"Dab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... think it very likely that it was a strain of that boyishness which I hope survives in us all, and one of whose quaint fancies is an envy of house-painters, so happy all day with paint-pot and brush and great smooth boards to dab and smooth, that decided him to do the job himself. Mr. Moggridge had this great element of refinement, that he ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... for the law, A dunce at syntax, but a dab at law, One happy christmas laid upon the shelf His cap and gown, and stores of learned pelf. With all the deathless bards of Greece and Rome, To spend a fortnight at his uncle's home. Arriv'd, and pass'd the usual how d'ye do's, Inquiries ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... passed through the shops, dropping a word to a workman here and there, the man addressed looked up cheerfully and made a furtive dab at the brown paper cap, and Richard returned the salute smilingly; but he was sad within. "The foolish fellows," he said to himself, "they are throwing away a full loaf and are likely to get none at all." Giles and two or three of the ancients were squaring a block of marble under a shelter ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... fellow, with enormous arms, protruding rheumy eyes, a florid complexion, and a voluminous red beard. His opponent was of a much smaller build, with pale features, a tiny moustache, and watery blue eyes. He wore a pince-nez, and from the length of his hair and a dab of crimson lake upon his shirt cuff, I argued ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... dab out, as Sibby calls it,' said Lance. 'It's my puggery. Ever since it fell overboard it has been a disgrace to human nature, so I have been washing it, and now ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shoulders, whose range Has Olympus for one pole, for t' other the Exchange; Life, nature, lore, God, and affairs of that sort, He looks at as merely ideas; in short, As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet, Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it; Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her, Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer; You are filled with delight at his clear demonstration, Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the occasion, ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... great assenting dab at the fire, necessitating a prompt examination of all her gear to see if ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... my father, "just move your tusk a little nearer, please, and I'll show you how to begin." My father wet the brush in the pool, squeezed on a dab of tooth paste, and scrubbed very hard in one tiny spot. Then he told the rhinoceros to wash it off, and when the pool was calm again, he told the rhinoceros to look in the water and see how white the little spot was. It ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett
... Monday it was the urgency of going back that confronted her. She had come down in the morning to find her breakfast laid in just the way she liked it—tea, a soft-boiled egg, buttered toast, and, as a special temptation to a capricious appetite, a dab of marmalade. She sat down to the table unwillingly, sipping at the tea and nibbling at the toast, but leaving the egg and the marmalade untouched. In her mother's bustling to and fro she felt the long-delayed protest in the atmosphere. It came ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... six a side, were at it with might and main (payment by results being the rule in this department of industry), and attendant boys strolled up and down, picking the fleeces from the floor and carrying them to the sorter's table. One was the tar-boy, whose business it was to dab a brushful of tar upon any scarlet patch appearing upon a white under-coat where the shears had clipped too close. The sorter or classer stood behind his long table, above and at right angles to the lines of sheep-pens and shearers. ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... have to wait long. Not far to the north in the hard blue sky suddenly appeared a little dab of woolly white. Another showed in the east. They showed all about, and grew and grew in size until they became great, over-toppling, blending mountains, a new and mysterious world against the sky. Then came a darkening of the mass. The cumulus was changing ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... because, poor man, he had outlived the times for which he was qualified; and, instead of the merriment and jocularity that his wily by- hand ways used to cause among his neighbours, the rising generation began to pick and dab at him, in such a manner, that, had he been much longer spared, it is to be feared he would not have been allowed to enjoy his earnings both with ease and honour. However, he got out of the world with some respect, and the matters of which I have now to speak, are exalted, both in method and ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... soon fed, and then, with the Candy Rabbit in his pocket and slowly wheeling the empty barrow, Patrick made his way to Madeline's house. He knocked at the back door, and the cook, with a dab of flour on ...
— The Story of a Candy Rabbit • Laura Lee Hope
... had warning of it, luckily. I was up pretty early this morning and was just about to leave the house, when a dab of snow—a couple of tons, maybe—came down and knocked off my chimney. I knew what that meant, and I didn't waste much time, you may be sure, in getting out. I grabbed my rifle and ran for it. I was hardly out of my door when the roar began, and you may guess ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... was 'shame' too," continued Sarah, "for she gave them a dab with her paw on their ears, and said ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... through her handkerchief, which she was using to dab her eyes; of Longstreet she never for an instant lost sight. She saw the eagerness in his eyes and knew that it was an eagerness to believe in her. She saw Helen's anger and contempt; she saw Carr's black looks; she saw, too, how Howard kept his eyes always on Helen's face, and she read ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... party? There was no more satire in it, so far as he is concerned, than in painting lilies white. A full-length portrait of the fair Lady Beatrix, too, must needs show a gay and vivid figure, superbly glittering across the vista of those stately days. Then, should Dab and Tab, the eminent critics, step up and demand that her eyes be a pale blue, and her stomacher higher around the neck? Do Dab and Tab expect to gather pears from peach-trees? Or, because their theory ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... and greased, had been waiting for several days, were put in their places, and the great steam engines and windlasses, which had been ready as long a time, were set in motion. And, as the house began to move upon its course, it almost missed a parting dab from the brush of a painter who was at work upon some ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... well-brought-up and industrious young man was Hamilton Morris, and he had not the least idea of the good in store for him for several months after Mrs. Kinzer decided to marry him to her daughter Miranda; but all was soon settled. Dab, of course, had nothing to do with the wedding arrangements, and Ham's share was somewhat contracted. Not but what he was at the Kinzer house a good deal; nor did any of the other girls tell Miranda how very much he was in the way. He could talk, however; and one morning, about a fortnight ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... Delicate little hooded women, heads of Artemis with the crown of Cybele, winged heads, or heads covered with the Phrygian cap, portrait-heads of girls or children, with their sharp profiles still perfect, and the last dab of the clay under the thumb of the artist, as clear and clean as when it was laid ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Osborn, "it is fairly lighting-up time, and that no one can accuse us of being extravagant if we call for the match-boxes. Brother Maghull, please get to work. And, yes, you too, Brother Hartley, if you will. You're always a dab at regulating them." ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... on the lattice of the mouth, inspects it attentively; but, whether because circumstances failed to serve me, or because the wire network inspired her with distrust, I never saw her dab her eggs upon it for certain. As her evidence was doubtful, I had recourse ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... that cold porridge I'll take—um, yes—a little hot partridge. And you might as well bring me an oyster or two on the half shell, and a mouthful of soup (mock-turtle, consomme, anything), and perhaps you might fetch along a dab of fish, and a little peck of Stilton, and a grape, ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... of herself, rather dreading the apology she would feel called upon to make for her abrupt reversion to the first principles of her sex. The sobs ceased entirely. I experienced the sharp joy of relaxation. Her dainty lace handkerchief found employment. First she would dab it cautiously in one eye, then the other, after which she would scrutinise its crumpled surface with most extraordinary interest. At least a dozen times she repeated this puzzling operation. What in the world was she looking for? To this day, that strange, sly peeking ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... forward bawling. The youth saw his features wrathfully red, and saw him make a dab with his sword. His one thought of the incident was that the lieutenant was a peculiar creature to feel interested in such matters ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... they are! It was the most absurd kiss. I don't believe he'd ever kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my head back, and it was a sort of slidy, pecking dab, just on the end of the chin—here." Mrs. Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin with her fan. "Then, of course, I was furiously angry, and told him that he was no gentleman, and I was sorry I'd ever met him, and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a-goin' to fire into him, so I gave the frigate a dig wi' my heels—tho' I'd got no irons on 'em—an' tried to shove up alongside of a fat young cow as was skylarkin' on ahead. As we went past the bull he made a vicious dab wi' his horn, and caught the frigate on her flank—right abaft the mizzen chains, like. Whew! you should ha' seen what a sheer she made right away to starboard! If it hadn't bin that I was on the look-out, I'd ha' bin slap overboard that time, but I see'd the squall comin', an', seizin' my ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... hot out here, Judy," she complained as that indefatigable artist sat on the beach with her easel before her, in a blue work-apron, and with a dab ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... consisted simply in putting a dab of printer's ink on one of the drumsticks at the very last moment before the seance began. The result could not prove physically injurious to the Medium, who had challenged investigation, nor to any one in the circle. The result ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... sensitive as she looked she had a marvellous power of concealing it. She never shrank. She was apparently never wounded. She seldom showed that any subject jarred on her. It is affirmed that animals develop certain organs to meet the exigencies of their environment. A sole's eye (or is it a sand-dab's?) travels up round its head regardless of appearances when it finds it is more wanted there than on the lower side. We often see a similar distortion in the mental features of the wives of literary men. So perhaps also Magdalen had adapted ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... sunlit part, full of growth of the most dazzling green. Now he neared the insect; now it dashed off again, and led him a tremendous chase, till, just as the doctor shouted to him to return, we saw him make a dab down with ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... potatoes into slices of equal thickness, say the thickness of two penny pieces; and as they are cut out of hand, let them be dropped into a pan of cold water. When about to fry the potatoes, first drain them on a clean cloth, and dab them all over, in order to absorb all moisture; while this has been going on, you will have made some kind of fat (entirely free from water or gravy, such as lard, for instance) very hot in a frying-pan, and into this drop your prepared potatoes, ...
— A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes • Charles Elme Francatelli
... Euphemia. "Now we know what Nature is. We are sitting right down in her lap, and she is cuddling us up. Isn't that sky lovely? Oh! I think this is perfectly splendid," said she, making a little dab at her face,—"if ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random, Just as much for us that sobbing dirge ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... lamb. The girls will all, eventually, put on; fill up"—Sylvia added a dab of clay to a doubtful curve—"but men, when they chip off from the approved design, look like nothing on earth ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... and green "Northern Spies"; and last of all the snow-apples with their contrast of deep crimson outside and white flesh within. The windfalls covered the ground ready to the hand; and the branches bent under their burden. It was the season of apple-sauce with cinnamon, and baked apples with a dab of jelly where the core ought to be, and apple-tapioca and Brown Betty. And these tasted wondrous good, even to youngsters already ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... color. Pictures surprise me as much as poems. Ah, men are marvellous creatures, when they are once brought to understand that they are men,—not beasts! One will take a few words and harmonize them into a song or a verse that clings to the world for ever; another will mix a few paints and dab a brush in them, and give you a picture that generation after generation shall flock to see. It is what is called genius,—and genius is a sort of miracle. Yet I think it is fostered by climate a good deal,—the further north, the less inspiration. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... of the two preceding elements, the direct creation and the metaphor: le cab jaspine, je marronne que la roulotte de Pantin trime dans le sabri, the dog is barking, I suspect that the diligence for Paris is passing through the woods. Le dab est sinve, la dabuge est merloussiere, la fee est bative, the bourgeois is stupid, the bourgeoise is cunning, the daughter is pretty. Generally, to throw listeners off the track, slang confines itself to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... accidentally but I did it as guiltily as a child touches something forbidden. She didn't say a word, just watched me mischievously while she arranged the tea cups on the other end of the table. Presently she lighted a tiny temple lamp, melted a dab of sealing wax in its wavering blue flames—rose-colored wax it was—and it splashed out on the gray blotter ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... dear, so that we shall positively be furthering their wishes. Come, Jane; ain't I only wise in bringing my indiscretions to you to set right, since you are such a dab at getting ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... Black Friars sitting back to back Fished from the bridge for a pike or a jack. The first caught a tiddler, the second caught a crab, The third caught a winkle, the fourth caught a dab, The fifth caught a tadpole, the sixth caught an eel, And the seventh ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... washing, pulverizing and crushing, it is ready to be worked up into domestic and other utensils. Squatted upon the ground, the potter places in her lap a small basket, wood, or pottery base, upon which she places a "dab" of clay. This she thumbs and pats, until it forms the basis of the new vessel. Then another piece of clay is rapidly rolled between her hands, until it is in the form of along rope. This rope is then coiled around the edge of the ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... perilously. She slanted around a corner in graceful opposition to the centrifugal, brought the tray to port on a sort of landing stage by a pillar, and began energetically to distribute small "iron-ware" dishes, each containing a dab of something. When the clash of arrival ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... at it! Why, my brother set up a place once for mending bicycles; and I used to stand about at the door, as if I had just returned from a ride; and when fellows came in, with a nut loose or something, I'd begin talking with them while Bertie tightened it. Then, when THEY weren't looking, I'd dab the business end of a darning-needle, so, just plump into their tires; and of course, as soon as they went off, they were back again in a minute to get a puncture ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... some fine leaves will be ready in a week, while others may need several months. Look at the leaves every day, and when one seems to be ready slip a piece of cardboard under it and shake it about gently in fresh cold water. If any green stuff remains, dab it with a soft brush and then put it into another basin of clean water. A fine needle can be used to take away any small and obstinate pieces of green. It is now a skeleton and must be bleached according to the following directions:—Pour into a large ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... but I repeat it here, that there must never be too much sauce, however good, to any dish, and that the consistency is most important: it must be thick enough to mask a spoon, yet run from it freely. Nothing can be worse than a dab of white mush being served as sauce, unless it be a quantity of thin, milky soup floating on every plate. This is where the happy medium must be struck. It is perfectly easy to give exact proportions to produce certain ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... phaeton. My grandfather drove. I sat next, my feet swinging clear of the lunchbox. My brother had the outside, a place denied to me for fear that I might fall across the wheel. When we were all set, my mother made a last dab at my nose—an unheeded smudge having escaped my vigilance. Then my grandfather said, "Get up,"—twice, for the lazy horse chose to regard the first summons as a jest. We start. The great wheels turn. My brother leans ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... 'A joke is a joke, if it tante carried too far, but this critter win be strangled, as sure as a gun, if he lays here splutterin' this way much longer.' So I jist gives the hoss a dab in the mouth, and made him git up; and then sais I, 'Prince,' sais I, for I know'd him by his beard, he had one exactly like one of the old saint's heads in an Eyetalian pictur, all dressed to a pint, so sais I, 'Prince,' and a plaguy handsum ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... was up. His danger only nerved him to action, so he says. So he planted a dab of vermilion in his creature's mouth. The Italian spluttered and tried to wipe it off—evidently horribly surprised. And then—according to Harringay—there began a very remarkable struggle, Harringay splashing away with the red paint, and the picture wriggling about and wiping it off as fast ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the next cabin. Also he saw something else that made him close the door hurriedly and dash to the stove. The frying-pan, still hot from the moose-meat and bacon, he put back on the front lid. Into the frying-pan he put a generous dab of butter, then reached for an egg, which he broke and dropped spluttering into the pan. As he reached for a second egg, Shorty gained his side and clutched his arm in an ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... cook like any chef, And know all HALLAM through, May be a dab at darning socks, Or making Irish stew; But what young cubs care for is cash, And not for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... a surgeon, just as I was a materialist. When I was young, I was caught by the lure of so-called science, and became a surgeon, because it was precise, definite,—and I am something of a dab at it now—ask the boys here! ... But surgery is artisan work. Younger hands will always beat you. Pallegrew in there is as good as I am now. There is nothing creative in surgery; it is on the order of mending shoes. One needs to ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... his, the point of which no one grasped, but the effect of which every one welcomed with the profoundest relief. He was the regimental medical officer, a tall, slight man, with a keen eye, a pleasant face crowned by a topknot of flaming hair, and with a little dab of hair of like colour upon his upper lip, which he fondly cherished, as an important ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... to conquer. When she had left Chicago, her grammar had been unexceptionable; but since she had been in England, she said "you ain't" and dropped all her g's; and when Montague brought down a bird at long range, she exclaimed, condescendingly, "Why, you're quite a dab at it!" He sat in the front seat of an automobile, and heard the great lady behind him referring to the sturdy Jersey farmers, whose ancestors had fought the British and Hessians all over the ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... beaded with prismatic moisture and looking more ethereal than ever, sat in the bows timorously inhaling the breath of freedom, when all on a sudden voices invisible in the mist, came round a corner. It was one of Ar-hap's war-canoes toiling up-stream. Heru and I ducked down into the haze like dab-chicks and held ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... his head, That he talks of things sometimes as if they were dead; Life, nature, love, God, and affairs of that sort, He looks at as merely ideas; in short, As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet, Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it; 570 Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her, Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer; You are filled with delight at his clear demonstration, Each figure, word, gesture, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... will go straight to bed, poor girl; and Ramsey will sit beside her and dab cologne on her forehead, and after a while he'll coax her to eat a cracker and drink some tea, and he'll have his dinner right there beside her. You don't know the turtle-doves. I don't hanker for my own society to-night, but I shall have to put up with ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... thing, and consider that fifty million whites have died in America from the beginning up to to-day—make it sixty, if you want to; make it a hundred million —it's no difference about a few millions one way or t'other. Well, now, you can see, yourself, that when you come to spread a little dab of people like that over these hundreds of billions of miles of American territory here in heaven, it is like scattering a ten-cent box of homoeopathic pills over the Great Sahara and expecting to find them again. You can't expect us to amount to anything in heaven, and we DON'T—now ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to lift bodies so small for fear of mortally injuring them between thumb and forefinger). Into the patty-dish, so they could be readily located, were placed the bits of wire, the tiny fragments of silk gauze to serve as breech clouts, and a generous dab of termite-paste; and the two men stepped inside the glass dome to share the fate that, the night before, had ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... spoke of this with interest, and he made another dab at Blackstone. He then wandered off to a small but select case of miscellaneous books. "Adam Smith!" he said, with animation; "I never saw that before. How interesting it must be to get back to the beginning of things. And here is Junius, ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... wuz a young man, me an' a nigger, by de name ov Henry, wuz huntin' in an' old field. In dem days bear, deer, turkey, and squirrels wuz plentiful an' 'twant long befo' we had kilt all we could carry. As we wuz startin' home some monstrous thing riz up right smack dab in front ov us, not more'n 100 feet away. I asked Henry: "Black Boy, does yo' see whut I see?" an' Henry say, "Nigger I hopes yo' don't see whut I see, 'cause dey ain't no such man." But dere it stood, wid its sleeves gently flappin' in de wind. Ovah 8 feet tall, it wuz, an' all dressed ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... aided her. The result was that she was most hideously pock-marked. Furthermore, the disease cost her an eye, leaving a cavity, a gaping and unsightly wound, comparable to the dumplings called kuzumanju, white puffy masses of rice dough with a depression in the centre marked by a dab of the dark-brown bean paste. The neighbours used to say that O'Mino was nin san bake shichi—that is, three parts human and seven parts apparition. The more critical reduced her humanity to the factor one. The children had no name for her but "Oni" (fiend). They had reason for this. They ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... dapper look that the blue-jackets of the service are usually distinguished by; but he was a veritable old salt, or "shell- back," none the less, sniffing of the ocean all over, and having his face seamed with those little venous streaks of pink (as if he indulged in a dab of rouge on the sly occasionally) which variegate the tanned countenances of men exposed to all the rigours of the elements, and who encounter with an equal mind the freezing blast of the frozen sea or the ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth—so! Till at last there ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... silly vision of two distressed dumplings, like dilatory chorus girls, mad with the nightmare feeling of not being dressed in time, hearing their cue called in a heartless voice from the inexorable sky, desperately applying the last dab of flour to their imperfect complexions. But the witch found no fault with them when they came. She gave them her ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... It surely did require patience to instill anything into that head of Porter's. His instructor would stand over him and tell him in a dozen words just exactly what entries to make in a customer's passbook. Porter would stare into oblivion during the lesson and when it was done make a dab at his ink-pot, enter up a cheque as credit, cross it out and make it a debit, then reverse the entry—all before Watson could interfere. The Bonehead was not slow; in fact, he was too rapid—but his swiftness was a serious detriment since the direction taken was usually wrong. Porter acted on ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... To be quite alone here (dab), surrounded by these magnificent works (dab, dab, dab), and everything so quiet too—nothing to disturb one." (Dab) after a pause. "I wonder what Jones and Robinson are doing (dab, splash)—lying at full length in a gondola, I dare say—smoking (dab), I ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle
... breakfast, for there was famine in the settlement, and the few pioneers left in it were kept alive on a diet of roast flathead. On the beach three boats were drawn up out of reach of the tide, and looking behind him Jack counted twelve huts and one store of wattle-and-dab. The store had been built to hold the goods of the Port Albert Company. It was in charge of John Campbell, and contained a quantity of axes, tomahawks, saddles and bridles, a grindstone, some shot and powder, two double-barrelled ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... moment there came a loud knock at the door; a single, solid dab of the knocker which Polton seemed to ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... of one egg and two tablespoons of milk together; wet each square well with the mixture, lay one raisin in the centre (after the seed has been removed from it), sprinkle thickly with sugar and cinnamon mixed together, then put a small dab of butter on top. Catch the four corners of each square together, so that the inside is protected. Lay the pocket books, not too closely together, in a greased pan and set aside to rise. When well risen bake in a moderately hot oven until ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... says Mr. B.,—"sit down, and wet your whistle, my piper! I say, egad! you're the piper that played before Moses! Had you there, Dab. Dab, get a fresh bottle of Burgundy for Mr. Hoskins." And before he knew where he was, there was Gus for the first time in his life drinking Clos-Vougeot. Gus said he had never tasted Bergamy before, ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and neck, with peaked eyebrows and neat little spots of red on the cheekbones and tip of the chin. If you feel inclined to be angelic, you might run up with your paint-box at the last minute, and dab on my joints." ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... go on! What have you stolen? A pin from Elise's pin cushion,—or some powder from her puff-box? Another dab on your nose would greatly improve your appearance,—if you ask me! It's ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... There is a tendency in Scott to exalt into mountains "his own grey hills," the bosses verdatres as Prosper Merimee called them, of the Border. But the horrors of such linns as that down which Hab Dab and Davie Dinn "dang the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Mickey submitted to a hug and a little cold dab on his forehead, counted his money, locked the door and ran. On the car he sat in deep thought, then suddenly sniggered aloud. He had achieved the next installment of the doggerel to which every night Peaches insisted on having a new verse added as he entered. He secured his papers, and glimpsing ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... sharp-eyed concerning her own needs. When there were no guests at dinner, and she rose from the table rather unsatisfied after her half-plate of watery soup, her delicate little befrilled chop and dab of French pease, her tiny salad and spoonful of dessert, she never imagined that she was defrauded. Rose had a singularly sweet, ungrasping disposition, and an almost childlike trait of accepting that which was offered her as the one and only thing which she deserved. When there was a dinner-party, ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... hearing of all the clamour, the rural Pan may be found stretched on Ranmore Common, loitering under Abinger pines, or prone by the secluded stream of the sinuous Mole, abounding in friendly greetings for his foster-brothers the dab-chick and water-rat. ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... mister, you go ahead and try to hit one if you're so smart.' And he gave a great big swing, laughing, and that rocker went right over the edge of the veranda!" She laughed her breathless laugh till she had to dab at her eyes. ...
— The Last Straw • William J. Smith
... age. Such a face I had never seen. The first sight of it made me suck in my breath as if I had touched the edge of a razor. The bridge half of his nose had gone, or he had never had it, and the lower half was stuck like a dab of putty midway between mouth and eyebrows. His little, beady eyes were set in large, shallow sockets, giving him an owl-like appearance. A mouth originally large enough, and thickly lipped like a negro's, had been extended, as it seemed, to his left ear ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... mere huts—roofs on stilts; others, "wattle and dab;" a few, brown-stone. To the most imposing of these we were conducted by our escort. Above the doorway, on either side of which stood a sentry, was an ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... damned ungrateful not to grow industriously, after the way Dab and I have sprained our old backs spading and feeding them according to spiritual direction that stood over us with a rake," answered father, with proud if profane enthusiasm. There was a faint pink glow in his haggard, thin cheeks, and he took from his pocket a huge ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... able to make his escape without accompanying his two companions to the music-hall attached to the restaurant, and which he already knew by reputation as one of the lowest entertainments in London. "You two play," said Gus, "and I'll mark. You'll have to give Jack points, Tom, you know, you're such a dab." ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... just you tell us right out what it is without any more fooling," and Rex made a playful dab at his ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... moved across the smooth surface of the lagoon. Jerry barked intimidatingly at those that came closest, bristling his neck and making a ferocious simulation of an efficient protector of the white god who stood beside him. And after each such warning, he would softly dab his cool damp muzzle against the sun-heated skin ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... reflected in everything, in the furniture, in the pictures, and above all in the unnaturally tidy children to whom he was presently introduced. He could still feel the one cold kiss which Ida had given him, and, when he was shown up to his room, he unconsciously gave the spot an extra dab with the sponge. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... old lady gave her eyes a last hasty dab with a dainty handkerchief and raised her head again, fighting for self-control. She was a quaint little figure, with soft grey hair drawn back smoothly from a gentle-featured face in which each wrinkle seemed the ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... Mal, 'I'll nothing do wi' 'ee, Go to Fanny Trembaa, she do knaw how I'm shy; Tom, this here t'other daa, down the hill thee didst stap, And dab'd a great doat fig ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... bore no likeness to Jonah's which sloped sharply from the eyebrows, and the nose was a mere dab of flesh; but its eyes were grey, like his own. His interest increased. Gently he stroked the fine silky down that covered its head, and then, growing bolder, touched its cheek. The delicate skin was smooth as satin under his ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... fast as I cud, the room bein' empty. Then I tuk my boot an' the clanin'-rod and knocked out the pin av the fallin'-block. Oh, 'twas music when that pin rowled on the flure! I put ut into my pouch an' stuck a dab av dirt on the holes in the plate, puttin' the fallin'-block back. 'That'll do your business, Vulmea,' sez I, lyin' easy on the cot. 'Come an' sit on my chest the whole room av you, an' I will take you to my bosom for the biggest divils that iver cheated halter.' I would have no mercy on Vulmea. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... (unimportance) 643; mediocrity, moderation. small quantity, modicum, trace, hint, minimum; vanishing point; material point, atom, particle, molecule, corpuscle, point, speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace; minutiae, details; look, thought, idea, soupcon, dab, dight[obs3], whit, tittle, shade, shadow; spark, scintilla, gleam; touch, cast; grain, scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau[obs3], screed, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... be thinking of? Besides, at this present moment my unfortunate friend is engaged in lamentations, and is composing melancholy verses upon the departure of Mademoiselle Mimi, who, I hear, has thrown him over. Well, for my part, I too, regret the loss of that young woman. She was a dab hand at making coffee, which is the beverage of serious minds. But I trust that Rodolphe will console himself, and soon get ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... how, after years of devotion to Marian, John Gilman let Eileen make a perfect rag of him and tie him into any kind of knot she chose. Peter, when Marian left here she had lost everything on earth but a little dab of money. She had lost a father who was fine enough to be my father's best friend. She had lost a mother who was fine enough to rear Marian to what she is. She had lost them in a horrible way that left her room for a million fancies and regrets: 'if ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... P. limanda, the Dab: scales uniform all over the body, with spinules on the projecting edges, making the skin rough; lateral line with a semicircular ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... were working in the kitchen fixing the new range in place of the old one which they had taken out. They had been engaged on this job all day, and their hands and faces and clothes were covered with soot, which they had also contrived to smear and dab all over the surfaces of the doors and other woodwork in the room, much to the indignation of Crass and Slyme, who had to wash it all off before they could put on the final ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the versatility of his talent. Known to the world as the inventor of Telpherage, he was an electrician and cable engineer of the first rank, a lucid lecturer, and a good linguist, a skilful critic, a writer and actor of plays, and a clever sketcher. In popular parlance, Jenkin was a dab at everything. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... tried to get up. On one cheek he had a dab of jelly and his hand and shirt front were covered with broth. The sight was such a comical one that the boys on the landing could ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... the silk necktie, dripping, from the bottom of the jar. "That's sucked up the very last drop, sir. Hold still, sir, and let me lay this just on the top, and as soon as you begins to feel it too warm I will take it away and hang it up to dry. I won't dab the place with the handkerchy, because it will feel cooler if you let it dry ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... she could take her leave, She had to puff up her monstrous sleeve. Then a little dab here and a wee pat there. And a touch or two to her hindmost hair, Then around the room with the utmost care She thoughtfully circulated. Then she seized her gloves and a chamoiskin, Some breath perfume and a long stickpin, A bonbon box and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... this better than Candy-land or Saccharissa?" he asked, as he rolled and folded his bits of dough with a dab of butter ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... the approach of a Marquis makes him palpitate with emotion. But he is a profoundly miserable man. Of that I am assured. It amuses me when I meet him in pompous society to address him lightly as "DAB," and remind him of the dear old Balham days, and the huge amount of bird's-eye we used to smoke together. For his motto now is, "Delenda est Balhamia"—I speak of course figuratively—and half-crown havannahs have usurped the place of the honest ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... provisional aim at the gap in the grating. I could hear now quite distinctly the soft twittering of the ascending Selenites, the dab of their hands against the rock, and the falling of dust from their grips ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... might know somethin' about him. I doesn't, only I'm a dab at what's called in Ireland fizzyognomy, an? I don't like the looks of him. Why, bless ye, I knows a feller by the cut of his jib directly. I could have taken my davy, now, that you were a sly, clever sort o' chap, even before I was introduced ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... you say he is all right," answered the man, smiling as he put the least tiny dab more of varnish on the Donkey's back. "Shall I set him on the shelf to dry, so you may soon take him down to Earth for some ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope
... his work, he made rapid progress, and soon became an expert smith and metal worker. He displayed his skill especially in forging light ironwork; and a favourite job of his was the making of "Trivets" out of the solid, which only the "dab hands" of the shop could do, but which he threw off with great rapidity in first rate style. These "Trivets" were made out of Spanish iron bolts—rare stuff, which, though exceedingly tough, forged like wax under the hammer. Even at the close of his life, when he had acquired ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... a round, plump, elderly face, with a short nose, delicately pink at the tip. The eyes were a pale blue, and just under the lower lip, which protruded slightly, was a small gray-red goatee, sticking straight out from a cleft in the chin like a dab of a sandy sheep's wool. Also, as the speaker swung himself further round, I took note of a shirt of plaited white linen billowing out over his chest and ending at the top in a starchy yet rumply collar that rolled majestically and Byronically clear up under his ears. Under the ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... as she wiped a dab of flour from her nose and proceeded to concoct the icing for Blanche Remington's wedding cake, "don't you think my business venture has been ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... puff paste, you should take the greatest care to previously work it well on the paste-board or slab, to get out all the water and buttermilk, which very often remains in; when you have worked it well with a clean knife, dab it over with a soft cloth, and it is then ready to lay on your paste; do not make your paste over stiff before ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... ago there dvelt a lad named JOEY; He vos not raised in Vestminster, but in a place more goey. At snaring birds he vos a dab, of eggs (and plots) a hatcher; And he vos called young Vistling JOE, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... a treat to Dab to watch while the new carpets were put down, one after another, and then to see how much at home and comfortable the furniture looked as it was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... young man raved in three languages, but Emma Campbell flatly refused either to be in "slaveryment" or in the "nekked rind." Visions of herself being caught and painted bare-legged, with a trifling little dab of an apron tied around her waist even as one ties a bit of ribbon around the cat's neck, and of this scandal being ferreted out by the deacons, sisters, and brethren, of the Mount Zion Baptist ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... her arms, A humming-bird did see (Upon a lower bough he sat) Of Puff-leg family. "Oh dear!" she cried, "I wish you'd give One of your puffs to me; I hear that they are always used In white society. And though I have no powder, yet A pleasure it would be To dab my face and arms with it, Like dames of high degree. And then I'm sure my darling pet Would greatly like it too; She is the loveliest of babes—" "That, ma'am, is very true," The humming-bird made haste to say; "She much resembles you. But that small gift you ask is not Like stocking nor ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... every bit as well handled as the great steamship, but then she had got home safely, and she was such a little thing, after all. Whatever excitement there had been in the village died out as soon as it was known that the boys were safe; and then, too, Mrs. Lee found time to "wonder wot Dab Kinzer means to do wid all de money he done got ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... Harry Girdwood laughing, "for you put out the lights so suddenly that I couldn't find the string, and then I nearly dug the hook into his head as well as his wig; and as for the phosphorus, I gave him a dab with it upon ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... case, "is a saloon pistol, and will be exhibited in the museums of the next century as being the weapon with which the new era was inaugurated. Into the breech I place a Boxer cartridge, specialty provided for experimental purposes with a steel bullet. I aim point blank at the dab of red sealing wax upon the wall, which is four inches above the magnet. I am an absolutely dead shot. I fire. You will now advance, and satisfy yourself that the bullet is flattened upon the end of the magnet, after which you will apologise to me ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... you can do nowt else, you can make him as miserable as a dog. You'd be a dab hand ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... intended to rise at times and breathe the atmosphere above us, and then to descend again to the lower region. It is only the dab and the common plaice that are content to lie ever on the bottom, and they are but one-sided fish. They see with one eye only, the other has been absorbed and become dead. Every creature has in it a promise of something better than what it is. The slow-worm has rudimentary legs, ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... "I dab fuss," cried Pompey, and he swam on to soon reach one of the boughs, and turn round to ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... to a nice little room only three flights up in quite a decent street. And she put me in the window, of course. And then she went to work and cooked dinner for herself. And what do you suppose she had? Bread and tea and a little dab of jam! Nothing else. Not a single lobster, nor so much as one bottle of champagne. The Carruthers comedy team had both every evening, except now and then when they took a notion for pig's knuckle ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... Make her laugh till she's weak. I'll take a turn at her myself later. Don't let her mope about in the woods alone. Keep close to her, and make all the insane jokes you can. I tell you I was homesick myself once, though you mayn't believe it. I don't often dab my ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... you to be a very faithful and good friend, Drinkwater," said the artist, making a dab, and then leaning back in his chair with his head on one side ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... chattering away in the trees in groups of four or five. They are a species of grakle, and are lively and intelligent birds, some of them possessing a power of imitating human speech equal to any of the parrot tribe. They are very peculiar looking, grey in the body, with a black dab on the head, and a large bright yellow wattle just behind the eye. We pass the "miners" unmolested, for the minister tells me they are "no good" if you want eating, whilst as specimens they are ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... stiff-legged stop when he saw Macdonald, who had stepped to the roadside to let them pass. The old cattleman's high-crowned sombrero was pinched to a peak; the wind of his galloping gait had pressed its broad brim back from his tough old weathered face. His white mustache and little dab of pointed beard seemed whiter against the darkness of passion which mounted ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... France seem not to have utilized any but fresh-water fish, the Scandinavians, at a date probably less remote however, did not hesitate to brave the ocean. The kitchen-middings contain numerous remains of fish, amongst which those of the mackerel, the dab, and the herring are the most numerous. There, too, we meet with relics of the cod, which never approaches the coast, and must always be sought by the fisherman in the ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... answer was to dab anew, and so thickly that the powder was strewn over the front of her dress and the floor. The clothes she had taken off were flung on a chair; as she brushed past them, they fell to the ground. She did not stoop to pick them up, but pushed them out of the way with her foot. Sitting ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of a hundred thousand sees once a year in a little lonely dab of vision all by himself could be seen by all of us by agreement the same week in the year, we will do the thing ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... stairs Miss Carter dropped behind the others. So did Bob Strahan. As he waited for her he saw her dab her eyes with her handkerchief and he put out his hand and touched ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... a dab at brooding! That is the worst of your conscientious ass; he takes his decision like a man; he means to stick to it like a sportsman; but he cannot help wondering whether he has decided for the best, and what would have happened ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... log had been, Gilbert saw something else. It was a little dab of yellow. It grew smaller; disappeared. There was nothing to be seen now but a little spot of gray; probably some ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... prison settled into place and done his quarrel with an importunate stranger who elbowed, before Caterham came. He walked out of a shadow towards the middle of the platform, the most insignificant little pigmy, away there in the distance, a little black figure with a pink dab for a face,—in profile one saw his quite distinctive aquiline nose—a little figure that trailed after it most inexplicably—a cheer. A cheer it was that began away there and grew and spread. A little ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... hand away from his face, after giving his wet brow one last dab. He looked at Gayford and at Joe, but ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... had locked herself in out of very shame of the rare tears which had been brought to the surface by the sisters' cruel treatment of Abraham. When she heard his call she hastened to the blue wash-basin and began hurriedly to dab her eyes. He would be alarmed if he saw the traces of her weeping. Whatever had happened to him, for his sake she must face it valiantly. He called again. Again she did not answer, knowing that her voice would be full of the telltale tears. Abe waited. ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... judge had stopped with bare assertion, it would have had a good deal of effect; but he made the mistake of trying to prove his position. For some years Wilson had been privately at work on a whimsical almanac, for his amusement—a calendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually in ironical form, appended to each date; and the judge thought that these quips and fancies of Wilson's were neatly turned and cute; so he carried a handful of them around ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Barty that they forgave him his insular affectation; some even helped him to dab his sore eye; among them Jolivet trois himself, who was a very good-natured chap, and very good-looking into the bargain; and he had received from Barty a sore eye too—gallice, "un pochon"—scholastice, "un oeil au ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... downward, of course, and I opened them in their order without bothering to examine the superscription. Presently, I came upon one sealed with a blurred dab of green wax. Rather curious, I turned it over; it was unstamped and was marked: "Personal and Important." I did not know the hand-writing; but, then, Lady Helen Radnor's was the only one in all Dornlitz I could ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... back again. On one bank stretches a row of rookeries—a maze of hanging clothes, fish-nets, balconies hooded by awnings and topped by nondescript chimneys of all sizes and patterns, with here and there a dab of vermilion and light red, the whole brilliant against a china-blue sky. On the other is the long brick wall of the garden—soggy, begrimed, streaked with moss and lichen in bands of black-green and yellow ochre, over which mass and sway the great ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... all over him, from a derby hat sitting back rakishly on his forehead to the small, effeminate boot that fitted so neatly his small effeminate foot. He had a small hand and his little sensual face had not a rough feature on it. It was set off by a pudgy, half-formed dab of a nose that let his breath in and out when his mouth happened to be shut. His eyes were the eyes of one who ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... which was growing from a blank to a mirror of vistas—and the boy's pupils became deeply hungry. He was not only looking. He was seeing. His gaze took in the way the fingers held the brushes; the manner of mixing the pigments, the detail of method. Sometimes, when he saw a brush dab into a color whose use he did not at once understand, he would catch his breath anxiously, then nod silently to himself as the blending vindicated the choice. He did not know it, but his eye for color was as instinctively true as that of ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... He'd no relations, and what friends he'd had in the old days had disappeared. So he got him a dog—this fool, a little white scrap of a dog with a black patch." The terrier recognized his name and made a dab at the firm chin. "Steady! Well, yes—you're right. It was a great move. For the little white dog was really a fairy prince in disguise—such a pretty disguise—and straightway led the fool into Paradise. Indeed, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... is also a lay representative of the peace of this world, and, as such, has figured time out of mind in allegorical pictures. The sense in which it was used by me is plain from the context; at least, it would be plain to any one but a fisher for faults, predisposed to carp at some things, to dab at others, and to flounder in all. But I am possibly in error. It is the female swine, perhaps, that is profaned in the eyes of the Oriental tourist. Men find strange ways of marking their intolerance; and the spirit is certainly strong ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... the irrationality of our laws, by the immobility of our prejudices, and what not; but the real disgrace of England is the railway sandwich,—that whited sepulchre, fair enough outside, but so meagre, poor, and spiritless within, such a thing of shreds and parings, such a dab of food, telling us that the poor bone whence it was scraped had been made utterly bare before it was sent into the kitchen for the soup pot. In France one does get food at the railway stations, and at St. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Giles described the habits of the birds which frequented this reedy spot. Jamie listened open-eyed to his accounts of the moor-hen, flapper, coot, water-rail, dab-chick, and sand-piper, to say nothing of rats in abundance, and an otter now and then. If you crept upon the islet very quietly, you could hear the rats before you saw them. Carefully listening to the sounds, you frequently discovered the rat himself, generally on the stump of some old ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... courage enough to talk about this misfortune myself, except to you, whom by good luck I haven't damaged yet—that when the wreckage presently floats ashore he will get a good deal of his $500 back; and a dab at a time I will make up ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... one dab of paint would make a man of a ghost, and it Mackintosh of a herring-net—to refuse it I am full. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Indeed the exclamation of annoyance with which the culprit greeted his handiwork sounded so perfectly genuine that if I hadn't known what was in the note I should have been completely deceived. I saw the waiter step forward and dab hurriedly at the stain with a napkin, while the author of the damage, coolly pulling up another glass, helped himself to a fresh supply from the bottle. A more beautifully carried out little bit of acting it has never been ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... her old money, and I'll tell her so if she bothers me about it. I shall go into business with Van and take care of the whole lot; so don't you preach, Polly," returned Toady, with as much dignity as was compatible with a great dab of glue on the ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... the scientist dipped his lead pencil into his open mouth so that he would be able to dab down first impressions the moment he turned his thick lenses ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... a compliment to us," said his mother-in-law elect, "that you condescend to do that simple work yourself, instead of letting your men dab all that for you." ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... burning, and trying to rustle sufficient dry wood to keep the fire going. This diversity of interests certainly made him sit up and pay attention. At each instant he had to desert his flour-sack to rescue the coffee-pot, or to shift the kettle, or to dab hastily at the rice, or to stamp out the small brush, or to pile on more dry twigs. His movements were not graceful. They raised a scurry of dry bark, ashes, wood dust, twigs, leaves, and pine needles, a certain proportion of which found their way into ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... as were open to him in the Home Jan inclined to cabinet-making. It must be amusing to dab little bunches of bristles so deftly into little holes with hot pitch as to produce a hearth-brush, but as a life-work it does not satisfy ambition. For boot-making he felt no fancy, and the tailor's ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... engaged in deep arithmetical calculations. He is renowned for his acquaintance with the swell mob. Sergeant Mith, a smooth-faced man with a fresh bright complexion, and a strange air of simplicity, is a dab at housebreakers. Sergeant Fendall, a light- haired, well-spoken, polite person, is a prodigious hand at pursuing private inquiries of a delicate nature. Straw, a little wiry Sergeant of meek demeanour ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... the fire, holding a frying pan whose hollow handle had been fitted with a long stick. The big dab of butter soon melted, and in a moment the trout were crepitating and curling up in the pan, sending ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... bring you a betel leaf to chew, Dab the lime on to it, Prince Ferocious, For Somebody, Prince Distraction's daughter, to chew. Somebody at sunrise be distraught for love of me Somebody at sunset be distraught for love of me. As you remember your parents, remember me; As you remember your house and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... two opponents to spit on the tips of each others noses. At first, this cleanly interchange of saliva goes on slowly and deliberately—Socrates never measured the leap of a flea with more seriousness—but presently one receives a dab in the eye, another in the mouth. They begin to grow hot and angry. "I hit your nose," cries one. "No, it was my cheek!" replied the other. They draw a little nearer, in order to ascertain the truth by feeling; spit, spit, they still go, like two vicious old cats; their ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... himself if a bee had been buzzing about his nose as it did about mine," said Nancy, and, giving a vicious dab at the pictured features, she drew a bee perched on the end of Gran'ther Wattles's nose. "Here now are all the gray hairs he hath," she added, making three little ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... his coat, and planted himself on a low chair by the kitchen fire, with a lapstone, a hammer, a piece of sole leather, and some waxed-ends, in order to cobble an old pair of cowhide boots; he being, in his own phrase, "something of a dab" (whatever degree of skill that may imply) at the shoemaking business. We heard the tap of his hammer at intervals for the rest of the evening. The remainder of the party adjourned to the sitting-room. Good Mrs. Foster took her knitting-work, and soon fell fast asleep, still ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... back of the shoe-shop, rented a vacant store room on Market Street and went into the millinery way of life. And it wasn't enough that the tired genii had to gouge out the streets of Harvey; to fill in the gulleys and ravines; to dab in scores of new houses; to toil and moil over the new hotel, witching up four bleak stories upon the prairie. It wasn't enough that they had to cast a spell on people all over the earth, dragging strangers to Harvey by trainloads; it wasn't enough ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... train'd soprano (what work with hers is this?) The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies, It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess'd them, It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the indolent waves, I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath, Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death, At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles, And ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... ghastly sight save one, that of a man lying with his legs pinned under a wagon body. His jaw had been shot away. Slowly he was bleeding to death, but he did not realize it. He realized nothing in his delirium except the nature of his wound. He was dipping his finger in the cavity and, dab by dab, writing "Kill me!" on the wagon body. It sent reeling waves of red before her eyes. Then a shell burst near her ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... sympathetic, as though I hadn't ordered that dressing-case specially on his behalf. He said he thought one of the housemaids would have some sticking-plaster. He was very sorry he was needed downstairs, but he would tell one of the housemaids. I continued to dab and to curse. The blood flowed less. I showed great spirit. I vowed Braxton should not prevent me ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm |
