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More "Forefinger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Miss Gabriel, "the man is breaking up." She touched her forehead lightly with the tip of her forefinger. ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... straddled his legs, leaned forward and set his right forefinger into his left palm with the confident air of one who is prepared ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... all with the solution, and put the wing bone back into its place. In baring this bone you must by no means pull the skin. You would have it to pieces beyond all doubt, for the ends of the long feathers are attached to the bone itself. You must push off the skin with your thumb and forefinger. Now skin the thigh, quite to the bone, cut away all flesh and tendons, and bare the bone, form an artificial thigh round it with cotton, apply the solution, and draw back the skin over the artificial thigh; the same to ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... other, with a fat laugh. "I was one of the quiet little mice," he added archly, "and you were always such a gay dog." To our indescribable delectation he actually thrust a stubby forefinger into his ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... the squire, with his forefinger on his forehead. "You seem to have a good—tidy sort of a nurse here, Cousin Barnabas. I hope she 's pleasant, and lively, and don't ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was evidently a perfect understanding between them. The bird knew what was expected and proceeded immediately to business. It grasped the lower end of the thread in its little claws as its trainer held it suspended in the air with the other end wound around his forefinger, and swung back and forth, chirruping cheerfully. After swinging a little while it reached the top, and then stood proudly for a moment on the fakir's finger and acknowledged our applause. Then it climbed down again like a sailor or a monkey and dropped to the ground. I had never ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... by and passed his forefinger across his forehead, brushing the sweat away from above his quiet eyes. He moistened the tip of his thumb and slid it along the blade of his hemp hook—he was using that for lack of a scythe. Turning, he walked back to the edge of the brier thicket, ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... and Cicero were indefatigable in their study of language. Shakespeare, "infinite in faculty," took infinite pains to embody his thought in words of crystal clearness. Coleridge once said of him that one might as well try to dislodge a brick from a building with one's forefinger as to omit a single word from one ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... Marie, mingling with the crowd; I divide serried knots of them. Suddenly there is profound silence, and every one stands immovable. Up there the Bishop is on his feet. He raises his forefinger and says, "The dead are not dead. They are rewarded in heaven; but even here on earth they are alive. They keep watch in our hearts, eternally preserved from oblivion. Theirs is the immortality of glory and gratitude. They ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... the benumbed fingers of his right hand, then gripped the rifle once more. His forefinger was on the trigger. He had arrived at a crisis. He was half starved and freezing. For three days now he had wandered over the vast expanse of ice-pans that covered the waters of Bering Straits. During that three ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... Mr. Puffington's country. To a good 'tip' he vouchsafed as much cap as he gave to a lord; to a middling 'tip' he gave a sort of move that might either pass for a touch of the cap or a more comfortable adjustment of it to his head; a very small 'tip' had a forefinger to the peak; while he who gave nothing at all got a good stare or a good morning! or something of that sort. A man watching the arrival of the field could see who gave the fives, who the fours, who the threes, who the twos, who the ones, and ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the list she was writing; but the vexatious color, feeling itself shielded in her face, crept round till it made her ear tips rosy. Saidie put out her forefinger, with a hardly perceptible motion, at the telltale sign, and nodded at Aunt Etherege behind ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... dressings were changed the agony crazed him and he sometimes bit me. I used to be so annoyed," she added mildly, "and I used to shake my forefinger at him and say, 'Now it's got to be done, Jones; will you promise not to bite me.' And the poor fellow would promise with tears in his eyes—and then he'd ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... or shoot," replied the other, "you will have to do it very quickly, for, in the language of the wild and woolly West, I've got the drop on you. In my coat pocket is a cocked revolver with my forefinger on the trigger. If you make a hostile move I can let daylight through you so quickly that you won't know what ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... a week-old beard, peered forth at the staff official with an expression half of languid tolerance, half of mild irritation. In most perfunctory fashion the soldier just touched the hat-rim with his forefinger, then dropped the hand into a convenient pocket. It was plain that he felt but faint respect for the staff rank and station of the man in goggles ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... forward. "Kadoc of Saint Malo sticks to his ship," he growled, and drew with his forefinger a line in the dust. ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... and with a fixed look; with acumination or pointing and contraction of the pulps of the ear. And there are many other signs, as pustules and excrescences, atrophy of the muscles, and particularly of those between the thumb and forefinger; insensibility of the extremities; fissures, and infections of the skin; the blood, when drawn and washed, containing black, earthy, rough, sandy matter. The above are those evident and manifest signs, which, when they do appear, the patient ought to be separated from the people, or, ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope
... loophole through which to keep tab on the enemy, after which he rolled on his belly and began whittling in the hard clay, for Tom had the carving habit—like many a younger boy. Alfred carefully extracted a short pipe from beneath his chaparajos, pushed down with his blunt forefinger the charge with which it was already loaded, and struck a match. He poised this for a moment above the ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... equally tense and pale. He felt that he should be praying as he had never prayed before, but wrath possessed his spirit wholly, and his mind was completely concentrated on that lean forefinger, whose slightest tension meant death. Moments like these come but once in the lifetime of the average man, if, indeed, they ever come at all; but, when they do, when he suddenly finds himself face to face with some cataclysmic upheaval in human or external nature that threatens ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... strict level then, Bristles," warned Colon, severely, as he shook his forefinger at the other; "we don't want you to invent any old ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... went on, solemnly shaking one skinny forefinger at the girl, "you'd have said: 'Bones is for the ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... The operator, an old woman, took a tablespoon and filled it with water. With the sixpence she then lifted as much salt as it could carry, and both were put into the water in the spoon. The water was then stirred with the forefinger till the salt was dissolved. Then the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands were bathed with this solution thrice, and after these bathings I was made to taste the solution three times. The operator then drew her wet forefinger across my brow,—called ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... up a forefinger, "is just where old Harry Trew comes in. This is exactly the sort of job he's fitted for. If he hadn't took up with another occupation he'd have found himself by this time in the Foreign Office. Do you want ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... it!" cried the wailing Ikey, pointing at his adversary a forefinger wrapped in a handkerchief. "You did! You did! I heard ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... credible; Mahony nodded his assent. He also added, gratuitously, that he had before now been obliged to reclaim on casks of mouldy mess-pork. At which Ocock ceased coddling his chin to point a straight forefinger at him, with a triumphant: "You see!"—But Purdy who, sick and tired of the discussion, had withdrawn to the window to watch the rain zig-zag in runlets down the dusty panes, and hiss and spatter on the sill; Purdy puckered his lips to a ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... saleswoman brought out a simple gown of pink veiling and laid it on the rack before Banks, and he leaned forward and took a fold between his thumb and forefinger, gravely ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... perfectly well," she went on, standing across the room from him, and shaking a little pink forefinger at him, "you know perfectly well, Kenneth-boy, that we're not a bit suited to each other. I go through life the way I just flew around the room; and you go this way:" Patty dropped her arms at her side and marched stiffly ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... pleasures was to watch Aunt Hannah spinning on her flax-wheel, wetting her thumb and forefinger at her lips to twist the thread, keeping time, meanwhile, to some quaint old tune with her foot ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... No such price had been paid, nor had any service been done. The accumulated years came now to a greater sum than the fee simple of the estate. There were other claims also. The sacrist called for his books, and with thin, eager forefinger he tracked them down: dues for this, and tailage for that, so many shillings this year, and so many marks that one. Some of it occurred before Nigel was born; some of it when he was but a child. The accounts had been checked ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you as Colette King," she replied with a look half cajoling, half flippant, "but as a teacher in the Young Woman's Auxiliary Guild to the rector of St. Mark's. You see I no longer lead a foolish, futile life. Here is the evidence in the case," holding up a slender pink forefinger. "See how it is pricked! For three Saturday afternoons I have shown little girls that smelled of fried potatoes how to sew. I shall really learn something myself about the feminine art of needlework if I continue in my ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... don't, and never expect to. Now, look at this, for instance," and the storekeeper touched the paper with the forefinger of his right hand. "A kimona, just think of that! I never had a call for such ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... belief, almost another land, and around them lay the hostile city. He felt a thrill of pity; once more he believed her claim that she did not take the papers; and he tapped uneasily on the window pane with a long forefinger. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... says Lord Dupe, changing his tone, 'I would not give it house-room!' The antiquities are then brought forward. 'The first lot,' announces the auctioneer, 'consists of a hand without an arm, the first joint of the forefinger gone, supposed to be a limb of the Apollo Delphos. The second, half a foot, with the toes entire, of the Juno Lucina. The third, the Caduceus of the Mercurius Infernalis. The fourth, the half of the leg of the Infant Hercules. All indisputable antiques, and of the Memphian marble.' One critic ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the sort. At any rate, I enter into conversation. What's next? I look him straight in the peepers, just like this. Only two of me fingers are at it—just this and this." Yasha lifted two fingers of his right hand on a level with the solicitor's face, the forefinger and the middle finger and ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... a pocket lamp, facing sternward, the light pouring upon what looked to be a map; and over it were bent three faces, one of which was Cunningham's. A forefinger was tracing this map. ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... by the lecturer placing his left forefinger on the outside of the right cheek, then striking it with the tip of the middle finger of the right hand, just in the same way as he would percuss ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... fluttering. The bird was so tired that when a hand was laid on her shoulder she did not writhe herself from under its touch; instead only shuddered slightly, and stared with wide eyes at the flowing river. But the hand was white, with a gleaming ring upon its forefinger, and it stole down to clasp her own. "Audrey," said a voice that was ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... to put one's hand in one's chest, and pay a tall fellow like thee for robbing one of one's own child. That custom of dowries is abominable. In the good old times a bridegroom, as was meet and proper, paid for his bride; now we poor fathers pay him for taking her. Well, well, never bite thy forefinger, and curl up thy brows. What thou hast ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... you don't," added Bandy-legs, and shaking his forefinger at Toby dramatically he continued: "Now see here, Toby, just you quit dreaming about lions and elephants and rhinoceroses and such things. Dreams come true sometimes. Think we want to wake up in the mornin' to find a lion sitting on that stump ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... forefinger of mine is certainly a curiosity. It looks like a miniature totem-pole, and I wish I had before me its life history. I'd like to know just how all these seventeen scars were acquired. It seems to have come in contact with about all sorts ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... rushed three Uhlans, sabres shining in the dim light from the window behind me; I laid my forefinger flat on the blade of my sabre and shortened my arm for a thrust—then there came a blinding flash, a roar, and I was down, trying to rise, until a clinched fist struck me in the face and I fell flat ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... to eschew it, keeping to the normal route of boat or rail; even if the soul of the desert, wrapt in mystic garments, stands with plump, henna-tipped, beckoning forefinger; for she is but a lying jade, outcome of some digestive upheaval; the spirit of the sand, the scorpions and the stars, beckoning to but the very few, and baring herself to none; though the wind may lift her robes of saffron, brown and purple, revealing for one sharp ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... more—a little more," said she, petulantly touching his hand with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and yieldingly. "It smells of spice and sugar, but I can't taste it; your wrist is so stiff, and you are ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... themselves. Helen and Kenneth were sitting up very straight and stiff, with their little legs out straight in front of them, and their small hands folded in their laps. They were listening with intent faces, and round, wide-open eyes, to Zaidee, who, with small forefinger uplifted, was telling them something, with a very serious face. The girls crept softly near to see what they ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... time, but doubtless would have acted pretty much the same in a similar stress of circumstances. The child, at any rate, appeared to be satisfied with his behavior; for when he had held it a considerable time, and set it down, it still favored him with its company, keeping fast hold of his forefinger till we reached the confines of the place. And on our return through the court-yard, after visiting another part of the establishment, here again was this same little Wretchedness waiting for its victim, with a smile of joyful, and yet dull recognition about its scabby mouth and in its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... signifie things past; in the middle, things present; and at the bottom, events to come: that white specks presage our felicity; blue ones our misfortunes: that those in the nails of the thumb have significations of honour, in the forefinger, of riches, and so ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... and forefinger of his left hand against his tongue, he emitted a low, tremulous whistle, such as he and Otto used when on hunting expeditions together. He repeated it, and then, greatly to his relief, received a reply, though it was so guarded ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... he gurgled in a thick voice. Then he pointed his frightfully thin, trembling forefinger up at the sun and shrieked, "Sun!" Next he snatched at the medals again and said, "Shines beautifully." And all the while his restless glance wandered hither and thither as if looking for something, and his ugly, bestial laugh repeated itself ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... was uncomfortable, for once the Dillon girl laughed unkindly. The boys had no games, but they jumped and threw "rocks" with great accuracy at a little birch-tree, and Daws and Tad always spat on their stones and pointed with the forefinger of the left hand first at what they were going to throw at, while Chad sat to one side and took no part, though he longed to show them what he could do. By and by they fell to wrestling, and finally Tad bantered him for a trial. Chad hesitated, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... road, where you will find much good company, but in especial one man. Is he clever? is he engaging? Mark the negligent ease of his gait, his neck's willowy curve, his languishing glance; these words are honey, that breath perfume; was ever head scratched with so graceful a forefinger? and those locks —were there but more of them left—how hyacinthine their wavy order! he is tender as Sardanapalus or Cinyras; 'tis Agathon's self, loveliest of tragedy-makers. Take these traits, that seeing you may know him; I would not have you miss so divine an apparition, the darling ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... once to solve this very simple problem, I silently unfolded and spread out upon the table my map of Europe; and each of us, as we leant over it, placing a forefinger on or near Wiesbaden (our eyes being fixed upon Dover), we remained in this reflecting attitude for some seconds, until the Prince's finger first solemnly began to trace its route. In doing this, I observed that his Highness's ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... contributed to the science of education. The first displayed the portrait of a young man with a pure brow, an iron jaw, silk socks, and hair like patent leather. Standing with one hand in his trousers-pocket and the other extended with chiding forefinger, he was bewitching an audience of men with gray beards, paunches, bald heads, and every other sign of wisdom and prosperity. Above the picture was an inspiring educational symbol—no antiquated lamp or torch or owl of Minerva, but a row of ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... 'tis a hymn," said St. Enodar, "and the tune is 'Mullyon,' for a crown." And he pursed up his lips and followed the chant, beating time with his forefinger— ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... are made to order just as we might be measured for suits of clothes. The theory is that the proper length of ski will be such that the user, can, when standing erect and reaching above his head, just crook his forefinger over it as it stands upright. Ski shoes should be strong, with well blocked toes. A pair of heavy school shoes are just the thing if ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... front-row habit. There's no use in talking, Laura, it's a great thing for a girl's credit when a man like Jerry can take two or three friends to the theatre, and when you make your entrance delicately point to you with his forefinger and say, "The third one from the front on the left belongs to muh." The old fool's hanging around some of these musical comedies lately, and I'm getting a little nervous every ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... Rosco, throwing his rifle into the hollow of his left arm, so as to bring the muzzle full on the mate's chest, while, with the forefinger of his right hand, he lightly touched the triggers, "draw your pistols from your belt, and be very careful how you do it— very careful—for if, even by chance, you touch hammer or trigger, you ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... beyond my healing powers; but as much I'm able to tell you; you can find out whether it's life or death. Keep awake till midnight, then, on the stroke of twelve, place the tip of the forefinger of your left hand against the tip of the little finger, eyelet-like, and look through at the young one. Notice carefully who lies beside her in the bed, and you'll know what ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... said Kinney, leaning forward, and taking Bartley's plump, soft knee between his thumb and forefinger, "I felt awfully about the way we parted that night. I felt bad. I hadn't acted well, just to my own mind, and it cut me to have you refuse my money; it cut me all the worse because I saw that you was partly right; I hadn't been quite fair with you. But I always did admire you, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... beautifully the trees and houses and difficult parts. Maisie herself could play more pieces than Mrs. Wix, who was moreover visibly ashamed of her houses and trees and could only, with the help of a smutty forefinger, of doubtful legitimacy in the field of art, do the smoke coming out of the chimneys. They dealt, the governess and her pupil, in "subjects," but there were many the governess put off from week to week and that they never got to at all: she only ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... useful, most ancient, most picturesque, of domestic conveniences. I know something of the shadoof of Egypt,—the same arrangement by which the sacred waters of the Nile have been lifted, from the days of the Pharaohs to those of the Khedives. That long forefinger pointing to heaven was a symbol which spoke to the Puritan exile as it spoke of old to the enslaved Israelite. Was there ever any such water as that which we used to draw from the deep, cold well, in "the old oaken bucket"? ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... he was pulling along at a snail's pace a green leaf, on which a dead bumble-bee lay in state. With the other he was keeping in order a funeral procession of caterpillars. It was a motley crowd of mourners that the energetic forefinger urged along the line of march. He had evidently collected them from many quarters,—little green worms that spun down from the apple boughs overhead; big furry brown caterpillars that had hurried along the honeysuckle trellis to escape his fat fingers; spotted ones ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... crystal has recently been found, and is now owned by Mr. Appleman. It takes about four or five years to grind and polish it. Most of the polishing, as you may or may not know, is done by the hand—smoothing it with the thumb and forefinger. The time, judgment, and skill of an optical expert is required. To-day, unfortunately, that is not cheap. The laborer is worthy of his hire, however, I suppose"—he waved a soft, full, white hand—"and forty ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... nothin'. But with me it's different. I'm blessed with imagination enough to see right through them Chinamen tricks. Them two boxes is marked "Oriental Goods" an' consigned (here Mr. Gibney raised a grimy forefinger, and Scraggs and McGuffey eyed it very much as if they expected it to go off at any moment)—"them two boxes is consigned to the Gin Seng Company, 714 Dupont Street, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... rose again and again as JOE, turning a mocking face, and shaking a minatory forefinger at the passive monumental figure of the guileless SQUIRE OF MALWOOD, did, as JOHN MORLEY, with rare outburst of anger, presently said, from his place in the centre of the Liberal Camp, "denounce and assail Liberal principles, Liberal measures, and his old ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various
... from modesty and timidity, and her gait must also be bashful and maidenly. Her long robe falls to her feet in simple folds, while Peitho holds hers up saucily, between her forefinger and thumb, as if stealthily dancing with triumph over her recent victory. Indeed the figure of Peitho would become ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and were soon able to leave them far behind, without having received any other injury than the alarm, and a sufficient notice of the danger to be encountered in disturbing the repose of their dead. On emerging from the wood, some drops of blood caused me to remark a slight scratch on the forefinger of my right hand; I attributed this to the hurry of my flight, and did not trouble myself much about it, as was my practice with trifles, but continued ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... who can neither play nor sing. Those in figure 58 are the hands of a true artist on the piano and pipe organ. The true producing artist nearly always has square hands, with large thumbs set near the wrist, thus giving a wide reach between tip of thumb and tip of forefinger, as shown in figure 58. Actors and operatic singers sometimes have conical hands, with tapering fingers. They express emotion and beauty with voice, gesture, and facial expression ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... you, Kitty?" he said to his wife, handing to her the forefinger of his right hand by way of greeting. "Well, Sophy, my love;" and he kissed his daughter. "Oh! Lucius Mason. I am very glad to see you. I can't say I should have remembered you unless I had ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... tense forefinger he pointed over the low stone balustrade at the right-hand side of the steps. Both men leaned over to look. What at first appeared to be a sodden, black rag, beaten by the rain, lay upon the ground close to the wall of the house. What was it? It was half-hidden by a rose-bush.... ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... the rough clasp that bound the book and began to turn the dingy pages. At length, he reached the one whereon the spell that he sought was written. The letters were crabbed and dim with age, and the Ash Goblin strained his eyes to see them, following the words with his crooked forefinger. He read the spell through carefully, again and again, until he was certain that he knew it by heart. Then he closed the book and returned it to its hiding-place. He made the wall fast again, and went to the chest ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... one will describe the size of a pecan is to say it is as large as his thumb and about two thirds the length of his forefinger, and so thin shelled that two of them can easily be cracked in the hand with only a ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... "If any shareholder has any question to put, I shall be glad to answer it." A soft thump. Old Jolyon had let the report and accounts fall, and stood twisting his tortoise-shell glasses between thumb and forefinger. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... grains of quinine, and I have done it; I have" (and here he took from his pocket a small round lozenge or button of bone) "—I have bored into the brains of man—into the Corinthian Capital of Mortality, so to speak. When that man" (pointing with his right forefinger to the circle of bone in his left palm) "was kicked in the head by his mule, three of my colleagues were on the scene before me—standing around like old women, doing nothing. I have elaborate instruments, sir—I don't read any ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... a conceited old beggar you are. But I'll give the devil his due and acknowledge the horses are a credit to you." He held a dollar towards him balanced on his forefinger. "Here, take this and fill ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... forest, where his brother lay turned to stone. The old witch came out of her house and called him, wishing to entrap him also, but he did not go near her, and said, "I will shoot you, if you will not bring my brother to life again." She touched the stone, though very unwillingly, with her forefinger, and he was immediately restored to his human shape. But the two gold-children rejoiced when they saw each other again, kissed and caressed each other, and rode away together out of the forest, the one home to his bride, and the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... found Bill sprawled at length on his elbows almost under the forefeet of one of the burros which was nosing him over in a friendly caress. He called out as he approached, and the big prospector sat up, deftly snapped the cigarette he had been smoking into the creek with his thumb and forefinger, and got ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... 1699, described a "very curious and antique writing instrument made of thick and strong silver wire, wound up like a hollow bottom or screw, with both the ends pointing one way, and at a distance, so that a man might easily put his forefinger between the two points, and the screw fills the ball of his hand. One of the points was the point of a bodkin, which was to write on waxed tables; the other point was made very artificially, like the head and upper beak of a cock ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... once his interest returned. It had been mailed in a far distant city in the United States, and the fine, clear handwriting was obviously feminine. He didn't have to rub the paper between his thumb and forefinger to mark its rich, heavy quality and its beauty,—the stationery of an aristocrat. The message ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... Stannard was out of the door Elliott did a strange thing. Reaching with wet pink thumb and forefinger into the depths of the blue apron pocket, she extracted the letter and hurled it across the kitchen into ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... staring through the open door, as he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, which was a habit of his when anything unusually perplexing occurred. Every door was open, a chair upset in the inner office, and Mr. Worse on the road to Paris with a hat and umbrella, Thomas after him in full ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... queen, placing a slim forefinger upon each of the documents. "I felt sure I was not mistaken. The name of my Lord Sachar heads each of these documents. Yet I think it will be remembered that, only a few days agone, I distinctly stated that none of the names ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... eager fangs To penetrate that sylphic breast! Nipping the wing-tips gently I Flirt him from danger suddenly; Strike with my cap a rapid blow, Dashing the enemy down below Thro' grass crushed safely into dust. There shivering on my stretched forefinger A little while his terrors linger, Doubting if yet his wings to trust, Ere, with a bolder flap or two, He ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... to and fro at the window, four broad beams of amusement to testify to the grotesqueness of her appearance. Nan lifted a solemn glance in return, and Chrissie, seized with a sudden demon of mischief, pointed a forefinger at the door opposite, and gesticulated violently in its direction. As plainly as words could speak, that forefinger said, "Call at the Grange! There's an adventure for you, if you like! Beard the lion in his den. I dare you to do ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... negroes. I commanded Company I, Ninth Louisiana. We went into the fight with thirty-three men. I had sixteen killed, eleven badly wounded, and four slightly. I was wounded slightly on the head, near the right eye, with a bayonet, and had a bayonet run through my right hand, near the forefinger; that will account for this miserable ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... cannot be applied with such precision in holding small objects, while it is unsuitable for performing delicate operations, such as tying a knot or writing with a pen. A monkey does not take hold of a nut with its forefinger and thumb, as we do, but grasps it between the fingers and the palm in a clumsy way, just as a baby does before it has acquired the proper use of its hand. Two groups of monkeys—one in Africa and one in South America—have no thumbs on their hands, and yet they do not seem ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... Loveit, half afraid of his contempt, and half afraid of Tarlton's ridicule, stood doubtful, and again had recourse to his battledore, which he balanced most curiously upon his forefinger. "Look at him!—now do look at him!" cried Tarlton; "did you ever in your life see anybody look so silly?—Hardy has him quite under his thumb; he's so mortally afraid of Parson Prig, that he dare not, for the soul of him, turn either ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... handed over to the gardener and seen no more in that place; so it is safe to assume that this little creature's life embraced no sorrows or disillusions. The next thing Finn knew was that his gaping mouth, held open by the Master's thumb and forefinger, was being pressed against a soft surface from which warm milk trickled. "At last!" one can imagine Finn muttering, if he had been old enough to know how to talk. Immediately his little hind-legs began to work like pistons, and his fore-paws to knead and pound at the soft udder from which the milk ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... follow me close," Droop continued, sitting far forward in his chair and pointing his speech with a thin forefinger on ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... if it were a ball, or holding it between the thumb-nail and the second joint of the first finger and shooting it with the thumb from there; but these ways are wrong. The correct way is to hold it between the tip of the forefinger and the first joint of the thumb. Marbles are divided into "taws," or well-made strong marbles with which you shoot, and "clays," or the ordinary cheap colored marbles at which you aim and with which ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... whom he always had a desire to see; two of these had slipped through his fingers, so he was determined to see the third. 'Pray, Mr. Borrow, who were they?' He held up three fingers of his left hand and pointed them off with the forefinger of the right: the first, Daniel O'Connell; the second, Lamplighter (the sire of Phosphorus, Lord Berners's winner of the Derby); the third, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... the church, on the Gospel side, could be read the words, accompanied by a black hand, the forefinger pointing to the passage leading to the cloisters: "Comite civil, Comite de surveillance, Comite de bienfaisance." A few yards further on, you came to the door of the erstwhile sacristy, over which ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... these parts," Renwick went on, "and no mischief maker. This story interests me. I should like to know——" He paused again as the old man leaned forward toward him, and laid his skinny forefinger along Renwick's knee. ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... nothing, and yet possessing all things."—The Master laid his forefinger upon the page and looked up reproachfully. "os meden echontes—my good Simeon, is it possible? A word so common as os! and after all these years ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... at his brother by way of answer. He had taken no part in the discussion; his slight lips were drawn down, as he balanced a pair of scissors on his forefinger, and he ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... luck to another test. He would abide by it—so he told himself bravely. He felt in his pocket for a coin, pulled out a half dollar, balanced it on his bent thumb and forefinger. He turned white around the mouth, as he always did when deep emotion gripped him. He hesitated. What if—? But if his luck was any good, it would hold. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... one day when I had been persuaded by some boys of our neighborhood to go and bathe in the forbidden hours, he found me in the pond, led me home, and, cutting two tough peartree switches about the thickness, at the butt, of his forefinger, he took me down into the cellar, and making me strip off my jacket, broke them up to the stumps over my back, protected only by a cotton shirt. This was the deciding event which determined me to run away from home, which I did the next week, and though my escapade did not last beyond ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... Frenchman how to carry his candle in the miner's manner, so that it could not go out, which consisted in holding it low down between the forefinger and third finger, so that the hollow palm of the hand formed a kind of shield; and then Vandeloup, hearing the sound of falling water close to him, asked what it was, whereupon Archie explained it was for ventilating purposes. The water ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... from the sod, then, with the point on the tip of the left forefinger and the haft deftly held between the thumb and finger of his right, shifted it over by his right ear and sent it whirling down, saw it sink two inches in the sand, bolt upright, then queried: "They said their camp was ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... could make nothing of them, and at last I decided that my very haste was preventing me from solving the mystery. Then I took it more slowly. Again and again my forefinger traced the ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... we stood around that table at New Scotland Yard and watched, as though we expected it to move, the ghastly "clue" which lay there. It was a shrivelled human hand, and about the thumb and forefinger there still dryly hung a fragment of lint which had bandaged a jagged wound. On one of the shrunken fingers was a ring ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... it is," Venner said. "I know quite as well as you do. Inside that box is a dried up piece of flesh, some three inches long—in other words a mummified human forefinger." ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... putting the sixpence in his pocket; "I'll explain to you. You must first catch the flea, hold him so tight between the forefinger and thumb as to force him to open his mouth; when his mouth is open you must put a very little of this powder into it, and ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... unpleasantly in the way of his impatience to be back at Raveloe and carry out his felicitous plan; and a casual visitation of his waistcoat-pocket, as he was ruminating, awakened his memory to the fact that the two or three small coins his forefinger encountered there were of too pale a colour to cover that small debt, without payment of which the stable-keeper had declared he would never do any more business with Dunsey Cass. After all, according to the direction ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... around the room, brushing the dust from her books and straightening a tiny fold in the cradle quilt. She ran an investigative forefinger along the seat of her father's saddle, brought the finger away dusty, pulled one of the stockings from the overflowing basket and used it for a dust cloth. She wiped and polished the stamped leather with a painstaking tenderness ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... It should save an hour." He drew a Government map of the quadrangle of that section from his pocket and opened it. "You see, your stop was Ellensburg; the only through road starts there." He found the thoroughfare and began to trace it with his forefinger. "It crosses rugged country; follows the canyons through these spurs of the Cascades. They push down sheer to the Columbia. See the big bend it makes, flowing south for miles along the mountains trying to find a way out to the Pacific. The ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... the stomach will throw it back, with its contents. This thoroughly empties and cleanses the stomach. From a pint to a quart is usually sufficient, although two quarts will do no harm. If the stomach does not reject it readily, thrust the forefinger down the throat to the end of ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... worst fault was disobedience, and a world of trouble it got him into. Remember that, Master Bertie: your grandpapa would be obeyed, and your papa is his own son in that respect. So take care, my dear, take care!" and the old lady shook her forefinger warningly. "But everything's forgot and forgave now," she added, more cheerfully; "and right glad I am Miss ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... four times a day, and there are eighty of you to be dosed each time," Smoke informed Laura Sibley. "So we've no time to fool. Will you take it or must I hold your nose?" His thumb and forefinger hovered eloquently above her. "It's vegetable, so ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... agonizingly sensitive to this form of torture. A forefinger extended with a threatening waggle was sufficient to rob her of every vestige of self-control, while the play of her brother's fingers over her ribs reduced her instantly to grovelling submission. To do Graham justice, he was quite unable to appreciate the fact that this pastime cost Ruth real ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... great place—most bazaar storytellers in India make their villain hail from there; but when the agony and intrigue are piled highest and the tale halts till the very last breathless sprinkle of cowries has ceased to fall on his mat, why then, with wagging head and hooked forefinger, the storyteller ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... bedroom," said Mr. Grummit, emphasizing his remarks with his forefinger. "I come up and beat the bed black and blue with the copper-stick; you scream for mercy and call out 'Help!' 'Murder!' and things like that. Don't call out 'Police!' cos Bill ain't sure about that part. Evans comes bursting in to save your life—I'll ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... France That divinely shook the dead From living man; that stretched ahead Her resolute forefinger straight And marched toward the gloomy gate ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... of his forefinger. Against the dark blue of the evening sky to northward glowed a faint phosphorescence, arch-shaped, from which shot, with pulsating regularity, long shafts of light. They beat almost to the zenith, and back again, a half dozen times, then the whole illumination disappeared ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... He closed the window to keep the rain out, and after that stood with his face flattened against the glass, staring over the river. The camp-fires were all gone now, blotted out like so many candles snuffed between thumb and forefinger, and he shuddered. No canvas ever made would keep that deluge out. And now there was growing up a wind with it. The tents on the other side would be beaten down like pegged sheets of paper, ripped up and torn to pieces. He imagined St. Pierre's wife in that tumult and distress—the breath blown ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... fellow looked hurriedly behind him, then stared again, then made gestures backward, and next pointed at Malcolm with rapid pokes of his forefinger. Bewilderment had brought on the impediment in his speech, and all Malcolm could distinguish in the babbling efforts at utterance which followed, were the words,—"Twa o' them! Twa o' them! Twa o' them!" often ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... students of words. Demosthenes and Cicero were indefatigable in their study of language. Shakespeare, "infinite in faculty," took infinite pains to embody his thought in words of crystal clearness. Coleridge once said of him that one might as well try to dislodge a brick from a building with one's forefinger as to omit a single word from one of ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... with legs nearly a yard asunder—face and throat outstretched, and covered with a plentiful white lather—right arm brandishing aloft one of Paget's best razors, and left thumb and forefinger grasping my nose. In front of me stood my faithful Hindoo valet, Verasawmy by name, with a soap-box in one hand, while his other held up to his master's gaze a small looking-glass, over the top of which his black face, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... chilly discomfort of the farmhouse parlour, unused, save on state occasions—a funereal gloom which no sunlight could pierce, a mustiness which savoured almost of the grave. One by one they obeyed the stern forefinger of Gideon Strong, and took their seats on comfortless chairs and the horse-hair sofa. First came John Magee, factor and agent to the Earl of Cumberland, a great man in the district, deacon of the chapel, slow and ponderous in his movements. A man of few words but much piety. After him, with some ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... loved him, I whom he fooled to the top of my pride, judge him too harshly? I tell you if an angel from heaven had witnessed against him I would have laughed the tale to scorn. But I have seen—I have seen with my own eyes. The man who came to the door and threatened us had lost a joint of the forefinger. Yesterday I saw that man with him; I saw the hand that held the pistol to-day give him a note yesterday. I saw him read the note, and I saw him point me out to the man who bore it—that he might know to-day whom he was to seize! Oh shame! Shame on him!' And ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... seedling by the stem between the thumb and forefinger, and with a small round pointed stick or dibber, or with the forefinger of the other hand, make a hole deep enough to receive the roots and about half the length—more if the seedlings are lanky—of the stem. As the little plant is dropped ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... an arm's length, lifted his right forefinger, as in warning, and without a word went on out of the room, though I observed his exit no more than I had ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... fellows, knowing the extravagant gullibility of the age, set their wits to work in the imagination of improbable possibilities—-of odd accidents, as they term them; but to a reflecting intellect (like mine," I added, in parenthesis, putting my forefinger unconsciously to the side of my nose,) "to a contemplative understanding such as I myself possess, it seems evident at once that the marvelous increase of late in these 'odd accidents' is by far the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... up a stone off the path, a little, pointed stone, and began to scrape the letters carefully. He slowly effaced them altogether, and with the hollows of his eyes he looked at the places where they had been engraved, and, with the tip of the bone, that had been his forefinger, he wrote in luminous letters, like those lines which one traces on walls with the tip of a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... juvenile hobo. But sticking out of his soaking pocket was that one indubitable sign of identification, his rimless hat cut full of holes and decorated with its variety of badge buttons. Ruefully, Mr. Denny lifted this dripping masterpiece of original handiwork, and held it between his thumb and forefinger. ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... should be seized with a forceps or pincers and slightly drawn clear of the surrounding tissues. Now take the thread and place the middle of it under the artery, take up the ends, tie one simple knot tightly, pressing the thread down with the forefinger so as not to include the forceps, then a second one over it and cut off the ends. The bleeding being arrested, the operator can now carefully clean and inspect the wound, taking care to remove all blood ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... pointing his forefinger at the man in irons. "You have disobeyed my orders. You are no longer an askari. You are a common porter, and from now on will carry a load. It is not my custom to use kiboko on askaris; but a common porter ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... were a ball, or holding it between the thumb-nail and the second joint of the first finger and shooting it with the thumb from there; but these ways are wrong. The correct way is to hold it between the tip of the forefinger and the first joint of the thumb. Marbles are divided into "taws," or well-made strong marbles with which you shoot, and "clays," or the ordinary cheap colored marbles at which you aim and with which you pay ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the name of their beloved Asia; and whether they wandered north, south, or west, exalting their own emphatic designation of 'Children of the Land of Light' into the title of gods. And to think, (added Mr. Caxton pathetically, gazing upon that speck in the globe on which his forefinger rested,)—to think how little they changed for the better when they got to the Don, or entangled their rafts amidst the icebergs of the Baltic—so comfortably off as they were here, if they could ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... sighed. I stood staring at him, open-mouthed with astonishment. He was evidently pouring out now all the discontent, displeasure and disgust, which had been gathering up during the whole of our journey. To convince me more thoroughly, he poked me in the chest from time to time with his forefinger, and shook me by the shoulder. During the most impressive parts of his speech he pushed up against me with his whole massive body. The rain was pouring down on us, the thunder never ceased its muttering, and to make me hear, Shakro shouted ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... hedge, landed among water-logged clods, and sat down on a rust-coated harrow. The cheroot burned with sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to the other between dosed forefinger ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... the tail-pocket of his long broadcloth coat he pulled a red bandanna handkerchief and blew his nose. He put the big blunt forefinger of his right hand on the text of the open ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... asked if the servants on this plantation ever had the chance to learn how to read or to write he answered: "They was all afraid to even try because they would cut these off," and he held up his right hand and pointed to his thumb and forefinger. At any rate the "Widow," nieces taught him to read a few months before the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... candle with his forefinger and thumb, making the flame brighter, and then holding the light close to the flat face of the wall, they examined stone after stone; but as far as they could make out, they had not been tampered with since the day the masons ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... of giving comfort to somebody to arouse all Amy's natural hopefulness, and she commanded with a shake of her forefinger:— ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Triton's lady, placing her forefinger significantly on her lips; "you peril your life by talking thus without guard. Go to the door; look out, that you may see if there be any listeners, then I will tell something ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... attends on Mrs. Connolly beckons him, with a grimy forefinger, to the repast within. He accepts ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... puzzled. She had not resented his strange intrusion. She had accepted it, indeed, with curious equanimity. Her forefinger lingered still over the little ivory knob of the bell attached to her desk. He ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stood with an extended forefinger and the knitted brows of one anticipating a catastrophic smash. The cyclist, who was sitting next the lamp, ducked and jumped across the bar. Everybody jumped, more or less. Miss Maybridge turned and screamed. For nearly three seconds the lamp remained ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... that a capital substitute for a very rude sextant is afforded by the outstretched hand and arm. The span between the middle finger and the thumb subtends an angle of about 15 degrees, and that between the forefinger and the thumb an angle of 11 1/4 degrees, or one point of the compass. Just as a person may learn to walk yards accurately, so may he learn to span out these angular distances accurately; and the horizon, however broken it may be, is always before his eyes to check him. Thus, if he begins from ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... lift the blotting pad, her forefinger had dropped upon the signature and had been drawn across, leaving nothing more than an ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... on Sunday. It was worse even than that. One night—we were sitting out on the veranda—her scarf slipped, and I saw a scar on her arm, near her shoulder." Hardy stopped abruptly and began to roll a little pellet of bread between his thumb and his forefinger; then his tense expression faded and he sat ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... retirement—which Clarissa spun out until the spring flowers were blooming in the meadows about Arden—was a comparative immunity from the society of Miss Granger. That young lady made a dutiful call upon her stepmother every morning, and offered a chilling forefinger—rather a strong-minded forefinger, with a considerable development of bone—to the infant. On the child not receiving this advance with rapture, Miss Granger was wont to observe that he was not so forward in taking notice as some ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... of love-charms is as cold as ice, as pure as snow. The priest has crusaded against her, and stones have flown at her as she went by from dissatisfied lovers; and the very children, paddling in the sea and making mud-pies in the sand, have put out forefinger and little finger and screamed, "Witch, witch! ugly witch!" as she passed with basket or brick load; but Dionea has only smiled, that snake-like, amused smile, but more ominous than of yore. The other ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... little cherub," said Celia, touching, with a forefinger as light as a feather, the dimple on the child's chin; "and, of course, he isn't any trouble. And you wouldn't think he was, if he were, would you? What is ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... caressing the volumes with his eyes and hands, and, once, recognized a book he had read. For the rest, they were strange books and strange authors. He chanced upon a volume of Swinburne and began reading steadily, forgetful of where he was, his face glowing. Twice he closed the book on his forefinger to look at the name of the author. Swinburne! he would remember that name. That fellow had eyes, and he had certainly seen color and flashing light. But who was Swinburne? Was he dead a hundred years or so, like most of the poets? Or was he alive still, and writing? He turned to the title-page ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... glancing now and then toward points of danger and insurrection, whence came a suspicious buzz of whispering from behind a desk-lid or a pair of widespread large geographies. Now and then a toiling child would rise and come down the aisle, with his forefinger firm upon a puzzling word as if it were an unclassified insect. It was a lovely beckoning day out-of-doors. The children felt like captives; there was something that provoked rebellion in the droning voices, the buzzing of an early wild bee against ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the affair of the night before; it was the children's obvious alarm which reminded her that the business of scolding and punishing must be attended to. She got up from the table and stood behind them, with her back to the fire; she began to nibble the upper joint of her forefinger, wondering just how to begin. This silent inspection of their shoulders made the little creatures quiver. Nannie crumbled her bread into a heap, and Blair carried an empty spoon to his mouth with automatic regularity; Harris, in the pantry, in a paroxysm of sympathy, stretched his lean neck to the ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... of the salve on her forefinger and rubbed the baby's eyes with it, and then the mother bade her go and wash off any particle of salve that might be ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... the man backed Gusset into the hall, for he was following into the drawing-room, making him open his thick lips in fish like fashion once again as if to speak; but a prod in the ribs given by the sergeant's forefinger forced obedience, and he went out unwillingly ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... He went over to the bed, tilted up Jim's chin with his forefinger and looked straight into ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... jumping to conclusions, felt suddenly thrilled, and he made up his mind that an early development in the case would be the taking of the impressions of Captain Beamish's right thumb and forefinger. ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... the man, for he bowed politely, and seemed to expect the company. He was a tall, thin, and well-dressed man, and held in his hand a small package. Instantly upon his appearance every man in the room stuck his thumb and forefinger into his vest pocket, and pulling out a little piece of printed paper, said, "Sir, I called—" ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... a forefinger into his waistcoat pocket, and produced one of the hexagonal slugs of gold current ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... the man rapidly collapsed and died. At the post-mortem a traumatic aneurism the size of an orange was found in connection with an oval wound in the first portion of the left subclavian artery which admitted the tip of the forefinger. ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... gestures of her little forefinger, she told him all her dream of the angels and the swings and the singing and the music ... and of ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... said Fanny. "No wonder that they look so little, for the book here says her forefinger is four feet long. Look at that figure on the top of the big building yonder. That Is Diana, the huntress. How tall ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... up the Rigid Forefinger and warned him that he was merely a Grain of Dust and a Weakling and a poor juvenile Mutt whose Mission in Life was to ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... responses, and sometimes he leads them a little bit ahead of time," Dolph enlightened him. "Besides that, he keeps his lean forefinger on the word that Brenton happens to be reading, ready to help him out on the pronunciation, if it is necessary. Between whiles, he counts up the congregation and divides it by ten, to make sure that he gets the right amount of offertory. Really, he ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... circle around the wheel; the mate is on the look-out over the bows; all at once, he shouts out: "There they are! the nets!" Down goes Picton's book on the deck; Bruce catches up a rope and fastens it to a large iron hook; the sailors run to the side of the vessel; captain releases his forefinger from baby's hand, and catches the wheel; all is excitement in a moment. "Starboard!" shouts the mate, as the nets come sweeping on, directly in front of the cut-water. The schooner obeys the wheel, sheers off, ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... you are to believe that I dozed and woke by snatches. I watched the moon descend in her foggy circle; but I saw also the mulberry face and minatory forefinger of Mr. Romaine, and caught myself explaining to him and Mr. Robbie that their joint proposal to mortgage my inheritance for a flying broomstick took no account of the working-model of the whole Rock and Castle of Edinburgh, which I dragged about by an ankle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me one day, a-setting of 's chin in 's thumb and forefinger (thou mind'st his solemn ways)—quoth he to me, "Lemon," quoth he, "would I knew why the Lord doth seem to look with a more bounteous favor on such as are farriers, than on such as be followers of other trades; for methinks, what with thee, and Turnip, and Job Long-pate, ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... he laughed again. Her air of severe worldly experience and that small warning forefinger ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... came out of her house and called him, wishing to entrap him also, but he did not go near her, and said, "I will shoot you, if you will not bring my brother to life again." She touched the stone, though very unwillingly, with her forefinger, and he was immediately restored to his human shape. But the two gold-children rejoiced when they saw each other again, kissed and caressed each other, and rode away together out of the forest, the one home to his bride, and the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... comfort than a very sensitive organization might find acceptable. The Master does not seem to like him much, for some reason or other,—perhaps he has a special aversion to the odor of tobacco. As his forefinger shows a little too distinctly that he uses a pen, I shall compliment him by calling him the Man of Letters, until I find ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of Weldon's safety, he ambled around the gray broncho in a clumsy circle. The gray broncho showed her appreciation of the attention by nipping viciously at the flank of his horse. By Weldon's left side, Kruger Bobs halted and pointed an accusing forefinger ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... of Jimmy Grayson swelled and towered, his hand was raised, the long forefinger pointed directly at the four who stood in the dazzling light, and the hall resounded with the tremendous echoes of his cry, "Thou ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... he did not run away. Instead, he bobbed up inside of the negro's reach. The Mexican thrust out his slim, sinewy right-hand forefinger. A vicious poke he gave with it, landing sharply on a spot just about an inch and a quarter below the base of the negro's ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... his chin with his forefinger, which was probably a habit with him when puzzled, and stood looking down out of the corner of his eyes at ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... Examine a few of the many varieties of other kinds of starch granules, as in rice, arrowroot, etc. Press some dry starch powder between the thumb and forefinger, and note the ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... his cunning was of an exceptional order. From his coat pocket he brought forth a pill box. In this receptacle Shandy dipped a forefinger, and rubbed into the fresh cut of the leather a trifle of blackened axle grease which he had taken from a wagon wheel before starting out. Then he wiped the rein with his coat tail and ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... deliver him straightway over the walls such a tub of boiling water as shall scald the hair from his goatskin cloak. And, hark thee, do thou, in the first place, try the temperature of the kettle with thy forefinger, and that shall be thy penance for the trick thou hast ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the day they first foregathered. The converts served as witnesses. Bill stood over the missionary, prompting him when he stumbled. Stockard put the responses in the woman's mouth, and when the time came, for want of better, ringed her finger with thumb and forefinger of ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... circumstances. The child, at any rate, appeared to be satisfied with his behavior; for when he had held it a considerable time, and set it down, it still favored him with its company, keeping fast hold of his forefinger till we reached the confines of the place. And on our return through the court-yard, after visiting another part of the establishment, here again was this same little Wretchedness waiting for its victim, with a smile of joyful, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... had been inserted in the budget for it. Keech brought me paper and pencil and I talked with the aid of diagrams, as engineers are wont to do. Although the pencils were small and I had to hold them between thumb and forefinger, as you would a needle, I was able to make many sensible observations ...
— Houlihan's Equation • Walt Sheldon
... the room to the fireplace. He took out his handkerchief, and, seizing a corner between a thumb and forefinger, slowly shook it ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... orators conformed to types familiar to Bradley. There was the legal type, monotonously emphatic, with extended forefinger, which pointed, threatened and delineated. His speaking wore on the ear like a saw-filing. Then there was the political speaker, the stump orator, who was full of well-worn phrases, who could not mention the price of wool or the number of cotton bales without using ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... not an insult, Mr. Daunt. I intended it to be merely a frank expression of opinion. Just a moment, please!" he urged, breaking in on violent language. He brought his thumb and forefinger together to make a circle and poised his hand over his head. "I don't wear one of these. I have no right to wear one. Halo, I mean! I'm no prig or preacher—at least, I don't mean to be. But when I talk business I intend to talk it straight and use few words—and those words may sound rather ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... little Elma!" said Carrie, shaking her forefinger in a very knowing manner "She didn't like to tell about Sam, and so she made up that story, did she? Well, it was an untruth. She didn't spend that money on dress; she—well, I will tell you—I ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely 5 pointing with his square forefinger. "I don't know that girl. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... while the dark began to lighten, and Henry stopped short in surprise. Paul was walking in such automatic fashion that he almost ran against him before he stopped. Henry pointed with a long forefinger to a red spot ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Anastasius, who stood at the window, and regarded them with astonished and sympathetic glances. The abbot nodded to him and laid his forefinger lightly upon his lips; he then hastily crossed the threshold ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... first assume the position of a soldier or march at attention. Look the officer you are to salute straight in the eye. Then, when the proper distance separates you, raise the right hand smartly till the tip of the forefinger touches the lower part of the headdress or forehead above the right eye, thumb and fingers extended and joined, palm to the left, forearm inclined at about 45 deg., hand and wrist straight. Continue to look the officer you are saluting straight in the Eye and keep your hand in the position ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... hurry and do something about this," advised Elfreda, lightly touching the paper with her forefinger, "or it will be ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... called in by the simple process of the old man beckoning to me with his forefinger over the gate of his house as I happened to be driving past. ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... of Achilles? My boy, she is your sword-arm!" His sturdy forefinger ran along the line of frontier under his eye with little staccato leaps. "Eh?" he ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... at first that her eyes deceived her. She stole across the room and touched the key timidly with her forefinger to make sure. Then she lifted the lid a little way and let it fall again, looking over her shoulder as if fearing to hear a sharp voice from the stairs. Next, grown bolder, she opened the lid wide. There lay the red shawl, just ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... to note The Ladies notes of me, but held my talke, With that Italionate Frenchman, and tooke time (Still as our conference serv'd) to shew my Courtship In the three quarter legge, and setled looke, The quicke kisse of the top of the forefinger, And other such exploytes of good Accost; All which the Ladies tooke into their eyes With such attention that their favours swarm'd About my bosome, in my hart, mine eares, In skarffes about my thighes, upon mine armes Thicke on my wristes, and thicker on my hands, ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... are very rich," shouted the barkeeper, a beet-faced man whose huge girth was bound in a red cotton sash, and he made a gesture suggestive of coins, rubbing thumb and forefinger together. ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... have put in the centre of the cage, as part of the decorations, a stump of a tree, which was hollow, and contained a navy revolver and a bowie-knife. When he gave the command to Brutus to leap forward against the spears, Brinton stood alongside of the stump with one hand inside of it, his forefinger playing with the trigger of the revolver. The apprehension of a recurrence of the critical scene which has been narrated was however groundless. Brutus dutifully leaped forward and smashed the brittle spears, without ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... going into our Headquarters, when a shell burst in the Square and some fragments landed in our street taking off the fingers of his right hand. I was away at the time, but when I returned in the evening the signallers showed me a lonely (p. 291) forefinger resting on a window sill. They had reverently preserved it, as it was the finger which used to count out five-franc notes to them when they were going ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... the end of the thumb to the end of the forefinger (both extended)—about equivalent ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... on the top of the breech, with percussion pills or primings, and the tube, under the barrel, with the hollow cartridges containing gunpowder. Of these cartridges the tube will hold twenty-four. Place the forefinger in the ring which forms the end of the lever, e, and the thumb on the hammer, elevating the muzzle sufficiently to let the cartridge nearest the breech slip, by its gravity, into the carrier d; swing the lever forward, and raise the hammer which moves the breech-pin back, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... whose name was Billy Hughes, and he looked just like you." I told him there were three boys of us; that we were sold to different parties, and that I had never seen either of my brothers since. One brother was named William, but went by the nickname of Billy. "Has this man had his forefinger cut off," asked I. "Oh!" replied he, "I don't know, Hughes, about that." "Well," said I, "this is all I remember about Billy. I accidentally chopped off his forefinger one day, when we were small boys in Virginia. This is the only thing by which I could identify ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... Augustus, and the Scipios, and most other personages whose mausoleums have been conspicuous enough to attract the violator; and as for dead men's hair, I have seen a lock of King Edward the Fourth's, of a reddish-brown color, which perhaps was once twisted round the delicate forefinger of Mistress Shore. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... particular—insist that he was begot by a devil in person, just as Merlin was, and Plato the philosopher, and puissant Alexander. Nobody knows anything about his origin." Guido was sitting upon the ground, his open pack between his knees. Between the thumb and forefinger of each hand he held caressingly a string of pearls which he inspected as he talked. "Nobody," he idly said, "nobody is very eager to discuss Count Eglamore's origin now that Eglamore has become indispensable to Duke Alessandro. Yes, it ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... loosely, and placed it under Jan's head. Then he reached for his spoon, and proceeded to force down a little more warm whisky and milk beside the clenched jaws. One knew, by the way he lifted one of Jan's flews, raised the dog's head, and gently rubbed his gullet between thumb and forefinger to help the liquor down, that he had handled sick dogs before to-day. He had covered Jan's body with an old buffalo robe, and now he proceeded to fill a jar with boiling water, and placed that ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... settynge of the foremost fynger crossewayes on the thombe, so that 80 dyffereth thus fro{m} 40, that for 80 the forefynger is set crosse on the thombe, and for 40 the thombe is set crosse ouer y^e forefinger. ...
— The Earliest Arithmetics in English • Anonymous
... yet to simply use one's forefinger. The tube is taken in the right hand, as shown in Fig. 3, and the forefinger placed over the aperture. The finger should be wetted in order to perfect its adherence, and should not be pressed too hard against the mouth of the tube. It is only necessary to plunge the apparatus a few inches ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... most outrageous, high-handed,—" began Landover, explosively, but stopped short as Percival levelled his unlovely forefinger ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... followed on Billebedam's departure by heaping the dirty plates higher on the table and drumming a tattoo on the cleared space with his knuckles. Hutchinson snuffed the smoky candle and reflectively rubbed the soot from the wick between thumb and forefinger. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... board, while the thumb pushes the gage forward. The hand must not, under any circumstances, be used to move the gage along. In fact, it is not necessary for the fingers to be clasped around the gage stem, if the forefinger presses tightly against the cheekpiece, since the thumb performs all the operation of moving it along. Naturally, the hand grasps the tool in order to hold it down against the material, and to bring it back for a ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... Lord James made no reply, but stood ruminating, with the forefinger of his left hand pressing his nether ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... replied by a shake of her head and a raised forefinger of reproval. "Now, Johnny, I won't answer a single question till you smooth out those lines between ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... teacher's head to a sky-light in the roof. Gray's utterance was rather hesitant. He would catch for his word often, reiterating meanwhile the article, "the-a, the-a, the-a," his gaze meanwhile fixed upon the sky-light, and a nervously gyrating forefinger raised high and brightly illuminated. The thought suggested was that he had a prompter on the roof to whom he was distressfully appealing to supply the true phrase. For Professor Gray the truth was in the top rather than the bottom of the well. Though sometimes long in coming it was the right ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... and Loveit, half afraid of his contempt, and half afraid of Tarlton's ridicule, stood doubtful, and again had recourse to his battledore, which he balanced most curiously upon his forefinger. "Look at him!—now do look at him!" cried Tarlton; "did you ever in your life see anybody look so silly?—Hardy has him quite under his thumb; he's so mortally afraid of Parson Prig, that he dare not, for the soul of him, turn either of his ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... mills?" I asked the child with the white head. She stuck her forefinger in her mouth, looked shyly ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... got up and, going to the fire, sprinkled over the flames six drachms of belladonna, three drachms of drosera and one ounce of nux vomica; using in each case his left hand. Returning to his former position he drew with the forefinger of his left hand, on the ground, the outline of a club-foot; a hand with the fingers clenched and a long pointed thumb standing upright; and a bat. At his request Kelson and Curtis carefully imitated the devices, each in the space allotted ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... and I sought I come now so to go home viss mine hussbandt." There, at last, she smiled, and to make the caressing pride of her closing tone still prettier, lifted her figured muslin out sidewise between thumb and forefinger of each hand with even ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... the king, tapping his forehead with his forefinger, 'I have it all. I've found her out. Don't you see it, queen? Princess Makemnoit has ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
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