"Dab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dusk by that time and there were kind of like little dabs of dark red on the top of the ridge. Away up on the peak of the big poplar tree was a dab of red and all the rest of it was dark. It seemed awful clear against the sky, that tree. I kind of thought how all day long the sun had been on a bee-line hike too, going straight west. "If the sun can do it, we can do it," that's what I said. It would be nice up there under ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Another waggish picture is made by the snub-nosed girl with her hair arranged a la Madonna. These long hirsute lamberquins on either side of her face make the poor little nose appear even smaller, like unto a wee dab of putty or a ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... sunlit part, full of growth of the most dazzling green. Now he neared the insect; now it dashed off again, and led him a tremendous chase, till, just as the doctor shouted to him to return, we saw him make a dab down with his ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... or motto of some kind?" suggested Dol, glancing over his shoulder. "Twould make it more like the things one sees in cemeteries. You're such a dab ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... myself, 'A joke is a joke, if it tante carried too far, but this critter win be strangled, as sure as a gun, if he lays here splutterin' this way much longer.' So I jist gives the hoss a dab in the mouth, and made him git up; and then sais I, 'Prince,' sais I, for I know'd him by his beard, he had one exactly like one of the old saint's heads in an Eyetalian pictur, all dressed to a pint, so sais I, 'Prince,' and a plaguy handsum man he is too, and as full of fun as a kitten, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... bowl of rich soup or chowder, with crackers on the side, a generous helping of well-cooked meat, with bread or potatoes, and the simplest relishes, or a royally fat pudding overrun with brandy sauce; each or either can put it all over a splash of this, a dab of that, a slab of something else, set lonesomely on a separate plate and reckoned a meal—in courses. Courses are all well enough—they have my warm heart when they come "in the picture." But when they are mostly "The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," then I ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... quills, which bristle out when he is angry or frightened. No old dog will touch this animal, for he knows better than to get a mouthful of sharp toothpicks by biting Mr. Porcupine, who is like a round pincushion with the pins pointing out. A dog who has never seen this prickly ball will dab at it, and have a sore paw to nurse for ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... ten, with McKnight not yet in sight, Blobs knocked at the door, the double rap we had agreed upon, and on being admitted slipped in and quietly closed the door behind him. His eyes were glistening with excitement, and a purple dab of typewriter ink gave him a peculiarly ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... obeyed, and scraped the lather off again with particular care. Mr Bailey squinted at every successive dab, as it was deposited on a cloth on his left shoulder, and seemed, with a microscopic eye, to detect some bristles in it; for he murmured more than once 'Reether redder than I could wish, Poll.' The operation being concluded, Poll fell back and stared at him again, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Logan interrupted, 'what a dab at disentangling Lumley would have been if he had not got that Professorship of Toxicology at Edinburgh, and been able to ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... to receive a dab from the child's nose, by way of a kiss, in return for buying him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... antennae of some irritable insect it positively trembled. Here was that woman moving—actually going to get up—confound her! He struck the canvas a hasty violet-black dab. For the landscape needed it. It was too pale—greys flowing into lavenders, and one star or a white gull suspended just so—too pale as usual. The critics would say it was too pale, for he was ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... crushing, it is ready to be worked up into domestic and other utensils. Squatted upon the ground, the potter places in her lap a small basket, wood, or pottery base, upon which she places a "dab" of clay. This she thumbs and pats, until it forms the basis of the new vessel. Then another piece of clay is rapidly rolled between her hands, until it is in the form of along rope. This rope is then coiled ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... jotting down notes; Landy Spencer sat quietly, his face immobile; Adine Lough went to the window ostensibly to dab on make-up, but really to suppress smiles and stifle laughter. A man of importance—a bank receiver, an arm of the court—was being kidded and he ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... turned, Kennedy reached over to a typewriter desk that stood in a corner of the office, left open by the stenographer, who had gone. He took two thin second sheets of paper and a new carbon sheet. A hasty dab or two of the library paste completed ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... mediocrity, moderation. small quantity, modicum, trace, hint, minimum; vanishing point; material point, atom, particle, molecule, corpuscle, point, speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace; minutiae, details; look, thought, idea, soupcon, dab, dight[obs3], whit, tittle, shade, shadow; spark, scintilla, gleam; touch, cast; grain, scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau[obs3], screed, smack, tinge, tincture; inch, patch, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... you are. You're the most transpontine person I ever saw in my life.' Dick turned to Lucy and Mrs. Crowley with a wave of the hand. 'I call you to witness. When he was at Oxford, Alec was a regular dab at classics; he had a gift for writing verses in languages that no one except dons wanted to read, and everyone thought that he was going to be the most ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth—so! Till at last there was only one small fish left in ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... toward the doorway, the person in question appeared in it, and raised her veil. I was perfectly paralyzed. It was Bella! Bella in a fur coat and a veil, with the most tragic eyes I ever saw and entirely white except for a dab of rouge in the middle of each cheek. We stared at each other without speech. The maid turned and went down the hall, and with that Bella came over to me and clutched me by ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... He'd no relations, and what friends he'd had in the old days had disappeared. So he got him a dog—this fool, a little white scrap of a dog with a black patch." The terrier recognized his name and made a dab at the firm chin. "Steady! Well, yes—you're right. It was a great move. For the little white dog was really a fairy prince in disguise—such a pretty disguise—and straightway led the fool into Paradise. Indeed, they were so happy together, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... bounced himself if a bee had been buzzing about his nose as it did about mine," said Nancy, and, giving a vicious dab at the pictured features, she drew a bee perched on the end of Gran'ther Wattles's nose. "Here now are all the gray hairs he hath," she added, making three little scratches above ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... rowed back again, Giles described the habits of the birds which frequented this reedy spot. Jamie listened open-eyed to his accounts of the moor-hen, flapper, coot, water-rail, dab-chick, and sand-piper, to say nothing of rats in abundance, and an otter now and then. If you crept upon the islet very quietly, you could hear the rats before you saw them. Carefully listening to the sounds, you frequently discovered the rat himself, generally on the stump of some ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... up. His danger only nerved him to action, so he says. So he planted a dab of vermilion in his creature's mouth. The Italian spluttered and tried to wipe it off—evidently horribly surprised. And then—according to Harringay—there began a very remarkable struggle, Harringay splashing away with the red paint, and the picture wriggling about and wiping ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... tender young leaves. I tilted him away from that, and he fluttered across the money-plant over to the geranium opposite. Disturbed there, he flashed to the other side of the stand, and, quick as thought, gave one mighty dab at a delicate little fuchsia that is just "picking up" from the effects of transplanting and a long winter journey. Seeing he was bent on making himself disagreeable, I put him into his cage again, first ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... down, and wet your whistle, my piper! I say, egad! you're the piper that played before Moses! Had you there, Dab. Dab, get a fresh bottle of Burgundy for Mr. Hoskins." And before he knew where he was, there was Gus for the first time in his life drinking Clos-Vougeot. Gus said he had never tasted Bergamy before, at which the bailiff sneered, and told him ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was a two hours' journey by horse and phaeton. My grandfather drove. I sat next, my feet swinging clear of the lunchbox. My brother had the outside, a place denied to me for fear that I might fall across the wheel. When we were all set, my mother made a last dab at my nose—an unheeded smudge having escaped my vigilance. Then my grandfather said, "Get up,"—twice, for the lazy horse chose to regard the first summons as a jest. We start. The great wheels turn. My brother leans across the guard to view the miracle. We crunch the gravel. We ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... verra short. 'Nell, gie me the draught.' So wi' that the lassie gied her een a bit quick dab, syne cam' forrit, an' pittin' her airm aneath his heid she gied him a drink. Whatever it was, it quaitened him, an' he lay ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... of the next century as being the weapon with which the new era was inaugurated. Into the breech I place a Boxer cartridge, specialty provided for experimental purposes with a steel bullet. I aim point blank at the dab of red sealing wax upon the wall, which is four inches above the magnet. I am an absolutely dead shot. I fire. You will now advance, and satisfy yourself that the bullet is flattened upon the end of the magnet, after which you will apologise to me ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... my dear—but you must reflect, that, etc., etc., et cetera"—each et cetera a dab of wet wool, taking out more and more stiffening and color, until the beautiful project hangs, a limp rag, on her hands, a forlorn wreck over which ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... exthrame unction, an' the like. Now that business wouldn't shuit me pheesical conformation, an' nayther would it shuit the character I have to bear. It's betther that you should do the outside trampin', Heller. Ye know the tradditions an' docthrines av the Church well enough, an' y' are a dab at Latin. As for yer not bein' av the prastely office, I'll jist lay hands on ye an' qualify ye for the same. If it happens to be a bit irregular, why, the ind justifies the manes, ye remimber, or the ancient Fathers are all wrong, which is onpossible. An' now, Heller, do tell these ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... gathered cowslips with Ruperta Bassett; and he had a canoe, which he carried to adjacent streams, however narrow, and paddled it with singular skill and vigor. A neighboring miller, suffering under drought, was heard to say, "There ain't water enough to float a duck; nought can swim but the dab-chicks and ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... that he,—at wishing tho' a dab,— To wish such harm to any Knight would urge ye? Yet he, a Knight, had taken up a Crab, And thump'd to death, with it, one ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... on this, as indeed on most other occasions, the artist had paid more attention to verisimilitude and less to mere vague harmonies and so forth, but as he was assured by that intelligent young Hillary that this method was all the Go at present, and that his friend Lucas was recognized as a rising Dab at it. That at least is how he ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... on the glass, it will only make a grease mark, and that hardly visible, not enough to cut by; but take a soft dabber—a lump of cotton-wool tied up in a bit of old handkerchief—and with this, dipped in dry whitening or powdered white chalk, dab the glass all over; then blow the surface and you will see a clear white line where the whitening has stuck to the greasy line made by the transfer paper; and by this you can cut ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... Dab to watch while the new carpets were put down, one after another, and then to see how much at home and comfortable the furniture looked as it was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... and baffled young man raved in three languages, but Emma Campbell flatly refused either to be in "slaveryment" or in the "nekked rind." Visions of herself being caught and painted bare-legged, with a trifling little dab of an apron tied around her waist even as one ties a bit of ribbon around the cat's neck, and of this scandal being ferreted out by the deacons, sisters, and brethren, of the Mount Zion Baptist Church ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... have been duly honoured, there begins a scene of boisterous fun. The women make pads of the boiled sticky new rice, and cover it with soot from their cooking vessels. With these they approach the men and dab the pads upon their faces and bodies, leaving sooty marks that are not easily removed. The men thus challenged give chase, and attempt to get possession of the rice pads and to return the polite attention. For a short space of time a certain ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Then take it from the board, and give it a bath in the solution. Lay it in a dish, and cover it entirely with the solution, letting it remain there for a few minutes; lift it out, and again lay it on the board face downwards, and with a small sponge dab off any superfluity of liquid. Pour that which is left in the dish back into ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... find out. I'm glad they let you in, though, as it will be sport having you here and making you sing small. I do hope, though, it won't get out that you've been coached by a female, or there'll be a terrific lark. I'm getting quite a dab at photography, and shall have my camera up next term. Mind you get the right-shaped boiler, or I shall cut you. The kids are to be stopped wearing round tops like their betters, so you'd best cut yours square. Brown was too 'cute to try for an exhibition. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... content in a thick fishy, paraffin-y, dripping-y atmosphere. When I came home I could not think what the delicious smell was in a certain street. Then my imagination struck out a picture—Grimers laboriously frying a dab over ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... experiment, I expect. The fellows say that he burns the midnight oil a lot. That's what gives him such a sleepy look sometimes, I suppose. No wonder he's such a dab ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... keep the fire going. This diversity of interests certainly made him sit up and pay attention. At each instant he had to desert his flour-sack to rescue the coffee-pot, or to shift the kettle, or to dab hastily at the rice, or to stamp out the small brush, or to pile on more dry twigs. His movements were not graceful. They raised a scurry of dry bark, ashes, wood dust, twigs, leaves, and pine needles, ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... not to have utilized any but fresh-water fish, the Scandinavians, at a date probably less remote however, did not hesitate to brave the ocean. The kitchen-middings contain numerous remains of fish, amongst which those of the mackerel, the dab, and the herring are the most numerous. There, too, we meet with relics of the cod, which never approaches the coast, and must always be sought by the ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... could take her leave, She had to puff up her monstrous sleeve. Then a little dab here and a wee pat there. And a touch or two to her hindmost hair, Then around the room with the utmost care She thoughtfully circulated. Then she seized her gloves and a chamoiskin, Some breath perfume and a long stickpin, A bonbon box and a cloak and some ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... gradually that nothing very serious had occurred, and the father and the females of the household went in to breakfast, the exercises of the morning not being now renewed, while Alf and his brother scoured the wood. Upon one leg of Alf's jeans trousers appeared an artistic dab of red. He had been wounded, and for days the sitting down and the uprising of him ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... judge had stopped with bare assertion, it would have had a good deal of effect; but he made the mistake of trying to prove his position. For some years Wilson had been privately at work on a whimsical almanac, for his amusement—a calendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually in ironical form, appended to each date; and the judge thought that these quips and fancies of Wilson's were neatly turned and cute; so he carried a handful of them around one day, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... by a dab of clay placed at right angles to the axis of the cylinder, at a distance from the bottom determined by the ordinary length of a cell. This wad is not a complete round; it is more crescent-shaped, leaving a circular space between it and one side ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... kin stay free till night, anyhow," said Aun' Suke, pausing in her work to make a dab at a little darky with her wooden spoon sceptre. "Firs' Marse Scoville whirl in en say I free; den old miss whirl in en say I ain'; now conies de gin'ral ob de hull lot en I'se free agin. Wat's mo', ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Eton stripling, training for the law, A dunce at syntax, but a dab at law, One happy christmas laid upon the shelf His cap and gown, and stores of learned pelf. With all the deathless bards of Greece and Rome, To spend a fortnight at his uncle's home. Arriv'd, and pass'd the usual how d'ye do's, Inquiries of old friends and college ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in the cellar. He had a cow with a calf too, and an old lame horse-twenty-five years of age—and chickens, and pigeons, and two lambs, and many other animals. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... came finally, and from my window I watched the trees along the drive take shadowy form, gradually lose their ghostlike appearance, become gray and then green. The Greenwood Club showed itself a dab of white against the hill across the valley, and an early robin or two hopped around in the dew. Not until the milk-boy and the sun came, about the same time, did I dare to open the door into the hall and look around. Everything was as we had left it. Trunks were heaped ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the eight hours' movement, Mr. Craven." Mr. Craven makes a semi-circular sweep with a huge brush, the point of which lights on a pendulous ash bough. "Eight hours!" he echoes with genial scorn. "Why, if I did, my profession would (dab! dab! dab!) cease (dab! dab! dab!) to (dab!) exist for me"; and the naked bough is clad in graceful foliage with ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the grey monotone of British winters, and, alighting at a farm road too rough for a carriage, we passed through fields and hedgerows to an erection which looks too insignificant for such solemn use. Don't expect any ghastly details. A longish building of "wattle and dab," much like the northern farmhouses, a high roof, and chimneys resembling those of the "oast houses" in Kent, combine with the rural surroundings to suggest "farm buildings" rather than the "funeral pyre," and all that is horrible is left ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Lord Guenn. "There are some sketches of the Forsyth place as it used to be at Guenn Oaks that would interest you. My ancestor was a bit of a dab with his brush." ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... yolk of one egg and two tablespoons of milk together; wet each square well with the mixture, lay one raisin in the centre (after the seed has been removed from it), sprinkle thickly with sugar and cinnamon mixed together, then put a small dab of butter on top. Catch the four corners of each square together, so that the inside is protected. Lay the pocket books, not too closely together, in a greased pan and set aside to rise. When well risen bake in a moderately hot oven until ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... heard of her and her compositions in this country; and I am happy to add, always to the honour of her character. The fact is, I know not well how to write to her: I should sit down to a sheet of paper that I knew not how to stain. I am no dab at fine-drawn letter-writing; and, except when prompted by friendship or gratitude, or, which happens extremely rarely, inspired by the muse (I know not her name) that presides over epistolary writing, I sit ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... imitation man with the abnormalities of the Roman deity. "The figure," he tells us, "is squat, crouched, as it were, before its own attributes, with arms longer than a gorilla's. The head is of mud or wood rising conically to an almost pointed poll; a dab of clay represents the nose; the mouth is a gash from ear to ear. This deity almost fills a temple of dwarf thatch, open at the sides. ...Legba is of either sex, but rarely feminine.... In this point Legba differs from the classical Pan and Priapus, but the idea involved is the same. The Dahoman, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... his borrowings, noticing what he adopts and incorporates in his work as artistically true, and what he rejects. Like a water-color landscape-painter, he pauses above the box of crude materials which others have made, takes a dab here and a dab there with his brush, rarely takes all of one color, blends them, eyes the result judicially, and flashes in the combination with ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... at 'em, smoking cigarettes. I could do that sort of work. There's nothing in it. It don't take 'eathen foreigners to dab a bit ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... girl may cook like any chef, And know all HALLAM through, May be a dab at darning socks, Or making Irish stew; But what young cubs care for is cash, And not for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... a staid and well-behaving Citizen who took home a dab of Steak, wrapped up in Brown Paper, nearly every Evening, and found his Excitement by working on the Puzzle Column in ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... high-strung temperament. "If that child's own mother walked in this minute I couldn't tell 'em apart, they do favor one another so," old Margaret had told her mistress when she opened the door for the girl, and she was right. Pomford village was full of these hereditary likenesses. Mark Dab-ney, whom all the present trouble was about, was so like his father at his age that his Uncle Harry had picked Mark out on a crowded dock when the lad had visited him in Rio the year before, although he had not seen the boy's father for twenty years—so ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... well brought up and industrious young man was Hamilton Morris, and he had not the least idea of the good in store for him for several months after Mrs. Kinzer decided to marry him to her daughter Miranda. But all was soon settled. Dab, of course, had nothing to do with the wedding arrangements, and Ham's share was somewhat contracted. Not but what he was at the Kinzer house a good deal; nor did any of the other girls tell Miranda how very much he was in the way. He could talk, however, and one morning, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... stairs Miss Carter dropped behind the others. So did Bob Strahan. As he waited for her he saw her dab her eyes with her handkerchief and he put out his ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... Standing Buffalo and Brown Mink. The chief held the match; the old woman, a knife; the girl was empty-handed. But she was not ill—not wasted—not dying! She was full-figured. Her face was round. Her cheeks and lips were as bright as the dab of paint at the part in her hair—as crimson with health ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... a yellow of the sort that will make approximately the color. Don't stir them up; drag one into the other a little—very little. The color is crude? Another color or two will bring it into tone. Don't mix it much. Don't smear it all over your palette. Make a smallish dab of it, keeping it well piled up. If you get any one color too great in quantity, then you will have to take more of the others again to keep it in balance. Be careful to take as nearly the right proportions of each at the first picking up, so as to mix but few times; for ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... marked by all the brightness and incident which made 'Dab Kinzer' such a favorite ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... wi' bleth'rin' gab, Wha speeches wove like ony wab; O' ilk ane's corn aye took a dab, And a' for a fee; Accounts he owed through a' the toun, And tradesmen's tongues nae mair could drown; But now he thought to clout his goun Wi' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... lamb. The girls will all, eventually, put on; fill up"—Sylvia added a dab of clay to a doubtful curve—"but men, when they chip off from the approved design, look like nothing on ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... it was the urgency of going back that confronted her. She had come down in the morning to find her breakfast laid in just the way she liked it—tea, a soft-boiled egg, buttered toast, and, as a special temptation to a capricious appetite, a dab of marmalade. She sat down to the table unwillingly, sipping at the tea and nibbling at the toast, but leaving the egg and the marmalade untouched. In her mother's bustling to and fro she felt the long-delayed protest in the atmosphere. It came while her mother ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... curtain fell, people were so busy wiping their eyes that for a moment they forgot to applaud. That silent moment was more flattering than noise; and as Mrs Jo wiped the real tears off her sister's face, she said as solemnly as an unconscious dab of ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... above all in the unnaturally tidy children to whom he was presently introduced. He could still feel the one cold kiss which Ida had given him, and, when he was shown up to his room, he unconsciously gave the spot an extra dab with the sponge. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... never shrank. She was apparently never wounded. She seldom showed that any subject jarred on her. It is affirmed that animals develop certain organs to meet the exigencies of their environment. A sole's eye (or is it a sand-dab's?) travels up round its head regardless of appearances when it finds it is more wanted there than on the lower side. We often see a similar distortion in the mental features of the wives of literary men. So perhaps also Magdalen had adapted herself to the Bellairs' environment, ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... and get him to fix you up something appropriate?" suggested John Peter. "Old Benny, I mean, that writes the letters for seamen. He's a dab at verses. People go to him regular for the In-Memoriams they ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... nurse and Gertie, had agreed to unite their powers that day in a resolute effort to overtake the household repairs. They were in a cottage now, of the style familiarly known as "wattle and dab," which was rather picturesque than permanent, and suggestive of simplicity. They sat on rude chairs, made by Scholtz, round a rough table by the same artist. Mrs Brook was busy with the rends in a blue pilot-cloth jacket, a dilapidated remnant of ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... fish of many shapes and sizes in the fishmonger's shop; they can be divided into two kinds—round fish and flat fish. Cod, Herring, Mackerel and Salmon are round fish. The flat fish are Plaice, Turbot, Brill, Halibut, Sole, Dab ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... on! What have you stolen? A pin from Elise's pin cushion,—or some powder from her puff-box? Another dab on your nose would greatly improve your appearance,—if you ask me! It's as ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... cut his own back to pay an old grudge against the other man. Another fellow rushed in here gesticulating complaint, who was literally soaked in blood. We had had our experience and so sending for an interpreter, we soused this fellow into a bathtub. Every dab came off and there was not a ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... death of the bailie, because, poor man, he had outlived the times for which he was qualified; and, instead of the merriment and jocularity that his wily by- hand ways used to cause among his neighbours, the rising generation began to pick and dab at him, in such a manner, that, had he been much longer spared, it is to be feared he would not have been allowed to enjoy his earnings both with ease and honour. However, he got out of the world with some respect, and the matters of which I have now to speak, ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... great steamship, but then she had got home safely, and she was such a little thing, after all. Whatever excitement there had been in the village died out as soon as it was known that the boys were safe; and then, too, Mrs. Lee found time to "wonder wot Dab Kinzer means to do wid all de money he done got for ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... clearly understood that I do so in no sense as expressing Mr. Bumpkin's present condition. He had risen from the English peasantry, and was what is usually termed a "self-made man." He was born in a little hut consisting of "wattle and dab," and as soon as he could make himself heard was sent into the fields to "mind the birds." Early in the November mornings, immediately after the winter sowings, he would be seen with his little bag of brown bread round his neck, trudging along with a ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later—oftener soon than late—is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Dame Frugal's ducks, for the sake of seeing them waddle; and then, when they got to the pond, he sent his dog in after them to bark and frighten them out of their wits. And as I came by, nothing would serve him but throwing a great dab of mud all over the sleeve of my coat. So I said, "Why, Master Sam, you need not have done that; I did nothing to offend you; and however amusing you may think it to insult poor people, I assure you ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... likely that it was a strain of that boyishness which I hope survives in us all, and one of whose quaint fancies is an envy of house-painters, so happy all day with paint-pot and brush and great smooth boards to dab and smooth, that decided him to do the job himself. Mr. Moggridge had this great element of refinement, that he thought nothing ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... dab out, as Sibby calls it,' said Lance. 'It's my puggery. Ever since it fell overboard it has been a disgrace to human nature, so I have been washing it, and now I've ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... emphatically; 'without a pad upon his body, and hardly a touch of paint upon his face, he'd make such an actor for the starved business as was never seen in this country. Only let him be tolerably well up in the Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, with the slightest possible dab of red on the tip of his nose, and he'd be certain of three rounds the moment he put his head out of the practicable door ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Arul dashes the cold water over her face, hands, and feet. No soap is required, no towel—the sun is shining and will soon dry everything in sight. Next comes the tooth-brushing act, when a smooth stick takes the place of a brush, and "Kolynos" or "Colgate" is replaced by a dab of powdered charcoal. Arul combs her hair only for life's great events, such as a wedding or a festival, and changes her clothes so seldom that it is better form not to ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... about the calf, and so hungry to see him, that by the time the apple-float came on the table I thought it would have to be fed to me by old Eph. Mother made it worse by remarking, as she put a lovely dab of thick cream right ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Judy," she complained as that indefatigable artist sat on the beach with her easel before her, in a blue work-apron, and with a dab of charcoal ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... fishing for their breakfast, for there was famine in the settlement, and the few pioneers left in it were kept alive on a diet of roast flathead. On the beach three boats were drawn up out of reach of the tide, and looking behind him Jack counted twelve huts and one store of wattle-and-dab. The store had been built to hold the goods of the Port Albert Company. It was in charge of John Campbell, and contained a quantity of axes, tomahawks, saddles and bridles, a grindstone, some shot and powder, two double-barrelled guns, nails and hammers, and a ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... apparitions in white, obviously enjoying their employment. During this not a word was exchanged; except for the shuffling feet, the piano, an occasional phrase of encouragement from the instructor, himself gliding with a dab of fat in exaggerated ribbons, there wasn't a sound. To Lee it had the appearance of the negation of pleasure; it was, in its way, as bad as the determined dancing of adults; it had the look of a travesty of that. Helena conducted a restive partner, trying ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... mixture of the two preceding elements, the direct creation and the metaphor: le cab jaspine, je marronne que la roulotte de Pantin trime dans le sabri, the dog is barking, I suspect that the diligence for Paris is passing through the woods. Le dab est sinve, la dabuge est merloussiere, la fee est bative, the bourgeois is stupid, the bourgeoise is cunning, the daughter is pretty. Generally, to throw listeners off the track, slang confines itself to adding to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... cabin. The work did not seem to him to be called for in such a hurry. What was the use of altering anything? It was a very good accommodation, spacious, well-distributed, on a rather old-fashioned plan, and with its decorations somewhat tarnished. But a dab of varnish, a touch of gilding here and there, was all that was necessary. As to comfort, it could not be improved by any alterations. He resented the notion of change; but he said dutifully that he would keep his eye on the workmen if the captain would only let him know what was the nature of the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... appeared—more reproachful-looking than sympathetic, as though I hadn't ordered that dressing-case specially on his behalf. He said he thought one of the housemaids would have some sticking-plaster. He was very sorry he was needed downstairs, but he would tell one of the housemaids. I continued to dab and to curse. The blood flowed less. I showed great spirit. I vowed Braxton should not prevent me from going ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... running away as best her bulk allowed, casting glances that were half frightened, half triumphant, behind her; while Mark was sitting up, rubbing a bump on his forehead ruefully, and Lil Artha had taken out a handkerchief to dab at his ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... be in sections. No use sending you a little dab of news now and then. I'll write when I can, and mail when the letter assumes real proportions. Your package arrived and I was delighted. I think I slept better last night on your little pillow than any night since we were called out. My pillow ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... blackbird hopped down upon the grass and took a tentative dab or two at the first slug he came across; but it was really too early for breakfast for a good hour yet, so he flew up again into a bush and preened his feathers, which had been discomposed by the limited accommodation ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... unfortunate friend is engaged in lamentations, and is composing melancholy verses upon the departure of Mademoiselle Mimi, who, I hear, has thrown him over. Well, for my part, I too, regret the loss of that young woman. She was a dab hand at making coffee, which is the beverage of serious minds. But I trust that Rodolphe will console himself, and soon ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... resolved to live, 65 When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give! Sooner, he spurned it. Image the whole, then execute the parts— Fancy the fabric 70 Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz. Ere mortar dab brick! ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Black Friars sitting back to back Fished from the bridge for a pike or a jack. The first caught a tiddler, the second caught a crab, The third caught a winkle, the fourth caught a dab, The fifth caught a tadpole, the sixth caught an eel, And the seventh one caught an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... to the eye. I've seen pictures in my time, but never one that made a dab of paint look a mile deep. Besides, why draw a thing when you can lie on your back and look ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... insisted, "you must remember that the beggars were Ghazees; they're hard to stop. Then, our men were worn out and had been sniped every night for the last week or two. However, the bugler's the key to my explanation; I'll put this dab of cigar ash here to represent him. This bishop's Bertram, and you can judge by the distance whether the fellow could have heard the order to blow, 'Cease fire,' through the row that ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... from a dull blue-gray wood and Dane knew that if he picked one up he would discover that it weighed close to nothing in his hand. That was lacquel bark—the aromatic product of a Venusian vine. And each little animal or reptile lay encased in a soft dab of frothy white—frosh weed—the perfumed seed casing of the Martian canal plants. One or two figures on the second tray were of a red-brown wood and these Van Rycke ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... herself a larger treat than usual for the others; but it was incredible that no one would come after all, and that Darling would never see the palace on the beach, and the state-rooms, and the limpets, and the seaweed, and the salt-water soup, and the real fish (a small dab discarded from a herring-net) which Madam ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... big house and old massa come round through de quarters every mornin' and see how us niggers is. If us sick he call nuss. She old slavery woman. She come look at 'em. If dey bad sick dey send for de doctor. Us house all log house. Dey all dab with dirt 'tween de logs. Dey have dirt chimney make out of sticks and dab with mud. Dey [Transcriber's note: unfinished sentence at end ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... thim all, an' I worried the bullet out wid my teeth as fast as I cud, the room bein' empty. Then I tuk my boot an' the clanin'-rod and knocked out the pin av the fallin'-block. Oh, 'twas music when that pin rowled on the flure! I put ut into my pouch an' stuck a dab av dirt on the holes in the plate, puttin' the fallin'-block back. 'That'll do your business, Vulmea,' sez I, lyin' easy on the cot. 'Come an' sit on my chest the whole room av you, an' I will take you to my bosom for the biggest ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... Man, after intently following the process, says he believes he could find the middle.) Well, don't tell—that's all. I'm 'ere all alone, agin the lot o' ye, and I want to win if I can—one dog to a bone! (The S.-F.M. produces a florin from a mouldy purse, and stakes it, and makes a dab at the coil with the skewer.) No, ye're wrong—that's outside! (O.B.F. pulls the strip out.) By Gum, ye've done it, after all! 'Ere's four bob for you, and I'm every bit as pleased as if I'd won myself! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... seizing her by the arms, held her tightly in her chair, while several others smeared soap over her face and stuck on feathers which they took out of a cushion. She would have screamed, but every time she opened her mouth to do so she received a dab of soap upon her tongue. When they considered her countenance was sufficiently ornamented, they presented her with a looking-glass ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... forgetful old fool!" he stated with conviction. "I meandered out to take a look around for her, and I didn't like the looks of that little dab of a saddle Conrad had put on Pat. You didn't see anything of ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... but I repeat it here, that there must never be too much sauce, however good, to any dish, and that the consistency is most important: it must be thick enough to mask a spoon, yet run from it freely. Nothing can be worse than a dab of white mush being served as sauce, unless it be a quantity of thin, milky soup floating on every plate. This is where the happy medium must be struck. It is perfectly easy to give exact proportions to produce certain degrees of thickness, and this has ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... fanning herself with a newspaper. Mrs. Cramer on the left, having finished her sweeping, had come out on the porch also, and in garments that indicated no padding whatever dropped into a rocking chair, crossed her legs, made a dab at her loosely piled hair to see it did not topple down, and proceeded to read the morning newspaper. It was positively shocking, thought Mrs. Barnett, how women could so far ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... little general, beaming smile all round. Only Margaret can see the nervousness of it. She had taken off her hat in the hall, and her pretty, short air is lying loosely on her forehead. There is a tiny dab of mud on her cheek, close to the eye. It is distinctly becoming, and looks more like a Queen Anne patch ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... boughs and shoots of the indigenous Acacias a ready substitute for the purpose, and they used them for constructing the partitions and outer-walls of the early houses, by forming a "wattling" and daubing it with plaster or clay. (See Wattle-and-dab.) The trees thus received the name of Wattle-trees, quickly contracted to Wattle. Owing to its beautiful, golden, sweet-scented clusters of flowers, the Wattle is the favourite tree of the Australian poets and painters. The bark ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... dabbing his fat head for some time— and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his pocket- handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab—"to pursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to improve, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to which I have alluded. For, my young friends," suddenly addressing the 'prentices and Guster, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... slipping matronly looking rings on her fingers and adding an extra dab of powder. She took another chocolate, hugged Monster, gave orders about sending back the lingerie, remarked that she must send her photograph to the society editor for the next day's edition, and she thought the one taken in her ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... was a round, plump, elderly face, with a short nose, delicately pink at the tip. The eyes were a pale blue, and just under the lower lip, which protruded slightly, was a small gray-red goatee, sticking straight out from a cleft in the chin like a dab of a sandy sheep's wool. Also, as the speaker swung himself further round, I took note of a shirt of plaited white linen billowing out over his chest and ending at the top in a starchy yet rumply collar that rolled ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... who walked badly. In his best days, as he records in one of his letters, it was said of him that he "tripped like a pewit." "If I do not flatter myself," he wrote when he was just under sixty, "my march at present is more like a dab-chick's." A lady has left a description of him entering a room, "knees bent, and feet on tiptoe as if afraid of a wet floor." When his feet were not swollen with the gout, they were so slender, he said, that he "could dance a minuet on a ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the red eiderdown!... But the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn't at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind—a little dab of black sealing-wax when the time came—when it was absolutely necessary... Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about it. Little rogue biting its tail just by her left ear. She could have taken it off and laid it on her lap and stroked it. She felt a tingling in her hands ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... snowy white, and bubbles, Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random, Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, Just as much, whence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... spectre of "The Castle Spectre" school of plays—the phantom in a white sheet with a dab of red paint upon its breast, that rose from behind a tomb when a blow was struck upon a gong and a teaspoonful of blue fire was lighted in the wings, probably found its last home in the travelling theatre long known ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... says he, 'an' hould your tongue,' says he, 'while I discoorse it,' says he. 'An' who are ye,' says he, 'in the name iv of all the holy saints?' says he, givin' the door a dab iv a crusheen that wakened Bill inside. 'I ax,' says he, 'who are ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... this dab upon the wagon," Johnson said, referring to the bed, and it was carried down by the brothers, and the dead man's portmanteau thrown ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... Kenny in an interval of frantic excitement would not have been forced to fish him out of the stream by his coattails. He considered always that he saved the old man's life. Nor had he meant to dab at him with the oar, thereby encouraging the unfortunate old chap to duck and misinterpret his obvious intention to ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... Polly happened to be talking, or trying to talk, to one of the "poky" gentlemen whom Fan had introduced. He took Miss Milton down, of course, put her in a corner, and having served her to a dab of ice and one macaroon, he devoted himself to his own supper with such interest, that Polly would have fared badly, if Tom had not come ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... in his work, he made rapid progress, and soon became an expert smith and metal worker. He displayed his skill especially in forging light ironwork; and a favourite job of his was the making of "Trivets" out of the solid, which only the "dab hands" of the shop could do, but which he threw off with great rapidity in first rate style. These "Trivets" were made out of Spanish iron bolts—rare stuff, which, though exceedingly tough, forged like wax under the hammer. Even at the close of his life, when he had acquired ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... jist hung on and hollered to beat thunder, and everybody wuz a yellin' all to onct, and that durned boat wuz a goin' faster'n greased lightnin' and I had one hand on my pockit book and tother on my hat, and we went kerslap dab into that duck pond, and the durned boat upsot and we went into the water, and that durned female critter hung onto me and hollered "save me, I'm jist a drownin'." Wall the water wasn't very deep and I jist started to wade out when along cum another boat and run over us, and ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... to dab at her eyes with a damp, small wad of blue-bordered handkerchief. "I just couldn't tell him in the daytime. I nearly did, last night. I meant to, 'cross-my-heart,' I did! We went for a walk, and I was just—just sort ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... on the grand scale the laws which in less obtrusive form govern the whole aesthetic life of woman. Painting, for instance, dwindles in her hands into the "sketch;" the brown sands in the foreground, the blue wash of the sea, and the dab of rock behind. Not a very lofty or amusing thing, one would say at first sight; but, if one thinks of it, an eminently practical thing, rapid and easy of execution, not mewing the artist up in solitary studio, but lending itself gracefully ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... German's hand; emptied out the contents, dusted it and put in ground rice till it was two-thirds full. Then, with the lap-scissors, she trimmed a piece of paper to the right size, wrote "A" upon it, and stuck it to the side of the bottle with a dab of treacle—she had nothing else. She was hastily wiping off the surplus stickiness when the bell rang again. She finished what she was doing, and shrouded the bottle in a duster, so that there was ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... my father, "just move your tusk a little nearer, please, and I'll show you how to begin." My father wet the brush in the pool, squeezed on a dab of tooth paste, and scrubbed very hard in one tiny spot. Then he told the rhinoceros to wash it off, and when the pool was calm again, he told the rhinoceros to look in the water and see how white the little spot was. It was hard to see in the dim light of the jungle, but sure enough, the ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett |
