"Plumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... band stand. I been here forty year and we got along all right without it, say I! If that's what he's talkin' about, I'm goin' home. I understood it was somethin' about taxes we was to hear. They got me taxed plumb ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... leaving the old man absorbed in ecstasy, and tried to see if the light, falling plumb upon the canvas at which he pointed, had neutralized all effects. They examined the picture, moving from right to left, standing directly before it, bending, swaying, rising ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... privilege of danger that shams should vanish. Yet we plumb the depths of absurdity when we contest the right of any woman, even a young and unmarried one, to appreciate all that a brave man has done and is doing ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... shape. Still, during the first eight or ten years of their married life, when the children were young, they had at least appeared to the casual eye as, say, a rectangular parallelogram. A little later the cares and jolts of life wrenched the right angles a trifle "out of plumb," and a rhomboid was the result. Mrs. Hamilton had money of her own, but wished Lemuel to amass enough fame and position to match it. She liked a diplomatic life if her husband could be an ambassador, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... come into money—money the interests have kept him out of. He kind of licks his chops when he talks about it. Never heard him talk about his wife's share, though. Say, that brother of yours is making a plumb fool of himself!" ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... more, but only lay there mute and motionless; and from his look one might plumb the sorrows of his soul and know how shocked he was, and how grieved and heartstricken! Love's young dream was o'er! He had thought she loved him, but now he knew better. Their marriage had been a terrible mistake and he would ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... The dense foliage allowed only a random beam of sunlight to pass through and pierce the pool, like a brilliant, quivering javelin. Long vines depended from the limbs above, falling sheer and straight as plumb-lines; a giant liana the size of a man's body twined up and up until lost in ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... the ends or corners, and nailed together with large nails. Having laid the sills upon the foundation, the next thing in order is to put up the studding. Use 4 by 4 studs for corners and door posts, or spike two 2 by 4 studs together, stand them up, set them plumb, and with stay laths secure them in position. Set up the intermediate studs, which are 2 by 4 inches, and 16 inches between centres, toe or nail them diagonally to the sill. Then put in the floor joists for first floor, each joist to be placed alongside each stud, and nailed ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... ought to be tied up on the Two-Bar and muzzled, for you're plumb mad, McNair! It's just that kind of firebrand talk that's hurting our cause. The farmers have got enough enemies now, God knows, without making a lot of new ones. Doggone your hide, Mac, what're you trying to do?—Stir up another ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... from a corner of the building just under the man's chin; but that wasn't getting him. They jacked their sights up 50 yards, making it 800 yards; and when next the native showed around the corner they both got him—one plumb between ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... to pay a woman's bills; I enjoyed seeing her garments lying about on my chairs. In time that exultation wore off. But I was not unhappy, I didn't expect much, I was always so sure that no woman could ever plumb the well ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... given so that a student unacquainted with geometry or trigonometry may calculate the heights and distances of objects, the latitude and longitude of a place, the amount any body is lightened by the centrifugal force due to rotation, the deviation of a plumb-line ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... was granted to the men by Director General Hines, who succeeded McAdoo. Meanwhile the Brotherhoods, through their counsel, laid before the congressional committee a plan for the government ownership and joint operation of the roads, known as the Plumb plan, and the American people are now face to face with an issue which will bring to a head the paramount question of the relation of employees on government works to the Government ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... full pardon for a deed "committed for the welfare of the kingdom." The cutting of the Rue Etienne Marcel has exposed the strong machicolated tower still bearing the arms of Burgundy (two planes and a plumb line), which Jean sans Peur built to fortify the Hotel de Bourgogne, as a defence and refuge against the Orleans faction and the people of Paris. The Orleans family had for arms a knotted stick, with the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... gasped Captain Wass. "She's a-going to tramp him plumb underfoot—unless she's going to get up a little more speed and jump over him!" he added, moved ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... its infancy when I was born," he told Jessie. "And then came the telephone, and these here automobiles, and flying machines, and wireless telegraph, and now this. Why, ma'am, this radio beats the world! It does, plumb, ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... s'pose I know half he's give. But it's a heap, Lord knows! And then he's foolish—plumb foolish." He rested his arms on his legs, leaning forward. "How much d'you s'pose he give me for that land—from here to my house?" He pointed up ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... all in all, my poor beautiful cousin was falling day by day deeper into an abyss of love from which she could in no way extricate herself. In short, level-headed Frances had got far out of plumb, and, though she struggled desperately, she could not right herself, nor could any one help her. I fully realized that the small amount of self-restraint and passivity she still retained would give way to disastrous activity when the time should come for her to part with ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... figures, but it was not, as in our climate, a struggle against climate mainly, but an internecine war from over population. Now and again we passed among vast stems of buttressed trees, sometimes enormous in girth; and from their far-away summits hung great bush- ropes, some as straight as plumb lines, others coiled round, and intertwined among each other, until one could fancy one was looking on some mighty battle between armies of gigantic serpents, that had been arrested at its height by some magic spell. All these bush- ropes were as bare of foliage as a ship's wire rigging, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... town, which had seen better days. The big lumber-mill that had once kept it busy was burned down, and the business had slipped away to the prosperous neighbouring town of Machias. There were nice old houses with tall pillars in front of them, now falling into decay and slipping out of plumb. There were shops that had evidently been closed for years, with not even a sign "To Let" in the windows. Our dinner was cooked for us in a boarding-house, by a brisk young lady of about fifteen years, whose mother had gone to Machias for a day ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... communed to himself, with a slight duck of the head of careless acknowledgment. Then he glanced with slumbering anger at the stove. "Smoke, we'll have to dig up a new stove. That fire-box is burned plumb into the oven so ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... tell you I shook hands with this boy an' was plumb glad to meet him?" demanded Laddy, with considerable heat. Manifestly he had been affronted. "Tom Beldin', he's a gentleman, an' he could lick you in—in half a second. How ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... had mailed my other letter I was afraid that you would think me plumb bold about the little Bo-Peep, and was a heap sorrier than you can think. If you only knew the hardships these poor men endure. They go two together and sometimes it is months before they see another soul, and ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... watched Average Jones place the ladder against the outside of the pole, mount, nail up the sign, drop a plumb-line, improvised from a key and a length of string, to the ground, set a careful knot in the string and ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Prophet, Three days there he'd not have dwell'd, But in one have been expell'd. Hapless mariners are they, Who beguil'd (as seamen say), Deeming him some rock or island, Footing sure, safe spot, and dry land, Anchor in his scaly rind; Soon the difference they find; Sudden plumb, he sinks beneath them; Does to ruthless ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... had hitherto escaped her notice. She was at last convinced that she had to contend with a man, a man who had dealt with both men and women. How deep was he? Could honors, such as she could give, and money plumb the depths?... He was an American. She smiled the smile ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... sun had long disappeared, but seemed to have left its vital spirit of heat behind it. The air rested; the leaves of the acacia-trees that shrouded my windows hung plumb-like on their delicate stalks. The smoke of my cigar scarce rose above my head, but hung about me in a pale blue cloud, which I had to dissipate with languid waves of my hand. My shirt was open at the throat, and my ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... begins with the earliest dawn of being and must be carried on with as much care as a mason would give to the laying of the walls of a structure designed to stand for years. The mason knows that if he does not lay his foundations deep and firm, that if the walls are not kept straight and plumb, that if he puts faulty bricks or stones in the walls, the building will not be a success. The work at every stage must be a success or the completed structure ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... she held Legree's dog, whom the sound inflamed to frenzy, I popped off the crackers and dropped my cigar into Vesuvius. I tell you he was worth four and eightpence, and the man was right when he said there wasn't his match in London. I doubt if there was his match anywhere for being plumb- full of red balls and green balls and blue balls and crimson stars and fizzlegigs and whole torrents of tiny crackers and chase-me- quicks, and when you about thought he was never going to stop he shot up a silver spray and a gold ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... of Roberts as sailing, in honest employ, as master of the Princess (Captain Plumb), from London in November, 1719, bound for the coast of Guinea to pick up a cargo of "black ivory" at Anamaboe. Here his ship was taken by the Welsh pirate Howel Davis. At first Roberts was disinclined for the pirate life, but ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... If you ain't got any place to go—why—I've got a ranch and about twenty-five hundred head of cattle and some horses. If you didn't mind marrying me, I could take you out there and give yuh a home. I'd be plumb good to you, if you're willing to take ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... "Let it go plumb to hell!" returned Judith. "Scott's the one should have been shot, for sending you ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... believe I'd want to go and bully it out right where it happened. You've bought your little chunk of experience and paid for it, and now you're a free man just like the rest of us. You want to buck up, and tell them that don't like it to go straight plumb to the dickens." ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... of old, and knew it, I thought, to perfection, If there is any one thing in the world to preclude all kindness It is the need of it,—it is this sad, self-defeating dependence. Why is this, Eustace? Myself, were I stronger, I think I could tell you. But it is odd when it comes. So plumb I the deeps of depression, Daily in deeper, and find no support, no will, no purpose. All my old strengths are gone. And yet I shall have to do something. Ah, the key of our life, that passes all wards, opens all locks, Is not I WILL, but I MUST. I ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... purpled. "Say, are you plumb bugs? Why—" Vic gulped and stuttered. "Say, where do you get that stuff? You better tie a can to it, sis; it don't get over with me. I'm for screen fame, and I'm going to get it too. Why, by the time I'm twenty, I'll betcha I can pull down a salary that'll make Charlie ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... crowd went crazy. Mere acquaintances hugged each other and danced around and around through the heavy sands. Several women had hysterics. The riverman next to Mr. Duncan opened his mouth and swore so picturesquely that, as he afterward told his chum, "I must've been plumb inspired for the occasion." Yet it never entered Mr. Duncan's ministerial head to reprove the blasphemy. Orde jumped down from his half-buried log and clapped his hat on his head. Newmark did not alter his attitude nor ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... keep away from a Portuguese man-o'-war usually, but either he had got reckless or didn't think of it. Some of his friends shouted out to him to take care, but he laughed back, tellin' them they were foolish to believe old stories, and to show that he didn't care, in a spirit o' 'dare' he dived plumb under the jellyfish. But he misjudged his distance an' came up clean in the middle of it an' the stingin' hairs just closed ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... takes my kindness as his right. But for this, while I should chide him I cannot do so, for of all the ways David has of making me to love him the most poignant is that he expects it of me as a matter of course. David is all for fun, but none may plumb the depths of Porthos. Nevertheless I am most nearly doing so when I lie down beside him on the floor and he puts an arm about my neck. On my soul, ma'am, a protecting arm. At such times it is as if each of us knew what was ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... own imps; I'd a heap rather play with a rattlesnake than him." He paused, to assure him self that Sikes was safely out of hearing. "I thought maybe I better tell yer while I had a chance. That fellar is plumb pisen, miss." ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... door shut abruptly. Lena's too thin boots, out of plumb, suddenly slipped on a half-formed piece of ice. She made a desperate grab at the smooth surface of the window and then came ignominiously down—not wholly ignominiously, however, since her accident brought to her aid the man who was ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... Fort McMurray, Jiarobia said to me: "Dat man is the biggest awful liar on de river. You should hear him talk. 'One day,' he said, 'dere was a big stone floating up de muddy river and on it was tree men, and one was blind and one was plumb naked and one had no arms nor legs, and de blind man he looks down on bottom of river an see a gold watch, an de cripple he reach out and get it, and de naked man he put it in his pocket.' Now any man talk dat way he one most awful liar, it is not ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... ain't. Yo been plumb bad, an' I feel jest like I uster when yo was er little trick an' I tuk yo 'cross my knee ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... one side precision, foresight, geometry, prudence, a retreat assured, reserves prepared, an obstinate coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy profiting by the ground, tactics balancing battalions, carnage measured by a plumb-line, war regulated watch in hand, nothing left voluntarily to accident, old classic courage and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... just plumb ruined. He said he'd snatch Ikey bald-headed, and do a lot of other things to him, if he didn't walk right out into State street and bring back that Little Brass God. Holy Moses! You ought to have seen how scared Little ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... half measures. For a certain space he had to live on earth, and he wanted to discover what life really was. What lay beyond the grave he did not know, "sufficient for the day were the day's evil things." But he felt that he must try and plumb the depth or shallowness of the day's interests. He could not bear the idea of ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... to the next tomb,[1] mounted on that part of the crag which just above the middle of the ditch hangs plumb. Oh Supreme Wisdom, how great is the art that Thou displayest in Heaven, on Earth, and in the Evil World! and how justly doth ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... cable car coming along about that time. The skipper yelled to me to ease off the larboard stay. Now, I might know something about mince pie, but a larboard stay is not my long and hasty. Then some one pushed me aside, and succeeded in putting things in such excellent shape that we ran plumb through ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... glanced from Mr. O'Rourke's leg, went plumb through the Bilkins mansion, and knocked over a small marble slab in the Old South ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... off on it by exact measurements. We first drew a straight line down the centre, and from this measured off the two sides with the greatest care. In the game way the stem and stern were measured with a plumb-line. We then turned the log over, and having levelled that side, marked off the keel, thus having it truly in the centre. Natty and Leo had remained to assist ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Heberden,[295] If there are men who can thy virtue know, Yet spite of virtue treat thee as a foe, 750 Shall, like a scholar, stop their rebel breath, And in each recipe send classic death. So deep in knowledge, that few lines can sound And plumb the bottom of that vast profound, Few grave ones with such gravity can think, Or follow half so fast as he can sink; With nice distinctions glossing o'er the text, Obscure with meaning, and in words perplex'd, With subtleties on subtleties refined, Meant ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... calm, who could say? Certainly nobody knew or was likely to know; for the Master of Saint Bede's was a person, the depth of whose nature could not be fathomed easily with any line. Possibly because, old as he was, it happened, as does happen in some lives, that the right plumb-line, by the right hand, had ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... all heart in her task. When the Mason-bee is building, the antennae are constantly feeling, fumbling and exploring, superintending, as it were, the finishing touches given to the work. They are her instruments of precision; they represent the builder's compasses, square, level and plumb-line. ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... parents to throw water in his face. Chip told her exactly what he had told the Old Man, in exactly the same tone; so the Countess retreated, declaring that he wouldn't be let to act that way if he was her kid, and that he was plumb everlastingly spoiled. ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... his mother sarcastically rejoined. "'Pears ter me like the chile hain't never hed good sense; afore she could walk she'd crawl along the floor arter ye, an' holler like a squeech-owEL ef ye went off an' lef' her. An' ye air plumb teched in the head too, Birt, ter set sech store by Tennie. I look ter see her killed, or stunted, some day, in them travels ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... Who shall plumb the depth of the bitterness in this old man's heart, as he lay among his pillows, his head moving feebly from side to side, his attenuated fingers plucking at the coverlet, his tongue stealing slowly along his cracked and burning lips. Fragments of his life passed ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... "No man knows a woman, really—not all her thoughts." And had Major Durward, honest fellow, realized the volcanic force of passion hidden behind the tense inscrutability of his wife's lovely face, he would have been utterly confounded. We do not plumb the deepest depths even of those ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... declivity, which lead down from the high points to the sea. Here and there, though rarely, these slopes centre in a basin which is occupied by a lake or a dead sea. On the deeper ocean floors, so far as we may judge with the defective information which the plumb line gives us, there is no such continuity in the downward sloping of the surface, the area being cast into numerous basins, each ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... the driver in his slow way, "hit was like this. That there saloon were plumb full of sailor-men all exceptin' you an' me. I was a heap admirin' of the way you handled that big hombre what opened the meetin' and also his two pardners, who aimed to back his play. Hit was sure pretty work. The rest of the crowd sort o' bunched in one end of the ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... Dick, "and I had rather not have given Conkey Jem a taste of blue plumb, had there been any other mode of silencing the snitching scoundrel, which there was not. As to the Major, he's a gallant enemy, and shall have fair play as long as Dick Turpin stands by. Come, sir," added he, to the Major, as he bound him hand ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... first part and the cricket match in the second. After commenting upon the truth of the former description, he went on to criticize the latter. Do you remember that match? You do? Very well. You recall how Tom wins the toss on a plumb wicket?' ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... ring fastened here,"—the boy's fingers found it—"and swinging to and fro; and inside the ring is a bar, holding the lamp so that it tips to and fro crossways to the ring. You weight the bottom of the lamp, and then it keeps plumb upright however the ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her how she must count the number of heads, and explained to her the advantage of the plumb-line in determining the action of the figure. Mildred was much interested; she wondered if she would be able to put the instruction she was receiving into practice, and was disappointed when the model got down from the table and ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... when the flare-up came, an' bein' interested in business I didn't ball up my intellect with politics an' newspaper war talk. So a cable I had from the firm hit me wallop, an' plumb dazed me. It said, 'Try secure war contract. One hundred full-powered available now. Two hundred delivery within month.' Then I began to sit up an' take notice. Y' see, I'm in with a big firm of auto builders—mebbe ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... you, Tender-foot, feel about this, but wait until you have a chance to shoot it plumb through the head, and it gets away with it all, and then tell me what you would think," said Elam sullenly. "You probably don't have such things in the settlements, but that's no sign that they aint found ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope the rain mucks them up on her. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef to the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out of plumb. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the sacred name of Time are you meanin' to do with that dummy? For the good land's sake! Have you gone plumb crazy, or what? Put that ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... Point. He went to the institution from Georgia, and graduated last June, fifty-fifth in a class of seventy-six. There is a preponderance of white blood in his veins, and in general appearance, except for color, he is a perfect image of Senator Plumb of Kansas. He reports that since he has struck the South he has been treated like a gentleman, which is something different from his experience in the North. He made the acquaintance of Senator Maxey at West Point— the Senator himself being a graduate of the Academy—and regards ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... "to be plumb downright honest with you, they don't. Folks as was born here an' are old inhabitants do, but the Holmes, bein' newcomers, is kinder set in their ways. They come down here eight years ago last August with new-fangled notions, which they ain't ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... Just hidin' out in the woods, and mostly from each other. It's a turrible thing." He looked down at himself with a wry grimace. "Not outta shame," he added. "We've seen naked bodies before. Just plumb ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... give her the name, myself," he observed, at last. "Seein' I just got her a week ago last Saturday. I ASKED Casper Hoyt what under the canopy possessed him to give her a name like that. Said his father named her. Well, I thought his father must be plumb foolish, or something, but I didn't like to say so to HIM. Seems too bad to waste them gilt letters, or I'd a-had another name on her 'fore this. I wanted to use as many of them letters as I could, an' I thought of callin' her for ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... these affairs We wish thee also well aware of this: The atoms, as their own weight bears them down Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times, In scarce determined places, from their course Decline a little—call it, so to speak, Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one, Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void; And then ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... folks! Here I is done drapped plumb off'n my subject; but a old man's mind will jes' run waa'ry at times. Me and Joe, Alex's son, went to see de officer 'bout gitting Joe's pa buried. He 'lowed dat Alex's body was riddled wid bullets; so we took him and put his bones and a little rotten flesh dat dem buzzards had ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... see. An'—an', mind yer, toot that old horn good an' loud, so as everybody'll know we're a-comin'." As the automobile moved away he beamed with proud satisfaction. "Some swells we are—heh? Skinny an' Chuck an' the gang'll be plumb crazy when they see us. Some ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... afford to feed us as we feed the British prisoners; such is the difference in the two countries in point of cheap food. On thanksgiving days, and on Christmas days, and such like holy days, we, in America, used to treat these European prisoners with geese, turkies, and plumb pudding. Many of these fellows declared that they never in their lives sat down to a table to a roasted turkey, or even a roasted goose. It is a fact, that when the time approached for drafting the British prisoners in Boston harbor, to send to Halifax to ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... thicknesse of halfe the earth is (as shall be shewed) about 4000 miles, now the plumb height of the highest mountaines is not accounted aboue a mile and a halfe, or two miles at the most. Now betweene two miles and foure thousand, there is no sensible proportion, and a line that is foure thousand and two miles long, will not seeme sensibly longer then that which is ...
— A Briefe Introduction to Geography • William Pemble
... fascinated me. I made good there, and got together a fat wad of bills, which was useful seeing I had my young cousin's—you know, young Will Henderson, of Barnriff; he's a trapper now—education on my hands. Just as things were good and dollars were coming plenty the enterprise bust. I was out—plumb out. I hunched up for another kick. I had a dandy patent that was to do big things. I got together a syndicate to run it. I'd got a big car built to demonstrate my patent, and it represented all I had in the world. It was to be on the race-track. Say, she didn't demonstrate ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... ding-donging at me about his mill idea. Well, I went in—I risked the whole amount. He was made president although he didn't hold ten thousand dollars' worth of stock. Then I reckon you know what happened. He run the thing plumb in the ground, claimed to be losing money—said labor was too high; claimed that the wrong sort of machinery had been put in. It went from bad to worse for twelve months, then it shut down. The operatives moved away, and it was sold under the hammer. Who bought it in—my God, ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... in wood and formerly adorned with carvings, now destroyed by the action of the weather, had continued plumb; some bobbed forward, others tipped backward, while a few seemed disposed to fall apart; all had a compost of earth, brought from heaven knows where, in the nooks and crannies hollowed by the rain, in which the spring-tide brought forth fragile flowers, timid creeping plants, and sparse ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... that they did when they killed th' man, an' so it might prove nuthin'; but, right whar th' grass was tread up th' worst on th' spot whar we saw th' man killed, I found this—" and the hand came out of the pocket and was extended toward the alcalde, holding on its palm a button. "Now I'd plumb forgot all about th' findin' of this button, not settin' any store on it, when, jest as I was a-leavin' th' witness stand, th' thought popped intew my head, that, if th' prisoners happened tew have on th' same clothes they had on when they murdered ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... raised the heavy lid, sliding it to one side. How deep was the black chasm beneath he could not even guess. Doubtless it led into a coal bunker, or it might open over a pit of great depth. There was no way to discover other than to plumb the abyss with his body. Above was death—below, a ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... you were a physician," said Rosalie, "but there's one place I got you plumb wrong. I thought it was business troubles. So the trouble's your heart and affections! It's that big-eyed blonde niece of Markham's, of course. Well, you ain't the first. The best way to bring the young ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... we move," was the laconic but excellent speech of Mr. Henry Plumb. He already had his forefinger on the trigger of ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... oil!" Chow said. "You looked so pale an' pasty, you had me plumb scared, Tom! I couldn't wake you nohow!" Worriedly the cook added, "What you need is a good beefsteak and some sunshine. You ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... Emperor's forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey.' 'I do,' says Peachey. 'Fully and freely do I forgive you, Dan.' 'Shake hands, Peachey,' says he. 'I'm going now.' Out he goes, looking neither right nor left, and when he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy dancing ropes, 'Cut you beggars,' he shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell, turning round and round and round, twenty thousand miles, for he took half an hour to fall till he struck the water, and I could see his body ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... it? That willing lad of yours has plumb knocked the answer out of my noodle. Maybe you're thinking of some one else, Buck." Dingwell looked up at him with an innocent, ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... the changeablest one ain't the kind to hold a feller longest. But it's h—l. I was married onct. Not any more for mine! A pal I had used to say thet whiskey riled him, thet rattlesnake pisen het up his blood some, but it took a woman to make him plumb bad. D—n if it ain't so. When there's a woman around there's somethin' allus ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... "Wow! but it's plumb dark in here, though!" protested Lil Artha, after he had knocked his shins twice against some projection, and even slammed into a post that chanced to be directly in ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... would have caught Mrs. Van Astrachan going; for she was one of your full-blooded women, who never in her life engaged to do a thing she didn't mean to do: and having promised in the marriage service to obey her husband, she obeyed him plumb, with the air of a person who is fulfilling the prophecies; though her chances in this way were very small, as Mr. Van Astrachan generally called her "ma," and obeyed all her orders with a stolid ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... from beside the tobacco box. "'T would be awful if the letter didn't come once't every ten days or two weeks! Reckon I'd go plumb ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... always wondered at the miracles of Mahomet, and at Yogi's miracles, and the miracles of Madame Blavatsky. But, of course—Yes, it is simply a gift! It carries out so beautifully the arguments of that great thinker"— Mr. Maydig's voice sank—"his Grace the Duke of Argyll. Here we plumb some profounder law—deeper than the ordinary laws of nature. Yes—yes. Go on. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... issue or two, we note a letter from Edwin Magnuson, a deluded denizen of Duluth, who says he's plumb disgusted because Astounding Stories receives far more bouquets than brickbats, when according to him the mag deserves to be panned plenty. Get in step, Edwin, you're ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... "'Er? Plumb daft! Of course, as Mother 'Oward says, there 's times when she 's straight—but they don't last long. And, if she 'd given 'er testimony in writing, Mother 'Oward says it all might 'ave been different, and we 'd not 'ave ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... he swung his long arm meaningly toward the west. "Animyles sich as don't prowl raound yere, man-yeatin' snakes as big as thet tree, an' the blood-thirstiest salvages as ever was. An' arter a while ther ain't no more trees grows, ther lan' is thet poor, by gosh! jist a plumb dead levil er' short grass, an' no show ter hide ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... wheels are loosed, How nimbly, with what swift activity. I think, 'tis strange that men should ever sleep, There are so many things to think upon, So many deeds, so many thoughts to weigh, To pierce, and plumb them to the silent depth. Yet in that thought I do rebuke myself, Too little given to probe the inner heart, But rather wont, with the luxurious eye, To catch from life it's outer loveliness, Such things as do but store the joyous memory With food for solace ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... a rider of the range, plumb rough an' on-refined, An' wild an' keerless in my ways, like others of my kind; A reckless cuss in leather chaps, an' tanned an' blackened so You'd think I wuz a Greaser from the plains of Mexico. I never learnt ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... Kirkwood, already well known by his service in the Senate, now returned from Iowa.—Preston B. Plumb of Kansas, who had been printer, editor, soldier in the civil war with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, member of the Bar, reporter of the Supreme Court of his State, Speaker of the House of Representatives ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... think of wives And children ere they risk their lives. Over the balustrade has bounced A mere instinctive dog, and pounced Plumb on the ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... spacious and well-situated—on the side of the promenade nearest to the bath. Diphilus had placed the columns out of the perpendicular, and not opposite each other. These, of course, he shall take down; he will learn some day to use the plumb-line and measure. On the whole, I hope Diphilus's work will be completed in a few months: for Caesius, who was with me at the time, keeps a ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the bear is covered by a reserve of forty rifles, not one of the hunters has nerve enough to shoot unless officially authorized or personally desirous of visiting the silver-mines of Siberia. Crack! thug! The smoke clears away. By Jove! his imperial majesty has done it cleverly; hit the brute plumb on the os frontis, or through the heart, it makes no difference which. Down drops Bruin, kicking and tearing up the earth at a dreadful rate; cheers rend the welkin; pots, pans, and kettles are banged. High above all rises the ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... mum an' fool de smartes' of 'em! Didn' I fetch Marse John's djeulin' pistols one Sunday mawnin' right under de Bible layin' on de cushion we cyarried to chu'ch fer ole Miss to kneel on? An' didn' we-all walk plumb up de aisle, an' fix her nice an' easy in her pew, an' den slip out an' go down on de crick whar de gemmens wuz waitin', an' shoot dat young Mister Green in de lung? 'Deed we did," he chuckled again, scratching his head as though the reminiscence were ticklesome—then looked up with a sly smile: ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... the Sourcraut tenantry. All drew back in horror, to let one so anathematised pass without contact. I coiled myself up near a droll-looking little postilion, who, while turning up the whites of his eyes, was coaxing me to him with a fragment of plumb-cake, which he had stolen from the banquet-table. Dr. Direful returned to the centre of the room, and mounted a desk to commence his lecture. The auditory crowded and cowered timidly round him, while he, looking down on them with a wrathful and contemptuous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... laughed bitterly. "Precious scientific men! Villainous old hombogues! The whole set not worth a straw! I hope to gracious, since we must fall, that we shall drop down plumb on Cambridge Observatory, and not leave a single one of the miserable old women, called ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... so you'll know what to expect. So you'll get out of town and stay out. Because, shore as yo're a foot high, you won't live a minute longer than is plumb necessary if you don't." ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... called upon the carpenter and his pliers to remove these, and sent the man forward. Another was carried aft, unconscious from a fist blow under the ear; and the skipper could only lay him out on a cabin transom to wait until he came to. The last was a case of asthma. Red-head had planted his fist plumb upon his throat, and the resultant inflammation threatened to strangle the man. But the skipper gave him a porous plaster for his chest, and a big cathartic pill by means of which the man came around. You know the ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... shall be done, A kiss you forfeit, if I've won; Your prize shall be, if first you come, Some barley sugar and a plumb." ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... been tossed between them two gals like a hot corn pone. He'd take Nella-Rose quick enough if she'd have him, but barrin' her, he hangs to Marg so as ter be nigh Nella-Rose in any case. And right here Burke Lawson figgers. Burke's got two naturs, same as old Satan. Marg can play on one and get him plumb riled up to anythin'; Nella-Rose can twist him around her finger and make him act like ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... himself as one who bought expensive ties "and could pay cash for 'em, too, by golly;" and at the United Cigar Store, with its crimson and gold alertness, he reflected, "Wonder if I need some cigars—idiot—plumb forgot—going t' cut down my fool smoking." He looked at his bank, the Miners' and Drovers' National, and considered how clever and solid he was to bank with so marbled an establishment. His high moment came in the clash of traffic when he was halted ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... me, boy. I was punchin' longhorns when yore mammy was paddlin' you for stealin' the sugar. Say, that reminds me. I'm plumb out o' sugar. Can you loan me some till Pedro gits around? I got to have sugar or I begin to fall off right ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... up like I told you. Mr. Allopath is over on Sweetwater creek, Mr. Homeopath is maybe in the last stages of starvation. Old Pinto looks plumb hopeless, and all us fellers is mostly hopeless too, owin' to his uncertain habits in a horse race, yet knowin' that it ain't perfessional for us not to back a Bar T horse that can run as fast ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough |
