"Mumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impress of the same master-touch,—nevertheless garrulous controversialists hold that his famous work the 'Ruva-Kalama' descended by oral tradition from mouth to mouth till it came to us in its 'improved' present condition. 'Improved!'" and Sah-luma laughed disdainfully,—"As if the mumbling of an epic poem from grandsire to grandson could possibly improve it! ... it would rather be deteriorated, if not altogether changed into the merest doggerel! Nay, nay!—the 'Ruva-Kalama,' is the achievement of one great mind,—not twenty Oruzels were born ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Mumbling a vague acceptance of the too-genial invitation, the exalted detective rose and ambled cheerfully down the room ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... something had unconsciously been perceived by my rods and cones, and short-circuited to my duller brain. Where a moment before was an unbroken translucent surface, were now thirteen strange beings who had appeared from the depths, and were mumbling oxygen with trembling lips. ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... policeman, and walked away with an air of extreme nonchalance. At the same moment the drunkard saw the dreaded uniform, and, obeying the laws of Cardigan Street, pulled herself together and walked away, mumbling to herself. The three women watched the performance without a word, critical as spectators at a play. When they saw there would be no ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... which covered their heads had been gray since they were born; and they had among them only a single eye and a single tooth which they passed back and forth from one to another. Perseus heard them mumbling and crooning in their dreary home, and he stood very still ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... wilderness. Sleeping national hopes revived, the awe of the coming judgment seized all classes. It was so long since a fiery soul had scattered flaming words, and religious teachers had for so many centuries been mumbling the old well-worn formulas, and splitting hairs, that it was an apocalypse to hear once more the accent of conviction from a man who really believed every word he said, and himself thrilled with the solemn truths which he thundered. Wherever a religious teacher shows that he has John's qualities, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... while he was careful not to disturb the bandage on his face, and several times he stopped to readjust it. Nor did he talk much, which Jack ascribed to his statement that his teeth hurt him. And when the bandaged figure did speak, it was in mumbling tones, very different from Mark's usually ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... a country gossip, consisted only in standing by the door, as if she were overhearing something, and then speaking a short monologue. For at least an hour and a half before her cue, while the others were walking, reading, having tea, quarrelling, she never left me and kept on mumbling her part, and dropping her written copy, imagining that everybody was looking at her, and waiting for her to come on, and she patted her hair with ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... him to learn as a school task, of all the poems in English, Goldsmith's Traveller! So the wretched boy, cursing England in his heart, scowling and taking it out of Goldsmith by daubing his pages with ink, sat mumbling: ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... snow and the clean bare crag above it on which was Tong Tong Tarrup. All day he climbed and evening found him above the snow-line; and soon he came to the stairway cut in the rock and in sight of that grizzled man, the long porter of Tong Tong Tarrup, sitting mumbling amazing memories to himself and expecting in vain from the stranger ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... cried again. "I can't, Jerry, I can't!" Again her voice fell to low mumbling. "Yes, go. Go at once. I promised, you know.—They haven't any mother.—I promised. Jerry! Jerry!" Her voice rang out so wildly that Connie, down in the dungeon, heard her cries and sobbed anew, relieved that Prudence was living, frightened at the wildness of her voice. "Oh, I do want you—more ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... did not find Zaidos until after dark. He was very cold, or else very hot, he did not know which, but tried to tell them all about it, and only succeeded in mumbling very fast before he dropped off into unconsciousness. He could not say farewell to Velo, lying there under the stars with a noble company about him. He was silent enough himself until he reached the big field hospital in the rear. He did not know Nurse Helen when she ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... together for the discomfiture of the opposite party, and had given him some account of the representation of the play at the Parthenon. Her father was delighted to find her in high spirits. So many people come back from the theater looking glum and worn out, yawning and mumbling when asked what they have seen and what it had all been about. Phyllis was not glum, nor did she mumble. She was able to describe scene after scene, and more than once she sprang from her seat, carried away by her ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... the bed. The old lady was sitting, propped up uncomfortably with two thin pillows and a hassock. She was breathing with difficulty, and showed no surprise when she saw Beth enter. Her lips were moving, and Beth could see she was mumbling something, but she could distinguish no word until she went quite close, when she heard her say, "Comfort ye, comfort ye ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... stupefied with indigestion; his wife was nodding and was wearing that vague, forced, pleasant smile which stands propriety-guard over a mind asleep; Mildred Gower felt that her nerves would endure no more; and the general was falling into a besotted state, spilling his wine, mumbling his words. The coffee and the brandy revived them all somewhat. Mildred, lifting her eyes, saw by way of a mirrored section of the enormous sideboard the English butler surveying master and guests with slowly moving, sneering glance of ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... at the other girls, but they shook their heads decidedly—the mumbling old crone was ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... day," Uncle Felix was mumbling to himself in a dazed kind of happy way, "an entire day, I do declare!" He looked round solemnly, yet with growing excitement, into the children's faces. "Twenty-four hours! An entire day," he went on, ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... the house called the "Boys' Room." Her mother was lying down upstairs with a bad nervous headache, and Iris had succeeded with great difficulty in keeping the house quiet for the last hour. The only other person in the room was her brother Max, mumbling over his lessons for the next day half aloud, and presently he threw his book across the ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... should he resort to deception? Still, we doubted. And one evening we were detained by the sandomancer, or sand-diviner, who was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk in front of the mosque. "I know your mind," said he, before we had made up our mind to consult him. And mumbling his "abracadabra" over the sand spread on a cloth before him, he took up his bamboo-stick and wrote therein—Khalid! This was amazing. "And I know more," said he. But after scouring the heaven, he shook his head regretfully and wrote in the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... witless with age who were accused of being witches. In almost any village might be seen poor old creatures, toothless, hollow cheeked, wrinkled, with nose and chin almost meeting. Bent almost double, they walked about with a crutch, shaking and mumbling as they went. If any one had an ache or a pain it was easily accounted for. For why, they were bewitched! The poor old crone was the witch who had "cast the evil eye" upon them. And sometimes these poor creatures were put to death for their ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... done;—and, in short, that 'Jenkins's Ear [as she named the thing] HAS been avenged,' and the Ocean Highways 'opened' and a good deal more, in a most signal way! For the Eternal Providences—little as poor Dryasdust now knows of it, mumbling and maundering that sad stuff of his—do rule; and the great soul of the world, I assure you once more, is JUST. And always for a Nation, as for a man, it is very behooveful to be honest, to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... knocked upon the door and it opened. And they went inside and all was quiet and black as night. And they groped their way till they heard a low mumbling sound, and, pulling aside a curtain, they saw an old man with a long white beard, sitting in a room with ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... crossed, and remain perpetually in such a position. Others again have one or both arms extended. Some hang by their feet from the limb of a tree by means of a cord, and remain head downward for days at a time, with their face uncongested and their voice clear, counting their beads and mumbling prayers. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... her with a chill of horror. She did not care, I suppose, what sort of feelings she might excite, for she went on mumbling sarcastically to herself. I had paused, and overcame my reluctance to speak to her again, for I was really very much frightened. 'Do you think he is in danger? Shall we send for a doctor?' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... to be poked and dragged from his hole like a badger. In the very midst of such imaginings there came a thumping blow within three inches of his face, and then silence. He leaned back desperately to avoid the pike-thrust that must follow, with his eyes screwed tight and his lips mumbling. He waited;... and then, as he waited, he drew an irrepressible hissing breath of terror, for beneath the soft padding under his feet he could feel movements; blow follow blow, from the same direction, and last a great clamour ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... I might nae doubt hae heard the curate linking awa at it in his white sark yonder, and the musicians playing on whistles, mair like a penny-wedding than a sermon—and to the boot of that, I might hae gaen to even-song, and heard Daddie Docharty mumbling his mass—muckle the better I wad hae been ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... goblin figure, but she placed the tips of her fingers in his hand and instantly withdrew them. After an ineffectual clutch, intended to detain and carry them to his lips, old Arthur gave his own fingers a mumbling kiss, and with many amorous distortions of visage went in pursuit of his friend, who was by ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... village. He staggered up and down, and tumbled against rocks, and finally he lay flat and held on tight. The others, most of them, were no better as soon as they tried to move. A rare fright they were in! They began praying and mumbling; praying, of all things, to the soul of the taboo pig! They thought they were being punished for the awful sin they had committed in eating him. The interpreter improved the occasion. He told them their ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... but before he had time to reply, old Judge Robinson of the State Supreme Court, who scorned any palliation of his deafness such as Senator Jones condescended to, cupped his left ear with his hand and shrieked, "Ay? Ay? What's that? Speak up, can't you? Don't sit there mumbling." ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... brought in the coffin, placed it in the middle before the holy gates, covered it with a faded pall, set three candlesticks about it. The service commenced. A decrepit deacon, with a little shock of hair behind, belted low down with a green kerchief, was mournfully mumbling before a reading-desk; a priest, also an old man, with a kindly, purblind face, in a lilac cassock with yellow flowers on it, served the mass for himself and the deacon. At all the open windows the ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... the whole thing, you see, and dad he'd know I grabbed it. I'm gettin' all I ought to have, I reckon. P'raps I might earn that ten some way, and hand it over. If I could only get another job as chauffeur it'd be all right," Hank Brady was mumbling to ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... his head from his work, Naxa gave a low whistle. Jason was sure it couldn't have been heard outside of the barn. Yet within a minute one of the Pyrran dogs slipped quietly in. The talker rubbed the beast's head, mumbling to it, while the animal looked intently ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... went up. Then a rousing cheer was given for the "next Marshal of Tinkletown," followed by the customary mumbling of "The Star ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... examined the gold of the settings, held the pearls to the light, scrutinized the rubies, the diadems, clasps, bracelets, and chains, and said, in a mumbling tone:— ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... be dear woman!" "Hallo, old fellow, thought you were asleep. Had something of a nightmare, eh? Been mumbling away as if the supper didn't agree with you." "Well, your toast, with all the honors, and then to ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... to wonder whether he could have just dreamed that he saw Steve fumbling at the haversack in the middle of the night, and mumbling to ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... break your heart!" said Tim, doubly angry because the charge she made struck deep. He glowered at her, mumbling and growling as ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... believing, that if they lead good lives, they will be born again to great riches, and be made governors; whereas those who lead bad lives will be changed to some vile animal, as a frog or toad. They burn sacrifices every new moon, mumbling over certain prayers in a kind of chanting voice, tingling a small bell, which they ring aloud at the close of each prayer. When any of them of good account lies sick and like to die, they sacrifice in this manner: Their altars are furnished with goats, hens, ducks, and various ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... sank into a low confused mumbling. Soon they died away altogether, and the silence ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... another ornament of Chesterton from a room at the back of the shop. He was quite a kid, not more than a hundred and fifty at the outside, so, as a last chance, I tackled him on the subject. He looked at the photographs for about half an hour, mumbling something about it not being 'thiccy 'un' or 'that 'un', or 'that 'ere tother 'un', until I began to feel I'd had enough of it. Then it came out that the real chap who had sent the letters was a 'la-ad' with light hair, not ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... impressive,—to see him ascend his rostrum with every mark of negligence, uncouth and awkward in his appearance, with every possible mannerism, talking through his nose, indistinctly and unsteadily mumbling over his sentences, careless of all outward form and polish, awakens anything but pleasant feelings, as the preconceived ideal must give way to the living reality. And yet so it is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... last we stop and propose to find rest in bed. Not so, says the ill-used brain, now morbidly wide awake; and whether we will or not, the mind keeps turning over and over the work of the day, the business or legal problem, or mumbling, so to speak, some wearisome question in a fashion made useless by the denial of full attention. Or else the imagination soars away with the unrestful energy of a demon, conjuring up an endless procession of broken ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell
... an age, the curtain fell for a second time, he escaped from his companions, mumbling some excuse or other, and made haste to find her again. But as he approached he felt a sudden pang ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... these things! (mumbling) What d'ye mean by tossing your things on the floor in that way? (lifting box) ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... rival monarchs looked at one another in silence for a moment, and then both began to speak at once, their counsellors interrupting them and mumbling their guttural comments with anxious earnestness. It did not take them very long to see that they were all of one mind, and then they both turned to Gordon and dropped on one knee, and placed his hands on their foreheads, and Stedman raised ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... a long time and pondered whether he should read the service or not. Finally, he came to the conclusion that, this time, it was best to be obedient. He seated himself in the easy chair, and began to read. But when he had been rattling away in an undertone for a little while, this mumbling seemed to have a soothing effect upon him—and he began ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... appeared, walking with a sober elderly gait upon the grassy margin of the highway, and looking pleasantly around him as he walked. From time to time he paused, took out his note-book and made an entry with a pencil; and any spy who had been near enough would have heard him mumbling words as though he were a poet testing verses. The voice of the wheels was still faint, and it was plain the traveller ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Professor Brierly with burning eyes, a hectic flush flaming in his drawn cheeks. Professor Brierly looked at him sharply. He swiftly stepped to his side, laying his hand soothingly on his shoulder. The flush subsided, the man's tense body relaxed. He shook his head mumbling. ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... After I had heard mumbling talking for quite a while—the windows were all open, and the salon is under me—suddenly the piano began. Victorine plays really well generally—that is, she has brilliant execution—but you should have heard the jumble! hardly a note right, and in the middle of it ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... thoughtless, trustful child. But all their trickery and treachery could never have succeeded had they not found a paltry tool in a senseless creature like you—you, Sir—who could stand there and go mumbling your marriage service, and never see the infernal jugglery that was going on under your very eyes. Yes, you, Sir, who now come to wring and break my heart by the awful tidings that you now tell me. Away! Begone! I have already borne ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... a hand inside the suit again and turned off his radio. If he found an answer, it would be fatal to be overheard mumbling about it. ...
— Satellite System • Horace Brown Fyfe
... a bed, knees drawn up and head tucked in, trying to gain somehow the safety that an infant once knew. Janith's voice, soft and understanding, and the acid of panic that set his lips to mumbling ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... to be out of play! He was tired ... desperately tired ... his whole body was sore ... he was miserably wet and uncomfortable ... his eye-lids were almost stuck shut with mud ... his mouth was thick with the grime of it ... but he kept mumbling to himself, "I ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... March's spirits certainly did not rise when some mumbling Americans came in and muttered over their meat at another table. He hated to own it, but he had to own that wherever he had met the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race together in Europe, the elder had shown, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... on their heels and dozed beside the confessional. One old man nodding caused our old woman to believe that he was mumbling prayers, so, running her fingers rapidly over the beads of her rosary—as that was the most reverent way of respecting the designs of Heaven—little by little she ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... which discomposed the young peasant so much, that he sprang out at the door, and overthrew his father in his flight. The old gentleman would not spend time in getting up, but crawled backwards like a crab, with great speed, till he had got over the threshold, mumbling exorcisms all the way. I was exceedingly mortified to find myself in danger of perishing through the ignorance and cowardice of these clowns; and felt my spirits decay apace, when an old woman entered the barn, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... throats with turpentine when they were stricken with roop. Then, after dinner, when the lamps were lit, and Mrs. Ukridge petted Edwin and sewed, and Ukridge smoked cigars and incited the gramophone to murder "Mumbling Mose," I would steal away to my bedroom and write—and write—and write—and go on writing till my fingers were numb and my eyes refused to do their duty. And, when time had passed, I might come to feel ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... and sloping shoulders and veiled head receding toward the altar. In some incomprehensible way that back view made her feel sorry for Alice. Also she remembered very vividly the smell of orange blossom, and Alice, drooping and spiritless, mumbling responses, facing Doctor Ralph, while the Rev. Edward Bribble stood between them with an open book. Doctor Ralph looked kind and large, and listened to Alice's responses as though he was listening to symptoms and thought that on the whole ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... owe me something now beyond your keeping, Captain Ireton," he quavered, at length, mumbling the words ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the recruiting sergeant to a desk in the far corner of the room, from which he could hear more faintly the click, click of the typewriter and the man's voice mumbling angrily. ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... collecting myself with a mighty effort, I went to call the captain; and when I reached his cabin I found the door wide open and Monsieur Lemaitre crouched in a corner of it, with a great bloodstained knife in his hand, his eyes glaring, and his lips mumbling and muttering I know not what. I saw that there was something wrong with him, monsieur,—I believed he had gone mad,—and I was about to turn away and call for help; but he saw me, and, before I was aware, sprang upon me, seizing me with one hand by the throat while ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... whitewashed, and crowded with figures in glass cases and ex voto offerings. The lousy-looking, dressed-up dolls, life size and tinselly, that stood in the glass cases; the blood-streaked Jesus on the crucifix; the mouldering, mumbling, filthy peasant women on their knees; all the sense of trashy, repulsive, degraded fetish-worship was too much for her. She hurried out, shrinking from the contamination ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... found ourselves on our feet, mumbling together into the smooth lifting unison of the Internationale. A grizzled old soldier was sobbing like a child. Alexandra Kollontai rapidly winked the tears back. The immense sound rolled through the hall, burst ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... idiot boy to the carriage, leering in upon its inmates, and rolling from side to side, with his hand out, mumbling that one word over and over between his heavy lips: and up came the gang of paupers, gazing ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... to be the Voice of God to us, but regard it merely as a Voice of earthly Profit-and-Loss. And have a Hell in England,—the Hell of not making money. And coldly see the all-conquering valiant Sons of Toil sit enchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille, as if this were Nature's Law;—mumbling to ourselves some vague janglement of Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one nexus of man to man: Free-trade, Competition, and Devil take the hindmost, our latest ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... side when he marched away up the shore toward the Flagg camp at the deadwater, and his men trailed him, mumbling their comments on the situation and wondering by what sort of miracle he would be able to prevail over armed gangsters who ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... Countess suffered from sleeplessness. Having undressed, she seated herself at the window in a Voltaire armchair, and dismissed her maids. The candles were taken away, and once more the room was left with only one lamp burning in it. The Countess sat there looking quite yellow, mumbling with her flaccid lips and swaying to and fro. Her dull eyes expressed complete vacancy of mind, and, looking at her, one would have thought that the rocking of her body was not a voluntary action of her own, but was produced by the action of ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... other languages than is usual with Englishmen. In any case, as, in spite of the old adage, speech is given us that we may make ourselves understood, our drawling, however prolonged, is preferable to the nauseous, foggy, mumbling thickness of articulation which characterizes the cockney, and is not unfrequently affected by Englishmen of a better class."—George ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... Mr. Polk fumbled with his hat and cane, and, very red in the face, bowed himself out, still mumbling, Mr. Calhoun rising ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... from the hearth, she tied a second handkerchief over that she wore, turban-wise, on her head, mumbling something about "cold ears" and "rheumatiz;" settled herself in a rush-bottomed chair, put her feet upon the rounds of another, and was regularly on duty, prepared for any emergency, and to be alarmed ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white waves are tumbling, And, in one baffled roar, 60 Like the toothless sea mumbling A rock-bristled shore, The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling,— ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... While a priest was mumbling some words in a low voice, two or three dirty choristers, in soiled surplices, were charting the prayers for the dead, with an absent and sullen air, round a plain deal coffin, followed only by a sobbing old man and a child, miserably clad. The beadle and the sacristan, very much displeased at being ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... one come close to me, heard voices, faint and far away they seemed, so I shouted to them (I thought I shouted but it was only a mumbling whisper), and then a voice, low and close at hand, asked ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... of Argile back again," said an old halberdier, staunching a savage cut on his knee, and mumbling his words because he was chewing as he spoke an herb that's ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... he carried her around from window to window for air, and that the child's eyes were fixed, and she was whiter than the pillow. He also saw an old woman, lantern-jawed and ghostly, tidying around and she mumbling and grumbling because no one would give ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... strikes me as rather odd that I have forgotten what love is like. It strikes me as rather pathetic." He gave a sort of uncouth grimace and stuck the black cigar once more into his mouth. "Egad!" said he, mumbling indistinctly over the cigar, "how foolish love seems when you look back at it across fifty or ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... every morning, whether he remained in the house, or mounted his horse and went out to the field to join the army. It was a common saying among the soldiers that one must "beware the paternosters of the Constable." For as disorders were very frequent, he would say, while mumbling and muttering his paternosters all the time, "Go and fetch that fellow and hang me him up to this tree;" "Out with a file of harquebusiers here before me this instant, for the execution of this man!" "Burn me this ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out, Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... stout gentlemen came to the ice together, making a very considerable star, and a noise which was still more terrific. First there was the sudden crash and rending asunder of the thick ice, and then the noise went rolling and mumbling away to the other end ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... As Joseph was mumbling indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, and gave no sign of ascending, his master dived down to him, leaving me vis-a-vis with the ruffianly bitch and half a dozen four-footed fiends that suddenly broke into a fury, while I parried off the attack with a poker and called ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... acute suffering, brought him to the grave. During his illness he was constantly and zealously tended by his wife, but he displayed great aversion to her, declaring himself bewitched, and that an old woman was ever in the corner of his room mumbling wicked enchantments against him. But as no such old woman could be seen, these assertions were treated as delirious ravings. They were not, however, forgotten after his death, and some people said that he had certainly been bewitched, and that a waxen image made in his likeness, and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "I want to know," he said in a low mumbling voice, "because I think I have seen him." He did not look up at his mother as he spoke. With the forefinger of his right hand he began tracing an imaginary pattern on the blue serge skirt which covered ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... kindly, "I can paddle my own canoe, my dear." After that she was herself for nearly half an hour. Once she said. "My house is in order, friend Ferguson." Then she lost herself again. To those who watched her, huddled on the heap of cushions, mumbling and whimpering, or with a jerk righting her mind into stony endurance, she seemed like a great tower falling and crumbling in upon itself. At that last dreadful touch of decay, when she put her thumb in her mouth like a baby, her stepdaughter ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... his next neighbor, "Dat man sholy did sleep to some pu'pose," although he knew that the dictum was a deathblow to his own pastoral hopes. The people thronged around the pastor as he descended from the pulpit, and held his hand as they had done of yore. One old woman went out, still mumbling under her breath, ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... out a plateful for the grandfather. Few words were uttered, for Martha was hot, and rather testy; and Stephen felt a sullen weight hanging upon his spirits. Only every now and then the old grandfather, chuckling and mumbling over the uncommon delicacy, would call Stephen by his father's name of James, and thank him for ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... classes who did not open his lips properly when he spoke. So I asked him to prop his mouth open with a piece of stick and then talk. I made him do it until he learned to speak much more clearly. A famous Greek orator, named Demosthenes, who had a habit of mumbling his words, trained himself to speak clearly by putting pebbles in his mouth and then reciting in ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... a dumb beast shu'! Rubbin' dirt right inter clean cabbage! Sich muxin'! mux, mux, mux! Dat a coon? Dat ain't no coon. Dat's a mux!" And she scuffed off to the house, mumbling, "De muxinest thing I done evah seen." ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... the sign of the cross and bowed, disheveling their hair; the women, especially the old women, gazing with their lustreless eyes on one image, before which candles burned, pressed hard with the tips of their fingers on the 'kerchief of the forehead, the shoulders and the abdomen, and, mumbling something, bent forward standing, or fell on their knees. The children, imitating their elders, prayed fervently when they were looked at. The gold iconostasis was aflame with innumerable candles, which surrounded a large one in the centre wound in a narrow strip of gilt paper. The church lustre ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... blazed Larry; but the green dwarf was hurrying down the path and swiftly we followed, Larry muttering, Olaf mumbling, behind me. ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... I have been, Joseph? An inarticulate harmony— sweetly mumbling, with never a thread of ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... from Adam, by casting them into a deep slumber? Or from what possible perversion of common sense are we to look like field-preachers in Zembla, holy lumps of ice, numbed into quiescence and stagnation and mumbling?" ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... lying in the centre was sent flying into the air, she who reached the greatest height receiving the appropriate prize of a needle or thimble. At night the dance was continued, and on this occasion a fire was kindled around which the medicine men seated themselves, mumbling incantations and casting small pieces of deer or walrus meat into the flames as a sacrifice to the evil spirits. The whale entertainment lasted for three nights, but the incidents which occurred upon the last evening are not fit for reproduction here. The whaleman, being more or less ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... rascal must have lent Hans the money to make his fine start, Aunt Hedwig at once bristled up and said with emphasis that rascals, neither great nor small, were in the habit of lending their money to deserving young men; and Herr Sohnstein, a little sheepishly perhaps, and mumbling a little in his gray mustache, ventured the statement that this was a free country already, and people living in it were at liberty to lend their money to whom they pleased; and Minna, looking up from her books—Gottlieb's back ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... 'she' was, turned the pages of the letter book, mumbling, 'Abernethy, Applecombe, Ap. Davis, Apsley. Here we are,' he began to read the letter aloud. It was typewritten, which, when he saw his clients, not a little ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... the old man entered. He was mumbling. He was saying, in that jumble of sound which it was difficult for even Alan to understand—and which Sokwenna had never given up for the missionaries' teachings—that he could hear feet and smell blood; and that the feet were many, and ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... service. Again, Miss Murdstone, in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall, follows close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. There is no Peggotty now, as in the old time. Again, I listen to Miss Murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says 'miserable sinners', as if she were calling all the congregation names. Again, I catch ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... thoroughly angry, conducted him some steps, mumbling and gesticulating; M. le Duc d'Orleans pretending to neither see nor hear him, the King astonished, and M. de Frejus laughing in his sleeve. The bait so well swallowed,—no one doubted that the Marechal, audacious as he was, but nevertheless a servile and timid courtier, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... travel the six miles to the ranch very quickly. He could see that the girl was burning up with fever, and he could hear her voice growing husky,—could hear, too, the painful labouring of her breath. When she was not mumbling incoherent nonsense she was laughing hoarsely at the plight she was in, and after that she would hold both hands to her chest and moan in a way that ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... toward the door; but Antonio tore it back, to meet the villains boldly in the face. He had drawn his sword; but he remained like a statue, standing with uplifted arm, when he saw two sickly decrepit hermits lying on their knees before the cross, mumbling ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... his gentle head, mumbling her shoulder with soft, dusty lips; she stifled a sob, lifted saddle, saddlebags, and bridle and carried them up the rocky bank of the stream to a little hollow. Here she dropped them, unstrapped her revolver and placed it with them, then drew from the saddlebags a homespun gown, sunbonnet, ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... looked round him. But there was neither tapestry nor ceiling visible, and the portrait had also disappeared. He saw at his right only a man with a white apron spotted with blood; at his left, a monk, who was raising his head; and before him, an old woman mumbling her prayers. His wondering eyes next rested on a mass of stone before him, in which he recognized the Temple, and above that, the cold white sky, slightly tinted by the rising sun. ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... and Langley were there. Langley looked irritated. He was mumbling strangled curses ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... deserted save for an old woman, half-witted, who was crouching on the floor before the sacred Icon, rocking herself and mumbling. They questioned her, but she was deaf and ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks Or at the ear of Eve, ...
— English Satires • Various
... woodsman saw that the time had come for prompt action. He snatched up his loaded rifle from the corner where it stood always ready, ran out upon the steps, and shouted at the bull. The great black animal stopped and looked around, mumbling deep in his throat. He wheeled half-about to return to the old enemy. Then he paused irresolutely and eyed the gay bevy of children. Which foe should he ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Madame was seated alone, mumbling to the count of her rosary, but on their appearance dropped it in her lap and resumed her usual bearing ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... terror through-out the streets of the city. 'What steel! alack, what steel!' Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. The firmness of manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and the steel paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poor tale-teller, mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a long description, Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier, 'Here is what ye have so anxiously sought:' and whilst uttering these words ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... him, Led him confused in circles through the brake. He was forgetting his old wretched folly, And freedom was his need; his throat was choking; Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs, And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps. Mumbling: 'I will get out! I must get out!' Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom, Pausing to listen in a space 'twixt thorns, He peers around with boding, frantic eyes. An evil creature in the twilight looping Flapped blindly in his face. Beating it off, He screeched in terror, and straightway ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... you've just come down from the Island! Well—how did you like it up there? Plenty water—eh?" The sarcasm was too plain, and the young man, mumbling some sort of an answer, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... don't," interrupted Mrs. Stuart hurriedly; "it is bad enough now, goodness knows; don't make—" Then she broke off blindly. Christie's eyes glared at the mumbling woman, at her uneasy partner, at the horrified captain. Then they rested on the McDonald brothers, who stood within earshot, Joe's face scarlet, her husband's white as ashes, with something in his eyes she had never seen before. It was Joe who saved the situation. Stepping quickly ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... extreme decay, Weak, sick, and faint, expiring lay; All appetite had left his maw, And age disarmed his mumbling jaw. His numerous race around him stand To learn their dying sire's command: He raised his head with whining moan, And thus was heard the feeble tone: 'Ah, sons! from evil ways depart: My crimes ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... fortunate journey, strongly recommending him to skirt the abbey westward, and go by the Ahr valley, as there was something stirring that way, and mumbling, 'Makes five again,' as he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Dakotas, And they led his feet from the fen, —from the slough of despond and the desert. Half-dead in a dismal morass, as they followed the red-deer they found him, In the midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus." "Unktmee [72]—Ho!" muttered the braves, for they deemed him the black Spider-Spirit That dwells in the drearisome caves, and walks on the marshes at midnight, With a flickering torch in his hand, to decoy ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... dear?" Rachel murmured, bending over her, and caught enough of the answer to guess that Miss Deane was mumbling again and again: "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... stamping and the other tripping daintily, who effectually mimic the late partners of the dance in the most heartless manner. Another of these hideous creatures is sitting down, his head covered with a dirty rag, staring, stuttering, and mumbling, like an imbecile. His pantomime is recognized at once as a cruel mimicry of the chief penitent while at prayer, and it is universally pronounced to be a superb performance. To the Koshare nothing is sacred; all things are permitted, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... stupids men were! She expected that Alf would feel very fine and noble as he walked old Em along to the theatre—and afterwards, when the evening was over and he had gone off in a cloud of glory. He would think it all over and come solemnly to the conclusion that the reason for his mumbling stupidity, his toeing and heeling, and all that idiotic speechlessness that set Emmy on her hind legs, was sheer love of the truth. He couldn't tell a lie—to a woman. That would be it. He would pretend that Jenny had chivvied ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... his chin with thumb and index finger, and mumbling his tobacco. John, who had listened with more attention than interest—wondering the while as to what the narrative was leading up to—thought something might properly be expected of him to show that he had followed it, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... crumble away in order that the spirit of M. Viollet-le-Duc alone may pervade it and it may subsist simply as a magnificent shell. As the leases of the wretched little houses fall in, the ground is cleared of them; and a mumbling old woman approached me in the course of my circuit, inviting me to condole with her on the disappearance of so many of the hovels which in the last few hundred years (since the collapse of Carcassonne as a stronghold) had attached themselves to the base of the walls, in the space between ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... to destroy,—he plunged into it, and was swept on and on till, disappointed in his calculation of the ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now finds himself he knows not where. How like the half insane mumbling of a fever dream is the whole war part of his late message! At one time telling us that Mexico has nothing whatever that we can get—but territory; at another showing us how we can support the war by levying contributions on Mexico. At one time urging the national honor, the security of the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... mumbling and shouting his wild song, thumping down his staff and swaying his body from side to side while Salaman followed close up now; but, in his character of fakir, Dost ignored his presence entirely, and came on till he was not above a couple of yards ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... come and see you soon, for somehow it does me good to have you swear at me. I only wish I had as good a friend in the world as Mr. Walton has in you." With these words he sprung from the fence on the orchard side, and made his way to the hill behind the Walton residence, leaving the old man mumbling and muttering in a ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... white men with all those natives looking on." Leonard's legs trembled very much, and his voice wavered between high and low tones without any attempt at control on his part. "Restrain your improper violence," he went on mumbling rapidly. "I am a respectable man of very good family, while you . . . it is regrettable . . . they all say ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... away hastily, mumbling to himself—then glowers about the room scornfully with blinking eyes). It's a grand hotel this is, I'm thinkin', for the rich to be takin' their ease, and not a hospital for the poor, but the poor has ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... must you still be mumbling that! Come now, forget you are a woman, and be reasonable! You exercise the fair and ancient privilege of kinship by calling me harsh names, but it is in the face of this plain fact: I got from you what never man has got before. I am a monstrous ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... the cafe and came out directly, still absorbed in his idea, and tendered him a cigar, mumbling thoughtfully in his moustache, "Children growing up—and girls, too! Girls!" ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... old, mangy, toothless and deserving of nothing better, my dear father," replied the fair young man, and his glances at the white beard, scanty locks and mumbling mouth of the ancient gentleman had an unpleasantly personal quality. To the casual on-looker it would have seemed that an impudent boy deliberately insulted a harmless benevolent old gentleman. To the fair young man, however, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... a voice was heard round the corner of the building, mumbling, 'Ah, I used to be strong enough, but 'tis altered now! Well, there, I'm as independent as one here and there, even if they do write 'squire after ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... of a window shade in the courthouse, saw several indistinct figures congregated at the side door, outside. He slipped behind a tool shed at the side of the track, and crouching there, watched and listened. A mumbling of voices reached him, but he could distinguish no word. But it was evident that the men outside were awaiting the reappearance of one of their number who had gone into ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... would sometimes wake to find Zerkow gone from the bed, and would see him burrowing into some corner by the light of his dark-lantern and would hear him mumbling to himself: "There were more'n a hundred pieces, and every one of 'em gold—when the leather trunk was opened it fair dazzled your eyes—why, just that punchbowl was worth a fortune, I guess; solid, solid, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... heads and spit upon the ground at the sight of a Christian. Every day the "Holy woman," with wild eyes and vermilion-painted cheeks, is to be seen prophesying in some public place. And the "Holy man," too, who is incessantly walking like the wandering Jew, always in a hurry and all the while mumbling his prayers. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... satisfied that it was not to be found in the camp, he sought it outside of it, and found the lodge of the two sisters. The younger sister was pleased to see him, and admired and patted the pretty dog, but the elder sat mumbling the very heel-bone he was seeking, and was surly and sour, and repelled the dog, although he looked most wistfully up in her face, while she sucked the bone from one side of her mouth to the other. At last she held it in such a manner that it made her ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... removed, pipes were brought out and tankards sent on their rounds. By this time poor old Tim's weak brains were muddled, and he was discovered leaning back against the wall and mumbling out the tag-end of ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... warm, you may go to sleep," said Barlasch in a mumbling voice, for his face was drawn tight and his lips stiffened by the cold. "But if you shiver, ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... themselves in the garden. They found old Elikonida at the entrance. She was sitting on the bench near the small gate and was mumbling something slowly and indistinctly. Evidently no one was there to listen to her. Perhaps the old woman was ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... so far as it went; but delivered without the slightest regard for rhythm, and composed in stark defiance of those laws which should regulate the breaking of bad news. You, please remember, were carefully prepared by me against the shock of the Duke's death; and yet I hear you still mumbling that I didn't let the actual fact be told you by a Messenger. Come, do you really think your grievance against me is for a moment comparable with that of Mrs. and Miss Batch against Clarence? Did you feel faint at any moment in the foregoing chapter? No. But ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... to let me be educated, and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing but the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not everyone who can spend his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in filth, and mumbling the Talmud. At times officers and country gentlemen would put up at papa's inn, and they used to talk a great deal of things which in those days I had never dreamed of; and, of course, it was alluring and moved me to envy. I used to cry and entreat them to ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... foot upon the step, but did not dare to mount. Fuddled though she was, there was something that kept her in check. She stood there groping at the handrail and mumbling to herself, and every now and then lifting her fat face and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... talk?" Stephen Hampton burst out. "We've told you about his behavior; how he sits for hours mumbling to this imaginary person he thinks is with him, and how he always steps aside when he opens a door, to let somebody who isn't there go through ahead of him, and how.... Oh, hell, what's the use? If he were in his right mind, he'd speak up and try to prove it, ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... locksmith, having received the money, thought it incumbent upon him to apologize and explain still further, till Marcus took hold of the door, as if to close it, when he accepted the hint, and departed, mumbling an ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the night when he felt himself being dragged into a sitting posture. He remonstrated in a mumbling voice. "'S too early," he said. "Altogether too early. Early. Whew! Watch 'er spin. Jus' his job. ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... us mountain people—and yes, all Rhaetians, I believe. I could not let you go back to your own land with the idea that we do not love the noblest Emperor country ever had. As for what I said about the portrait, I didn't know that I spoke aloud, I am so used to mumbling to myself, since I began to grow deaf and old. But of course, I wished it put away only because it is such a poor thing, it does Unser Leo no sort of justice. You—you would not recognize him from that picture, if you were to ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... time secured. Troke knew this; and on the evening in question hit upon an excellent plan. Admitting himself noiselessly into the boat-shed, where the gang slept, he crept close to the sleeping Dawes, and counterfeiting Mooney's mumbling utterance asked for "some tobacco". Rufus Dawes was but half awake, and on repeating his request, Troke felt something put into his hand. He grasped Dawes's arm, and struck a light. He had got his man this time. Dawes had conveyed to his fancied friend a piece of tobacco almost as big as the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... lolling back in the tonneau of the motor-car that has come to replace the stately, absurd horse-drawn equipage of yesterday. Survey with ennui. Brood over unpatriotic comparisons. Paraphrase Laurence Sterne to the extent of mumbling how "they order this matter much better in Hyde Park or in the Bois de Boulogne." Quote Mr. Henry James about "the blistered sentiers of asphalt, the rock-bound caverns, the huge iron bridges spanning little muddy lakes, the whole, crowded, cockneyfied place." In that way jaundiced happiness ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... Then heavily mumbling a scurvy grace, he washed his hands in fresh wine, picked his teeth with the foot of a pig, and talked jovially with his attendants. Then the carpet being spread, they brought great store of cards, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... came. He appeared to have been drinking; and, after some mumbling talk, laid down inside the fort, near the gate. I made the gate fast, driving the big wooden pins home with an axe; built up a great fire, and sent Edwards to bed in the tent. The Chinese prisoners were already asleep on the ground. Then I sat down on the opposite side of ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... fellows had never been offshore! This isn't going to last. These easterlies are always freakish things! But anyhow! What's the use of getting scared? It's a sailor's place to die at sea! I always said so: sooner a lobster than a mumbling parson and the worms! Pull yourselves together, boys. And lash yourselves to something. The boat's all right. Just don't ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... replied (not mumbling his lines, as a privileged actor sometimes does at rehearsal, but addressing them ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... money, mumbling his thanks as he did so. The two men shook hands again at the outer door, and Craft trudged down the avenue, toward the railroad station, his mind filled with visions of enormous wealth, but his patience sorely tried ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... bricks," repeated Von Barwig, who evidently enjoyed the incongruity of the combination. Then noticing that Ryan was standing he said with a smile, "Brother artist, be seated!" Pinac and Fico roared with laughter. Mr. Ryan sat down, mumbling to himself that that sort of sarcasm didn't go with him; he was a workman, not an artist. Von Barwig apologised and then, looking at Schwarz, waited for him to speak. A very awkward ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... captivated by him. So it is with these German students; no sooner have they taken German in hand than there is nothing like German. Oh, the dear delightful German! How proud I am that it is now my own, and that its divine literature is within my reach! And all this whilst mumbling the most uncouth speech, and crunching the most crabbed literature in Europe. The writer is not an exclusive admirer of everything English; he does not advise his country people never to go abroad, never to study foreign languages, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... we needed was enough money to whip Hawkins out of the way, and that if he would "come up" with the needful we would look out for him. I left him a disgusting sight, sitting in a red plush armchair, with his face in his hands, his hair streaking down across his forehead, moaning and mumbling to himself. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... then, placed under the tuition of Sister Boe! There were some fifty other children at school, mumbling at the letters of the alphabet, and trying to read their first easy sentences. Jasmin had a good memory, and soon mastered the difficulties of the A B C. "'Twixt smiles and tears," he says, "I soon learnt to read, by the help of the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... solicitor who, among other things, hated the modern custom of growing a beard or moustache. He himself grew side-whiskers in the most approved style of half a century ago. "Speak up, witness," he shouted, "and don't stand mumbling there. If you would shave off that unsightly moustache we might be better able to hear what was coming out of your lips." "And if you, sir," said the witness quietly, "would shave off those side-whiskers you would enable my words to reach ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... his ears, and shook his head gravely. Suddenly he pointed out to Julian an old man, clothed in a patched and tattered tunic, and Julian recognised a temple priest. The weak and broken old man stumbled along in drunken fashion, carrying a large basket and laughing and mumbling to himself as he went. He was red-nosed, and his watery and short-sighted eyes had an ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... their bodies; with coolies dragging heavy loads to the guttural cry of Hai! huida! with children whose heads were shaved in hideous patterns; and now and then, as if to point a moral lesson in the midst of the whirling diorama, a funeral passed through the throng, with a priest in rich robes, mumbling prayers, a covered barrel containing the corpse, and a train of mourners in blue dresses with white wings. Then we came to the fringe of Yedo, where the houses cease to be continuous, but all that day there was little interval between them. All had open fronts, so that ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... through a tortuous maze of gaping workmen and sickening flowers, three startled girls jumped up to catch me as I staggered across the threshold. I did not faint, I did not cry out. I just sat huddled on the floor rocking myself to and fro, and mumbling, as through a mouthful of sawdust: "Dolly Leonard is dead. Dolly Leonard is dead. Dolly Leonard ...
— Different Girls • Various
... asked with mumbling tongue: "My lord, what kind of a world then is that where those who condemn others to die, are condemned to ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... comfort herself she went on mumbling titles as she struggled along, the sun beating fiercely on her bare head. Such a quaint head, with sleek black hair parted and plaited and hung with jewels, even down the long pigtail of brown wool that was added on to the back to make the ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... time, Copernicus Droop might have been seen approaching the white cottage. Still nursing a faint hope, he walked with nervous rapidity, mumbling and gesticulating in his excitement. He attracted but little attention. His erratic movements were credited to his usual potations, and no one whom he passed even gave ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... see nothing, for the cell was darker than the room he was in, but presently he distinguished a huddled form lying on the bench, and even as he looked it was galvanized to life. It was an old man who had leaped from the bench mumbling and ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... to put an end to feudal rule. Instead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and keeps silent, and who, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both of body and soul. Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with crosses, performing genuflexions, mumbling magic formulas in the trenches—how many billions of you have been led out to slaughter by the greeds and ambitions of your religious masters, since first this accursed Antichrist got its grip upon the hearts ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... to take her friend's part, and he trotted home again, mumbling curses between his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... an off-hand kind of way, how far New York was from Canton. I thought it likely that the fellow knew already, and therefore I did not hesitate to tell him. He then took up the New York paper again, and, looking with great care at the date, began to count his fingers, mumbling something to himself in Chinese which I could not understand. Nothing more passed between us on the subject; but I felt from that day that I had a spy upon me. I did not like to discharge him from my service, because that would only excite him to greater mischief, and I never ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... superficial inches. Clearly, a storekeeper from some remote village, where he has battened on the necessities of his neighbors for years, till he has got bloated like an ancient spider in its web. He hobbles up and down, never interchanging a word with his fellows, but unceasingly mumbling his huge toothless jaws; they say he never mutters anything but curses; if so, his daily expense in blasphemy is something fearful to contemplate. I think that cleanliness is as foreign to that horrible old creature's soul as godliness: he never ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... this the other night, under the mattress in there." He jerked his head toward the stateroom. "Wait!" I heard him knocking things over in the dark and mumbling at them. After a moment he came out and threw on the table a long, cloth-covered ledger, of the common commercial sort. It lay open at about the middle, showing close script running ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various |
