing for three weeks, well-nigh up to an exploding climax. I was told not to lose my ticket, or I could not get in; and when the ticket taker seized hold of it, I held on until he finally yelled angrily, "Let go, you little cuss!" whereupon my father came to his rescue. The show on the whole was very satisfactory, except for the color of Columbus, the fine old elephant, which for some reason, probably from the show bills on the barns, I had expected to be of a greenish tint. I also had supposed that the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... to come down with a conveyance for the almshouse was in a suburb. In due time he appeared, and was briefly told Alida's story. He swore a little at the "mean cuss," the author of all the trouble, and then took the stricken woman to what all his acquaintances facetiously termed ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... contribution to the keep of the animal, he would inform against his son to the squatter on the Darnley Downs, and had shown him that he knew the very run from which the horse had been taken. Then the sons within had interfered from their beds, swearing that their father was the noisiest old "cuss" unhung, they having ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... when it positively is a crime not to swear," he hoarsely said. "It seems to me that this is one of the times. If you will cuss a little it will relieve my ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... your wrist. Two or three of us dey stood by me. Captain he vera angry, say we mutinous dogs. I say not mutinous, but wasn't going to see a boy who was only stunned thrown overboard. We say if he did dat we make complaint before consul when we get to port. De skipper he cuss and swear awful. Howebber we haf our way and carry you here. You haf fever and near die. Tree days after we bring you here de captain he swear you shamming and comed to look at you hisself, but he see that it true and tink you going to die. He go away wid smile on his face. Every ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... chauffeur, his knowledge of English appeared to be limited to an explosive sort of profanity. Lum Gillespie declared on the third day after Mrs. Smith's car first came to his garage for live storage, that "that feller Francose" knew more English cuss-words than all the Irishmen in ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... Why, Ah Sing, over at Albuquerque, gives them away every time yu gits yore shirt washed," gravely interposed Hopalong as he went out to cuss the cook. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... "Cuss those niggers! why can't they let us have our tea in peace?"—it wasn't Stewart,—and there was a general scramble for swords and belts. A company of the Pioneers was soon doubling off, while the rest of us strolled up the road to see what the ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... and finally decided that as Mausers were "shoot farther guns" he had better go to Vienna, I watched the twinkle in Dad's gray eyes and thought of the cool contempt in his friend's. And from being amused I became rather sore. For, after all, this little Russian cuss had risked his life for fifteen years and expected to lose it shortly. (As a matter of fact, he was stood up against a wall and shot the following April.) Why make him ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... body's scalped it's us! So we've a well-earned right to cuss, And you've no right to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... Louis. Here's my card. You give me an hour to-morrow, Jingle Bells, and I'll do all the credential stuff your little heart desires. Louis Slupsky knows me and my whole family. His mother used to stuff feather pillows for mine. Kahn here is my brother-in-law and partner in business. He's a slow cuss and 'ain't grasped the situation yet. But are you on, little one? Is it St. Louis Thursday morning, ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... pirits; de hotbed ob wickedness; de home ob de Moors an' Turks an' Cabyles, and de cuss ob de whole wurld." ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... her—maybe more, maybe less—along both banks; an' next it might annoy 'im a bit when these two waves fell together an' raised a weight o' water full on her bows, whereby she 'd travel like a slug, an' the 'arder he drove the more she wouldn' go; let be that she'd give 'im no time to cuss, even when I arsked 'im perlitely what it felt like to steer a monkey by the tail. Next an' last, if he should 'appen to find room for a look astern at the banks, it might vex 'im—bein' the best o' men as well as the cleverest—to notice that he 'adn't left no ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... what we'll do. Jess nothin'! Ain't Bull Corey the blowin'est and the mos' trouble-us cuss 'round these hull woods? And would n't it be a fust-rate thing ef some o' the wind was let ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... a little old man from the corner. "Well, you are a low cuss," said he; and, taking up a basket beside him, hobbled out of the room. You maybe sure I said some pretty sharp things to him, for I was out of humor to begin with, and it is one thing to be insulted by a stout young man, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... cheerful companion," exclaimed Howland, laughing in spite of himself. "Do you know, Croisset, this whole situation has a good deal of humor as well as tragedy about it. I must be a most important cuss, whoever I am. Ask me ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... an enterprising cuss!" laughed the reporter. "Haven't you got enough on your hands, with all the men you're going to ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... didn't mean to offend thee, Mrs. Ormerod. A'm sorry A spoke. A allays do wrong thing. But A did so 'ope as tha might coom. Tha sees A got used to moother. A got used to 'earin' 'er cuss me. A got used to doin' for 'er an' A've nought to do in th' evenings now. It's terrible lonesome in th' neeghttime. An' when notion coom to me, A thowt as A'd mention un ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... and you'll remember it. I've known too many men think they'd paid a debt when they'd given their bond. I don't want you to think that. If you're goin' to pay me, you'll do it without a bond, and if you ain't, I ain't goin' to sue you; I'm jest goin' to think what a' o'nery cuss ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... elder brother, Khizr bin Makbl, about as ill-conditioned a "cuss" as himself. Very dark, with the left eye clean gone, this worthy appeared pretentiously dressed in the pink of Desert fashion—a scarlet cloak, sheepskin-lined, and bearing a huge patch of blue cloth between the shoulders; a crimson caftan, and red morocco boots with irons resembling ice-cramps ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... should have seen that Ophir—power plants, electric lights, and hundreds of men on the pay-roll, working night and day. I guess I do get an inkling of what you mean by making a thing. I made Ophir, and by God, she was a sure hummer—I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to cuss. But that Ophir!—I sure am proud of her now, just as the last time I laid eyes ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... were a pall to the burrying, Joe's finally out of the way, Nothing 'special ailing of him, Just old age and gen'ral decay. Hope to the Lord that I'll never be Old and decrepit and useless as he. Cuss to his family the last five year— Monstrous expensive with keep so dear— 'Sides all the fuss and worrying. Terrible trial to get so old; Cur'us a man will continue to hold So on to life, when it's easy to see His chances for living, tho' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... you is? How Miss Sue gettin along over dere to Marion? I hope she satisfied, but dere ain' nowhe' can come up to restin in your own home, I say. No, Lord, people own home don' never stop to cuss dem no time. Dere Koota's mamma all de time does say, 'Ma, ain' no need in you en Booker stayin over dere by yourself. Come en live wid us.' I say, 'No, child. Father may have, sister may have, brother may have, en chillun may have, but blessed be he dat have ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... his one eye. "I knows the feeling myself, cuss me, but I do! 'Thine for once and thine for never,' as the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Stop!" The swamper dashed the moisture from his eyes and summoned a look of stubborn resolve. "Mo' better you call me St. Pierre because I'm a fisherman what cuss when I git mad. Look! You dawn't want me git Claude back in Gran' Point'. You want me to give, give. Well, all right! I goin' quit Gran' Point' and give myself, me, to Claude. I kin read, I kin write, I t'ink kin do better 'long wid Claude dan livin' all 'lone wid snake' and alligator. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... mountaineer—that is a trapper a good many years ago I met with your father Horace Greely on the plains, and greatly admired the old gentleman. The way I came to make his acquaintance is this. A drunken, unruly Cuss seeing that your father appeared quiet and peaceable thought it safe to play the bully at his expence so he commenced to insult and threaten Mr. Greely in a pretty rough manner. Seeing that your father was quiet and peaceable and did not wish to quarrel with the Cuss I took the ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... especially with Dave humoring 'em the ridiculous way he does. Hamilton Swift, Junior, is the curiousest child I ever saw—and the good Lord knows He made all children powerful mysterious! This poor little cuss has a complication of infirmities that have kept him on his back most of his life, never knowing other children, never playing, or anything; and he's got ideas and ways that I never saw the beat of! He was ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... reckon you an' me better try to live mo' righteously 'n what we've been doin', or he'll be took from us." An', sir, the very nex' communion we both up an' perfessed. An' I started sayin' grace at table, an' lef' off the on'y cuss-word I ever did use, which was "durn." An', maybe I oughtn't to say it, but I miss that word yet. I didn't often call on it, but I always knowed 't was there when needed, and it backed me up, somehow—thess the way knowin' I had a frock-coat in the press ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... and departed, assuring Andy, by way of farewell, that he was an unappreciative cuss and didn't deserve any sympathy or sick-calls. They also condoled openly with Pink because he had been detailed as nurse, and advised him to sit right down on Andy if he got too sassy and haughty over being shot up by a real outlaw. ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... though," the Major interrupted, "and that's where we're going to have a big fight on our hands when it comes to the rub. This Lewis Robards, her first husband, was a quarrelsome cuss. Every man that looked at his wife, he swore was after her, and if she lifted her eyes, he was sure she was guilty. There was no divorce law in Virginia and Robards petitioned the Legislature to pass ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Pepper, as they had grown to call him, "I heard that sung by a fellow up in Chartres Street two nights hand-running before this thing happened,—a merry cuss, too, with a rather loose hand on his shekels. Lots of people may know it, ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... just a jokin'. I meant it was such an honor for common folks like us to git inside of the palace of a high-toned cuss like Farnham; and the fact is, Sammy," he continued, more seriously, "I would like to see the inside of some of these swell places. I am a student of human nature, you know, in its various forms. I consider the lab'rin' man as the normal healthy human—that is, if he don't work ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... horse-keepers to "stand clear with their cloths, and take care no one pays them twice over," gives a whistling hiss to his leaders, the double thong to his wheelers, and starts off at a trot, muttering something about, "cuss'd pair-'oss coach,—convict-looking passengers," observing confidentially to Mr. Jorrocks, as he turned the angle of the street, "that he would rather be hung off a long stage, than die a natural death ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... at givin Blind-man concerts, appearin as the poor blind man myself. But the infamus cuss who I hired to lead me round towns in the day time to excite simpathy drank freely of spiritoous licker unbeknowns to me one day, & while under their inflooance he led me into the canal. I had to either tear the green bandige from my eyes or be drownded. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... handed to you in chunks, but this country wasn't made for a white man to live in. You've got to have to plug through snow now and then, and see a game of baseball and wear a stiff collar and have a policeman cuss you. Still, La Paz is a good sort of a pipe-dreamy old hole. And Mrs. Conant is here. When any of us feels particularly like jumping into the sea we rush around to her house and propose. It's nicer to be rejected by Mrs. Conant than it is to be ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... lead's for," a philosopher remarked, stirring the embers. "So it don't get under my skin, I don't care a cuss what they do ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... or hot, Differs nothing, matters not; For to quote that Roman cuss, Why dispute "de gustibus?" If to this or that one should Take a fancy, it is good. If these rhymes look good to me, What care ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... from fright, looking around for guns and so on. Don't you believe you'd keep an eye around the corners, kind of—eh? I'll bet a hat he was taking it all in, lying there in his bunk, 'turned the other way.' Eh? I pity the poor cuss—Well, there's only one more entry after that. He's good and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... was going to Chicago. I'd have asked him to look in on my girl," said Jimmy, folding up his letter. "I don't like the way she writes—all jazz and picture shows. Some cuss is trying to cut ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... went for us, And br'iled and blistered and burned! How the Rebel bullets whizzed round us When a cuss in his death-grip turned! Till along toward dusk I seen a thing I couldn't believe for a spell: That nigger—that Tim—was a crawlin' to me ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... be willing. I can't get the hang of Henderson. He doesn't seem to care what his wife does. He's a cynical cuss. The other night, at dinner, in Washington, when the thing was talked over, he said: 'My dear, I don't know why you shouldn't do that as well as anything. Let's build a house of gold, as Nero did; we are in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... too. But yo're a real smart cuss, now ain't you?" queried Hopalong, his eyes twinkling and his face wreathed with good humor. "An' how innocent you act, too. Thought you could scare me, didn't you? Thought I'd go tearing 'round this fool town like a house afire, hey? Well, I ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... means they try to hang up our drive. The average mossback's a hard customer. I'd rather try to drive nails in a snowbank than tackle driving logs through a farm country. They never realize that we haven't got time to talk it all out for a few weeks. There's one old cuss now that's making us trouble about the water. Don't want to open up to give us a fair run through the sluices of his dam. Don't seem to realize that when we start to go out, we've got to go out in a hurry, spite o' ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... red; but if black, no," was answered back, with an invitation to "show" myself. I led the pony across the narrow trench which ran around the stockade, and, mounting him, rode into the yard. As I approached the party I overheard remarks, such as, "An army cuss"; "One of those little stuck-up officers." But not appearing to have heard them, I got down, and asked what party they were. "Wood-haulers," they replied; "taking building logs down the road"; followed by "Who are you, and where are you going ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... "You young cuss," I addressed him savagely. "Do you mean to say you have gone and got shot in that very leg I fixed up ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... a wallop on the jaw and bang your head against the wall and dance on your ribs, and you'll cuss worse than ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... drive me wild!" says the pa'son. "Why the hell didn't I marry 'em, drunk or sober!" (Pa'sons used to cuss in them days like plain honest men.) "Have you been to the church to see what happened to them, ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... him boisterously on the shoulder. "Oh, you solemn comic cuss!" He strode to a rose-bowl and knocked the ashes of his pipe into the water—Doggie trembled lest he might next squirt tobacco juice over the ivory curtains. "You don't give a fellow a chance. Look here, tell me, ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... struck a town o' sand-rats. This niggur's har wur longer then than it ur now. I made snares o' it, an' trapped a lot o' the rats; but they grew shy too, cuss 'em! an' I had to quit that speck'lashun. This wur the third day from the time I'd been set down, an' I wur getting nasty weak on it. I 'gin to think that the time wur come for this ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... is any chance to take him alive, just send down to the Forks for us. If not, you had better shoot him. I wouldn't advise you to meddle with him much, however, for he's a dead shot, and fights like a cuss." ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... that, I'll bet? He's got shet of a foot, or he'd a cut like the rest of the lot. Don't you wash him, nor feed him, but jest let him holler till he's tired. It's a blasted shame to fetch them fellers in here, along side of us; and so I'll tell the chap that bosses this concern; cuss me ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... breathing deeply and indignantly, "I hope so; he's a mean cuss—what d'ye think? never give Locust's boy so much as a half-sovereign! Now don't such a feller deserve to lose? And do you think Locust's boy will ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... Here he straightened up, his eyes glistening. "I tell ye, once let 'im git after a house he thinks a feller air in an' he'd turn it topsy-turvy, tissel end up. Why, Burnett can smell a man from prison a mile. I know him, I do! Hain't I seen,—and you have too, Orn,—many a poor cuss get away just like I did, mebbe over the river, mebbe a hundred miles or two, or he might even git in another state, but Burnett'll haul him back by ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... doesn't," Bob replied. "Jane and I were speaking of it last night. If you'll notice, when he gets excited, or much interested, he's like a typical mountaineer. Only when careful is it otherwise. He's a funny cuss, but, gee, Colonel, look at that power! I'll bet he can run a hundred miles without ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... to the Tennesseean confidentially, and his tones would have moved a heart of stone: 'Bill, you always was a friend of mine. I know'd you a long while ago, and honored you—cuss me, if I didn't. I said you was a man bound to rise. I told Jimmy Polk so—me and Jimmy was familiar friends. I intended to get up a biographical notice of you in the Democratic Review, but that —— Corby stopped it I'm glad to see ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "Yes, that dog is a big-feelin' little cuss-tomer. And if I wuz a chipmunk he couldn't bark at me no ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... to swim the lake. There's a pretty mess come o' that, by-the-by; for, out of the talk there was among the gentlemen about that difficulty, the Squire laid a bet as he would drive stags; not as we do, mind you, but in harness, like carriage-horses; and, cuss me, if he hasn't had the break out half a dozen times with four red deer in it, and you may see him tearing through the park, with mounted grooms and keepers on the right and left of him, all galloping ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... yes, lots of them, but the old cuss never read them, though. He chucked them in the fire as soon as he made out who they ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor
... and stories, &c., and was so odd, original and humorous and witty, that all the people in town would gather around him. He would keep them there till midnight. I would get tired, want to go home, cuss Abe most heartily. Abe was a good talker, a good reader, and was a kind of newsboy." One or two articles written by Abe found their way into obscure journals, to his infinite gratification. His foot was on the first round of the ladder. It is right ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... he knew the other. On the contrary, the man was both angry and rude. "What'd I tell you, Rhody?" he exclaimed, turning to his wife. "I know'd they'd crowd us out'n house an' home ef they got a chance; I could 'a' took oath to it! Cuss 'em, an' contrive 'em, both sides on 'em, all an' similar! They'd as lief make a hoss-stable out'n the house as not, an' I built it ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... Spider, and Pat, and Clam, and Johnny Heinhold, and others, came the tips that Old Scratch liked me and had nothing but good words for the fine lad I was. Which was the more remarkable, because he was known as a savage, cantankerous old cuss who never liked anybody. (His very nickname, "Scratch," arose from a Berserker trick of his, in fighting, of tearing off his opponent's face.) And that I had won his friendship, all thanks were due to John Barleycorn. I have given the incident merely as ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... there? No? Well, maybe Pollard is all right. He's sort of a newcomer around here. That big house of his ain't more'n four or five years old. But most usually a man buys land and cattle around here before he builds him a big house. Well—Pollard is an open-handed cuss, I'll say that for him, and maybe they ain't anything in the talk that ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... also was a Jew, Who drove a Putney bus— For flesh of swine however fine He did not care a cuss. ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... insulting scorn at the interruption, the driver resumed, pointedly, to Mulrady: "The pint of the whole thing was my cussin' a helpless man, ez could neither cuss back nor shoot; and then afterwards takin' you for his ghost layin' for me to get even." He paused again, and then added, carelessly, "They say he never kem to enuff to let on who he was or whar he kem from; and he was eventooally taken to a 'Sylum ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... that way,' said I, 'I guess we can find a place that will be big enough and will answer just as well,' said I; and then I began to start up warmer and get bolder, when he shut me off with a string of cuss words that ran all over me. I didn't suppose he could talk that way, but no one in the office seemed to mind, although I'll bet you could have heard him a ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... not. I like dogs. I don't like babies—except Mrs. Rickett's and he's such a jolly little cuss." He smiled over the words, and again she felt a deep compassion. Somehow his face seemed almost sadder when ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... coughin? My narves is racked a listenin to her. I don't see what she wants to live for, and she most a hundred. I believe its purpose to bother me, Sabbath mornins. Here, Phillis, who's this bin here, diggin up my sweet-williams I planted?—cuss ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... days of the business the comedian was always distinguishable by his comedy clothes. One glance would tell you he was the comical cuss. The straight-man dressed like a "gent," dazzling the eyes of the ladies with his correct raiment. From this fact the ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sot On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized bone-yard lot. And where he died or how he died, it didn't matter a damn So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone "epigram". So I promised him, ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... to gobble up what was left of the cornbeef and potatoes.... Nippers looked up at me, with a hunk of beef sticking from his mouth, which he poked in with the butt-end of his knife.... "Say, didn't the old man cuss wonderful, and him lookin' ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... "We don't allow no such cuss as you to make reflections on gentlemen. We've put up with your ugly mug altogether too long, and I for one ain't going to do it no longer. What do you say, gentlemen?" he continued, turning to his companions, "shall we trifle with our luck, and lower our self-respect ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... north was a fringe of willows forming a "wind-break." A few broken and discouraged fruit trees standing here and there among the weeds formed the garden. In short, he was spoken of by his neighbors as "a hard-working cuss, and tollably ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... I don't say no cuss words, an' wash meself all over on Wednesdays and Sat'days, she's goin' to help me ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... will you? That's good. If she'll let up on some of the roughest things, I'll smoke private and cuss private, and crowd through or bust. When you going to start the gang and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... grin as he dropped into the revolving chair Dick had just vacated. "Dey's well, tank yo' kindly sah." Then as he looked at the young man's careless attitude and smiling face, he burst forth, admiringly: "Dey done tole me as how yo' wor' a cool cuss an' mighty bad to han'le; but fo' God I nebber seed nothin' like ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... "Cuss away, y'ould witch!" said old Tom, with a grin through his pipe-stem. "How's the leg?" and Marielihou with a final volley disappeared among the bushes, and Johnnie ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... fell; and the furious fat man made a vicious prod with the fork. It might easily have proved fatal, but Jim was near enough to seize the man's arm and wrest the fork from him. The fat man was white with rage. He blustered a good deal and finally went off sputtering comically although he used no cuss-words. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... ain't forgot—de time when Miss Lucy lay on her las' bed. She sent for Uncle Bushrod, and she say: 'Uncle Bushrod, when I die, I want you to take good care of Mr. Robert. Seem like'—so Miss Lucy say—'he listen to you mo' dan to anybody else. He apt to be mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe he cuss you when you try to 'suade him but he need somebody what understand him to be 'round wid him. He am like a little child sometimes'—so Miss Lucy say, wid her eyes shinin' in her po', thin face—'but he always been'—dem was her words—'my knight, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... don't say as how I don't hold with Gawd," he explained, with uplifted forefinger and cocked head; "but if ever I thinks of Him, I like to feel that He's in the wind or in the crickle-crackle of the earth, just near and friendly like, but not a-worrying of a chap, listening for every cuss-word as he uses to his old horse, and measuring every half-pint he pours down his dusty throat. No. That ain't my idea of Gawd. But ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... sock it to the cuss a little," remarked Mr. Robinson in recounting the conversation subsequently; and, in truth, it was not elevating to the spirits of our friend, who found himself speculating whether or no Timson ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... realising shiploads of dollars if the Tower could have been taken over to the States, and exhibited from town to town—the Stars and Stripes flying over it—with a four-horse lecture to describe the barbarity of the ancient British Barons and the cuss ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... are making an almighty good start, and I want to say here in the hearing of all interested friends that you're the smartest cuss I ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day |
