"Akimbo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the temptation of the blue water and the lazy curling waves. In a few minutes the two men were walking down to the sea's edge, Geoffrey laughing at Reggie's chatter. His arms were akimbo, with hands on the hips, hips which looked like the boles of a mighty oak-tree. He touched the ground with the elasticity of Mercury; he pushed through the air with the shoulders of Hercules. The line of his back was pliant as a steel blade. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... born into the world whose work Is not born with him; there is always work And tools to work withal for those who will. And blessed are the horny hands of toil! The busy world shoves angrily aside The man who stands with arms akimbo set, Until occasion tells him what to do; And he who waits to have his task worked out— Shall die ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... with arms akimbo, as if daring the whole fellowship of Satan, with their abettors and allies. This speech, too, was doubtless reported at the Fairies' Chapel hard by; for the dame vowed ever after that she heard, as it were, an echo, or a low sooning sound, ending with an eldritch laugh, amongst the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... polka with a coloured frontispiece that ever was published; from the original one, where a smooth male or female Pole of high rank are coming at the observer with their arms akimbo, to ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... swarthy-looking woman coming towards them. By this time it was beginning to get dark in the wood, but they could see the figure of the woman quite distinctly. She came close to them, and then, putting her arms akimbo, surveyed them both with a certain queer ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... was stitching them up inside her when the nurse missed them. Somehow, I'd made sure she'd have an exceptionally large one. [He sits down on the couch, squaring his shoulders and shooting his hands out of his cuffs as he sets his knuckles akimbo]. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... fairly set his wings akimbo, thrusting out his crop, and twittering audaciously, as though the very devil was no match for him! A conqueror—and that is all there is ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... also was as the voice of the same, mellowed by sucking. Ten minutes later the town was assembled to lend its assistance at the encounter between our two landladies. Each stood on their respective doorsteps with arms akimbo and head thrust forward, as geese protrude head and tongue in moments of combat. And it was thus, the mere hissed, that her boarders were stolen from her—under her very nose—while her back was turned, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... which differentiated itself from the women-folk of the village by keeping shapely and live-witted even after marriage. But now she stood humpishly in her great apron like any cottager's wife, and her hand, which she set akimbo, looked red and raw and stupid. The way she stared at Marion's figure, too, was indicative of a change from ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... consarn for squire or parish, barring myself." It was just as he arrived at that misanthropical conclusion that Mr. Stirn beheld Leonard Fairfield walking very fast from his own home. The superintendent clapped on his hat, and stuck his right arm akimbo. "Hollo, you, sir," said he, as Lenny now came in hearing, "where be ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... seemed literally to strike it, to give it a blow. The house was so crammed that, being among the squeezers in the standing-room at the side of the pit, I happened to catch the first glance of his face through the arm akimbo of a man who was perched up before me, which made a kind of frame for it; and there, on the stage in that frame, as through a perspective glass, were the face bent and the raised hand of the wonderful musician, with the instrument at his ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... he turned the corner of her street, he saw Mrs Catanach standing on her threshold with her arms akimbo; although she was always tidy, and her house spotlessly trim, she yet seemed forever about the door, on the outlook at least, if not on ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... screamed the lady, in a rage—"when I am dead!" continued she, placing her arms akimbo, as she started from the chair:—"I can tell you, Mr Forster, that I'll live long enough to plague you, it's not the first time that you've said so; but depend upon it, I'll dance upon ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... into bloom. Steep stone steps, of the colour that nature ripens through long winters, lead up to this garden by way of clumps of bamboo grass. You see the Smell was right when it talked of meeting old friends. Half-a-dozen blue-black pines are standing akimbo against a real sky—not a fog-blur nor a cloud-bank, nor a gray dish-clout wrapped round the sun—but a blue sky. A cherry tree on a slope below them throws up a wave of blossom that breaks all creamy white against their feet, and a clump of willows trail their ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... see him clearly, a plump, stocky man, with arms akimbo, his helmet on the back of his head, the flesh of his face in folds of disgust with sweat pouring off him, and his once elegant waxed moustache drooping, saying in a chant: "The man who gets me out to this —— country again isn't born yet." That was when the bullock tongas, after ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... "Shall I stop the mill, or shall I run it on half time, or shall I cut down the men's wages?" He walks the floor of his counting-room all day, hardly knowing what to do. Toward evening he calls all the laborers together. They stand all around, some with arms akimbo, some with folded arms, wondering what the boss is going to do now. The manufacturer says: "Men, times are very hard; I don't make twenty dollars where I used to make one hundred. Somehow, there is ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... in deep thought, gazing at the fire, her arms akimbo. Then, wheeling suddenly, she opened the door of the sitting-room, and said ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... akimbo, "I'd be a fool to put my head into such a trap. I love you too well. Yet I am not wholly without heart. Tell me where it lies and I will let ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... It is more hopeless than a bad marriage in a land where there is no Doctors' Commons. He has taken the ship to wife, for better or for worse, for calm or for gale; and she is not to be shuffled off. With yards akimbo, she says unto him scornfully, as the old beldam said to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... down the street on a summer's day with her dainty hands propped into the ribbon-broidered pockets of her apron, and elbows consequently more or less akimbo with her wide Leghorn hat flapping down and hiding her face one moment and blowing straight up against her fore head the next and making its revealment of fresh young beauty; with all her pretty girlish airs and graces in full play, and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... assumed the lineaments and expression of an old, shrivelled human face; the damask cushion became an antique, flapped waistcoat; the round knobs grew into a couple of feet, encased in red cloth slippers; and the whole chair looked like a very ugly old man, of the previous century, with his arms akimbo. Tom sat up in bed, and rubbed his eyes to dispel the illusion. No. The chair was an ugly old gentleman; and what was more, he was ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... old English mansion-house. Next to the mansion-houses, came the two-story trim, white-painted, "genteel" houses, which, being more gossipy and less nicely bred, crowded close up to the street, instead of standing back from it with arms akimbo, like the mansion-houses. Their little front-yards were very commonly full of lilac and syringa and other bushes, which were allowed to smother the lower story almost to the exclusion of light and airy so that, what with small windows and small windowpanes, and the darkness ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... at the cottage door, with arms akimbo and clouded brow, calling through the boles of a little forest of fir-trees after her daughter. One would naturally presume that the phrase she employed, comparing her daughter's motions to those of a shuttle that had "gane wull," or lost its way, implied that she was watching ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... skins by the older natives rose in the night air. Now all the legs on one side would go up, now those on the other, now the arms would be thrown above the grinning skulls, now they would be placed akimbo, now they would sink close to the ground with bended knees, now spring up into the air. Indeed, they assumed in succession every possible attitude, all moving together as if pulled by one string. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... erect she descended from the ladder, and stood, arms akimbo, regarding the results of her labor. Even to her it suggested something not "artistic," and at Fairacres anything inartistic was ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... two—(with an arrogant air—his arms akimbo) the lion has not acted foolishly in pardoning the mouse. Ah! 'twas a deed of policy. Who else could e'er have gnawed the net with which he was surrounded? Now, sir, how ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... The earliest shows him still boyish, sitting small, as it were, and a little shy of his new uniform. In the latest, taken not long ago, nor very long in point of time after the first, he is sitting bolt upright, chest inflated, arms akimbo with a straight, level, almost ferocious look in his eyes. He has apparently taken a measure of the world outside Under Town, and is all the surer of his feet for having stood up against greater odds and for having ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... studies from life, the more atrociously they are false, and false in the transcendent sense of being impossible. Heaps of contradiction, or of revolting extravagance, do not verify themselves to our loathing incredulity because the artist chooses to come forward with his arms akimbo, saying angrily, 'But I tell you, sir, these are not fancy-pieces! These ladies whom I have here lampooned are familiarly known to me—they are my particular friends. I see them every day in the undiess of confiding friendship. They betray all their foibles to me in the certainty that I ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... the doorstep of his shack, smoking his pipe, his bare arms akimbo, staring out across the sunset void towards the sea. He seemed also to be meditating with himself upon something of interest. Upon Adelle's approach this time, he did not take himself off, but continued ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... father, who stood with his back to Pekka planing away at his axe-shaft under the lamp. We said nothing, however, but laughed and whispered among ourselves, "If only father sees that, what will he say, I wonder?" And when father did catch sight of him, he planted himself arms akimbo in front of Pekka, and asked him, quite spitefully, what sort of fine work he had there, since he must needs have a separate light ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... womanhood animate that gliding shadow which has flitted through our consciousness, nameless, dateless, featureless, yet more profoundly real than the sharpest of portraits traced by a human hand. Here is the Fountain of the Ogre, at Berne. In the right picture two women are chatting, with arms akimbo, over its basin; before the plate for the left picture is got ready, "one shall be taken and the other left"; look! on the left side there is but one woman, and you may see the blur where the other is melting into thin air as she fades ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... arms akimbo, and sighed, "Hello, Johnny, my, ain't it nice to be back, oh, you had the sink painted, oh, forgive me, Johnny, I was a bad ungrateful woman, I don't care if you don't never take me to no more dances, hardly any, Willy come here, dear, oh, he is such a sweet child, my, his ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... emerged cautiously from the tangle of green shrubbery some hundred yards to the right of Jarrow—Peth, in a suit of dungarees. He stepped out into the sand and stood with his arms akimbo, watching Jarrow, who was ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... in Tyl the woodcutter's cottage had struck eight; and his two little Children, Tyltyl and Mytyl, were still asleep in their little beds. Mummy Tyl stood looking at them, with her arms akimbo and her apron tucked up, laughing and ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... center of stand, hands akimbo and shakes her hips) I don't keer whut y'all say, I'm a Meth'dis' bred an' uh Meth'dis' born an' when I'm dead ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... caps and chips at two old gray geese that flew in circles around the encampment, just as though they had never had more earnest work. One gray-headed man stood in the door of his tent, while a black-headed young one danced before him, to his own whistle, with his arms akimbo. Altogether it was a very pretty picture; but poor men! how can they be happy ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... drunkenness, was now ordered to wear a red D about his neck for a year" to wit, the year 1633, and thereby gave occasion to the greatest American romance, The Scarlet Letter. The famous apparition of the phantom ship in New Haven harbor, "upon the top of the poop a man standing with one hand akimbo under his left side, and in his right hand a sword stretched out toward the sea," was first chronicled by Winthrop under the year 1648. This meterological {344} phenomenon took on the dimensions of a full-grown myth some forty years later, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... posed herself with arms akimbo and smirked superciliously at the badgered girl, malicious spite agleam ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... domestic girl, her arms akimbo as she faced her visitor, "I should think it ought to have been ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... commotion in the crowd, and as it opened a large, tall, gaunt-looking woman came rushing toward the car, out of breath. Taking her spectacles off from the top of her head and putting them on her nose, she put her arms akimbo, and looking up, said: "Well, I've just come down here a runnin' nigh onto two mile, right on the clean jump, just to get a look at the man that lets the women do ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... and said after a short silence, first spreading out his legs, and sticking one arm akimbo to show how perfectly at ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... he, with his head cocked and his arms akimbo, "what are you driving at? Let's have it ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... thorough completeness invested the hut and everything about it; and in the midst of all sat the presiding genius of the place, with his long legs comfortably crossed, the tobacco wreaths circling round his lantern jaws, the broad-brimmed straw hat cocked jauntily on one side, his arms akimbo, and his rather languid black eyes gazing at Ned Sinton with an expression of comfortable self-satisfaction and assurance that was ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... had interrupted Mistress Hopkins, and turning toward it, Howland confronted a short, square woman, not without a certain vulgar comeliness of her own, although now her buxom complexion was florid with anger and her black eyes snapping angrily, while the arms akimbo, the swaying figure, and raised voice betrayed Helena Billington for precisely what she was, a common scold and shrew. Howland was a brave man; he had already showed both strength and prowess when, washed overboard in a "seel" of the ship, and carried fathoms deep in mid-ocean, he caught the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... her—so we should all have sworn. But now my wondering eyes saw, opposite Pyrrha (we began from this day to call her Pyrrha) the figure of Smugg. Pyrrha was leaning against a barn, one foot crossed over the other, her arms akimbo, a string of her bonnet in her mouth, and her blue eyes laughing from under long lashes. Smugg stood limply opposite her, his trousers bagging over his half-bent knees, his hat in one hand, and in the other a handkerchief, with which, from time ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... on a local washerwoman sousing gay garments in the amber fluid of the Erie Canal, he singled out the Hinchey hovel from the squalid score it resembled. Before the sagging threshold tumbled a many-complexioned brood of children,—they seemed a very dozen,—and in the doorway, with arms akimbo and hands on massive hips, gaped Jap's mulatto wife, for of such measure was the man. Graves crossed the alley, suppressing such of his five senses as he could shift without, and ascertained that the degenerate Jasper, true to prophecy, was fishing ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... one brown arm akimbo and the other stretched toward the figure, loomed grimly amid the obscurity with such port and expression as when she was wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her victims and stand at the ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... Conrad? Brought our friend, Mr. Beaton, with me," those within heard him say; and then, after a sound of putting off overcoats, they saw him fill the doorway, with his feet set square and his arms akimbo. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... learned man had dug out of one of his old books the name of Amyntas, and Amyntas he vowed should be the name of his son; so with that trisyllable he finished every stanza of his ode. His wife threw her head back, and, putting her hands on her hips, stood with arms akimbo; she said that never in all her born days had she heard of anyone being called by such a name, which was more fit for a heathen idol than for a plain, straightforward member of the church by law established. In its stead ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... should never have dreamed of doing. But when I turned severely to Miriam and accused her of being a party to the fraud, she laughed in my face, and put the case before me in a way which made me sing a tune in the minor. "Fiddlededee!" she retorted, her arms stuck out akimbo, "what in the world had I to do with your fooleries? 'Twas the girl arranged it all—and for reasons which do her more credit than YOU seem able to do her. I think she's a very good girl—a thousand ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... opponent. The balls passed through on each side immediately below his arm-pits, making a clean hole, through which the horrified broker could see the firelight behind him. The wounded man, without betraying any concern, excited the laughter of the company, by jocosely putting his arms akimbo, and inserting his thumbs into the orifices of the wounds, as if they had been arm-holes. This having in a measure restored good-humor, the party joined hands and formed a circle preparatory to dancing. The dance was commenced by some monotonous stanzas hummed in a very high key by one of ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... therefore regard it as a mere after-thought, that a little softens the rudeness, but adds nothing to the weight, of that exquisite woman's reason aforesaid. And so exit Clotilda and enter Bertram, who "stands without looking at her," that is, with his lower limbs forked, his arms akimbo, his side to the lady's front, the whole figure resembling an inverted Y. He is soon however roused from the state surly to the state frantick, and then follow raving, yelling, cursing, she fainting, he relenting, in runs Imogine's ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... waited in vain. Serpolette came on, a charming girl, in her cotton cap, provoking and challenging. "Hein, qui parle de Serpolette?" she demanded of the gossips, with her arms akimbo in a combative attitude. Some one applauded, and after him all those in the reserved seats. Without changing her girlish attitude, Serpolette gazed at the person who had started the applause and paid him with a smile, displaying ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... Mrs. Boomsby, placing her arms akimbo, and looking at me with the utmost ferocity, so that between her and the snake I found there was little choice. "What are you a-doin' in ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... still measure your moustaches in the glass, and who have just assumed for the first time the epaulette and the gold belt, how did you feel when you went downstairs and heard the scabbard of your sabre go clink-clank on the steps, when with your cap on one side and your arm akimbo you found yourself in the street, and, an irresistible impulse urging you on, you gazed at your figure reflected in the chemist's bottles? Will you dare to say that you did not halt before those bottles? First ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... the barrel, and next he threw the saddle on and mounted. "I must be going back, or they will decide I am not coming till to-morrow, and quickly eat my supper." He spoke jauntily from his horse, arm akimbo, natty short jacket put on for to-day's courting, gray steeple-hat silver-embroidered, a spruce, pretty boy, not likely to toil severely at wood contracts so long as he could hold soul and body ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... to the mantel-piece and looked for the creese, and not finding it, he turned round with his back to the fireplace and his arms akimbo, and tried to look very contemptuous and determined. His chin was quite white under his dyed mustache—like ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... was sitting in front of the toll-house. The tall horse galloped down the hill, but the Colonel stood up, and, with elbows akimbo and hands under his chin, yanked the animal to a standstill, his splay feet skating through the highway dust. The Colonel leaped over the wheel and reversed his heavy whip-butt. The Cap'n stood up, gripping a stout cudgel ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... hearts with smudgy fingers, the butler entrusted them to some one to see to the due performance of their good intention, and he himself sought the cook, who, next to himself, was Livingstone's oldest servant. She was at the moment, with plump arms akimbo on her stout waist, laying down the law of marriage to a group of merry servants as ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... gasped and arrested herself in the very movement of welcome. Mammy's genial face assumed a terrible scowl, her white eyes bulged, and her vast arms went suddenly akimbo. ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... open and facing, bring both back as far as the bones and muscles of the shoulders will admit, without bending arms at elbows. Now, thrust the body to the right, knees and feet firm, and strike the left side with open palms, vigorously, repeat with body to the left. Now, with arms akimbo, thrust the right foot forward (kicking) with energy, six times; left same. Now, place the clenched fist in the small of the back with great force; throw the whole body backwards, feet and knees firm, tilling the lungs to the utmost and uttering, as you go over, the alphabetical element, "a" ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... chords, From lush magnolia shade where mockers call. Mornings, the flower-women hawk their wares— Bronze caryatids of a genial race, Bearing the bloom-heaped baskets on their heads; Lithe, with their arms akimbo in wide grace, Their jasmine nods jestingly at cares— Turbaned they are, deep-chested, straight and tall, Bandying old English words now seldom heard, But sweet as Provencal. Dreams peer like prisoners through her harp-like gates, From molten gardens mottled with gray-gloom, Where lichened ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... planting her arms akimbo and her two fists on her haunches: 'who's the best housekeeper, pray? I have mowed and reaped, and here I am as good as I was yesterday, while you, you, Mister Cook, Mister Stay-at-home, Mr. Nurse, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... to hear you," it said. They looked round, to find one of the party of town sparks that had halted at the inn standing arms akimbo in the narrow passage, clearly waiting for them to make room. "A touching sight, sir," said he sardonically to the landlord. "A wondrous touching sight to behold a man of your years playing the turtle-dove ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... little surprised by the manner in which Mr. Evringham was making himself at home. He set the mast in its place and then, his arms akimbo, stood regarding Jewel's tense, sun-browned countenance and ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... Madame St. Lo asked, sticking her arms akimbo, "why stay in this forsaken place a day and a night, when six hours in the saddle would set ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... owner, fat red arms akimbo, blocking up the doorway, "Nick, me useless man! ye kin prate t' me 'bout arrestin' hoboes. I tell ye right now—that hobo that was a-bummin' roun' here t'other mornin's got nothin' on you fur sheer, ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... I God! Ain't Lum lit dat lamp yet? (Enter Lum left hurriedly. Clarke stands akimbo glaring at him. Lum fumbles for a match, strikes it and drops it. Gets another from his pocket and goes to the lamp and strikes it.) Somebody reach de numbskull uh box. (Walter hands Lum a box of the porch and he gets up on it and opens the ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... master and the 'bibi,'" he said, holding his arms akimbo, "live in the tree, Kali will not have to build big zarebas for the night and he can be ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the moss And gum that locked our friend in limbo, A spider had spun his web across, And sat in the midst with arms akimbo: So, I took pity, for learning's sake, And, de profundis, accentibus laetis, Cantate! quoth I, as I got a rake; And up I fished ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... the four women having listened to all this, straightened herself up from her tub, and placing her arms akimbo, said: ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... cheeks, watching the pickers, who went with even motion up the great slope. Sometimes there was silence on the hillside; now and then there was a fragment of song. One gay, tripping air, started by three women who stood idle with arms akimbo for a moment on the hillside, was caught up and echoed back by invisible singers on the other side of the hill. And once the red-cheeked Italian lads who were carrying loaded baskets down toward the vineyard gates burst into ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... of three people. One was a woman, our client, drooping and faint, a handkerchief round her mouth. Opposite her stood a brutal, heavy-faced, red-moustached young man, his gaitered legs parted wide, one arm akimbo, the other waving a riding-crop, his whole attitude suggestive of triumphant bravado. Between them an elderly, grey-bearded man, wearing a short surplice over a light tweed suit, had evidently just completed ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... placing his arms akimbo, and facing me, "if ye'll tell me yur name, I ain't a-gwine to forgit it. No, Bob Linkin ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... yellow around her in a sort of phosphorescent lustre. The Jelly-bean's eyes opened wide and a lump arose in his throat. For she stood beside the door until her partner hurried up. Jim recognized him as the stranger who had been with her in Joe Ewing's car that afternoon. He saw her set her arms akimbo and say something in a low voice, and laugh. The man laughed too and Jim experienced the quick pang of a weird new kind of pain. Some ray had passed between the pair, a shaft of beauty from that sun that had warmed ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in his massive chair; one hand propped on the arm, his elbow akimbo, and with the other hand plucked slowly at the narrow strip of beard which extended from his lower lip to the peaked end of ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... then it can be said that a few minutes later McGee, with hauteur and dignity, strode into the excited, gabbling group that surrounded the burning German plane. For a moment none of them recognized him. With hands on hips, arms akimbo, he stood watching them. He was still just a little too mad ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... note of the time spent by her servants, and, perhaps, even by herself, in saying a few words here, and telling a story there in the time which rightfully belongs to other tasks. Could she look, herself unseen, into her kitchen, she would find Bridget and Norah, arms akimbo, comparing notes as to past "places" or present beaux. Gossip is their meat and drink, and it does not occur to them, or they do not care, that they are paid the same wages for time thus spent ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... her stout arms akimbo, and looked "unutterable things" at the delicate fabric, that as if to deprecate its captors was all the while breathing out deliciously sweet but vague hints,—now of eglantine, and now of that ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... hand into his coat pocket casually. On her feet the woman displayed more than a beautiful face. Her figure was alarmingly feminine and rather aggressively displayed, feet akimbo, hips forward, shoulders back. Her hair was nearly platinum, but so expensively dressed it was impossible to determine whether it ...
— The Deadly Daughters • Winston K. Marks
... as he did so. But at last the door was flung sharply open, and the tangle-haired, rosy-cheeked Britta confronted him with an aspect which was by no means encouraging or polite. Her round blue eyes sparkled saucily, and she placed her bare, plump, red arms, wet with recent soapsuds, akimbo on her sturdy little hips, with an air ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... With arms akimbo stood this prepossessing personage before the pilgrim, in all his native rudeness and disorder. The latter tightened his cloak about him, and withdrew some three or four paces from ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Susan's expressionless, freckled face, at the boys in their copper-toed boots and overalls, at the good-natured, but hopelessly common-place Martha Spriggs, with her thin hair drawn tight into a knob the size of a bullet, and her bare arms akimbo. 'Idealize her real!' Would it be possible to idealize anything ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... response, the governor and council wheeled about and returned to their chamber, and Bacon followed them, his left arm akimbo, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. As they made him no answer, Bacon became furious and tossed his arms about excitedly, while the fusileers covered the window of the assembly chamber with their guns, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... evolution, which Darwin undoubtedly could have traced, we have him before us in all his beauty. To commence, first, he must have a little money, with that he buys a tight fitting suit of clothes, a diamond ring, a gold headed cane, a very small hat, carries his arms akimbo, and in all the perfection of loveliness, he stands out, a thing apart from the rest of humanity. Perhaps in two or three centuries, the process of evolution taking place all the time, something may be put into the small cranium, which will be ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... She set her arms akimbo and faced him squarely. Faintly through her veil he caught the gleam of her eyes, and he cursed the advantage she had in that her face ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... with her little, squat figure silhouetted against the sky; she had placed both her arms akimbo, and was gazing at Nora with a ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... night at a masque at the Palace of Peterhof Loveday got a chance of dialogue with Hogarth, they seated amid greenery and coloured gleams, Hogarth groomed to the glittering glass of his shoes, his legs stretched, arm akimbo; and presently Loveday led the talk to things of the sea. "What an extraordinary activity! The British Government launches the Peleus next Monday at Deptford— the first 28,000-ton war-boat; and seven cruisers on the slips. Then the French, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... and go quick, or we'll prove to you that we are a bad lot!" cried Janet. "I wouldn't myself think anything of putting you in a blanket and tossing you o'er the cliff into the water." And Janet, with arms akimbo and eyes blazing with anger, was not a ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... into place, while Joey raked up a little about the spot, and they left the little rabbit grave looking very neat and tidy. The next morning Tattine ran out to see how the little wild-wood plant was growing, and then she stood with her arms akimbo in blank astonishment. The little grave had disappeared. She kicked aside the loose earth, and saw that box and Bunny were both gone, and, not content with that, they had partially chewed up the tombstone, ...
— Tattine • Ruth Ogden
... limbs, took hold of the crucible, and sloped it so as to pour out the gold. But instead of a liquid stream, there came out, first, a pair of pretty little yellow legs, then some coat tails, then a pair of arms stuck akimbo, and, finally, the well-known head of his friend the mug; all which articles, uniting as they rolled out, stood up energetically on the floor, in the shape of a little golden dwarf, about a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... blonde hair hanging about her fine French face, was gazing out with rapt eyes and lips apart, as if every sense were drinking in the vision of a Germany delivered. Mimi was standing with her arms akimbo, nodding ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... straightway acknowledging its true kith and kin With that host of things known to be hollow within, It took up a stand with its handles akimbo, Bowels and bosom in a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his glass to his lips with the movements of one accustomed to hold conversation with the mayor. His left hand rested on his hip, with his arm akimbo, and his hat was tipped carelessly to the back of his head. The hand raising his glass stopped short where it was when he heard the mayor's question. He frowned at ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... bringing? Thereupon the servant, Piltti, Gave this answer to the wizard: "Seek I for a spot befitting, Seek I for a worthy birth-place, For an unborn child and hero; Seek it near the Sara-streamlet, Where the reed-brook pours her waters. Came the wife of old Ruotus, Walking with her arms akimbo, Thus addressed the maiden, Piltti: "Who is she that asks assistance, Who the maiden thus dishonored, What her name, and who her kindred?" "I have come for Mariatta, For the worthy virgin-mother." Spake the wife of old Ruotus, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... farm-house, but the mare several times bent her neck around and emitted a doleful neigh, as if complaining because her good days were now over. The Justice remained standing with the laborer, his arms set akimbo, until the two horses had passed out of sight through the orchard. Then the man said: ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... with curiosity at this Efrem. It was long since I had seen such a queer face. He had a long, sharp nose, thick lips, and a scanty beard. His little blue eyes positively danced, like little imps. He stood in a free-and-easy pose, his arms akimbo, and did not ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the court," said a pretty little girl at a children's party in Denmark; "my father is Groom of the Chambers, which is a very high office. And those whose names end with 'sen,'" she added, "can never be anything at all. We must put our arms akimbo, and make the elbows quite pointed, so as to keep these 'sen' people ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... scared out of her seven senses. They demanded her money or her life, and she believed that it was their intention to leave her 'welterin' in her gore'; and having said as much she squared round upon the lawyer, arms akimbo and head thrown back, inviting him to come on to his ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... eager, anticipative move on the part of the negroes. They nudged each other, and whispered, grinned broadly, and shifted their positions to where they could obtain an unobstructed view. Salome stood bareheaded, with arms akimbo, waiting for the music. The travelling suit had been discarded, and she was dressed in a simple blue dimity frock which showed the perfect curves of her figure to charming advantage. Uncle Zeb, with characteristic leisure, was in no hurry to begin. ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... cut in his better-half, sharply, and as she spoke she caught the little man unceremoniously by one arm, and thrusting him roughly to one side strode heavily forward until she paused in the centre of the room, facing us with her arms akimbo. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... bad, Paulie!" said Nancy. "It is that terrible fasting you went through to-day. My dear girls, what do you think? This poor little aristocrat, far and away too good to talk to the likes of us"—here Nancy put her arms akimbo and looked down with a mocking laugh at the prostrate Pauline—"far too grand, girls—fact, I assure you—was kept without her food until I gave her a bit of bread and a sup of water at supper. All these ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... away from their lunch-baskets. Just over the wild-pineapple hedge close at hand, half a score of naked negro children hover round the door of a low cabin; the mother, fat and shining in her one garment, gazes with arms akimbo at the scene of which she forms a typical part. The engineer imbibes a penny drink of thin Cataline wine and hastens back to his machine, which has been taking water from an elevated cistern beside the track, the bell rings, the whistle sounds, and we are off to repeat the process and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... and he found many suggestions of supernatural presence about the familiar room. As the fire alternately flared and faded, the warping-bars looked as if they were dancing a clumsy measure. The handle of a portly jug resembled an arm stuck akimbo, and its cork, tilted askew, was like a hat set on one side; Si fancied there was a most unpleasant grimace below that hat. The churn-dasher, left upon a shelf to dry, was sardonically staring him out of countenance with its half-dozen ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... with an alert expression as though he were in readiness to seize the lunatic, poor Polly, if he should become dangerous. Mr. Kinsella's composure was ominous of an outbreak. Jo Bill stood with arms akimbo and gazed at her former playmate, anger gradually gaining the ascendency over the amusement caused by his outspoken admiration of the ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... her two hands, and they danced round together. In the shadow behind the house Gigot and Marie followed their example, while Tobie, having no partner, jumped up and down with his arms akimbo. Mademoiselle Riette, catching sight of him, laughed so exhaustingly that she could dance no longer. Then the whole family laughed till the tears ran down their faces, while the dogs sat round ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... the doorway with arms akimbo and delivered her mind. "What kind of sports are you, anyway? Just because it's cold and misty you want to stay in bed all day and sleep. It's no test of energy to get out on a fine morning and paddle a canoe, that's pure fun; a cold, wet day is ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... here, hopelessly frozen on its way up the canal. On its deck a woman, with arms akimbo, stood over a man seated and tinkering at a kettle. She nodded ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
