"Rummage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have an idea of what cleanliness means with us," he said, "one ought to watch the work of these women for an hour. Here they scrub, wash, and brush a house as if it were a person. A house is not cleaned; it has its toilette made. The girls blow between the bricks, they rummage in the corners with their nails and with pins, and clean so minutely that they tire their eyes no less than their arms. Really it is a national passion. These girls, who are generally so phlegmatic, change their character on cleaning day and become frantic. That day ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... the great field of astronomy that is discouraging to the savant who hasn't the time nor means to rummage around through the heavens. At times I am almost hopeless, and feel like saying to the great yearnful, hungry world: "Grope on forever. Do not ask me for another scientific fact. Find it out yourself. Hunt ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... pretence to any acquaintance with a scrubbing-brush, and very little with a broom. A rickety old chest of drawers stood in one corner, presumably filled with hospital necessaries, from the very strong smell of drugs emanating from it, and from the fact that the nurses would bustle in and rummage for some desired article, giving glimpses of the confusion inside. On the top of the drawers were arranged a multitude of medicine-bottles, half full and half empty, cracked and whole. The broken old washstand ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... she went, leaving Ned to his own devices. His next thought was almost impolite, after all, for he was more than half glad that she did go, so that he might have the library all to himself to rummage in. He did not instantly examine the lamp, for he had never before been in just this kind of room, and it fascinated him. All its sides were occupied by high bookcases, every one of them crammed full of volumes ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... was so anxious to return to Salemina that I wished I had ordered the car at ten thirty instead of eleven; but I made up my mind, as we ladies went to the drawing-room for coffee, that I would seize the first favourable opportunity to explore the secret chambers of Dr. La Touche's being. I love to rummage in out-of-the-way corners of people's brains and hearts if they will let me. I like to follow a courteous host through the public corridors of his house and come upon a little chamber closed to the casual visitor. If I have known ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... been rash to have termed it a man— turning its eye upwards to the place from whence the voice came, answered with a dreadful grin and shaking of its fist, yet presently began to undo a parcel, and rummage in the pockets of a sort of jerkin and pantaloons which it wore, seeking, it appeared, a bunch of keys, which at length it produced, while it took from the pocket a loaf of bread. Heating the stone of the wall, it affixed the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?" said ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... joys of meat and the ancient ways of the land: —"Our sires of old in Taiarapu, they that created the race, Ate ever with eager hand, nor regarded season or place, Ate in the boat at the oar, on the way afoot; and at night Arose in the midst of dreams to rummage the house for a bite. It is good for the youth in his turn to follow the way of the sire; And behold how fitting the time! for here do I cover my fire." —"I see the fire for the cooking, but never ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... open her campaign. But as there had been for weeks only one single copper cent and two postage-stamps in the house, that seemed an impossibility. Hereupon an idea seized little Jane, and for several days she was busy in a mysterious rummage. Garrets and closets surrendered their hoards to her; files of old newspapers, old ledgers, old letter-backs, began to accumulate in heaps,—everything but books, for Jane had a religious respect for their recondite lore; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Albany, that perhaps are not familiar to you gentlemen nearer the capital. The trut' is, that we are not always as wise and as sober as our parents, and grandparents in particular, could wish us to be. It is t'ought a good thing among us sometimes, to rummage the hen-roosts and poultry-yards of the burghers, and to sup on the fruits of such a forage. I do not know how it is with you, gentlemen; but I will own, that to me, ducks and geese got in this innocent, game-like way, taste sweeter than when they are bought in the market-hall: our own supper for ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... heard of fuse, but it happened that I had never seen any in my life. I remember I thought it must be white and soft like the string of a firecracker. So I began to rummage through all the drawers and boxes for fuse. One of the first things I came across was a coil of black, stiff, tarry string, but I threw it to one side and went on looking for fuse. After I had hunted half an hour and found none, I gave up. As I stood there ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... These headless dummies of the Bowery have a very ghastly look at night. They suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... I cannot tell a witness he is not bound to answer a question, until I see that it has some bearing and probable tendency to accuse him; otherwise I must rummage all the statute books for penalties to put the witnesses on their guard—I must not only carry all the penal laws in my head, but mention them to every witness who comes before me ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... from superseded routes the West over, rocking, lumbering, wide vehicles far gone in the odor of romance, coaches that Vasquez has held up, from whose high seats express messengers have shot or been shot as their luck held. This is to comfort you when the driver stops to rummage for wire to mend a failing bolt. There is enough of this sort of thing to quite prepare you to believe what the driver insists, namely, that all that country and Jimville are held ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... rummage in all my pockets.... Neither purse, nor watch, nor even handkerchief did I find.... I had ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Bob arrived with a small keg of water, which he carried down to the landing. Then he went forward again after a bag of biscuit. As the terrified Ah Sing was still burning joss sticks and chattering prayers to his ancestors, Bob had to rummage about for the biscuit himself, but he finally secured a half-emptied bag, which he carried down and deposited on ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... calling, or screaming, voices. The inhabitants were surely all of them in a flurry of furious activity. Children were playing before and upon the door-step, which was flanked by an open shop, whose interior revealed with a blatant sincerity a rummage of mysterious edibles—fruit, vegetables, strings of strange objects that looked poisonous, fungi, and other delights. Above, from several windows, women leaned out, talking violently to one another. Two were holding babies, who testified their new-born sense of life by screaming shrilly. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... should free men deal and be, With patience frayed and loyalty outworn? No act of England's shone more generous gules Than that which sever'd once for all the strands Which bound you English. You may search the lands In vain, and vainly rummage in the schools, To find a deed more English, or a shame On England with more honor to ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... not avail thee; even when thy mouth says: "Give food in addition to water that I may reach my goal in safety," they are deaf and will not hear. They say not yes to thy words. The iron-workers enter into the smithy; they rummage in the workshops of the carpenters; the handi-craftsmen and soldiers are at hand; they do whatever thou requirest. They put together thy chariot: they put aside the parts of it that have been made useless; thy spokes are faconne quite ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... your coming in here both times? I wonder if you had me on your mind and wanted to see how I was. But you did not seem to. You kept groping your way toward that old closet as though you wished to rummage about in it. But do come and let me take you back to bed now, and I will stay with you so you will behave yourself and give Polly a chance ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... then wrapping a shawl around her, threw herself heavily and sullenly on the bed. But inaction was not a characteristic of Minty's emotion; she presently rose again, and, taking an old work-box from her trunk, began to rummage in its recesses. It was an old shell-incrusted affair, and the apparent receptacle of such cheap odds and ends of jewelry as she possessed; a hideous cameo ring, the property of the late Mrs. Sharpe, was missing. She again rapidly explored the contents of the box, and then ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... money from kind-hearted people, and food at hospitable doors, and here and there clothing and oddments which, if they did not wear, they knew how to dispose of advantageously. What extremes of ways and means such people must be acquainted with! no ditch was too low to rummage in, no rat-hole too hidden to be ravaged; a gate represented something to be climbed over: an open door was an invitation, a locked one a challenge. They could dodge under the fences of the law and climb the barbed ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... tint—civilised people with bleached hair and sparkling eyes. They explained themselves as 'diggers'—just diggers—and opened me a new world. Granted that all Egypt is one big undertaker's emporium, what could be more fascinating than to get Government leave to rummage in a corner of it, to form a little company and spend the cold weather trying to pay dividends in the shape of amethyst necklaces, lapis-lazuli scarabs, pots of pure gold, and priceless bits of statuary? Or, if one is rich, what better fun than to grub-stake ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... air. I requested the favour of a pinch of snuff from Mr. Fischheim's box, to counteract all unpleasant sensations arising from effluvia of a variety of description—but I recommend English visitors in general to smoke a segar while they rummage among the curiosities of Mr. Fischheim's cabinet! Old Tom Hearne might here, in a few minutes, have fancied himself ... any thing ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... ran outside, returning in a few moments, smiling triumphantly. "There are tracks coming in, but there ain't none going away. He's here. If you don't lead us to him we'll shore have to rummage around an' poke him out ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... his spectacles, and once more started to rummage in the cupboard, and to smother his guest with dust as he untied successive packages of papers—so much so that his victim burst out sneezing. Finally he extracted a much-scribbled document in which the names of the deceased peasants lay as close-packed as a cloud of midges, for there ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... have gone hard with Mr O'Gallagher. My rage was greater than my agony. I stood when I had been landed, my chest heaving, my teeth set fast, and my apparel still in disorder. The school was dismissed, and I was left alone with the savage pedagogue, who immediately took up my basket, and began to rummage the contents. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... it rains, leads thither from the town. A wooden gate, and a fence, half stone and half bamboo, seem to separate the cemetery from the people in the town, but not from the goats and sheep of the parochial priest of the immediate vicinity. These animals go in and out to rummage among the tombs or to make that solitary ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... our trunks, and had everything on the floor where we could see it, after the fashion with men. Captain Febiger's baby boy came in to help us rummage in the heaps of canvas clothes, ammunition, and what not besides, finally selecting for his amusement a loaded Colt's revolver and a freshly honed razor. We were terrorized by the possibilities of the combination. Our trying to take them away from the youngster only made him ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... Friends, eminent for her benevolence and charity. Her deceased husband had been a medical man of eminence, and left her, with other valuable property, a small and well-selected library. This the kind old lady permitted me to rummage at pleasure, and carry home what volumes I chose, on condition that I should take, at the same time, some of the tracts printed for encouraging and extending the doctrines of her own sect. She did not even exact any promise that I would read these performances, being too justly afraid of involving ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... you what you had planned for us to have this noon," explained Lucy. "So I had to rummage through the refrigerator and ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... hand, it was urged that the arguments for open shelves were all arguments for anarchy; that the readers who want to rummage about for what they want lack proper discipline of the mind; that the number of books lost under it has been very large; that librarians are custodians and conservers, as well as dispensers of books; that all books ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... May 6. MY DEAR FRIEND: You asked me to write to you often and to tell you in particular about the things I might see. You also begged me to rummage among my recollections of travels for some of those little anecdotes gathered from a chance peasant, from an innkeeper, from some strange traveling acquaintance, which remain as landmarks in the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... up to rummage around the cabin. The snakeproof pants had done real good, but he did not trust them entirely. There was some sheet iron laid over the ceiling joists, which he had brought up to make new stoves ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... terrible reality, wrapped in its authentic habiliments. Dr. Hickson of the psychopathic laboratory would give these curious rainy day phantasts identities as weird as the volumes they caress. But the old book store clerk is more kind. He lets them rummage. Before the rain ends they will buy "The Cradle of the Giants," "The Key to Satanism," Cornelius Agrippa's "Natural Magic," "The Astral Chord," "Occultism and Its Usages." They will buy books by Jacob Boehme, William Law, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Uncle Billy confidently. "And I've been thinking about it, and kinder seeing myself thar all day. It's mighty queer!" He got up and began to rummage among some torn and coverless ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... five pounds, and if you see anything that I ought to have, buy it for me. One must think now and then, you know. Our thoughts are like the letters we receive; we need to sort them out periodically, and discard those that we don't wish to keep. I want to rummage over my thoughts and see whether some of them are to be ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... buckets were foaming full of our best bear, and her lap was stuffed with a cold tongue, part of a buttock of beef, half a turkey, and a swinging lump of butter, and the matter of ten mould kandles, that had scarce ever been lit. The cuck brazened it out, and said it was her rite to rummage the pantry; and she was ready for to go before the mare: that he had been her potticary many years, and would never think of hurting a poor sarvant, for giving away the scraps of the kitchen. I went another way to work with madam Betty, because she ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the boys entered the barabbara to look after their rifles, and began to rummage among the piles of klipsies which they found thrown back under the eaves, they unearthed a broken cast-iron frying-pan and, what caused them even greater delight, a little, dirty sack, which contained perhaps three or four ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... He began to rummage about, peering into everything in the room, moving the furniture, sounding the floor with his heels, and rapping on the wall here and there. Finally he came to the fireplace, before ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... better off out here in the air," she said. "I believe he will be able to sleep in a little while. Now if I just had a strip of flannel to wrap around his chest! You would have to go up into the garret to look for it, and maybe rummage in one or two of the boxes. But I believe there should be some in the big cedar chest ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... down book and duster, and went to find the laird. But he had slipped away to the town, to have a rummage in a certain little shop in a back street, which he had not rummaged for a long time enough, he thought, to have let something come in. It was no relief to Dawtie: the thing would be all the day before her instead ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... her very happy by leaving some of my possessions under her care—some books that I knew she would like to read, and other treasures that I had locked up in my wardrobe. Jill had the key and could rummage if she liked, but she told me quite seriously that it would comfort her to come and look at them sometimes. 'It will feel as though you were coming back some day, Ursie,' she ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... you knew that, why did you bring me here? No man who respected his wife would. And you could stand by, and see that fellow with mustachios rummage my basket; and pull out my night-cap and rumple the borders, and—well! if you'd had the proper feelings of a husband, your blood would have boiled again. But no! There you stood looking as mild as butter at the man, ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... I rummage the town in search of adventure; climb one hundred and fifty steep steps, and find the highlands at the top, green, pastoral and reposeful. Pleasant homes are scattered about; a few animals feed leisurely in the grassy streets. One diminutive Episcopal ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... be no writing. He was aware of a sadness akin to that with which one leaves home and family. He looked at the manuscripts in the corner. That was it. He was going away from them, his pitiful, dishonored children that were welcome nowhere. He went over and began to rummage among them, reading snatches here and there, his favorite portions. "The Pot" he honored with reading aloud, as he did "Adventure." "Joy," his latest-born, completed the day before and tossed into the corner for lack of stamps, won his ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the newspaper had lapsed at all, he used to give his Sunday leisure to making selections and writing paragraphs for it; but he now let the pile of exchanges lie unopened on his desk, and began to rummage through the letters scattered about in it. They were mostly from young ladies with whom he had corresponded, and some of them enclosed the photographs of the writers, doing their best to look as they hoped he might think they looked. They were ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... in surprise, growled something through his teeth, and began to rummage in his portmanteau. Out he drew a writing-book and threw it contemptuously on the ground; then a second—a third—a tenth shared the same fate. There was something childish in his vexation, and it struck me as ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... Sometimes Robert would stop, stand still in the middle of the room, cast a mathematical glance of survey over its cubic contents, and then dart off in another inwardly suggested direction of search. Shargar, on the other hand, appeared to rummage blindly without a notion of casting the illumination of thought upon the field of search. Yet to him fell the success. When hope was growing dim, after an hour and a half of vain endeavour, a scream of utter discordance heralded the resurrection ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... place [behind the door] and said, "What is yonder dark place that I see?" And I said to the sergeants, "Lift up this jar with me." They did as I bade them and I saw somewhat appearing under the jar and said, "Rummage and see what is under it." So they searched and found a woman's veil and trousers full of blood, which when I beheld, I fell down in ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But Oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... at the coachman's head, muttering lurid threats of what he would do if the coachman drove on. The dismounted man was half inside the coach where two women shrank from him, and thence his blusterous voice proceeded, "Now, my blowens, hand over, or I'll rummage you. A skinny purse? Come, now, you've more than that. What's under your legs, fatty? Stand up, I say. Ay, hand out the jewel-box. Now, my tackle, what ha' you got aboard? What's under that pretty tucker?" He threw the ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... our needles and thread," said Silver Ears. "I mean to rummage in these trunks and get a whole lot of stuff for dresses and bonnets and patchwork. And our shopping bag—we must not ...
— The Graymouse Family • Nellie M. Leonard
... of history which is in a manner the characteristic of our time, the Middle Ages have been the object of peculiar fondness with both criticism and erudition. We rummage all the dark corners of the libraries, we bring old parchments to light, and in the zeal and ardor we put into our search there is an ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... seen the wonder! The wasps buzzed, the fish searched all the water in the world, and the moles began to rummage the earth, furrowing it in every direction as if they meant to make it into pap. When the first sunbeams touched the top of the poplar before the hut, the drove dashed like hunted ghosts to the Poor Boy; if the horses tried to go into ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... the lion skin and began to rummage through her pockets. "Look what else I brought you," and Maezli laid down a tiny ivory whistle. "Kurt gave it to me once and now I give it to you. If you have a headache and Mr. Trius is far away, all you need to do is to whistle. Then he can come ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... then—the lid's off to you—and remember you asked for—the rummage, Rose Mary," answered Everett in a tone as light as hers. Then suddenly he rose and stood tall and straight in front of her, looking down into her upraised eyes in the dusk. "You don't know, do you, you rose woman you, what a man's life can hold—of ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... were now perfectly definite. I proposed to make my way into the house, secrete myself upstairs, watch my opportunity, and when everything was quiet, rummage out a wig, mask, spectacles, and costume, and go into the world, perhaps a grotesque but still a credible figure. And incidentally of course I could rob the house of ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... love." She sits on the ground to reassure me, making herself little like me—lies down altogether and I go wild with delight at the sight of her face under mine, thrown back in her fragrant hair. My feelings overflow, I can't resist such a chance for a jolly good game. I rummage and fumble about, excitedly poking my nose everywhere, till I find the crispy tip of a pink ear—Her ear. I nibble it just enough to tickle her—to make her cry out: "Stop, Toby! That's awful! Help! Help! ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... W. had linings out of this very piece last night; it takes wonderfully, and I shall not have a remnant left enough to make my wife a pin-cushion by to- morrow morning at ten o'clock." Upon this they fell again to rummage the will, because the present case also required a positive precept, the lining being held by orthodox writers to be of the essence of the coat. After long search they could fix upon nothing to the matter in hand, except a short advice in their father's will ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... returning from the wars, has found that his heart's treasures have gone to rummage sales, and—you know the story of the man who bought his dress suit back for ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... hungry young men sat down to their morning meal with a hearty goodwill. The host began to rummage among his correspondence, and finally extracted an unstamped note, which he opened. His face brightened as he read, and he laid it down with a broad smile and helped ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... wrong, as every reader knows, To rummage people's drawers, and wear their clothes; But Topsy is a negro child, you see, Who never learned to ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown
... with wine. Three covered food hampers, unopened; and, intact, a beautiful little inlaid chest, such as ladies have for their combs, brushes, ointment-pots and similar toilet articles. From their condition I conjectured that the bandits had just commenced to rummage the coach when the unexpected approach of the mounted constables, whose small numbers they most likely did not realize, had scared ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... few weeks after this strange disappearance, that I obtained the first insight into the character of the mysterious Italian. After my father's death, and the winding up of his affairs, his papers and letters had been put in boxes and locked up in a closet. I one day took it into my head to rummage these papers. There were vast numbers of bills of lading and exchange, insurance papers and the like, all matters of no interest to me; but at last, upon untying a bundle of miscellaneous documents, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... passport. Of course, it was forged. He had a trolley transfer from Wyndham, Ohio, 'bout a hundred miles west of Cleveland, and, let's see, a hotel bill of the Hotel Bishop in Cleveland. He has a suite there, I guess. I'd like to rummage through his trunk. I tripped him up two or three times, enough to find that he's got a lot of information about army places. Seems to have more of it in his head than he ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... days between!" objected Mrs. Patterson. "Indeed, it will not hurt me, Sarah. Why, I feel better already. And you'll help me. If you'll get out your work-basket, I'll rummage in this trunk for ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... claims and the French spoliation claims, an aggregate is reached that is indeed startling. In the defense of all these cases the Government is at great disadvantage. The claimants have preserved their evidence, whereas the agents of the Government are sent into the field to rummage for what they can find. This difficulty is peculiarly great where the fact to be established is the disloyalty of the claimant during the war. If this great threat against our revenues is to have no other check, certainly Congress should supply the Department of Justice with ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... your whining; had to change the plan when they waked up; you done all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you; come, help rummage.' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mean to lie quietly there and allow this sneak-thief time to rummage around. Of course the precious paper wanted by Jules was securely hidden; but for all that it went against his grain to ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... killing time, has enabled me to give no little of my leisure to literary pursuits. The interesting phenomena of the Indian grammar have come in for a large share of my attention. This has caused me to revise and extend my early studies, and to rummage such books on general grammar and philology as I could lay my hands on. Every winter, beginning as soon as the navigation closes and the world is fairly shut out, has thus constituted a season of studies. My attention has been perpetually divided ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... to leave them stuck in your box, as if to invite all the servants to come and have a rummage, when you go ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... leaving Annie a considerable fortune. In the course of somewhere about ten years they had five children. They at length resolved on occupying the old house with the garden, for Annie's reluctance became weakened by time. It was on the occasion of the flitting that Annie had to rummage an old trunk which Menelaws, long after the marriage, had brought from the house of his father, the dealer in pelts. There at the bottom, covered over by a piece of brown paper, she found—what? The very slipper which matched the one she still secretly ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... questions] inquirer, investigator, inquisitor, inspector, querist^, examiner, catechist; scrutator scrutineer scrutinizer^; analyst; quidnunc &c (curiosity) 455 [Lat.]. V. make inquiry &c n.; inquire, ask, seek, search. look for, look about for, look out for; scan, reconnoiter, explore, sound, rummage, ransack, pry, peer, look round; look over, go over, look through, go through; spy, overhaul. [object is a topic] ask about, inquire about. scratch the head, slap the forehead. look into every hole and corner, peer into every hole and corner, pry into every hole and corner; nose; trace up; search ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... regimen they take us from the bosom of the nurse, turn the meat about upon the platter, pull the bed-clothes off, make us sleep when we would wake, and wake when we would sleep, and never cease to rummage and twitch us, until they see us safe landed at the grave. We can do nothing (but be poisoned) with impunity. What is worst of all, we must marry certain relatives and connexions, be they distorted, blear-eyed, toothless, carbuncled, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... saw such a boy. You can't ride and you can't skate. You are just good for nothing. You're just fit to be sold at a rummage-sale." ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... are certain ferocious animals, male and female, scattered over the country, dark, livid, and all scorched by the sun, affixed to the soil which they rummage and throw up with indomitable pertinacity; they have a sort of articulate voice, and, when they rise to their feet, they show a human face; they are, in fact, men. At night they withdraw to the caves, where they live on black bread, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... work! The very thing! It was quite big enough to hold him—it was one of those enormous trunks beloved of women!... To hide in it would be an excellent trick—a real joke! Let me burrow in there, and see the stupefaction of these estimable characters when they open it to rummage about among Elizabeth's belongings and find themselves face to face with me! They will see besides my sympathetic countenance the stern mouth of my revolver!... Let us see whether it is a possible ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... kitchen; Maude will contrive thou shalt have some token of approach. St Anthony! but thou hast bestirred thee bravely; such another guest, and I might as well set fire to the whole budget. If thou be'st bent on such another rummage in the kitchen, the cook will whack thy pate with the spit, holy and hooded ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... wait till I offer the rest. But I'll tell you what I will do, Ted. If you will promise not to go into my rooms and rummage once while I am gone, and not to touch my wheel, I'll buy you a tandem, and then you can take the ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... invest with the reality of human flesh and blood beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of language, manners, and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned ward-robes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture, these parts of the duty which properly belongs to the historian have been appropriated by the historical novelist. On the other hand, to extract the philosophy of history, to direct on judgment of events and men, to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... all turned out splendidly, and we've been makin' our fortunes ever since! As you were off prospecting, as much for our benefit as your own, we agreed that it was the least we could do to work a little for you, so we gave your claims a rummage day about, and thus we've made your fortunes too, or part of 'em anyhow. We've bin sendin' home bills of exchange too, and knowin' your wish to help your father, Jack, I took upon me to send a small sum to him with your love. ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... were no books in the rear room; of this he was presently assured. He came back into the front shop and began to rummage. A few trade catalogues rewarded him and he solemnly laid ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... shelves on the wall, fitted with glass doors which protected jars and bottles. On a large table lay an outfit for chemical experiments, and on another some yellow flowers half buried in green leaves. In the window was a modern desk, and Dick at once began to rummage among the few papers in the pigeon-holes. There was nothing, however, which seemed to bear upon our affairs, with the exception of a telegraph form, which I seized upon. It was dated June first, and had been sent from a Madrid office. There was ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... bookcases shut and locked, the engravings locked up, all the drawers and closets locked. Why, if I want to take a fellow into the library, in the first place it smells like a vault, and I have to unbarricade windows, and unlock and rummage for half an hour before I can get at anything; and I know Aunt Zeruah is standing tiptoe at the door, ready to whip everything back and lock up again. A fellow can't be social, or take any comfort in showing his books and pictures that way. Then there's our great, light dining-room, with its sunny ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sword. Not a soul of them escaped, except some that were drowned in an adjacent bog, and, in a very short time, nothing was to be heard but silence. Their uniforms were all different colors, but mostly green. After the action we went to rummage a sort of camp, which they had left behind them. All we found was a few pikes, without heads, a parcel of empty bottles full of water, and a bundle of French commissions filled up with Irish names. Troops are now stationed all round the country, which exactly ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... soon as a shell's burst they sprint and rummage for the fuse is the hole, for the position of the fuse gives the direction of its battery, you see, by the way it's dug itself in; and as for the distance, you've only got to read it—it's shown on the range-figures cut on the time-fuse which ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... believer in superstitions," declared Gowan. "Scotch people generally are, I think. My great-grandmother used to have second sight. By the by; it's Hallowe'en on Friday! I vote we rummage up all the old charms we can, and try them. It would be ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... a state of mind to be encouraged. She rushed upstairs to her grandmother's room, which was over the little room where Tozer sat, and from which she could already hear sounds of conversation rapidly rising in tone, and the noise of opening and shutting drawers, and a general rummage. Phoebe never knew what she said to the kind old woman, who kissed and wept over her, exulting ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Shotaye poured out two little bowls of broth, placed them before her visitors, said "eat," took a lighted stick from the hearth, and crawled into the dark passage leading to her magazine. Soon she was heard to rummage about in that apartment, and a faint glow ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... standing alone, immersed in rummage sales, parish concerts, mothers' meetings, school teas, and other feminine functions, be rude to Fifteen women at once? Between you and me, I have tried it, in my desperation, in individual cases, and it has no effect. I have discovered you can't ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... thrown aside his oilskins, he began to rummage through a big chest and finally threw out a lot of old togs for the inspection of his ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... Grundy must have a 'drawing-room' or die! It is a kind of holiest of holies, too beautiful for normal occupation, full of gimcrack chairs that cannot be sat upon, and decorative futilities which give it the aspect of a miscellaneous stall at a 'rummage sale.' Such a room is very well as a withdrawing-room, its proper use; but as a room into which no one withdraws it is absurd. As I expected to keep no company, and needed no room into which to withdraw, I was able to get rid of this apartment. Moreover, in a very small ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... of corn bread! Try, my old cock, and rummage up a crust or two, for hung beef is devilish tight work for the teeth, without a little bread of some ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... mind coming up to the Grange, we might have a rehearsal this afternoon, rummage up the properties, and all the rest of it," exclaimed ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... deeds of mine. I could not remember them at the time in their entirety. I seemed to have done a good many. But I did remember the rummage sale to which I sent all my old clothes, including a coat that had got mixed up with them by accident, and that I believe I ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... climber, Baltimore bell, and General Jacqueminot. A neighbour's cat, war-scarred and bold, traversing the fences in search of single combat, halted to watch her; an early bee, with no blossoms yet to rummage, passed ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... Sylvester, caved, with a bullet through his head, I got mad, and pitched in, licketty cut. Our part of the fight didn't last long; so a lot of us larked round Fredericksburg, and give some of them houses a pretty consid'able of a rummage, till we was ordered out of the mess. Some of our fellows cut like time; but I warn't a-goin' to run for nobody; and, fust thing I knew, a shell bust, right in front of us, and I keeled over, feelin' as if I was blowed higher'n a kite. I sung out, and the boys come back for me, double ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... doubt whatever that if he could only succeed in concealing himself in the sub-cellar or the coal-vault, until the house should be closed for the night, he could then, with the aid of a few matches and a pair of list slippers carried in the pocket, make a "rummage" of the premises which must prove eminently satisfactory. He did not seem to labor under any fear that the little accident of being discovered while lying perdu or while making his explorations, and arrested and sent to Blackwell's Island as an ordinary sneak-thief, might possibly ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... near your rabbit-hole, and with your two hands—or at least with one—pushed the said weasel into your burrow. Which thing he could never have done without your help, and if you had resisted but ever so little he would never have effected his purpose. If his weasel was allowed to rummage in your burrow, that is not his fault, ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... trunk, and leaving her to rummage in it he came to shave me, and to do my hair. Esther, delighted with her task, called in the assistance of her governess. She put on my bed a lace shirt, and the suit she found most to her taste. Then coming close, as if to see whether ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... It would have been unlike him not to have remembered that he had seen children at her house. "Hammy and Berta made great friends with me the other day.... Tell them I haven't forgotten the promise to rummage up some odd native toys I picked up in Rhodesia—made of mud and feathers and bits of fur and queerly-shaped seed-pods—the most enchanting collection of birds and beasts that ever came out of the Ark. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was selecting and packing this bundle Colter again entered and, without speaking, began to rummage in the corner where her father kept his possessions. This ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... the table, throwing the nice white snow all over poor cook, till her face looked as if she was ready to be shaved. His own face looked the same, for he had eaten all he wanted while the pudding stood cooling in the pantry. He had crept out of a window in the closet, and had a fine rummage among the sugar-buckets, ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... chair opposite him, nod round indiscriminately at his fellow-guests, and commence the serious business of eating and drinking. When the coffee stage was reached he would light a cigarette, draw the portfolio over to him, and begin to rummage among its contents. With slow deliberation he would select a few of his more recent studies and sketches, and silently pass them round from table to table, paying especial attention to any new diners who might be present. On the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... charm are such that we wish to sit at her feet at once. She is intellectual, but with a disarming smile, religious, but so charitable, masterful, and yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage among her many adornments as there is now no time for. Perhaps we may come upon it accidentally in ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... eyes to the picture which was the one incongruous touch to the dainty perfection of his octagonal sitting-room. He had bought it at a rummage sale; it was unsigned, and the canvas, overcrowded with figures, had grown sombre and blurred; yet queerly Dickie liked the suggestion of powerful, half-naked men; the foreign quay-side street, with a slatternly woman silent against a doorway, and the clumsy ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... any idea it pleases; whenever it dispatches the spirits into that region of the brain, in which the idea is placed; these spirits always excite the idea, when they run precisely into the proper traces, and rummage that cell, which belongs to the idea. But as their motion is seldom direct, and naturally turns a little to the one side or the other; for this reason the animal spirits, falling into the contiguous traces, present other related ideas in lieu of that, which ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... nor I, nor all the critics in the world, have any trustworthy data that would give them the right to reject such literature. I do not know which are right: Homer, Shakespeare, Lopez da Vega, and, speaking generally, the ancients who were not afraid to rummage in the "muck heap," but were morally far more stable than we are, or the modern writers, priggish on paper but coldly cynical in their souls and in life. I do not know which has bad taste—the Greeks who were ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... as she could remember she had been permitted to play with the contents of the late Herr Conrad Wilner's wonder-box. The programme on such occasions varied little; the child was permitted to rummage among the treasures in the box until she had satisfied her perennial curiosity; conversation with her absent-minded father ensued, which ultimately included a personal narrative, dragged out piecemeal ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... selections and cut out paper dolls till it suddenly dawned upon Nettie that it was time for another meal. She laid down her scissors with a sigh. "I really don't know what we shall have for dinner," she said. "Mother was going to bring something back with her. I shall have to rummage." ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... the matter readily enough. But it is a maxim of mine that men (being superior creatures) are bound to improve women—if they can. When a woman wants me to do anything (my daughter, or not, it doesn't matter), I always insist on knowing why. The oftener you make them rummage their own minds for a reason, the more manageable you will find them in all the relations of life. It isn't their fault (poor wretches!) that they act first and think afterwards; it's the fault of ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... to each other and made a certificate on the spot that the governor had refused to answer their interrogatories or to submit to their examination. They then proceeded to rummage about the city for two or three days, in quest of what they called evidence, perplexing Indians and old women with their cross-questioning until they had stuffed their satchels and saddle-bags with all kinds ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... some of her friends; and then the bridegroom with some of his friends. The entrance-hall was full of things—bags, portmanteaus, and leather articles of every sort. The boxes had to be got out of their covers, and that was infinite trouble; and of luggage and of rummage there was no end. At intervals, moreover, there were violent showers, giving rise to much inconvenience. Ottilie encountered all this confusion with the easiest equanimity, and her happy talent showed in its fairest light. In a very little time she had brought things to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... my dear fellow, he wrote, or rather, indited me an epistle, or, I should say, indictment, in his most Roman manner which—but egad! I'll read it to you, I have it here somewhere." And the Viscount began to rummage among the bedclothes, to feel and fumble under pillow and bolster, and eventually dragged forth a woefully crumpled document which he smoothed out upon his knees, and from which he began ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... of half a hundred loves to stir on this swift descent of her life line, she did over Jason. Partly because he was his winged-Hermes self, and partly because—because—it was difficult for her rather fagged brain to rummage back. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... rows of books, in English and French, many of them works on agriculture, on building, on mining, on the sugar and cotton industries in various parts of the world. There was a large writing-table of lacquer-work, on which stood a movable electric lamp without a shade, in the midst of a rummage of pamphlets and papers. Near it were a coffee-table and two deep arm-chairs. From the ceiling, which was divided into compartments painted in dark red and blue, hung a heavy lamp by a chain of gilded silver. A stick of incense burned in a gilded holder. The dining-room, on the other ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... devoured books like "Engineering Wonders of the World," "How it Works," "How it is Made," "Engineering of To-day," "Mechanical Inventions of To-day"; also books on wireless telegraphy and aviation. A great lover of books, he liked on off-days to visit London bookshops and rummage their shelves. Very proud he was of his purchases during these excursions. From time to time he would have a run round the museums and picture galleries of London or take a trip to Hampton Court—Wolsey's palace and William III's home—a spot dear to him for its ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones |
