"Gobble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seems to have a magic thread running through it, beginning at the tip end of "G" and ending with the tail end of "y." Geese have tried to gobble it, ducks swallow it, hens scratched after it, peacocks pecked it, dandy cocks crowed over it, foxes have hid it, dogs have fought for it, cats have sworn and spit over it, pigs have tried to gulp it as the daintiest morsel, parrots have chatted about it, hawks, eagles, jackdaws, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... behind him in the stillness of the Sabbath, and the quails and fall birds piped and cackled low in the corn and the grain stubble. Some wild-geese in the south flew over the low gray woods towards the bay; a pack of hounds somewhere bayed like distant music; he heard the turkeys gobble, at one of the adjacent farms on the swells in the marshy landscape, where abundance, not otherwise denoted, showed in the fat poultry that roosted in the trees like living fruit and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... was in use as a term for 32 or 48 bits (presumably a full machine word, but our sources are unclear on this). These terms are more easily understood if one thinks of them as faithful phonetic spellings of 'chomp' and 'gobble' pronounced in a Florida or other Southern U.S. dialect. For general discussion of similar ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... advanced women have ever turned your attention to baby-language," he observed presently; "we are studying the ape-vocabulary, you know. Dot has got quite a little language of her own. As far as I can make out each sentence is finished off with a 'gurgle-doe.' Something between the 'gobble, gobble' of a turkey and the coo of the ring-dove. I suppose ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press, An' seeked him up the chimbley-flue, an' ever'wheres, I guess; But all they ever found was thist his pants an' roundabout! An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you, ef you ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... can Christian folk dare to come hither? None have been here since I came, and you'd best be off as fast as you can; for as soon as the Dragon comes home, he'll smell you out, and gobble you up in a trice, and ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... reply to you by return of post, I must gobble up my dinner, and dispatch this in propria Persona to the office, to be in time. So take it from me hastily, that you are perfectly welcome to furnish A.C. with the scrap, which I had almost forgotten ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep; An' all us other childern, when the supper things is done, We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about, An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... from being struck on the head with a railroad tie somewhere down the long trail of years behind him, gulped his lean Adam's apple into a laugh, and began to gobble a long, rambling tale about a feller he knew once in Minnesota who could locate mines with a crooked stick, and wherever he pinted ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... you young scamps, that his father did me a service. Here, Corde-a-puits, go and get some cakes and sugar-plums," he said to the pupil who had tortured Joseph, giving him some small change. "We'll see if you are to be artist by the way you gobble up the dainties," added the sculptor, chucking ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the Speedy, with fourteen small guns and fifty-one men, he happened to come across a good-sized Spanish vessel, with thirty-two big guns, and over 300 men. The Spaniard, of course, was going to seize on the little English ship, and, so to speak, gobble it up. But Cochrane, instead of waiting to be attacked, made for the Spaniard, and, after receiving the fire of all her guns, without delivering a shot, got right under the side of the Gamo (so the vessel was called), and battered into her with might and main. The Spaniards did not relish this, ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... to be doing, or give up anything he had intended to do. Perhaps he had expected to dig up and gnaw a choice bone that he had buried somewhere. It might be that he had been planning to chase the cat, or tease Turkey Proudfoot in order to hear him gobble. There wasn't one of those pleasures that Spot wouldn't gladly forgo for the sake of going hunting with ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the creole negro fears everything living which he meets after dark upon a lonely road,— a stray horse, a cow, even a dog; and mothers quell the naughtiness of their children by the threat of summoning a zombi- cat or a zombi-creature of some kind. "Zombi k nana ou" (the zombi will gobble thee up) is generally an effectual menace in the country parts, where it is believed zombis may be met with any time after sunset. In the city it is thought that their regular hours are between two and four o'clock in the morning. At ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... "You mustn't 'gobble' before the seamen's daughters," said Mrs. Forcythe, smiling. "It will be a capital lesson for you to try to teach what you haven't quite ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... to see a goblin once that I heard of. He lived in a tub on the seashore, and he lived by gobbling up schoolmasters and governesses. He used to cut their hair off, scrape them well like a horse-radish, and then begin at their toes and gobble them up till he got to their heads—their heads he boiled in a saucepan for soup. The boys and girls used to bring their masters, ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... one day it chanced that Waska had gone down to the palace cellar to hunt for mice and rats, and seeing an especially fat, well-fed mouse, she pounced upon it, buried her claws in its soft fur, and was just going to gobble it up, when she was stopped by the pleading tones of the little creature, saying, 'If you will only spare my life I may be of great service to you. I will do everything in my power for you; for I am the King of the Mice, and if I perish the whole ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... watched him sitting down in the poultry-yard, fancying, I presume, that he was in his school. There would he decline, construe, and conjugate aloud, his only witnesses being the poultry, who would now and then raise a gobble, gobble, gobble, while the ducks with their quack, quack, quack, were still more impertinent in their replies. A sketch of him, in this position, has been taken by Sarah, and now hangs over the mantel-piece of my study, between two of Mr Turnbull's drawings, one of an iceberg, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... him to oblige Mr. Markley. I don't care particularly to have the poet buried in the weltering sea. If he can't find a roaring billow, I'll be perfectly satisfied to have him chucked into a creek. And I dare say that it'll make no material difference whether the dolphins gobble him or the catfish and eels nibble him up. It's all the same in the long run. Mention this to your murderer when you speak to him, will you? Now, I'll show you why this thing takes all the heart out of me. In his poem entitled "Longings" he ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... if you'll be sensible," he said irritably, for, unreasonably enough, the extreme fear she showed and her pleading tones annoyed him. He had a feeling that he would like to shake her, it was so absurd of her to look at him as though she expected him to gobble her up ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... you see. But ah, They feared the news might reach the Shah! To prove the will the lawyers bore 't Before the Kadi's awful court, Who nodded, when he heard it read, Confirmingly his drowsy head, Nor thought, his sleepiness so great, Himself to gobble the estate. "I give," the dead had writ, "my all To Meerza Solyman Zingall Of Ispahan. With this estate I might quite easily create Ten thousand ingrates, but I shun Temptation and create but one, In whom ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; O it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best, With ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... a tree Some turkeys served as citadel. That villain, much provoked to see Each standing there as sentinel, Cried out, 'Such witless birds At me stretch out their necks, and gobble! No, by the powers! I'll give them trouble.' He verified his words. The moon, that shined full on the oak, Seem'd then to help the turkey folk. But fox, in arts of siege well versed, Ransack'd his ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... over to the island we had just left, while the former would take to the mountains. Steptoe coincided with me in this opinion, and informing me that Lieutenant Alexander Piper would join my detachment with a mountain' howitzer, directed me to convey the command to the island and gobble up all who came ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... done she jis' set down and sniffled an' cried, an' I war so glad I didn't know what to do. But I had to hole in. An' I made out I war orful sorry. An' Jinny said, 'O Miss Nancy, I hope dey won't come yere.' An' she said, 'I'se jis' 'fraid dey will come down yere and gobble up eberything dey can lay dere hands on.' An' she jis' looked as ef her heart war mos' broke, an' den she went inter de house. An' when she war gone, we jis' broke loose. Jake turned somersets, and said he warnt 'fraid ob dem ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... ter see her, an' er singin' ter her, an' er cyarin' her berries an' wums; but, somehow or udder, she didn't pyear ter tuck no shine ter him. She'd go er walkin' 'long 'im, an' she'd sing songs wid 'im, an' she'd gobble up de berries an' de wums wat he fotch, but den w'en hit come ter marry'n uv 'im, ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... scourge to the Saxons on shore; and it is because I hope she is going to do such good service to England that I would be careful of her. You must remember, too, that many of the Danish galleys are far larger than those we had to do with to-day. We are not going to gobble them all up as ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... South by returning to Africa. Aside from other insurmountable obstacles, there is no place in Africa for him to go where his condition would be improved. All Europe—especially England, France, and Germany—has been running a mad race for the last twenty years, to see which could gobble up the greater part of Africa; and there is practically nothing left. Old King Cetewayo put it pretty well when he said, "First come missionary, then come rum, then come traders, then come army"; and Cecil Rhodes ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... he was powerful fond ob snappin'-turtles fo' breakfas'," said Zachariah, pointing to a tortoise creeping slowly along the ditch. "An' lil Cain an' Abel,—my lan', how dem chillum used to gobble up de mud pies ole Mammy Eve used to make right out ob dish yere road ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... a meal of ten or fifteen courses was the usual thing. A phalanx of barefooted waiters stood in line to take the plates when we had finished the respective courses, broth, mutton stew, and chicken, and bananas for dessert. The padre, I am sorry to say, ate with his knife, and was inclined to gobble. Two yellow dogs and a lean cat stood by to gulp the morsels that were thrown them from the table. When the dinner was completed, a large tumbler of water and a toothpick were brought on. After a smoke the padre took ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... said to the President, 'She wants you.' 'Yes, yes,' said Mr. Lincoln, without stirring. Soon afterward the messenger returned again, exclaiming, 'I say she wants you.' The President was evidently annoyed, but instead of going out after the messenger he remarked to us: 'One side shall not gobble up everything. Make out a list of the places and men you want, and I will endeavor to apply the rule of give and take.' General Wadsworth answered: 'Our party will not be able to remain in Washington, but we will leave such a list with Mr. Carroll, and whatever he agrees to will ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... retired to rest than their hideous half-bark, half-wailing notes jar upon the ear. Even in Calcutta, a large and populous city, one is not exempt from their howlings, but in Benares they are a recognized institution, and are molested by no one. These creatures voraciously gobble up everything that is left exposed, good or bad,—vermin, decayed food, offal, every refuse,—thus rendering a certain necessary service in a climate so hot as that of India. The natives are not permitted to keep ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... of an age with Molly and her sisters, tugged at her skirts well pleased; so she took the girls in, set them by the fire, and gave them each a bowl of bread and milk. But they had hardly begun to gobble it up before the door burst open, and a fearful ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... beautiful—beautiful! What a fright! What a delicious fright! No one would know you! You look an old hairy monster who would gobble up half a dozen ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... no matter! Pretty quick you'll change your tune; You'll be dead and in a platter, And I'll gobble pretty soon. 'F I was you I'd stop my puffin', And I'd look most awful glum;— Hope they give you lots of stuffin'! Ain't you glad ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... round her to pick up the worms and seeds she found for them. Cocky soon began to help take care of his sisters; and when a nice corn or a fat bug was found, he would step back and let little Downy or Snowball have it. But Peck would run and push them away, and gobble up the food greedily. He chased them away from the pan where the meal was, and picked the down off their necks if they tried to get their share. His mother scolded him when the little ones ran to hide under her wings; but he didn't care, and was very naughty. Cocky began to ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... they're not as common as other fish. But there are altogether too many on this part of the coast. They scare off the fish and break the nets of the fishermen. Then, too, they're dangerous if any one falls overboard, and no one can be comfortable when he knows those pirates are cruising around, ready to gobble him up." ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... prognosticate his fate. How we should pity the arrogance of the worm that crawls at our feet, if we knew that it also desired to know the secrets of futurity, and imagined that meteors shot athwart the sky to warn it that a tom-tit was hovering near to gobble it up; that storms and earthquakes, the revolutions of empires, or the fall of mighty monarchs, only happened to predict its birth, its progress, and its decay! Not a whit less presuming has man shewn himself; not a whit ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... don't bluster, my boy. They are to meet at Montgomery, Alabama, on February fourth. They'll organize the Cotton States into a Southern Confederacy. If they can win Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, they may gobble Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri—all Slave States. If they get them all—they'll win without a fight, and reconstruct the Union on their own terms; if they don't—well, we'll see what ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... little." This is a very strong statement in the face of the fact that but very few of the class of men to whom Mr. Kirkman refers ever built a line of road. They have usually found it more profitable to "gobble" roads already built than to construct ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... the Gospel, the fruit of the seed of the missionaries (the sons and the grandsons) was the possession of the islands themselves,—of the land, the ports, the town sites, and the sugar plantations: The missionary who came to give the bread of life remained to gobble up ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... you were figurin' to run the street right past here, maybe through my store and Uncle Jim's place, maybe takin' Tom's place for depot yards. That outfit's been all over the hills lookin' for claims to jump. It's a case of gobble and steal. They say you're hired to help it on, and are gettin' a share of the steal. Now, if that's so, what would you do if you ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... wild turkeys awakened Jean, "Chuga-lug, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug-chug." There was not a great difference between the gobble of a wild turkey and that of a tame one. Jean got up, and taking his rifle went out into the gray obscurity of dawn to try to locate the turkeys. But it was too dark, and finally when daylight came they appeared ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... end to another, I'm sure! Laetitia, wouldn't it do your father good, the cross, grumpy old thing? Give your master some more of the sauce, Parker. Isn't that trout delicate and nice, Pyke? Trout for a pike! And I'm sure very like a nasty, savage old pike the way you tried to gobble up poor Rosalie, the dear child. Now, Rosalie, dear child, I think that's a very, very good idea of yours to go into business. I think it's a splendid idea, and more and more quite nice girls will soon be doing it. Now we'll just see what we can do and we'll make that cross old ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... birds, they saw they were two old "gobblers" and a hen. The gobblers were strutting about with their tails spread like fans, and their wings trailing along the grass. Every now and then they uttered their loud "gobble—obble—obble," and by their attitude and actions it was evidently an affair of rivalry likely to end in a battle. The female stalked over the grass, in a quiet but coquettish way—no doubt fully aware ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... gone and seen through the riddle that knocked me silly, Frank. That's just what it must mean—the pay-car would offer fat pickings, all in cash; and they've held up their flight to Canada just to try and gobble it. Oh! what a slick game, with Todd giving false information, and perhaps just leading the police further and further away from Bloomsbury tonight, so as to leave the pay-car next to unprotected. Yes, and doesn't he go on like this, 'he ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... describe this net at all, as it is, in my opinion, a most unsportsmanlike or un-entomological weapon, as nothing can escape it. Indeed, a friend of mine not inaptly describes it as the "gobbler;" and it does really "gobble" up any insect it is ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... 'mence' ter peck at de tree; en de nex' time Sandy wuz turnt back he had a little roun' hole in his arm, des lack a sharp stick be'n stuck in it. Atter dat Tenie sot a sparrer-hawk fer ter watch de tree; en w'en de woodpecker come erlong nex' mawnin' fer ter finish his nes', he got gobble' up mos' 'fo' he stuck his bill in ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... expected to enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sidewise glances, as if they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather difficult for his slower intelligence ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... seemed normal only as to appetite; the ducks proved abnormal in this respect. They were always coming up to the back door, clamoring for food—always unappeased. They preferred cake, fresh bread, hot boiled potatoes, doted on tender bits of meat, but would gobble up anything and everything, more voracious and less fastidious than the ordinary hog of commerce. Bags of corn were consumed in a flash, "shorts" were never long before their eager gaze, they went for every kind of nourishment provided for the rest of the menagerie. A goat ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... lane, that couldn't speak plain, Cried gobble, gobble, gobble: The man on the hill, that couldn't stand still, Went ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... mad away through, those two were Granny and Reddy Fox as they watched Old Man Coyote gobble up the dinner they had so cleverly stolen from Bowser the Hound. It was bad enough to lose the dinner, but it was worse to see some one else eat it after they had worked so hard to get it. "Robber!" snarled Granny. Old Man Coyote stopped ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... more terrible devil to combat, or harder to trick into civility, or more impervious to the injunctions of the Ten Commandments? I suppose it will be said that he is; that the black fellow bolted the whole code at a gobble, and wagged his tail, as if the feat must surely please his new masters; that he had long had the benefit of civilized cooking, and knew a gentleman by his toggery; that, moreover, he was of a teachable, plastic nature, and was meant to lie down in due time upon the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "You wouldn't want Prue to stick around and be an old maid, would you? I think she's mighty lucky to get a fellow as nice as Jerry Harmer myself. I'll bet you don't make out half as well, Fairy. I think she'd be awfully silly not to gobble him right up while she has a chance. For my own part, I don't believe in old maids. I think it is a religious duty for folks to get married, and—and—you know what I mean,—race suicide, you know." She nodded her head sagely, winking one eye ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... pronoun was sufficiently definite to indicate Araminta's hapless father—"was always tracking dirt into the clean kitchen, and he had an appetite like a horse. Barbara would make a cake to set away for company, and he'd gobble it all up at one meal just as if 't was a doughnut. She was forever cooking and washing dishes and sweeping up after him. When he come into the house, she'd run for the broom and dustpan, and follow him around, sweeping up, and if you'll believe ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... Boone. He was a gentle, kindly man who loved the forest and the loneliness of the wilderness. All the lore of the forest was his, he knew the haunts and habits of every living thing that moved within the woods. He could imitate the gobble of the turkey, or the chatter of a squirrel, and follow a trail better than any Indian. It was with no idea of helping to found a state, but rather from a wish to get far from the haunts of his fellowmen that he moved away into ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... sure he talks to Mrs. Haughton for my sake (shows how perfect their tricks have been), and she (Ellen) is to be my maid and marry Simon; she's a good creature, Baronet, so she won't have her way; they never do down here; we gobble up all the bon-bons; so you be up to time; slip off after you lead Cis back from dinner; my plot wants trimming; and walls have ears here; there won't be a soul down there, or a body ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... we judged, without its representatives; but of this we had only hints, not experience. There were various day-boarders, who frequented only our table, and lodged elsewhere. A few of these were decorous Spaniards, who did not stare, nor talk, nor gobble their meals with unbecoming vivacity of appetite. They were obviously staid business-men, differing widely in character from the street Spaniard, whom I have already copiously described. Some were Germans, thinned by the climate, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... characteristics. They are not necessary to the lives of the creatures, and are probably more influenced by imitation than are the more important instincts of self-preservation and reproduction. Yet the testimony is overwhelming that birds will sing and roosters crow and turkeys gobble, though they have never heard these sounds; and, no doubt, the grouse and the woodpeckers drum from promptings ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... him. What did he want there? It was surely some sinister motive impelled him. He was probably watching for an opportunity to gobble up the goldfish. We took his part, however, and strenuously defended his moral character, and patronized him in all ways. We gave him the name of Unke, and maintained that he was a well-conducted, philosophical old water- sprite, who showed his good taste in wanting to take up his abode in our ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and meet the issue unafraid. For the Desert Rat was a philosopher, and even at this ghastly spectacle his sense of humor did not desert him. He sat down on the skull of one of the burros and laughed—a dry cackling gobble. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... the pig you purchased—so gallantly and confidingly. I would not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments—your pig will gobble 'em up. You should by this have received a communication from my solicitors. Remember, you have pledged your sacred promise. There must be no question of trying to shirk or burke it. Remember that I am quite outrageously rich. I have no children of my own, and no ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... mounted a mullein leaf and sang, and sang, and sang, until Professor Turkey Gobbler slipped up behind him with open mouth, and Signor Grasshopper vanished from the footlights forevermore. And as Professor Turkey Gobbler strutted off my stage with a merry gobble, the orchestra opened before me with a flourish of trumpets. The katydid led off with a trombone solo; the cricket chimed in with his E. flat cornet; the bumblebee played on his violoncello, and the jay-bird, laughed with his piccolo. The ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... whole of his face into contact with the food, there was not room in the dish for the two to feed together after the same fashion, so that he was driven to the sole other possible expedient, that of making a spoon of his hand. The dog neither growled nor pushed away the spoon, but instantly began to gobble twice as fast as before, and presently was licking the bottom of the dish. Gibbie's hand, therefore, made but few journeys to his mouth, but what it carried him was good food—better than any he had had that day. When all ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... end of his tail sticking out from under the largest stone? May-be he has had one little girl for breakfast this morning, and don't care about another for luncheon, or else he would spring up after you, and gobble you up in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... among the ice, though somehow they always did get left to the last. Then later on he began to side with public opinion himself, and think that perhaps there was something soft and unmanly about caring so much for anything to eat, so he used to gobble them first of all, trying not to taste them very much. Then there came an awful holiday when he wouldn't have any at all. That was just before he insisted on going to sea. But then he came back—and ever since he's had it every ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... horns show, Show me the four, and don't say 'No,' Or I shall pitch you into the ditch, And the crows that come to the ditch to sup, Will gobble you up, ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... eight squares he chooses; can get on one side of a fence and blackguard three or four men on the other; has an objectionable way of inserting himself in safe places where he can scare the king and compel him to move, and then gobble a queen. For pure cussedness the knight has no equal, and when you chase him out of one hole he skips into another." Attempts have been made over and over again to obtain a short, simple, and exact definition of the move of the knight—without ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... this outfit himself he was mighty jealous uh the range, and he didn't take none to the idea of anybody else shoving stock onto it more than naturally drifted on in the course uh the season. If he's going to start another cow-outfit, I'll bet yuh he's going to gobble land—and that's what we better do, ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... was her daughter's answer. "I can gobble to make up for lost time. Don't bring any arrears, Norbury. I can go on where they are. What's this—grouse? Not if it's grousey, thank you!... Oh—well—perhaps I can endure it ... What have I been doing? Why, taking a drive!... Yes—hock. Only not in a tall glass. I hate ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... say nothing and prove you're right they'll gobble you up as a juror. For that reason I avoid all newspapers, and right now I don't know what big crimes or cases have been committed at all. I have a clean, unprejudiced mind and I ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... (surely its only admirer,) grinding away for dear life, to the extreme exacerbation of the bears growling beneath, under the combined irritation of no supper and his abominable tinkling. How they must have longed to gobble him up, were it only for the sake of popping an extinguisher on the "zit zan zounds" overhead! It was the reverse of the old tale, "no song no supper;" for they got the song, instead of a supper on the nice plump artist, which they would have liked much better. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... no sound as they stole softly on the camp of a sleeping enemy or crept to ambush him while he himself still-hunted or waylaid the deer. A favorite stratagem was to imitate the call of game, especially the gobble of the wild turkey, and thus to lure the would-be hunter to his fate. If the deceit was guessed at, the caller was himself stalked. The men grew wonderfully expert in detecting imitation. One old hunter, Castleman by name, was in after years fond of describing how an Indian nearly lured him to ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Great Menagerie; another reference to his experience as a social lion is found here, as in the three rubaiyat following. The gabble garbled garrulousness (the familiar "gobble, gabble and git, crystallized into the higher form of expression) indicates that the narcotic effect of tea on womankind was much the same in Omar's ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... to that made by a turkey-cock before he begins to gobble—a sound that may be represented by the word Phut, and they preserved ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... witnessed such behaviour before. "Yu daring rascal! Put down! I'll gie thee such a one in a minute. Go an' sit down to once." Then they climb into chairs, wave their grubby hands over the plates, in a pretence of grabbing something more, and spite of the whacks which sometimes fall, they gobble their food to the accompaniment of incessant tricks and roars of shrill laughter. Never were such disorderly, hilarious meals! If Tony is here they simply laugh at his threats of weird punishment, and if ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... noffin but a skull—somebody bin lef him head up de tree, and de crows done gobble ebery ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... have been kept on pretty short commons, poor things! They are hungry. By the way, Marshfield, you can sit tight to a horse, I trust? If you were to roll off, you know, these splendid fellows—they would chop you up in a second. They would chop you up,' he repeated unctuously, 'snap, crunch, gobble, and there would be an end ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Mrs. Eveleigh sobbed. "The French ships of war will be sure to gobble up you and your father, too. I know just how it will be. You are a crazy girl, and I don't know what is the matter with you," she had added irrelevantly; "and as to your father, you must have bewitched him; he used to have ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... by the inhabitants of farmhouses—when it makes itself perfectly at home, and is even of more service than a cat in devouring rats and mice; though occasionally, if a young chicken come in its way, it may gobble it up. This it can easily do, as it is of great size—varying from five to six feet in length. The colours of its body are remarkably brilliant; the general tint being a rich chestnut red, with large patches of a still brighter and deeper ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... She lays the ground-bait for the victims. Out pop the stupid little flowers, eager to be deceived (one could forgive the annuals, but the perennials ought to know better by now), and down comes March, a roaring lion, to gobble ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... Dickey's experience from that visit. Every morning he was allowed—being well wrapt up as to his chest by Mrs. Hackit's own hands, but very bare and red as to his legs—to run loose in the cow and poultry yard, to persecute the turkey-cock by satirical imitations of his gobble-gobble, and to put difficult questions to the groom as to the reasons why horses had four legs, and other transcendental matters. Then Mr. Hackit would take Dickey up on horseback when he rode round his farm, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the parrot, who was now rather angry, "I don't see anything more, unless you wish to eat me!" He thought the cat would be ashamed when he heard that—but the cat just looked at him and licked his chops again,—and slip! slop! gobble! down his throat went ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... do not gobble herring bones—" "And remember," said I impressively, "if you once cross the county ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... and see if the Huns had any food they didn't gobble," suggested Roger. "That ration of mine was ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... can't see the jewel in the toad's head, still believe in it. Take it for granted. The Parisienne says that the English woman has no je ne sais quoi, The English woman says the Parisienne has no aplomb. Amen! When you are in Turkey—why gobble. Why should I decline to have a good time at the Queen's drawing-room, because English women have no je ne sais quoi, or at the grand opera, because French women lack aplomb? Take things smoothly. Life is a merry-go-round. Look at your ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... I have got for you—a piece of meat; there, eat it. What? Don't you want it? You fancy it's poisoned, you fool? Gobble it up, you beauty!" But Almira would not even sniff at the piece of meat, until Narcissa (it is well known that cats have no decision of character) crept up to it, which made Almira angry, and she began to scratch a large hole in the ground; there she buried the meat, ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the Lubrikoffs, and heaps of others whose names I forget, but I don't see why I should inflict the society of the Misses Smithly-Dubb on myself for a solid hour. Imagine it, sixty minutes, more or less, of unrelenting gobble and gabble. Why can't you take them on, Milly?" she asked, turning hopefully ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... catching the flies on which he lived, lying so still that they did not notice him, and darting out his long tongue suddenly to suck them into his mouth. Yet he hid from the owl and the cat, because he knew full well that, tough though he was, they would gobble him up if they happened to be hungry. He made his home amongst the roots on the south side of the tree where it was hottest, but the mouse had his hole on the other side amongst damp moss and dead leaves. The mouse was in constant ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... of turkey that was to be delivered, and apparently these orders were effectual, for Captain Luther, who was obliged to hurry back to the life-saving station as soon as dinner was over, said that he was so full of white meat and stuffing that he cal'lated he should "gobble" all the way to the beach. His sister stayed until the next day, and this was very pleasing to all hands, particularly ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... explained the older man, "the properties throughout the region where we are located are mainly held by independent operators. The Octopus is trying to gobble us up, but it hasn't succeeded, and won't if we can prevent. But, just the same, it isn't there for the Mexicans to attack. If they want to harass anybody in the hope of getting the United States Government to intervene, they must attack us and ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... try to get around us that way. That ain't goin' to do no good! You want to gobble up everythin' for nothin'! We works till we got no breath. Hours an' hours soakin' in the snow, not to speak o' the risk, there in the pitch dark. That's no ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... mouse]; neigh, whinny [horse]; bray [donkey, mule, hinny, ass]; mew, mewl [kitten]; meow [cat]; purr [cat]; caterwaul, pule [cats]; baa^, bleat [lamb]; low, moo [cow, cattle]; troat^, croak, peep [frog]; coo [dove, pigeon]; gobble [turkeys]; quack [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [goose]; crow, caw, squawk, screech, [crow]; cackle, cluck, clack [hen, rooster, poultry]; chuck, chuckle; hoot, hoo [owl]; chirp, cheep, chirrup, twitter, cuckoo, warble, trill, tweet, pipe, whistle [small birds]; hum [insects, hummingbird]; buzz ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... very knave of a rub-a-dub and shouting at the top of his voice: 'Eat, brothers, eat! Bulge the eye, swell the coat, loose the belt! Eat, brothers, eat!' Chouart stands at the boiler ladling out joints faster than an army could gobble. Within an hour every brat lay stretched and the women were snoring asleep where they crouched. From the warriors, here a grunt, there a groan! But Chouart keeps ladling out the meat. Then the Dutchman grabs up a drum at the other end of the lodge, and begins to beat ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... bring me a delicious plate of cherries. "Would you like to have some, major? Look at them; aren't they lovely?" And then, as I stretched out my hand, he would snatch them back with malicious glee, and gobble them ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... more of a hurry than I am. I don't like to do anything in a hurry, least of all to eat my dinner. Now, why should these chickens, turkeys and ducks gobble everything right down? The corn seems to taste good to them; so, after a handful, I wait till they have had a chance to think how good the last kernel was before they get another. You see I ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... snow fell upon their heads and shoulders, covering them with white—something which was to their advantage, as it aided them in hiding themselves from the game. Not far away they could hear the wild turkeys, one in particular giving the peculiar gobble by which ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... poked up the fire. He was surprised, at last, to hear a far-away gobble, the welcome of a wild turkey for the first false dawn. By and by he became conscious of the light which was crowding the fire flare into ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... If you'd ride along to Fairyland this night beside o' me; There's a fox that eats our chickens—them that lays the eggs that's golden— And our little fairy mouse-dogs, ah, 'tis small account they'll be, Sure it wants an advertising pack to gobble such as he!' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... how the Trojan horse Held seventy men inside him? This Dragon's bigger, and of such force That none may rein or ride him. Men hour by hour he doth devour, And would they with him grapple, At one big sup he'll gobble them up, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... forest. In it she met the wife of a hobgoblin, [23] who asked, "Lady, Lady, whose wife are you, and why do you come here? Run away as quickly as you can. For, if my husband the hobgoblin sees you, he will tear you to pieces and gobble you up." The poor woman said she was the daughter-in-law of a Brahman, and explained how every year she had given birth to a son on the last day of Shravan, how it had died in the middle of the Shradh feast, and how at last her father-in-law had put the child in her lap and had driven ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... my lady rode the blue-roan out into the woods, towards the hut of old Joan Gobble, who was crippled by reason of age. My lady had me follow her on Dumble, th' white nag, with a pat o' butter and some wine. I was taken up with pondering as to why my lady should go in person to Dame Gobble's, ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... against it. Roosting shags and waterfowl fly screaming away. In the swamp a bittern booms; and strange wailing cries come from the depths of the bush. On the farm dogs bark energetically, cattle bellow, horses neigh, sheep bleat, pigs grunt, ducks quack, and turkeys gobble. Frightful is the din that goes echoing among the woods. And then the outraged bridegroom gets out his gun, and commences rapid file-firing ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... who float Up and down the moat Gobble the bread the Bishop feeds them. The slim bronze men beat the hour again, But only the gargoyles up in the hard blue air ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... numerous stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently for that peculiar cake—small, flat, round, and very spicy—after which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning when business was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were mere wafers—indeed they sell them at the rate of six or eight for a penny—the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp particles in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders and ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... which I was prepared—that I was quite too primitive; after which she said: "We needn't discuss the case if you don't wish to, but I happen to know—how I obtained my knowledge isn't important—that the moment Mr. Parker should propose to my daughter she'd gobble him down. Surely it's a ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... "Capital words for eating. He 'll gobble, he 'll bolt 'em. Give him the chance. It's astonishing how becoming it is to you young women to play billiards, how it brings out the grace of your blessed figures. Say, 'I, even I, am your cousin. Do you still decline ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... heard the message Turkey Proudfoot's tail drooped and he forgot to strut. He even shook slightly, as if something had frightened him. And then, to the Muley Cow's astonishment, he began to gobble at her. ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... hunting in the way of prize ships. Off Martinique were many French and Spanish boats simply waiting, it would almost seem, to be eaten alive by the enemy's cruisers; and Captain Peter who had the sound treasure-hunting instinct of your born adventurer, proceeded to gobble them up! In the four months that rolled jovially by between the middle of February and the middle of June, the Captain captured twenty-four of these prizes, one alone with a plate cargo valued at two hundred and fifty thousand ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... s'posing you had to live in a mite of an ugly house without nice things to eat or wear and with no father or mother to take care of you, and a mortgage you couldn't pay, and an old skinflint of a man ready to slam you outdoors and gobble up the farm, furniture and everything, the minute the mortgage was due. How'd you ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... much-worn tile floor and a charcoal range of two pockets faced and covered with blue and white tiles; an immense hood above yawning like the flat open jaws of a gigantic cobra, which might not only consume all the smoke and smells but gobble up the little tile-covered range itself upon ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... answer, then?" demanded the latter chum, indignantly; "do we sit down and watch him gobble all our fine grub without lifting a hand to stop him? Say, I'd be ashamed to tell the story afterwards; and him only a half-grown bear ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... there must be something for those who are down,—for the barefooted beggars, knife-grinders, and miserable wretches. Legends, chimeras, the soul, immortality, paradise, the stars, are provided for them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on their dry bread. He who has nothing else has the good. God. That is the least he can have. I oppose no objection to that; but I reserve Monsieur Naigeon for myself. The good God is good for ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... her hand on the carver's shoulder and said: "Now Philippa, if you gobble up your work like that, you will soon have none to do; and what will ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... the doctor is not going in to fight these savage creatures," whispered Peter. "Why they will tear us to pieces and gobble us up in ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... long crystal trumpets keep up their gobble. Groups of polite and frivolous persons pass and repass like fantastic shadows: childish bands of small-eyed mousmes with smile so candidly meaningless and coiffures shining through their bright silver flowers; ugly men waving at the end of long branches their eternal ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... in too," he said, with a suppressed gobble. "You needn't believe a word of that tale, and if you knew anything about raising poultry you would have seen the weak point in her story. It was only to play on your sympathy while she made a meal of your lettuce. That old hen is one of the toughest confidence ...
— In Macao • Charles A. Gunnison
... the wise little hen, "I learned it by listening to the nightingale, and so can you, I presume, if you leave off that silly honking. Just gobble as nicely as you can when you have anything to say, but first be sure it ...
— The Little Brown Hen Hears the Song of the Nightingale & The Golden Harvest • Jasmine Stone Van Dresser
... reputation, you know. You're quite a dragon. I'm told you gobble a new railroad every ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... little Jackal; "the big Alligator has my paw in his mouth! In another minute he will pull me down and gobble me up! What shall I do? what shall I do?" Then he thought, suddenly, ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... to keep you company. When I'm very hungry I like to gobble, but I don't like anyone to watch me," ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles |
