"Bungle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... walk from the colleges, broad enough in most places for three boats to row abreast. I expect I will take to boating furiously: I have been down the river three or four times already with some other freshmen, and it is glorious exercise; that I can see, though we bungle and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... as I turned the garment That no rent should be left behind, My eye caught an odd little bungle Of ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... only bungle things by getting excited, Mary V. I'll send the cook after the boys while I fix this brake and fill up the gas tank. You go get some clothes on, and tell your mother to get the emergency box ready, in case he's hurt. And if you ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... not even a security. Our most familiar inferences are all made before we learn the use of general propositions; and a person of untutored sagacity will skillfully apply his acquired experience to adjacent cases, though he would bungle grievously in fixing the limits of the appropriate general theorem. But though he may conclude rightly, he never, properly speaking, knows whether he has done so or not; he has not tested his reasoning. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... other, lest we bungle. As the plan was mine, I take the choice of parts. There is a stain upon my conscience, M'sieu." McElroy spoke simply from his heart, as was his wont. "Throughout this long journey it has lain heavy. Though I hold against you one ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... will begin with this one," said his father, pointing to a red-and-white heifer. "She is better-natured than the others, and, as I dare say your fingers will bungle a little at first, that is a point to ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the match is at an end, and I may speak in perfect candour now. I swear to you that, given a man clear-eyed enough to see that a woman by ordinary is nourished much as he is nourished, and is subjected to every bodily infirmity which he endures and frets beneath, I do not often bungle matters. But when a fool begins to flounder about the world, dead-drunk with adoration of an immaculate woman—a monster which, as even the man's own judgment assures him, does not exist and never will exist—why, ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... like to use a piece of string, marked with knots, by which I can measure the exact places in which the tent-pegs should be struck, for the eye is a deceitful guide in estimating squareness. (See "Squaring.") It is wonderful how men will bungle with a tent, when they are not ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Mr. Copperas? I have known many a butler bungle more at a cork than he does; and pray tell me who did you ever ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... envy of Fardale. Hans Dunnerwust returned with a stock of tales of astounding adventures, which he managed to bungle badly in the telling. And now I suppose Barney Mulloy will take his turn. Between them they will make you out one of the most ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... unimaginative and the uneducated, who are apt to ridicule the organs or to be repelled by them. Many women confess that they are revolted by the sight of even a husband's complete nudity, though they have no indifference for sexual embraces. I think that the stupid bungle of Nature in making the generative organs serve as means of relieving the bladder has much to do with this revulsion. But some women of erotic temperament find pleasure in looking at the penis of a husband or lover, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Jack! hie thee hack! hie thee back! To thy damp, drear abode in the jungle; I'll be sober and staid, And drink lemonade, Try and catch me—you'll make a sad bungle, Yellow Jack! ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... opened dam, a torrent of commonplace things. He praised Scribe's works, which they had put on the stage again; he announced that the famous Guillery, his senior in the comedy line, would be execrable in this performance, and would make a bungle of it. He complained of being worried to death by the pursuit of a great lady—"You know, stage box Number Six," and showed, with a conceited gesture, a letter, tossed in among the jars of paint and pomade, which smelled of musk. Then, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... "The conditions say with steel," he said; "only with steel, and I should bungle with a knife. You must look the other way. Now help me ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... country without plan, preparation, or vocation, to make a living. They usually start to build a bungalow but seldom get further than the bungle. Don't build anything without plan. Get a comfortable house proof against cold and heat as soon as possible and, above all, well ventilated. At present the air in the country is good, because the farmers shut all the bad air up ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... firmly, "we're going to move. I'll have enough to buy a young bungle-house up on the hill, even if I don't get anything from Archer. And then I'm going to make up to you for this year—see ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... neither roads, provisions, towns, nor navigable rivers. Armies were maneuvered and victories won upon the maps in the office of the Secretary of War. Generals were selected by some inscrutable process which decreed that dull-witted, pompous incapables should bungle campaigns and ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... the sea presented an impassable barrier, the sand spit, drawn out to a fine point, was just the spot where a piccaninny might be easily rounded up, if it were detected in a preoccupied mood. I suggested that I might be at hand to encounter any untoward results in case of a bungle, but was met with the positive assertion that no "debil-debil," however young and unsophisticated, would "come out" if it ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Committee, nominated at the October Congress, calls together for the 8th of January a Congress of Soviets, destined to bungle the Constituent Assembly. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... bring in Wonder to wait on treason and on murder; And whatsoever cunning fiend it was That wrought upon thee so preposterously Hath got the voice in hell for excellence; And other devils that suggest by treasons Do botch and bungle up damnation With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd From glist'ring semblances of piety. But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up, Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason, Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor. If that same demon that hath gull'd ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... to rake the paper towards him with his stick.) And here am I, sitting here raking more of it towards me!—No, let the thing lie! I won't soil my wings any more.—Poor Harald! He has to take up the burden now! What a horrible bungle it is, that we should be brought into the world to give each other as much pain as possible! (Decidedly.) Well, I am going to see what legacy of unhappiness I am leaving him! I want to have a vivid impression of the misery I am escaping from. There is a certain comfort even in that. ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... stately, formal and precise. He used no slang, and retained scarcely a word of his boyhood's vernacular. The only emotional expression he permitted himself was a chuckle of glee over an intellectual misstatement or a historical bungle. Novels, theaters, music possessed no interest ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... her name upon the page with these—it were a shame to cheat of beauty by any bungle of description. Is not a fair spirit predestined conqueror of flesh and blood? Have we not read of the noble lady whose loveliness a painter's eye was the very first to discover? Where the likeness? The soul ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... see her, without it's hurting the will. Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you, If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do. They'll try to prove me a loony, and, if you bungle, they can; And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why ain't he a man?) There's some waste money on marbles, the same as McCullough tried— Marbles and mausoleums—but I call that sinful pride. There's some ship bodies for burial—we've carried 'em, soldered and packed; Down in their wills they ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... easily acquire one for himself. "My legs," he said frankly, "are too short to get up without a footstool." Amilcare was to have been the footstool. But then Molly came into play. At first she seemed to make the simple thing simpler. Amilcare was a strong man, but stiff. Grifone was sure he would bungle in his handling of Molly; this truth-telling beauty, this flawless jewel in a cup, would baffle him; he would neither see it the fine nor the delicate tool it was. He worked best with a bludgeon which, as it did brute's work, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... afraid of me that they were ready to stick at nothing to lay me out; secondly, that they were afraid to tackle me by day but had to choose a dark night and a lonely place; and thirdly, that with such a splendid chance it must have been nerves that made them bungle it. ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... that," he shouted. Yet once more, in some unaccountable way, the younger man on the capsized boat managed to bungle so with the line that it ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... complimentary and scathing, Mr. Stafford," he said; "but I do recognize the force of what you say. Scotland Yard is beneath contempt. I know of cases—but I will not detain you with them now. They bungle their work terribly at Scotland Yard. A detective should be a man of imagination, of initiative, of deep knowledge of human nature. In the presence of a mystery he should be ready to find motives, to construct them and put them into play, as though ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and without a body? Hah! Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again; I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir. Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises. —How long before this leg is done? Perhaps an hour, sir. Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go). Oh, Life! Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... work is this, Frederick? Has a journeyman been preparing these staves for his 'mastership,' or a stupid apprentice who only put his nose into the workshop three days ago? Pull yourself together, lad: what devil has entered into you that you are making a bungle of things like this? My good oak wood,—and this your masterpiece! Oh! you awkward, imprudent boy!" Overmastered by the torture and agony which raged within him, Frederick was unable to contain himself any longer; so, throwing the adze from him he said, "Master, it's all over; no, even though ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... time with Renton in company, and Renton mad as fire. It all turned out to be a bungle by some clerk that had taken to drink and forgetfulness; but it cost us a month or two before the Government of Senor Orrego, having no case, decided to do us justice without troubling the Courts. Renton and I returned in ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... burst out. "Look at him! When the leader broke I thought he was lost. I'm sick yet. Didn't you almost bungle that?" ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... What a bungle those boatmen are making of the steamer-ropes! They'll have that four-inch hawser chafed through in a minute. I told you so—there she goes! White foam on green water, and the steamer slewing round. How good that looks! I'll sketch it. No, I can't. I'm afflicted ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... in my ear, "when that woman comes down, follow her! I'm afraid you will bungle the business, and I would not ask you to attempt it if big things were not at stake. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... find a companion, impressed me now so painfully that I felt it must be plainly visible; that the visitor must see and be scornfully amused by it. Yet, with really extraordinary cordiality, he was holding out his right hand in salutation. Here again my awkwardness made me bungle. What he meant by his gesture I could not think. Some amusing trick, perhaps. It did not occur to me in that moment of self-abasement that he wished ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... 'interior.' It is all the more essential, therefore, that the worshipper shall not have his first sight of hero and room simultaneously. The room must, as it were, be an anteroom, anon converted into a presence-chamber by the hero's entry. And let not the hero be in any fear that he will bungle his entry. He has but to make it. The effect is automatic. He will stand out by merely coming in. I would but suggest that he must not, be he never so hale and hearty, bounce in. The young man must not be startled. If the mountain had come to Mahomet, it would, we may be sure, have ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... alarmed or displeased, that she might refuse to admit there was anything wrong and forbid him to refer to the matter again or even send him away altogether. And he felt he was not strong enough to risk that. No, he must know where he stood first. He must understand his position, so as not to bungle the thing. Hilliard was right. They must find out what the syndicate was doing. There was no ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... on a horse without a bit; This backs the sluggish ass, or bullock slow; These mounted on the croup of centaur sit: Those perched on eagle, crane, or estridge, go. Some male, some female, some hermaphrodit, These drain the cup and those the bungle blow. One bore a corded ladder, one a book; One a dull file, or bar ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... know," Reade confessed. "I never heard of any such bungle as this before by an engineer. Why, Harry, this hillside averages an eight and a third grade, yet Black's field notes show it to be only a three per cent. grade. Hang it, the fellow must have played ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... of his experience with her, arranged a course of conduct. " If I just leave her to herself she will come around all right, but if I go 'striking while the iron is hot,' or any of those things, I'll bungle it surely." ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... "There's been a bungle, and the sooner we are rid of it the better. There's a boat at ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... to the Cob, where I sat down. I was excited. Deeds of great import must shortly be done. I felt a little nervous. It would never do to bungle the thing. Suppose by some accident I were to drown the professor, or suppose that, after all, he contented himself with a mere formal expression of thanks and refused to let bygones be bygones. These things did not bear ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... want you to think I bungle everything in that manner," he said, "for I don't. I want to work with you, and I want to ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... me! what would the world be without us women?" thought Janice—and gave up all idea of running away and leaving Frank to bungle ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... German friends will let him forget it. They will find it hard to forgive a bungle that leaves a first-class munition factory absolutely undamaged in the hands of their enemies. I don't envy Schenk his job of persuading them ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... of Rousseau, of the flesh of citizens, and they never appear in society. The diplomatic impolitely dub them fools. Be they that or no, they augment the number of those mediocrities beneath the yoke of which France is bowed down. They are always there, always ready to bungle public or private concerns with the dull trowel of their mediocrity, bragging of their impotence, which they count for conduct and integrity. This sort of social prizemen infests the administration, the army, the magistracy, the chambers, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... see what we can draw out of that. This, you know, is a liquid which we have just made up from copper and nitric acid, whilst our other experiments were in hand; and though I am making this experiment very hastily, and may bungle a little, yet I prefer to let you see what I do rather ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... step there; but it was just like me to bungle," continued Gaston. "I knew that the Jew, Henriques, often had transactions with the Marquis de Fleury. I took the diamonds to another Jew from whom I concealed my name, and suggested his taking them to Henriques, hinting that the marquis would probably become their purchaser. The marquis ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... but I know every idea I have would desert me directly I faced an audience. I'm all right with a definite part that I've got into my head, but I can't make up as I go along, and it's no use asking me. I'd only bungle and stammer, and make an utter goose of myself, and spoil the whole thing. Hallo! There's the ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... uncomfortably—"well, you see, she seems to be right. I did bungle it, didn't I? It was Hartley who came and pulled us ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... answering directly Rhetta Thayer's anxious, expectant, appealing brown eyes. "For if he should fail, bungle it, and have to throw down his hand before he'd won the game, it would be Katy-bar-the-door for that man. He'd have to know how far the people of this town wanted him to go before starting, and there's only one boundary—the limit of the law. If they want anything less than that ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... an agile chap, who is especially quick both at decisions and throwing. Even though he snatch up the ball, and thus make a fine stop, if his judgment is poor or his throwing arm lame, he can often bungle his work, and prove of little help to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... was watching Jimmy and me at the station that night was probably acting on his own initiative. It was the same detective who had made such a bungle of following Jimmy in the afternoon and I guess it nearly cost him his job. He must have been feeling pretty well worked up at the way things turned out. If it hadn't been for Mr. Wade's timely arrival there's no telling what might ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... she said seriously, "Yes; he must go away. And I don't envy you having to tell him. I suppose you will bungle it, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... quite willing," I said, before I had a chance to bungle it worse, "quite willing to exchange information on your people for the same about my own. However, I doubt that your people will find this planet congenial to an invader who ignores the natives ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... viewed both Augustus approach and the man stop at the hospital, and having expected a bungle, sat to hear; but at Albumblatt's mottled face he stood up quickly and said, "What's the matter?" And hearing, burst out: "Casey! Why, he was worth fifty of—Go on, Mr. Albumblatt. What next did you achieve, sir?" And as the tale was told he ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... previous effort, there was little or no chance that anything I might say would avail to placate either magnate or to abate either's hostility toward me. And I knew that, in my dazed condition, the chances were that I would bungle the ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... of Evil smiled sardonically when they noted that the light which she evoked for her pious exercise lit the hand of Moussa Isa to murder, providing opportunity. Moussa Isa weighed chances and considered. He did not want to bungle it and lose his revenge and his life too. Would he be seen if he struck now? The light fell on the very spot for the true infallible death-stroke. Should he strike now, here, in the ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... and speedily too, or the resultant mischief cannot be undone. I appeal to you because you are a woman, and we men are prone to bungle ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... at all, court scientifically. Bungle whatever else you will, but do not bungle courtship. A failure in this may mean more than a loss of wealth or public honors; it may mean ruin, or a life often worse than death. The world is full of ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... extraordinary risk; the two guards or someone else behind them might wake up—for such people, like dogs, mostly sleep with one eye open, especially when they knew that they are being pursued. Or if they did not we might bungle the business so that they raised an outcry before they grew silent for ever, in which case both of us and perhaps Inez also would probably pay the penalty ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... bungle of the French brother fairly represents my condition during the past few weeks. I have not been altogether sure that I was even "somewheres." Preaching one Sunday in Dover, N.H., the next in Talladega, Ala., the next at Santee Agency, ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 9, September, 1889 • Various
... Vauquelin was a patriot hero, who had done well at Louisbourg the year before, and who was to do well at Quebec the year after. But, of course, he was not a member of the Bigot gang. So he was set aside in favour of a parasite, who made a hopeless bungle of ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... who exist in dreadful poverty and sometimes starve, instead of trying to understand the causes of their misery and to find out a remedy themselves, spend all their time applauding the Practical, Sensible, Level-headed Business-men, who bungle and mismanage their affairs, and pay them huge salaries for doing so. Sir Graball D'Encloseland, for instance, was a 'Secretary of State' and was paid L5,000 a year. When he first got the job the wages were only a beggarly L2,000, but as he found it impossible to exist on less than L100 a week ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... demand," but, if not well paid for his labours, the tattooer could make his sitter suffer in more ways than one. He could adroitly increase the acute anguish which had, as a point of honour, to be endured without cry or complaint; or he could coolly bungle the execution of the design, or leave it unfinished, and betake himself to a more generous customer. A well-known tattooing chant deals with the subject entirely from the artist's standpoint, and emphasises the business principles upon which he ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... then the furious shouts of the soldiers, and, finally, the mad cries of the crowd. "Damn it—they've given us the slip." "Yes; they've crawled off like rats from a sinking ship." "Curse it all, it's only a bungle." This in the Spanish tongue, and then in the tongue of his own country Ben Aboo heard the guttural shouts of his own people: "Sidi, try the palace." "Try the apartments of his women, Sidi." "Abd er-Rahman's gone, but Ben Aboo's hiding." ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... mug you are to be trusted with a job like this," said Braddle. "I did think Potter was better up in his work, I did. A pretty bungle he'll make ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... prominence remains, you see; the evil is as great as ever, greater, indeed. But this is not all. Look at the warp which the plate has got near the opposite edge. Where it was flat before it is now curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it! Instead of curing the original defect, we have produced a second. Had we asked an artisan practised in 'planishing,' as it is called, he would have told us that no good was to be done, but only mischief, by hitting down on the projecting part. He would have taught ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... is sceptical. I'll admit that I'm pitiably foolish, but I don't want Mrs. Durrand to know how I've bungled her matter until the bungle is corrected." ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... boom in the dark, and hang there reefing while the vessel jerked so that you might have fancied she must send his ribs through the skin. I say it was nothing, because he performed this feat nearly every winter night, after the midnight haul, and the spectacle grew common. I never knew him bungle over a rope or make a bad slip, and it was simply a pleasure to see him steer. He never threw away an inch, and his way of stealing foot by foot was worthy of any jockey. Sometimes when I was at the wheel and running a little to leeward of another vessel, ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... you're going to defend yourself, isn't it?" and she almost laughed. "You're going to surprise them at the trial? You won't tell what your thoughts are to anyone, for fear they shall make a bungle of it? Half these barristers, I'm told, are very muddle-headed, and make all sorts of foolish admissions; and you're going to defend yourself in your own ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... speak o' your mother that's Lady Gloster still — I'm going to up and see her, without it's hurting the will. Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you, If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do. They'll try to prove me crazy, and, if you bungle, they can; And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why ain't he a man?) There's some waste money on marbles, the same as M'Cullough tried — Marbles and mausoleums — but I call that sinful pride. There's some ship bodies for burial — we've carried 'em, soldered and packed; Down ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... who you were. I naturally couldn't place you at all. I saw that you recognized one of us when you came in, and that you were watching our table pretty attentively in the glass. I had a horrible suspicion for a moment that you were a Scotland Yard man, and were going to bungle the whole business by arresting Hoffman. That was why I sent you my card; I knew if you were at the Yard ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... evening he would sit down at his piano and start playing idly. As a rule he played dance music, popular songs from Broadway. But sometimes leaning back he would drift into other music. And though his hand would bungle and only sketch it, so to speak—in his black eyes, scowling slightly over the smoke of his cigar, would come a look which Ethel liked. But vaguely she felt that Amy did not, that it even made ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... just shown me the memorandum for orders. The President has worked out this scheme himself, without asking my help, and I am glad of it, for I would not like to burden my conscience with such a bungle. ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... and bending them to his will, he felt, now, the same compulsive prod of mastery. He wanted to tell her that he loved her and that there was nothing else for her to do but marry him. And yet he did not obey the prod. Women were fluttery creatures, and here mere mastery would prove a bungle. He remembered all his hunting guile, the long patience of shooting meat in famine when a hit or a miss meant life or death. Truly, though this girl did not yet mean quite that, nevertheless she meant much to him—more, now, than ever, as ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... match at Cricket was played between the gentlemen of Saffron Walden and Stanstead Abbots, for 44 guineas, when the latter were bungle beat, that is, 51 notches in ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... all right. I gave Bradley very clear instructions. But, in any case," he added easily, "I'd prepared for the possible contingency that the old fool might bungle matters." ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... indeed, had climbed the altitudes of life; the cracksman still stumbled in the valleys. If he had a ready cunning in the planning of an enterprise, he must needs bungle at the execution; and had he not been associated with George Smith, a king of scoundrels, there would be few exploits to record. And yet for the craft of housebreaker he had one solid advantage: he knew the locks and bolts of Edinburgh as he knew his primer—for had he not fashioned the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... one's head "done" by a Celestial executioner. The Coreans, on the contrary, have not developed the same skill in these difficult matters; and, what with their blunt and short swords, what with their misjudgment of distances, they bungle matters most cruelly. Of course, they are, nevertheless, supposed to kill their victims with single blows, instead of raining them down by the dozen, hacking the unfortunate creatures in a most fearful manner, and lopping off their arms or ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... the beginner as to the variety of specimen to use in first trials. Don't begin on too small a bird until somewhat adept; unpracticed fingers bungle sadly over tiny feathered bodies. A first subject should be at least as large as a bob white to give room to work, and of some variety in which the feathers are ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... seems very often to be either inadequate or impossible. Usually it will be better to aim at going very near to the stymie with the object of getting up dead, making quite certain at the same time that you do not bungle the whole thing by hitting the other ball, or else to play to the left with much cut, so that with a little luck you may circle into the hole. Evidently the latter would be a somewhat hazardous ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... stupid plan that fools project, Not only will not take effect, But proves destructive in the end To those that bungle and pretend. Some hungry Dogs beheld an hide Deep sunk beneath the crystal tide, Which, that they might extract for food, They strove to drink up all the flood; But bursten in the desp'rate deed, They perish'd, ere ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... Duncan. "Ye can trust the Scotch to bungle things a'thegither. McLean was only meanin' to show ye all confidence and honor. He's gone and set a high price for some dirty whelp to ruin ye. I was just tryin' to show ye how he felt toward ye, and I've gone an' give ye that worry to bear. Damn ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... to fear lest Nature bungle, That in certain ways she errs: The cobra in the jungle, The crotalus in the sod, Evil and good are hers;— Murderers and torturers! Ye, too, were made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... himself pleased with Mary. She in return found him amusing when he jested, but far astray in his opinions when discussing serious matters—in fact, on a later visit of his, she finds Hogg makes a sad bungle, quite muddled on the point when in an argument on virtue. In spite of being shocked by Hogg in matters of philosophy and ethics, she gets to like him better daily, and he helps them to pass the long November ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... past week had so managed to bungle the slinging in of a small torpedo-boat on the "Vortigern", that the boat had broken the crutches in which she rested, and was herself being repaired in the dockyard under the ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... out,' he thought to himself. 'Even damnation may be finely imagined for me in the night. I have come so far. Now I must get clarity and courage to follow out the theme. I don't want to botch and bungle even damnation.' ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... bungle?" she chuckled, leaning over and looking furtively up and down the room, as if afraid of being caught talking to me. I blushed in confusion that was half fright, and she raised a ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... That would be the end of you, for those police would bungle everything. You need clever fellows with you if you go to sup ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... act of folly, balourdise[obs3]; botch, botchery[obs3]; bad job, sad work. sprat sent out to catch a whale, much ado about nothing, wild-goose chase. bungler &c. 701; fool &c. 501. V. be unskillful &c. adj.; not see an inch beyond one's nose; blunder, bungle, boggle, fumble, botch, bitch, flounder, stumble, trip; hobble &c. 275; put one's foot in it; make a mess of, make hash of, make sad work of; overshoot the mark. play tricks with, play Puck, mismanage, misconduct, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and Lewis have qualified for the College of Surgeons," says he. "They are both born anatomists. Your job under the arm was the worst bungle of the two, egad, for Lewis put his sword, pat as you please, between two of my organs (cursed if I know their names), and not so ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... faults to which he is liable. Deficiencies of person I have already handled; and the following I think is a fair statement of their mental imperfections. Pantomimes cannot all be artists; there are plenty of ignorant performers, who bungle their work terribly. Some cannot adapt themselves to their music; they are literally 'out of tune'; rhythm says one thing, their feet another. Others are free from this fault, but jumble up their chronology. I remember the case of a man who was giving ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... The Public-house Compensation Bill shall be hereafter known and alluded to as the Bung Bungle'd Bill. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... began to put his plan into execution. He set himself conscientiously to hit the notes awry, or to bungle every touch. Melchior cried out, then roared, and blows began to rain. He had a heavy ruler. At every false note he struck the boy's fingers, and at the same time shouted in his ears, so that he was like to deafen him. Jean-Christophe's ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... you are!" But the trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. "Would any one believe this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. "I am so out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... just what another person will do. However, I feel sure you can trust O'Connel. I never knew him to bungle anything yet." ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... a girl loves a man she ought to be willing to trust him over a dreadful bungle until he could straighten things out and make good again—that's true, ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... Through the glade Where our prey lay sleeping, Unafraid, In some Eastern jungle? Better so. I am sure the snarling Beasts could never bungle Life as men do, darling, ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... had many ways to blind, but he was never clever at it, by making a shew of Religion, (though he cheated his wife therewith:) for he was, especially by those that dwelt near him, too well known to do that, though he would bungle at it as well as he could. But there are some that are arch villains this way; they shall to view live a whole life Religiously, and yet shall be guilty of these most horrible sins: And yet Religion in it self is never the worse, nor yet the true professors of it. But as Luther ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... consequently both political parties play with him. But that is neither here nor there. He will commit in one meal every betise that a senllion fresh from the plow-tail is capable of, and he will continue to repeat those faults. He is as complete a heavy-footed, uncomprehending, bungle-fisted fool as any mem-sahib in the East ever took into her establishment. But he is according to law a free and independent citizen—consequently above reproof or criticism. He, and he alone, in this insane city, will wait at table (the Chinaman ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... luck Bert managed to obey. But his nerve was gone for the afternoon. He made a sad bungle of all the work, though ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... frightened at singing before my mother; I cannot bear to distress her accurate ear with my unsteady intonation, and the more I think of it, the colder my hands grow and the hotter my face, the huskier my voice and the flatter my notes; I bungle over accompaniments that I have at my fingers' ends, and forget words I know as well as my alphabet; in short, I feel like a wretch, and I sing like a wretch, and I make wretched all my hearers. My mother's own nervous terror when she had to sing on the stage, as a young ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... regulate life by fear, considering only the desire to remain undisturbed of those who are decayed and petrified. I do not know if I make my meaning clear. As our habit, we ignore or minimize all sex difficulties as much as we can; we hesitate and compromise and bungle over every reform because we are afraid of what may happen if we probe down to the real bottom of what needs to be done. We have neither the courage of our bodies or of our souls. This is why so often ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... it, Richard? What makes you so white and queer?" his mother asked, trying to pull on her stockings, and in her trepidation jamming her toes into the heel, and drawing her shoe over the bungle thus made at the ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... safe, I cal'late. And then Bos'n turns up right in your own town, right acrost the road from you! By the big dipper! it's enough to make a feller believe that the Almighty does take a hand in straightenin' out such things, when us humans bungle 'em—it ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I have remarked," said the monk, "I could not order my speech to propose anything of this kind to a young maid; I should so bungle that I might spoil all. You ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... Billy Bungle (that was his name) was not by any means an idiot. He knew perfectly well that two and two made four, and yet, such a queer chap as he was, he would take any amount of pains ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... of despair, she leaned against the wall to support the faintness that had so suddenly stolen the strength from her limbs, trying desperately to think of some way to save her father from this madness. She was sure he would bungle it and be caught eventually, and she was equally sure he would never let himself be taken alive. Her helplessness groped for some way out. There must be some road of escape from this horrible situation, and as she sought blindly for it the path opened ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... "Indeed, I don't know that I had better dwell on that hypothesis at all; it's all very well to talk of facing the worst; but in a case of this kind a man's first duty is to his own nerve. Is there any answer to No. 3? Is there any possible good side to such a beastly bungle? There must be, of course, or where would be the use of this double-entry business? And—by George, I have it!" he exclaimed; "it's exactly the same as the last!" And he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of terrified men carried off the first brigade along with it in hopeless rout. Ramses and Menna were left with only a few picked chariots of the household troops, and the whole Hittite army was coming on. But though King Ramses had made a terrible bungle of his generalship, he was at least a brave man. Leaping into his chariot, and calling to the handful of faithful soldiers to follow him, he bade Menna lash his horses and charge the advancing Hittites. Menna was no coward, but when he saw the thin line of Egyptian troops, and looked at the ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... employed by MR. ARROWSMITH in No. 189., where, with little modesty, and less courtesy, he styles the commentators on Shakspeare—naming in particular, KNIGHT, COLLIER, and DYCE, and including SINGER and all of the present day—criticasters who "stumble and bungle in sentences of that simplicity and grammatical clearness as not to tax the powers of a third-form schoolboy to explain." In order to bring me "within his danger," he actually transposes two lines of Shakspeare; and so, to the unwary, makes me appear ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... blue kerchief at her neck for a tourniquet and had checked the hemorrhage, he was still patiently awaiting a better opportunity to employ his knife. It would not do to bungle the affair. And he thought he knew how it could be properly done—if he could get her head in the crook ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... said, "but you will have to be very careful and not overdo the matter, for she isn't the kind that is easily fooled. She's had to keep her eyes and wits sharpened, else she wouldn't be on a newspaper, so I want you to be very careful and not bungle. Make ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... soon as I'm through I shall get on a dry rock and signal to you to come. Then you'll slip in and swim to the rock again, and take a header off it. Don't bungle it this time, and when you feel my touch at the rope, mind it's not meant to haul, only to guide ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... Muro is such an innocent old love," she went on, "that he did it badly. He had been told to do it by the Jesuits and he made a bungle of it. He thought that he could make a schoolgirl answer a question if she did not want to. And no one was afraid of him. He is a dear, good, old saint, and will assuredly go to Heaven. He is not a Jesuit, you know, but he is afraid of them, as everybody else ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... distance greatly. Billy clung breathlessly to his cramped position and waited. He hoped they wouldn't get out and try to find the way, for then some of them might see him, and he was so stiff he was sure he would bungle getting out of the way. But after a breathless moment the car started on more slowly, and finally turned down a steep rough place, scarcely a trail, into the deeper woods. For a long time they went along, slower and slower, into the blackness of night it seemed. There was no moon, and the men had ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... awe-inspiring government function, turned out an unmistakable farce, if not a disastrous break down. Even the government journals themselves, without waiting for "Scene II.," (though coming off immediately) raised a shout of condemnation of the discreditable bungle, and demanded that it should be forthwith abandoned. Considering the course ultimately taken by the government, these utterances of the government organs themselves, have a serious meaning and are of peculiar ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... know if it will strike the reader that I am setting out to discuss the queer, unwise love relationship and my bungle of a marriage with excessive solemnity. But to me it seems to reach out to vastly wider issues than our little personal affair. I've thought over my life. In these last few years I've tried to get at least a little wisdom ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... proud, and extremely sensitive. I cannot deny that I had seen something of the world, and had contracted about the average bad habits of young men who have the sole care of themselves, and rather bungle the matter. It is necessary to this relation to admit that I had seen a trifle more of what is called life than a young man ought to see, but at this period I was not only sick of my experience, but my habits were as correct ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... what's the matter with me to-day," he said under his breath. "This is the first time I ever tried to mock anybody and made such a bungle of it.... Perhaps I'm trying to sing too fast," he added. "So ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... hold my tongue. She said: "Now I'M going to say something! After professing to snub Mr. Farmerson, you permit him to snub YOU, in my presence, and then accept his invitation to take a glass of champagne with you, and you don't limit yourself to one glass. You then offer this vulgar man, who made a bungle of repairing our scraper, a seat in our cab on the way home. I say nothing about his tearing my dress in getting in the cab, nor of treading on Mrs. James's expensive fan, which you knocked out of my hand, ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... could! What a bungle it would be. Why, I never saw you with a piece of work in your hand in my life. I dare say you could not even ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... Sandyface, the cat, and her four kittens—Spotty, Almira, Popocatepetl and Bungle. And now there was the goat, Mr. ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... getting old too," I said. "And I'm useless at everything. I only make a bungle of everything I try. But I'll be your true friend to ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... and awkward. He has seen butchery come quite too close to his own flesh! Still somewhat unnerved, he prepares himself for the task with clumsy movements and halting fingers. The master bids him hurry—Jean takes his time, he's not going to bungle the job.... ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... the hope of glory," said the other doctor gravely, "and Christ's glory was his usefulness and gift for helping others; I believe there's less quackery in our profession than any other, but it is amazing how we bungle at it. I wonder how you will get on with your little girl? If people didn't have theories of life of their own, or wouldn't go exactly the wrong way, it would be easier to offer assistance; but where one person takes a ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... good fellowship three abreast, dispersing themselves about the outer boulevards and about Paris. Indeed, I have just seen a drunken couple full of wine and friendship, strongly reminding one of a duel ending in a jolly breakfast. And who is to blame for this? Nobody knows. All agree that it is a bungle,—the fault of maladministration and want of tact. Certainly the National Guards at Montmartre had no right to hold the cannons belonging to the National Guards, as a body, or to menace the reviving trade and tranquillity of Paris, by means of guns turned against its peaceful ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... generally on their side and enjoy the backing of the bourgeois establishment, its organizations and its facilities. Since their object is defense, they have no constructive program. Instead they stumble, fumble and bungle as their system flounders into one disastrous ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... silvery "Loch Leven," about three-quarters of a pound, and in excellent condition. Only two years ago he was put into the stream with five hundred others as a yearling. The next two rising fish are too much for us, and we bungle them. One sees the line, owing to our throwing too far above him, and the other is frightened out of his life by a bit of weed or grass which gets hitched on to the barb of the hook, and lands bang on to his nose. These accidents will happen, so we ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... letters, (he then commanded a Brigade in McCall's Division), writes October 24th, "Regarding Ball's Bluff, as far as I can gather, the whole affair was a bungle from beginning to end. The worst part of the business is that at the very time our people were contending against such odds, the advance of McCall's division was only 10 miles off and had we been ordered forward instead of back, we could have ...
— Ball's Bluff - An Episode and its Consequences to some of us • Charles Lawrence Peirson
... is he?" asked Kitwater. "If you know where he is, you ought to be with him yourself instead of down here. You are paid to conduct the case. How do you know that your man may not bungle it, and that we may not lose ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... "Bungle, my dear! You are too little to recollect—in fact, you weren't there. But the furniture was actually in the vans and on the move before the lease for Wickham Place was signed, and Emily took train with baby—who was Margaret then—and the smaller ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... told us he was down for "mention" in the next despatch. We have all admired, and often spoken about, the good work and earnest devotion of Pirie, and are delighted these are to be recognised, even in this small way. We were talking about the huge bungle of the landing at Suvla. It seems agreed had it not been that two Territorial Battalions turned tail when faced by a handful of Turks things here would have been totally different, and the ridges which are not yet ours should ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... times a week. The human libido sexualis cannot be put into an iron mould, and you should pay no attention to religious fanatics who are ignorant of physiology and psychology and who can only blunder and bungle up things. ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... of him yet," announced Phil after a bit, rising to his feet; while a look of growing concern began to come upon his face. "I was silly to let him take the risk. Ought to have known Larry would bungle it, if there was half a chance. And now, Tony, what had we better do, follow his tracks, or head straight in the direction that ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... admirals; he belonged to a century not his own. As for the crime for which he was to suffer, it had been the work of another hand, and very bad work it was, to try and steal Jean Touzel's Hardi Biaou, and then bungle it. He had had nothing to do with it, for he and Jean Touzel were the best of friends, as was proved by the fact that while he lay in his dungeon, Jean wandered the shore sorrowing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... accident in the Park, the man said. The pony had swerved and thrown little Lord Elster: thrown him right under the other pony's feet, as it seemed. The servant made rather a bungle over his news, but ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... you're right," said Peace thoughtfully; "'cause when folks are watching and I want to be 'specially sweet and nice and helpful, I just make a dreadful bungle of it, and everyone laughs. It's the things we do without thinking that make folks happiest. That is what Saint Elspeth used to tell me. Some way I could understand her better than Miss Edith, I guess; but maybe it was 'cause ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... see distinctly the handiwork of the Diamond Coterie, and I saw another thing; it was the first piece of work I had known them to bungle. And they ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... "I bungle not," answered Achmet, sternly. "Forty years ago, on the third of next month, you, Jasper Southdown Kingsland, were ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... service, my good man," he said. "Dispatch the business quickly and do not, I pray you, bungle ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... in playing. Peter knew a good many of them now by sight—untidy, dirty, many, foreigners most, all it seemed to Peter, with an air of attempting something that they could never hope to accomplish. Anything that they might do he was quite sure that they would bungle and, with the hearts of children, the dirty tatters of foreign countries, and the imaginations of exuberant story-tellers, he could see them go, ignorantly, ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... and substantial for continuance and benefit of the buyers. Neither is there anything that hurteth the common sort of our artificers more than haste, and a barbarous or slavish desire to turn the penny, and, by ridding their work, to make speedy utterance of their wares: which enforceth them to bungle up and despatch many things they care not how so they be out of their hands, whereby the buyer is often sore defrauded, and findeth to his cost that haste maketh waste, ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... fitted me with greatcoat and hat. Then, having trundled me to the front gate, he picked me up—luckily I have always been a small spare man—and deposited me in the car. I am always nervous of anyone but Marigold trying to carry me. They seem to stagger and fumble and bungle. Marigold's arms close round me like an iron clamp and they lift me with the mechanical ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... fiends would seem to have fled into Burma; so that the mysterious epidemic in Rangoon was really an outbreak of thuggee—on slightly improved lines! I had suspected something of the kind but, naturally, I had not looked for Thugs near Rangoon. My unexpected resistance led the strangler to bungle the rope. You have seen how it was fastened about my throat? That was unscientific. The true method, as practiced by the group operating in Burma, was to throw the line about the victim's neck and jerk him from the window. A man leaning from an open window is very ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer |
