"Telltale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wide, old boards of the floor gave a telltale snap. It was behind him, and so loud that it shattered his vision of Big Tom and the pudding bowl. Some one was in the room! Father Pat? ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... not sight that gave me the first clue. There came a purring from the lake; and when I had searched for a minute for the source of it I saw the glow we had watched from the dhow in the storm the first night out—the telltale crimson stain on the dark that rides above a steamer's funnel, and at intervals a stream of sparks to prove they were burning wood and ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... on." Then, after a pause, she continued, "I found your note, Lizzie, and I am sorry that I have such a telltale face; but I am unhappy, Lizzie; yes, I am miserable, and I cannot conceal it. I would not obtrude my sorrow upon others, but it is my face and not ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... his conscience. He had tried to compromise with his conscience, as it appeared, by enclosing a sum of money in an envelope and addressing it to the father of the child he had run down. But his death had prevented the mailing of this. The telltale finger of accusation was pointed at him from the newspaper which was ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... than the enchilladas of Margarita? I could love him for his rages! When the Blessed Mary sends me a lover—" She looked over her shoulder and sighed romantically, hiding the laughter in her eyes and the telltale twist of her lips as best she could, with lashes ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... on Friday; Saturday I went to New York; Sunday and Monday I spent at the Yale Club, writing; Tuesday, this telltale letter fell under the prescient eye of my brother. On that day he at once got in touch with me by telephone. We briefly discussed the situation. He did not intimate that he believed me to be in elation. He simply urged me not to attempt to interest anyone in my project ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... in Pee-wee's nature to run from anything or anybody. So there he stood amid the telltale mementoes of the dreadful game while Detectives Slippett and Spotson strolled into the field. They were just in time to behold a fleeting vision of forms wriggling through fences, gliding around buildings, and scrambling ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... he found a gully which gave access to the water's edge. He descended, located a ford, and crossed. There were cattle-trails through the cottonwoods; he might have followed them, but he feared the telltale shoe-prints. He elected the more difficult route down the stream itself. The South Y.D. ran mostly on a wide gravel bottom; it was possible to pick out a course which kept Pete in water seldom higher than his knees. An hour of this, and Drazk, peering through the trees, could see the ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... ran into the house and to her room. But if the canary was suffering from thirst, it remained neglected. Ramona's telltale face was buried in a pillow. She was not quite ready yet to look into her own eyes and read the ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... precious gifts ever given, if the value of gifts is gauged by the measure of self-sacrifice involved. In that little book was immortal love—old laughter—old tears—old beauty which had bloomed like a rose years ago, holding still its sweetness like old rose leaves. She removed the telltale fly-leaf; and late on the night before Sylvia's birthday, the Old Lady crept, under cover of the darkness, through byways and across fields, as if bent on some nefarious expedition, to the little Spencervale store where the post-office was kept. She slipped ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... be terrible," said Betty, trying hard to keep the telltale tremulousness from her voice—trying desperately to sound brave and resigned. "But we must remember that thousands of women and girls all over the United States are going through the same thing. And for the boys' sake, we ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... herself blush for the dismay she had not been able to conceal, and to hide this embarrassment she lifted to her face—not the handkerchief or the bouquet with which beauty is wont to cover the telltale signal in the cheek, but a wee dog, as white as a handkerchief and no less sweet than a bouquet. She rubbed her nose fondlingly in the soft silk of his breast, while, tickled, he tried, with baby growls and an exposure of sharp pin teeth, to ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... had any lights behind them. Only the one door that he had come through showed the telltale glow from the other ...
— Viewpoint • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a branch where the tufts and hoppers seemed most prolific, I brought my magnifying-glass to bear upon them at a respectful distance. Was ever actual thorn more motionless or non-committal than most of these?—their under surfaces hugging close against the bark, their telltale feet closely withdrawn, and all their pointed helmets inclined in the same parallel direction. One after another of the sly little family was examined without a revelation. Not until I had reached the upper limit of the group did I get any encouragement. Here I discovered one of the midgets in a ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... ground into a patch of wetness. He scrubbed at it with his sleeve, soaking up the blood, wiping the spot fiercely. With his other hand he pushed together a pile of dust and dirt, spreading it over the stain. As soon as he was sure the stain was covered he slid forward, groping for the second telltale splash. ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... like hours. Gradually, however, the leader of the silent ships drew nearer. There was no mistaking the telltale reports in the wireless room. Basing his calculations on the chief electrician's reports, McClure figured the leader of the oncoming squadron to be now not more than half a mile away and moving steadily forward toward ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... he should destroy these telltale documents. Then he wonders what may be in these envelopes. There flashes over him a new feeling—a sharp, lightning-like stroke passes across his shoulder-blade and down ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... his stethoscope can hear the inrush of air as it is drawn into the patient's lungs, or the surge of blood as it is pumped through the heart with every telltale gurgle of the valves; so with that powerful instrument she could hear through walls and know what was being said. It was a wonderful advantage to have over these men if she discovered that there was treachery afoot and the following morning, to test it out, she wore ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... continued to stand there and listen to the telltale sounds with sinking hearts. Perk in particular seemed to be dreadfully put out by this fresh upset and was grinding his strong teeth as though desirous of letting out an explosive but restrained by the fact of Jack being so ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... forest, alert for the telltale yelp. There it is, a whine and faint, stifled guttural sounds, but so indistinct and so obscured by the prattle of the stream and the murmuring tree tops that I fail to locate it. So I flounder on through vines ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... the three girls darted to and fro. The telltale spelling and copy-books were flung into the drawer of the chiffonier, and the key was turned on them. Polly, her immodest sampler safely hidden at the bottom of her workbox, was the most composed of the three; and ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... in my hearing—please!" he begged. "You never can tell when Jeremiah is snooping about, and he's a telltale." ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... phone, dialed a number, and sat down comfortably in his fat blue overstuffed chair. It buzzed for half a minute, then the telltale lit up, but the screen ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett
... as if the record in my pocket burned—spontaneously—so intense was my feeling. There in the glass was that fatal, telltale white precipitate. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... from the corpse, and gazes for a moment after the retreating form of his friend; then he picks up the handkerchief; it is of softest linen, and across one corner he reads the embroidered name of Clifford Heath. For a moment he stands with the telltale thing held loosely in his hand, and then he bends down, spreads it once more over the dead face, and turns ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was over. The ship filled with vibration as Guns opened up. Twenty-five seconds to target. His eyes flicked from the sightscreen to the sky ahead, looking for the telltale flare of rockets—ready to follow like ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... The telltale newspaper item, reproduced above, outlines the story behind this volume. What is not made clear is the fact that the entire expedition was painstakingly planned many months ago, the publishers themselves making it financially possible by contracting ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... most beloved BROTHER, who was in the Bounty with Captain BLIGH at the Time of the FATAL MUTINY, which happened April 28th, 1789, in the South Seas, and who, instead of returning with the Boat when she left the Ship, stayed behind. Tell me, thou busy flatt'ring Telltale, why— Why flow these tears—why heaves this deep-felt sigh,— Why is all joy from my sad bosom flown, Why lost that cheerfulness I thought my own; Why seek I now in solitude for ease. Which once was ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... flush spread over the young officer's telltale face. He opened and read: "If you care to aid a woman who is in trouble, come to me at ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... fingers over it, his eyes following them. What was that? A finger-print? Upon the left side half way up a tiny smudge was visible. Barney examined it more carefully. A round, white figure of the conventional design that was burned into the tile bore the telltale smudge. ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... afraid. But that a promise is a thing to be kept inviolate he had learned, oh, years ago, from Papa Jack, along with all the other of-course-ities of life, like telling the truth, keeping your troubles to yourself, and not being a cry-baby or a telltale. And a promise to mother—well, nothing could be more sacred. Yet here was a new condition which he had never met before, a new situation which suddenly made him see in an altogether different aspect a question supposedly settled—this question of to fight ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... it needed was a coat of paint or two, and it would look less like a crazy-quilt solidified into a homestead. And I suddenly remembered Dinky-Dunk's question called out to Olie from the car-end—and I knew he'd hurried off a message to have that telltale tinning-job painted over before I happened to ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... cheeks burned and her temples throbbed; but she dared not ease her pain with tears. The gong sounded like a Judgment-Day trump of doom, and she trembled at the idea of confronting many eyes with such a telltale face; but she could not stay behind, for Aunt Pen must know the cause. She tried to play her hard part well; but wherever she looked, some fresh anxiety appeared, as if every fault and folly of those months had blossomed suddenly within the hour. She saw Frank Evan more sombre and more solitary ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... not in her usual place. Grace and Flora had been told by the other girls what had happened on the day of Sylvia's disappearance from school. May Bailey had declared that Sylvia must have "run straight to the teacher," and that she was a telltale as well as a "Yankee." Grace had defended her ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... Virgie, breathing very fast; but she too had heard it—a sound above them, a scraping sound, as of someone lying flat along the rafters and shifting his position and, while she spoke, a telltale bit of plaster fell, and broke ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... frapper La Gabrielli." Only Metastasio's persuasions (for Gabrielli prized his friendship and advice as much as she trifled with him in a different role) persuaded her to spare the Frenchman the insufferable ridicule which her retention of the telltale sword would have imposed on one whose rank and station could ill afford to be made the laughing-stock of ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... while our mouths are in this condition. I fear there is some foundation for this accusation. Wipe your mouth carefully before putting a glass to your lips. Grease stains around the edge of a goblet or wineglass are silent but telltale witnesses of ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... him for several moments, until a puff of wind carried the telltale scent to the moose, who ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... find himself face to face with Miss Easton. Try as he would, the telltale blood slowly mounted to his tanned cheeks, suffusing his entire face with a ruddy hue. Instinctively he crumpled up the letter in his hand and thrust it into his coat-pocket, then, with a poor attempt at a smile, answered her question. "Yes; the ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... hearing her voice and of looking into her dear face once more had passed, his skilled eyes probed the deeper. He noted with a sinking at the heart the dark circles under the drooping lids, the drawn, pallid skin and telltale furrows that had cut their way deep into her cheeks. Her eyes, too, had lost their lustre, and her step lacked the spring and vigor of her old self. The diagnosis alarmed him. Even the mould of her face, so distinguished, and to him so beautiful, had ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... shadows had grown heavy. As she reached the bars again, on her homeward track, she stopped suddenly, and her face broke into smiling at the pungent fragrance rising from the bruised herbage beneath her feet. She stooped and gathered one telltale, homely weed, mixed as it was with the pasture grass. "Pennyr'yal," she said happily, and felt the ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Molly tried to make herself think it the least reason, was not her friend Professor Green rattling along in the taxi with them with an expression in his kind eyes as they gazed into hers that made her drop her own, fearing that hers might have the same telltale look to him ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... Here there had been, a few weeks later, a public auction of the property taken, the Bishop, who presided as auctioneer, facetiously styling it "plunder taken at the siege of Sebastopol." The clothing, however, with the telltale marks upon it, was reserved from the auction and sold privately from the tithing office. Many stout wagons and valuable pieces of equipment had thus been cheaply secured by the Saints round ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... have not starved my curiosity altogether," said Clara, smiling, "but have given it a little hope to feed on for the present, I think, woman though I am, I can promise all you wish. Seriously, Basil," she continued, "that telltale locket of yours has so pleasantly brightened some very gloomy thoughts of mine about you, that I can now live happily on expectation, without once mentioning your secret again, till you give ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... The telltale flush crimsoned Donnegan's face. And if the fight had begun at that moment no power under heaven could have saved Lord Nick from the frenzy ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... desert there was music that evening at Sidi-bel-Abbes, headquarters of the Foreign Legion. The soul of the Legion was speaking in its tragic-sweet voice, and the Place Carnot was full of soldiers sauntering singly or in pairs, mostly silent, as if to hear their own heart-secrets cried aloud by telltale 'cellos ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... "Why, I'll keep on this trail till my legs is wore off above my boots!" and he turned to guide his pony up a little branch trail at the top of which stood a tent with the telltale windlass ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... that we may meet," she said, softly, at last,—so softly that he barely heard the words. Had she uttered no sound he could have been sure of her response, for it was in her telltale eyes. His blood leaped madly. "You will be hurt if you wait till the train is running at full speed," she cried, suddenly returning to the abandoned merry mood. She pushed him gently in her excitement. "Don't you see how rapidly we are moving? Please go!" There was a terror ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... street in Winnipeg that he did not know; not a policeman in Winnipeg that had not seen his swift and shadowy form in the gray dawn as he passed where he would; not a Dog in Winnipeg that did not cower and bristle when the telltale wind brought proof that old Garou was crouching near. His only path was the warpath, and all the world his foes. But throughout this lurid, semi-mythic record there was one recurring pleasant thought—Garou never was known ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and about Baxter, sir. I am not a telltale, but certain things have happened which I think Captain Putnam should know for his own sake and for the reputation ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... working out?" said Snorky at eleven P.M., producing the crackers and cheese, after having blinded the windows and hung a blanket over the telltale cracks of ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... summer noon I basked, And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers, To justify a life of sensuous rest, A question dear as home or heaven was asked, And without language answered. I was blest! Blest with those nameless boons too sweet to trust Unto the telltale confidence of song. Love to his own glad self is sometimes coy, And even thus much doth seem to do him wrong; While in the fears which chasten mortal joy, Is one that shuts the lips, lest speech too free, With the cold touch of hard reality, Should turn its priceless ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... from me—automatically—which I, in this state, dictated to her, thus rendering correspondence between us almost superfluous except for verification to our outward senses. My own mother was aware of my presence almost daily; and it was a curious fact that my telltale spirit would go to her and reveal the very things I wished to keep from her,—any little surprises or presents, or the time of my arrival home on a visit. However late the hour, I always found her ready with a warm supper to receive me. When arriving after the journey home she would ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... Cramcroud's last sociable, I think," replied Miss Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale. ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... was some feeling between the two men, though what it was about I could not say. As Miss Grey introduced us, I glanced hastily out of the corner of my eye at Kennedy. Involuntarily his hand which held the telltale sequin had sought his waistcoat pocket, as though to hide it. Then I saw him check the action and deliberately examine the piece of tinsel ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... you to go!" The moment she had said it, she caught herself with a nervous little laugh, and added a postscript of whimsical nonsense to disarm her utterance of its telltale feeling. "Why, I'm just getting you civilized, yourself. It took years to get your ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... thought by Calvin Ross Shelby's audience the most telling of his speech, the first and second are unmistakably plagiarisms of ideas, while the third, differing from its original in but one telltale, damning word, is shameless, flat-footed theft. Either of the first two offences committed singly might be unconscious; conjoined they betray deliberation; united with the third they 'smell to heaven.' It is high time for the voters of ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... at all surprised," she said calmly, almost too calmly, and with premeditated irrelevance, "if Kitty and Bea were both of them awaiting me now." His boldness was incapable of ruffling her composure; but, nevertheless, he saw with a secret joy the telltale and uncontrollable carnation ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... no farther objections, and having rolled himself in his blankets was almost immediately asleep and breathing heavily. The moment Dan heard his companion draw breath with a telltale regularity, he sat up again in his blankets. Bart was instantly at his side. He patted the shaggy head lightly, ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... because of their difference in level. So I caught a large number of fish in the vicinity of Suez. I slipped copper rings around their tails and tossed them back into the sea. A few months later off the coast of Syria, I recaptured a few specimens of my fish, adorned with their telltale rings. So this proved to me that some connection existed between the two seas. I searched for it with my Nautilus, I discovered it, I ventured into it; and soon, professor, you also will have cleared ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... chemist continues his tests every morning. Every morning the little crooked tubes are brought out and filled and carefully watched to ascertain if the telltale gas develops which is an index of "death in the cup." Thus is the ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... for years a very fixed rule in the Westley household that dogs were "not allowed." "They bring their dirty feet and their greasy bones and things on the rugs and the chairs," was the standing complaint, though Mrs. Westley had never minded telltale marks from muddy little shoes nor the imprint of sticky fingers on satin upholstery; nor had she ever allowed painters to gloss over the initials that Graham had carved with his first jackknife on one of the broad window-sills of the library. ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... without looking back, and there rose a picture in his thoughts to take her place, a picture of dark, defiant eyes, of telltale hair falling in betrayal of her disguise, as if discovering her secret to him who ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... so thoroughly and always her guide that it was not likely she thought of the white-feathers being the telltale. But now she realized that a man, one she knew of old as a treacherous character, one whose scent had always meant mischief to her, that had been associated with all her own troubles and the cause of nearly all her desperate danger, was close to her darlings; was tracking ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... as he moved a chair for Maud, she saw on the one ungloved hand a little scar which she remembered well, for he received it in saving her from a dangerous fall. At the sight all the happy past rose before her, and if her telltale eyes had not been averted they would have betrayed her. A sudden flush of maidenly shame dyed her cheek as she remembered that last ride, and the childish confidences then interchanged. This Helen was the little sweetheart ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... later, however, and before the trench was more than three parts finished, there came a tremendous change. Turning hastily to the river, Bartlett uttered a shout of alarm and called for light. He had approached the telltale stake, and suddenly, before he reached it, found his feet in the water. The river was rising with fierce rapidity at last, and five minutes later began to lick at the edge of the hay-rick, and churn along with a strange hidden force and devil in it. The pace increased ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... colour poured over her face, such a telltale, significant colour as he had rarely seen there before. She would have concealed it from him, but he was merciless. A strange, happy look came into his own face. "Len, don't hide that from me. It's the one thing I've always wished you'd show, and you never have. I'm such a jealous beggar ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... through the streets loaded with armed men. There were crowds looking for a telltale face in their own midst. Guards, deputies, coppers were surrounding houses and peering into alleys, raiding saloons, ringing doorbells. The whole city was on his heels. The city was like a pack of dogs sniffing wildly for his trail. And when they found it ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... never very lucid in explanation, and his emotion had made his surprising story choppy and unsatisfactory. His explanation of the use of the plate and of the telltale piece of cotton which his keen eyes had not missed, seemed plausible enough, and fell like ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... an' not so long ago, neither?" he said, darting ferret eyes now at the telltale marks and now into the quarry beneath or through ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... sit on the parapet nor to receive the support of his arm. Her chatter had dwindled to sighs and exclamations. He felt the need of a competing sound as the chug of the spearhead in the ditch should announce the discomfiture of the West Germans. But before committing the telltale runes to this ditch, Hauptmann scanned it carefully over Linda's curly head, and considered thoughtfully its worthiness to receive so important a deposit. The survey could not have been more reassuring. Like so many of the main irrigating ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... especially after Louis told him of Edna's exciting journey. But the hour was soon up, and Ellen at the door beckoned them in. Edna wanted to tell about Phil Blaney, but didn't know just what to do about it, especially when Louis called her a telltale for thinking of such a thing. Before she decided the question something happened which put it quite out of ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... passed along the shore within twenty yards of me, through dense underbrush,—as I found out from his tracks next morning,—yet so silently did he push his great bulk through the trees, halting, listening, trying the ground at every step for telltale twigs ere he put his weight down, that I had heard no sound, though I was listening intently in the dead hush that ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... echelon formation, preceded, followed, and flanked by destroyers; at night every glimmer of light eclipsed, the ships speeding ahead in perfect blackness, each inch of the sea swept by watchful eyes to discover the telltale ripple of a periscope or the trail of a torpedo, gun crews on the alert, depth bombs ready. Nor was the crossing anything like a vacation yachting cruise for the doughboys transported, packed as ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... their playground, beaten bare like that of the Washington Street School, was filled with laughing, shouting children, ranging from shoe-black through coffee-color to those occasional tragic ones with white skin and blue eyes, but with the telltale kink in the fair hair and the bluish half-moon at the base ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... in itself, an unimportant Kingdom with Mediterranean sea-front, called Galavia," said Blanco. Benton's start was slight, and his features if they gave a telltale wince at the word became instantly casual again in expression. But his interest was no longer forced by courtesy. It hung from that ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... listening as if he expected every moment that the cow herself would solve the question. Fred Linden read the meaning of his action, and he, too, wondered why it was that when both had plainly caught the tinkle of the telltale bell, they should hear it no more. Strange that when it had spoken so clearly it should become silent, but such ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... reached for his kites without the slightest doubt that he was to get them. But still another lad stepped in between him and his property. The telltale hair, vividly red, sprouted likewise on this lad's head, and Joe knew him at once for what he was, another member of the Simpson clan. He was a younger edition of his brothers, somewhat less heavily built, with a face covered with a vast quantity of freckles, which showed ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... off at last and stood up, shaking his head. Suddenly the Med Ship seemed empty. Then he saw Murgatroyd staring vexedly at the exit port. The inner door of that small airlock was closed. The telltale light said the outer door was not locked. Someone had gone out quietly. ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... insulted by Katharine's term of "servant," but could not repress a smile, and turned into the pantry to hide that telltale weakness. ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... of the home habits of the male biped she gleaned from the telltale hints of the inanimate garments that passed through her nimble hands. She could even tell character and personality from deductions gathered at heel and toe. She knew, for example, that F.C. (in black ink) was an indefatigable fox trotter and she dubbed him Ferdy Cahn, though his name, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... burning for an hour and had spread so alarmingly before the gusty breeze that it threatened several claim-shacks before they noticed the telltale, brownish tint to the sunlight and smelled other smoke than the smoke of the word-battle then waging fiercely among them. They dropped stakes, flags and ditch-level and ran to where their horses waited sleepily the pleasure of ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... spontaneously: "Three cheers for the Admiral! I don't know what he ever done, but he looks as if he could, all right!" at which everybody cheered and roared, and the Admiral to his great surprise made a speech, during which the telltale tears appeared so often in his eyes and in his voice, that Osh Popham concluded privately that if the naval hero ever did meet an opposing battleship he would be likelier to drown the ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Deston turned to his wife. "Stay here at the port, Bobby. Wrap one leg around that lever, to anchor you. What does your telltale read? That gauge there—your radiation meter. It reads twenty, same as mine. Just pink, so we've got a minute or so. I'll roust out some passengers and toss 'em to you—you toss 'em along in there. ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... soon discovered that he was mistaken. My appearance produced a sensation, and the telltale glances of the women from me to a large girl with black eyes who stood at the mantelpiece not only showed plainly that they knew all about "it," but also indicated who of the young women ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... COMBATANTS.—The French have discarded the historic red trousers, and the elimination of lace, white gloves, and other telltale insignias of the officers, have been dispensed ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... builds a dam, because there are deep places in the river where the current is too swift to freeze. He finds tender twigs much juicier, even in winter, than stale bark stored under water. As for his telltale tracks in the snow, his wits must guard him against enemies; and there is the open stretch of ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... which is seen and suspected is the skulker who approaches from covert to covert. They knew he had ridden into Alder before in the middle of the night and they might suspect the danger of such another attack, but they surely would not have fear of a solitary pedestrian unless a telltale light ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... orders were orders and Mrs. Mimms began to consider the practical side of leaving Greenlawn. Packing was no problem. All CPO's were required to be Translation Alert in half an hour if necessary, inclusive of destroying all telltale evidence such as notes, papers, etc. Her apparatus was in perfect working order and the rent for that month was paid. Mrs. Mimms passed over these details quickly. She was thinking: it was invariably the priorees who suffered in ...
— The Amazing Mrs. Mimms • David C. Knight
... were given, the transom was hung with heavy black canvas; a curtain of the same was so arranged as to permit its being drawn over the telltale cracks of the door. Dennis and Stover, sent to reconnoiter from the hall, waited while the Tennessee Shad passed a lighted candle back and forth over the sealed entrance. One traitor crack was discovered and ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... into the city together and went to the Harker Building. It was in an area dense with non-telepaths each one showing that telltale cleft of anxiety in his forehead but briskly going about his business as if anxiety were actually a liveable quality. Newbridge had the same look but there was a nonetheless reassuring ease to the way he greeted them. He was tall and white-haired and his face ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... whit. Is't dishonor to her purity To urge thy smoky flame to brightness worthy Of her? 'Tis what she wishes most; witness Her confusion and her telltale blushes. Do me justice, man; my thoughts are pure And dwell on lawful marriage only. Thou, thou Alone, couldst see impurity in that. I spoke of thee, man, of thee; and who Beside thyself would think a mottled thought ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... and Gainor went to the sheriff. He had been installed in a guest room. His eyes were closed, his arms outstretched. A thick, telltale bandage was wrapped about his breast. And Wu Chi, skillful in such matters from a long experience, was sliding about the room in his whispering slippers. The sheriff did not open his eyes when Elizabeth tried his pulse. It was faint, ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... moment's pause she answered, while a sudden smile dimpled around her mouth and the big glove went up to hide her telltale cheeks: "Uncle, if I must have lovers, I do wish they'd be more interesting. How can I like or respect men who go on as some of them do and then imagine women can feel honored by the offer of their hands? Hearts are out of fashion, so they don't ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... believe, And thus believing am most fortunate. It was not Hermes led thee here, but Eros, And swifter than his arrows were thine eyes In wounding me. There was no moment's space Between my seeing thee and loving thee. O, what a telltale face thou hast! Again I see the wonder ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... latter movement she again exposed her brother by the very means she took to protect him; for quick-seeing Madge, observing the action, gently but firmly unclasped the younger sister's hand, and so disclosed the telltale marks of Ned's fingers upon the delicate wrist, by squeezing or wrenching which that tyrant ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... pages of his book. Stooping down and reading slowly, Noting every trace around, Of the travel gone before him, Every mark upon the ground, Down the winding, deep-cut roadway Furrowed out by grinding tire, Where the ruts lead to the water, In the half-dried plastic mire, He beholds the telltale marking Of an odd-shaped band of steel, Welded to secure the fellies ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... well my left hand works. There'll be no telltale scar left on his face when I'm through, and he can tumble right straight down to the water from here and on to hell, and Wyker's joint may bear the blame. Damned old Dutchman, to turn me out now. I set him up in business when I had money. ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... on board, should have been the object of so unusual an assault. He was in the disagreeable plight of having subjected her to danger, and as they entered the brilliant saloon he freed himself of the ulster with its telltale gash and sought to minimize her ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... of emotion in the presence of her former sweetheart—only in her domineering eyes one might have seen an intenser sparkle, a glint of golden fire,—telltale evidence of yearnings unconfessed. And a happy year went rapidly by. But the money which penny by penny had been painfully assembled in the wretched store where Rosario had been born, streamed away between the fingers of the spendthrift husband; and the cow was running dry, as the mistress of the ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... wonder have you both been poring over?" I asked quite gayly, stealthily watching at the same time the telltale embarrassment under which Elsie ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... what you like, but save appearances." A dignified hypocrisy none disobey. These men and women, with the historic names, dare not show each other what they are. There was no flirting, no romping, no loud laughter; not a loud word—no telltale glances, no sitting in corners. It was a pose throughout. Men bowed ceremoniously, and addressed as strangers ladies with whom they spent every evening. Husbands devoted themselves to wives whom they never saw but in public. Innocence may betray itself, ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... that, I saw, for all the listlessness of the tone in which it had been uttered. So I went skipping down-stairs and closed my baby grand and inspected the table and twisted the glass bowl that held my nasturtium-buds about, to the end that the telltale word of "Salt" embossed on its side would not betray the fact that it had been commandeered from the kitchen-cabinet. Then I turned up the lamp and smilingly waited until my lord and master seated himself ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... silent, motionless, her telltale face shadowed, only the quick rise and fall of the bosom evidencing emotion. The man looked at her helplessly, his mouth setting firm, his eyes ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... in a hammock together on the rear balcony of the Block-House. It had been a dangerous moment passing through the house. There had been embarrassments, the telltale artifices of the establishment, but she would not suffer the work of the ride to be torn down. She held him in enchantment by sheer force of will; and now they were alone, and she was building again. There was wine. Over the balcony ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... to do here now," he concluded. "I can see nothing for the present except to go back to New York. The telltale burn may not be the only clue, but if the thief is going to profit by his spoils we shall hear about it best in New York or by cable from London, Paris, ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the leather strip made a wide belt that went on somewhat after the fashion of a life preserver, the thongs being used for shoulder straps—a belt that, once on, the vest would hide completely, and, fitting close, left no telltale bulge in the outer garments. It was not an ordinary belt; it was full of stout-sewn, up-right little pockets all the way around, and in the pockets grimly lay an array of fine, blued-steel, highly tempered ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... than we do on delicacies. Their beds are not so handsome or so well appointed as ours, but their sleep is sounder and their rest less broken. They have no ladies pranked out and painted like those whom we idolise, but they take their pleasure oftener than we, without fear of telltale tongues, save those of the beasts and birds that see them. What we have they lack, and what we lack they possess ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... had a telltale voice. Clear and musical, it had ever revealed to the mother the heart of her son. And its sadness and submission smote upon her as he said at last, "You may tell her I'll ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... leaned back and looked up at the little mirror over the chimney-piece, which was hung so that it reflected the faces of those about the fire. In it Polly saw a pair of telltale eyes looking out from a tangle of bright brown hair, cheeks that flushed and dimpled suddenly as the fresh mouth smiled with an expression of conscious power, half proud, half ashamed, and as pretty to see as the coquettish ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... whether any swordfish have been seen, and if tidings are thus obtained the ship's course is at once laid for the locality where they were last noticed. A man is always stationed at the masthead, where, with the keen eye which practice has given him, he can easily descry the telltale dorsal fins at a distance of two or three miles. When a fish has once been sighted, the watch "sings out," and the vessel is steered directly toward it. The skipper takes his place in the "pulpit" holding the pole in both hands by the small end, and directing the man at the wheel by voice and ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... from the crisp and living lines of his pictures to his dead, young flesh, to his fingers, locked together and straining, to keep them from their telltale plucking. "Look here," she said, "why shouldn't we ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... of Scandinavian origin seems to unite the senses of 'grinning,' 'flattering' (see Love's Labour's Lost, V, ii, 109, and Ben Jonson's "fawn and fleer" in Volpone, III, i, 20), and 'sneering,' and so is just the right epithet for a telltale, who flatters you into saying that of another which you ought not to say, and then mocks you by going to that other and telling what you have said.—/Hold, my hand:/ stay! here is my hand. As men clasp hands in sealing a bargain. In Rowe's ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... nimble all at once, diving down to straighten a rug here and there, rearranging chairs and tables; he even opened the window and hurled two half-smoked cigars far out into the night; and his eye was as calm, his brow as placid, his cheek as rosy as ever, only his whiskers—those snowy, telltale whiskers, quivered spasmodically, very much as though endeavouring to do the manifestly impossible and flutter away with Mr. Brimberly altogether; yes, it was ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... whole repulsive, rotten business came back to me. And, changed man that I had become in the last six months, I saw myself as I had been. I felt that she was looking at me, was reading the degrading confession in my telltale features. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... ash-heap, and the flowers Fainting or crisp in sun-baked borders stand. Mount Auburn's gate is closed. The latest 'bus Down Brattle Street goes rumbling. Laborers Hie home, by twos and threes; homeliest phizzes, Voices high-pitched, and tongues with telltale burr-r-r-r, The short-stemmed pipe, diffusing odors vile, Garments of comic and misfitting make, And steps which tend to Curran's door, (a man Ignoble, yet quite worthy of the name Of Fill-pot Curran,) all proclaim the race Adopted by Columbia, ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various |
