"Greenhorn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at him bucking round there in the dust. He can't even ride! It's some blasted greenhorn taking a pasear on a hoss for the first time. Damnation! he's ruined ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... me for such a greenhorn as to suppose that I would enter a wood after dark? No, sir; I've studied the habits and cunning of bushrangers for many years, and seen much service during that time. I shall start near dark, halt half a mile from the edge of the forest, and remain there until daylight. Does that suit your ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... advocate, even in France, are generally passed in as enforced an idleness as in England. Clients come not to consult the greenhorn of the last term; nor does any avoue among our neighbors, any more than any attorney among ourselves, fancy that an old head is to be found on young shoulders. The years 1830 and 1831 were not marked by any oratorical effort of the author of the Decline of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... is all nonsense," said Macleod, bluntly. "I am not such a greenhorn. I have read all that kind of talk in books and magazines: it is ridiculous. Do you think I will believe that married women have so little self-respect as to make themselves ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... soul on 'em's an old mountain man. Not a greenhorn or a tenderfoot among 'em. You won't catch one on 'em a whimperin', not ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... wrong, and was often entreated to speak by journalists in need of copy, and fell into their trap, taking himself seriously in his innocent way. On the whole he was a fair poet and a good man, intelligent, if rather a greenhorn, pure of heart and weak in character, sensitive to praise and blame, and to all the suggestions round him. He was incapable of a mean sentiment of envy or hatred, and unable also to attribute such thoughts to others. Amid the complexity of human feelings, he remained blind ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... there isn't much chance of you being dropped, Steve," snorted Toby. "I only wish I was as sure of being retained on the honor roll. That run of mine today was as punk a thing as any greenhorn could have attempted. I saw Joe look at me as if he'd like to eat me, and I felt so small I could have crawled into any old rat- hole. But I mean to surprise him yet, see if I don't. I've got the faith to believe I can play quarterback, and I will, I tell you; ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... debt I owe Dave Evans. What an idiot I was to keep that money! To pay for that one act of folly and dishonesty I am compelled to waste some of the best years of my life in the army. I hope I shall get a chance to show them that I am no coward, if I am a greenhorn." ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... sufficiently characteristic appearance to draw a few faces—some of them pretty and intelligent—to the windows of the coach as it passed. The sensitive Barker was quickest to feel that resentment with which the Pioneer usually met the wide-eyed criticism of the Eastern tourist or "greenhorn," and reddened under the bold scrutiny of a pair of black inquisitive eyes behind an eyeglass. That annoyance was communicated, though in a lesser degree, even to the bearded Demorest and Stacy. It was an unexpected ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... of a blackmailer's trap. But I had betrayed my father's trust in me and had gambled away his money, and—what was as crushing to my vanity as this other was to my sense of honor—I had been duped in a way that any greenhorn ought to have seen through. So I put it all behind me and was glad to be alone ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... at me. I weigh about a hundred and eighty pounds, and am well put together. Hiram was noted in his village as a 'rahstler.' But my face is rather pallid and peaked, and Hiram had something of the greenhorn look. The two men, who had been drinking, hardly knew what ground to take. They rather liked the sound of Sir Michael and, Sir Hans. They did not know very well what to make of their wives as 'ladies.' ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... remember now, he was asking me questions," said another, whose voice Phil recognized as belonging to the foreman of the stake and chain gang. "I got to thinking about it afterwards, and realized that he was a little too inquisitive for a greenhorn. He's been on the lot all ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... punishment of vice, it should be devoted to the reward of virtue, and this would be best accomplished by expending the fund in question in an annual banquet to those Vestrymen who attended the most assiduously to the arduous duties of their important office. JOSEPH GREENHORN. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... Mines on Lake Superior, a "greenhorn" asked some miners to show him where to dig; they offered to do it, provided he would treat to a quart of "prairie dew," which he did, and they set him to work under a shady tree, in mere sport. Before night he struck a "Lead," and the next ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... never recounted Paul Bunyan's exploits in narrative form. They made their statements more impressive by dropping them casually, in an off hand way, as if in reference. to actual events of common knowledge. To overawe the greenhorn in the bunkshanty, or the paper-collar stiffs and home guards in the saloons, a group of lumberjacks would remember meeting each other in the camps of Paul Bunyan. With painful accuracy they established the exact time and place, "on the Big Onion the winter of the blue snow" or "at Shot ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... too; besides, there is nothing to be gained by humbug to-day. There will be only us two at dinner; and when I see young ladies fiddling with an asparagus head instead of eating their dinner, it don't fall into the greenhorn's notion—exquisite creature! all soul! no stomach! feeds on air, ideas, and quadrille music—no; what do you think ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... too much," said he of the spectacles, sharply, "know that I am not going to deal with a greenhorn; secondly, that I never gave my assistance for so little before; and, thirdly, that I should never think of teasing myself with you if I had not a fancy to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... an expectant little group that stood by to witness this greenhorn's rise and fall. According to his established methods, Whetstone would allow him to mount, still standing with that indifferent droop to his head. But one who was sharp would observe that he was rolling his old white eyes ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... said, "or I'll have to tap you on the head with this rifle stock. What sort of a greenhorn do you take me for? I would have promised anything to ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... of him I wouldn't be ashamed to let him know, you can tell the world that. And I wouldn't keep him trottin' about like a little pet dog till I got tired of him and give him up for the sake of a greenhorn who"—her voice lowered to a spiteful hiss—"kissed you the first time he even ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... to the woods. I said I would if there were any woods. But there weren't. She laughed and said more queer things. She asked me why I had come, and I told her. First she laughed. Then she sat there staring at me—blinking. And what she said was: 'Poor little fool. Poor little greenhorn.' ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... it was the same men who robbed the bank they must have known about you boys having a brand new machine. And say, that must mean one of the robbers was something of a birdman himself; because no greenhorn would ever think of making his getaway in an aeroplane. Don't you see that's a pretty good clue, Frank? I'll remember that when I'm getting in touch with other points, and find out if there's any aviator who's gone crooked of late. Yes, that's worth knowing, now; and ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... my innocent ruse had succeeded; she had taken my gift without a hint of payment, and she would scarce sleep in peace till she had made it up to me. No greenhorn in matters of the heart, I was besides aware that I had now a resident ambassador at the court of my lady. The lion might be ill chiselled; it was mine. My hands had made and held it; my knife—or, to speak more by the mark, my rusty nail—had traced those ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... college, knows vastly more of those things than he does. The same exposure awaits him wherever he goes, and whenever he has the audacity to open his mouth. At sea he is a landlubber; in the country a cockney; in town a greenhorn; in science an ignoramus; in business a simpleton; in pleasure a milksop—everywhere out of his element, everywhere at sea, in the clouds, adrift, or by whatever word utter ignorance and incapacity are to be described. In society and in the work of life, he finds ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... kept in pay, to oblige the frequenters of the house to submit to the impositions of the mother abbess, or bawd; and who also sometimes pretends to be the husband of one of the ladies, and under that pretence extorts money from greenhorns, or ignorant young men, whom he finds with her. See GREENHORN. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... lot of fancy lying when a greenhorn like me starts late and is obliged to do things in a hurry. Gives business ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... green. Almost the last words his father had said to him concerned the matter of his behavior when he got to the city. "Be a sharp one," Tom Willard had said. "Keep your eyes on your money. Be awake. That's the ticket. Don't let anyone think you're a greenhorn." ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... screw," cried the general; "he drills holes my heart and soul. He wishes me to be a pervert to atheism. Know, you young greenhorn, that I was covered with honours before ever you were born; and you are nothing better than a wretched little worm, torn in two with coughing, and dying slowly of your own malice and unbelief. What did Gavrila bring ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a very quiet, respectable place, inwardly, as Porter found, it was far from reputable. Up stairs were private rooms, in which gentlemen met to have a quiet game of poker; while down stairs could be found the greenhorn, just "roped in," and being swindled, at three card monte. There were, also, rooms where the "young bloods" of the town—as well as the old—could meet ladies of easy virtue. It was frequented by fast men from New Orleans, Mobile, and ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... chuckled as they waited for the jitney to take them across to the launching pad. "At first you think everybody is impressed by the colors, until you see some guy go past with the braid all faded and frazzled at the edges, and then you realize that you're just the latest greenhorn in a squad of ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... Bess, "who ever started that lumberman's slang of 'sawney' for 'greenhorn' up in this hall of acquired ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... empty as a box of chocolates when the parlourmaid has done with them. How Lord Crossborough got out or where he had gone to when he did get out, I knew no more than the dead. One thing was plain—I was as clean sold as any greenhorn at any country fair. And I made no bones about telling the sergeant ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... in the past now assumed new meaning and importance. Gaston had slipped in among them three years before, and after the first few months of observation he had aroused no interest. He had minded his business, paid his way, taken his turn in camp at greenhorn jobs, accounted for his presence on the ground of seeking health, and that was all. Life went on as usual, sluggishly ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... shrimp and crab meat and French artichokes stuffed with caviar and anchovies, he intimated to the uneasy-minded Sheiner certain knowledge as to a certain recent coup. In the face of this charge Sheiner indignantly claimed that he had only been playing the ponies and having a run of greenhorn's luck. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... D. is rather full up just now," he remarked. "I'm walkin'-boss there. The roads is about all made, and road-making is what a greenhorn tackles first. They's more chance earlier in the year. But if the OLD Fellow" (he strongly accented the first word) "h'aint nothin' for you, just ask for Tim Shearer, an' I'll try to put you on the ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... that we were in a perfectly safe place, where I could not possibly kill the steamboat. But that last conclusion, though the most comforting, was an extremely doubtful one. I knew perfectly well that no sane pilot would trust his steamboat for a single moment in the hands of a greenhorn unless he were standing by the greenhorn's side. Of course, by force of habit, when I grabbed the wheel, I had taken the steering marks ahead and astern, and I made up my mind to hold her on those marks to the hair; but I could feel myself ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to look out for with a greenhorn, Philip," he said, "is that you learn 'em good the English language. If a feller couldn't talk he couldn't do nothing, understand me, so with the young feller especially you shouldn't give him no encouragement to keep on ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... freely in the crowds, and saw all the "humours" of the occasion. The thimble-riggers were out in great force, with their light, movable tables, the cups or thimbles, and the "little jokers," and the coachman, the sham gentleman, the country greenhorn, all properly got up and gathered about the table. I think we had "Aunt Sally," too,—the figure with a pipe in her mouth, which one might shy a stick at for a penny or two and win something, I forget what. The ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... to see this mountain greenhorn down here, were you?" she laughed. "As for me, I hardly know which end of me is up. I don't see how you can live in all this ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... Indian fighter before the war. He introduced himself as "Corps officer of the day" and my superior officer for this tour of picket duty. The peculiar thing about his presence was his treatment of me. He evidently saw that he had a greenhorn on hand, for the first question he fired at me was, "How many times have you served as picket officer of the day?" I candidly replied that this was my first experience. "Your knowledge of the duties of officer of the day is somewhat limited?" I admitted the ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... have spared himself the trouble, my young friend," he said. "You didn't expect to find a greenhorn behind a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... acknowledge my negligence. I should have done better, the chances are, had I thought it would have been of interest to you—pardon me. Just my bungling wit. The truth is, I was too much of a greenhorn to hold my own and spare glances on ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... or three asserted that they had witnessed an extraordinary sight during the night, but they all differed considerably in their accounts. It may be supposed that they were trying to practise on the credulity of a greenhorn. My belief is that they really fancied that they had seen ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... on the part of Garvey was unethical and dangerous, and there were men among the dozen in the room who looked sneeringly at Calumet, or to one another whispered the significant words, "greenhorn" and "tenderfoot." Others, to whom the proprietor had spoken concerning Calumet, looked at him in surprise. Still others merely stared at Garvey and Calumet, unable to account for the latter's mild submission to this unallowed liberty. ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the confusion of his brain. It grew until it spread a bitter smile over his pale face. "I know so little about kisses," he said; "I am such a greenhorn at that sort of thing. You should have had pity on my inexperience, and told me just what brand of kiss it was I was getting. Probably I ought to have been able to distinguish, but you see I was brought up in the country—on a farm. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... they all do. A young fellow now of two or three and twenty knows the world as men used to do after as many years of scrapes. I wonder where there is such a thing as a greenhorn. Effie Crabbs says the reason he gives up his house is, that he has cleaned out the old generation, and that the new ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... persons who don't know much about western life. I suppose their feet get tender from taking such long walks on the plains. Anyhow that means a sort of 'greenhorn' I suppose. Everyone on the train spots me ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... Don't you dare to strike, either one of you! You confounded fellow! When I need a guardian I certainly shall not select a greenhorn. Is it I who is master here or is it some one else? What business have you here, fellow? Get you gone into the forest; look after Weiler that he does not loaf; then take out a dozen maple trees from the nursery and put them ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... to have known better than to chuck all my tools overboard for 'im, like a skeary greenhorn," retorted the morose carpenter. "Well—he's gone after 'em now," he added in an unforgiving tone.—"On the China Station, I remember once, the Admiral he says to me..." began ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... of late taken into copartnery," continued Miss Wardour, reading the letter, "by Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn, son of your late correspondent and man of business, Girnigo Greenhorn, Esq., writer to the signet, whose business I conducted as parliament-house clerk for many years, which business will in future be carried on under the firm of Greenhorn and Grinderson (which I memorandum for the sake ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... heard of him—haven't yer? Why, he is the biggest man in the House—a great swell—money to throw at the birds; and he's been a throwin' it, hey?' said he of the voice, with a chuckle; 'but he ain't no greenhorn, I can tell yer! The old sport can make it powerful warm for us when he gets ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... like a melee on the front line after a charge, as I found out later on. There were some three hundred men newly drafted into the Third Battalion; there were some three hours in which we had to get our equipment and learn to adjust it. As it was, many of the extreme greenhorn type marched away garbed in most sketchy fashion. Some had parts of their equipment in bags; others utilized their pockets as holders for unexplained, and to them inexplicable, parts of ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... hours spent in a fruitless endeavor to find where it crossed the stream, I urged that we should take our own trail back to the point at which it diverged from that of the train, he positively refused to do so; declaring that he wasn't a greenhorn to get scared at so small a matter, and that he should push on in a southwesterly direction, and take his chance of intersecting the trail, he asserting that we must have strayed to northward of it. My brother and myself protested against so rash an undertaking, but in vain; ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... said so so often that I can't help it. But now, as we are on the right footing, I can tell you that I wintered once in Arkansaw, and that's enough to let you know I'm no greenhorn, no how you can fix it. And moreover, I tell you, if old Boone wasn't here hisself, I'd kill this bar as sure as a gun, and my gun is as sure as a streak of lightning run into a barrel of gunpowder;" and as he spoke he threw up his heavy ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... I was in the Rifles they were quartered at Zante. Matilda was just then coming it rather strong with Villiers, of ours, a regular greenhorn. Fanny, also, nearly did for Harry Nesbitt, by riding a hurdle race. Then they left for Gibraltar, in ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... found myself at the quay where the "Emu" lay. "Now," I thought to myself, "I'll go on board, and if I can't see the captain, I'll have a talk with the crew. They'll perceive by my cutter that I'm not a greenhorn, and I can offer to show them what I know by explaining how I sail her." With more confidence than I had felt on the previous day, I walked up the plank. I could nowhere see the captain, nor any other officer, and therefore turned towards ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... says she. 'Where's Nora?' says I, wit' a great start. I thought something had happened the poor shild. 'Oh, go to slape, you fool!' says Mary Ann. ''T is only four o'clock,' says she, 'an' that grasshopper greenhorn can't wait for broad day till she go out an' see the whole of Ameriky.' So I wint off to sleep again; the first bell was biginnin' on the mill, and I had an hour an' a piece, good, to meself after that before Mary Ann ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... he was a 'know-nothing,' and asked him if the Dutchman was a more unlikely thing than that there should be places where the inhabitants split the year into two watches, and had day for six months, and night the rest of the time, the greenhorn laughed in my face, and I do believe he would have told me I ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... he had a greenhorn to deal with, and treated Puff accordingly. If a 'perfect servant' is only to begot out of the establishments of the great, Mr. Bragg might be looked upon as a paragon of perfection, and now combined in his own ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... through the bewildering gloom of the forest, but never a notched tree could he see. Whereupon Dol Farrar called himself some pretty hard names. He remarked that he had been a "hair-brained fool" and a "greenhorn" ever to leave the spotted track, but that he wasn't going to be "downed;" he would search until ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... he laughed, so that the walls reechoed. "The bungler, the greenhorn!" he exclaimed out loud, as so often in such self-communings. "He did not know how to make a good use of his opportunities. Or the Marchesa was hanging round his neck all the time. Or perhaps he took her ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... is known to the police," said Dick; "about how you got fifty dollars out of a greenhorn on a false check, and it mayn't be safe ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... his answer, he implied that it likely would be poisonous in the sort of place where I would buy it, but that he, Anazeh, need not be told how to suck eggs by any such a greenhorn as me. ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... reproachfully. "That'll give the whole game away. You never stick your hands in your trousers pockets unless you're a greenhorn." ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... home, changed into his Canadian uniform, and leaving his other in a bundle, he came away without even letting his father know where he was going. He came down to Shorncliffe and we got him into our platoon and into our tent, and then the fun started. The boys thought him a greenhorn, and they were all showing him how to do things. He would let them help to put his puttees on, show him the hundred and one things that a soldier needs to know; we would almost burst trying to keep from laughing. When we were out drilling, he was just as clumsy as though he ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... strokes—wild and agitated at first, but gradually becoming controlled and coordinated, and Jennie drew a long breath as he finally came to shore, breasting the waves like Triton, and master of the element in which he moved. There was a burst of applause, and people went forward to congratulate the greenhorn who ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... paradise of Cockney sportsmen. There through the forest, the stag of ten trots, coquetting with greenhorns. He likes the excitement of being shot at and missed. He enjoys the smell of powder in a battle where he is always safe. He hears Greenhorn blundering through the woods, stopping to growl at briers, stopping to revive his courage with the Dutch supplement. The stag of ten awaits his foe in a glade. The foe arrives, sees the antlered monarch, and is panic-struck. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... for love; he's dropped it very cleverly no doubt and already made her see which way he's steering. He's put Jenny before the dollars and the dreams of the castle down south. In a word, if I'm not a greenhorn, he'll ask her to marry him as soon as a year is told and he can ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... two wives; he is much ashamed of himself, but his excuse is, "I be boy now," meaning about twenty-two. After breakfast we prepared for a sleep, but the popular excitement forbade it; the villagers had heard that a white greenhorn was coming to bag and to buy gorillas, and they resolved to make hay whilst the ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... respect for the muzzle of a gun; and a deep pride in handling a weapon in a safe and sportsmanlike manner. By the time the snow and cold weather put a stop to the shooting, each child would have been mortified and ashamed beyond words to have been caught doing anything "like a greenhorn." ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... "Greenhorn, aincha? Okay, I'll take you with me. We go out in the tubes and pull the lining. I pry up the stuff, you carry it back ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... was the deliberate reply, as the old man began to trim the prostrate form. "Now, a greenhorn 'ud rush in, an' hack an' chop any old way, an' afore he knew what he was doin' the tree 'ud be tumblin' down in the wrong place, an' mebbe right a-top of 'im at that. But I size things up a bit afore I hit a clip. Havin' made up me mind as to the best spot to fell her, ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... hurled at us. For every mistake I receive a loud, severe correction. When night comes I am exhausted. The work is easy, yet the moral atmosphere is more wearing than the noise of many machines. My job is often changed during the week. I do everything as a greenhorn, but I work hard and pay attention, so that there is no ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... a leetle bit the darndest thing you ever did see. All you have to do is to set it on a table and turn a crank, and the fish flies right down your throat and the bones right under the grate. Well, there was a country greenhorn got hold of it the other day, and he turned the crank the wrong way; and, I tell you, the way the bones flew down his throat was awful. Why, it stuck that fellow so full of bones, that he could not get his shirt off for a ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... deuce! This fellow Is no fool, I see. No greenhorn In his business is this devil. I give him my bond! No, truly, Though my lodgings wanted a tenant For the space of twenty ages, I wouldn't ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... to be the most blases in the way of the sensations produced by novelties and fine scenery. It appears to be a part of their calling to suppress the emotions of a greenhorn; and, generally, they look upon anything that is a little out of the ordinary track with the coolness of those who feel it is an admission of inferiority to betray surprise. It seldom happens with them that anything occurs, or anything is ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... its oddity, and his long, lean head, his pretty little pointed ears, his bright, flashing eye and sensitive nostril, one and all spoke of spirit and intelligence. A glance at that horse would tell the veriest greenhorn that speed, bottom, and pluck were all to be found right there; and he had not been in the regiment a month before the knowing ones were hanging about the Mexican sports and looking out for a chance for a match; and Mexicans, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Hank? Do you know if he ever played chauffeur half-way decent? I'd hate to risk the pater's neck with a greenhorn." ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... first fish. Perhaps this was because he knew just how deep the water was, where a favorite swirl had yielded him several finny prizes on the occasion of his former visit; or possibly just through "dumb luck," as he called it. There is no accounting for the freaks of fishing; a greenhorn is just as apt as not to haul in the biggest bass ever taken in a lake, where an accomplished angler has taken a thousand smaller fish from year to year, yet never landed such a prize. "Fisherman's luck" has thus long ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... accidentally wandered out to and located himself in company with others on or near the Greenhorn River, which is one of the tributaries of the Arkansas. Their business was trading with the Mormons, many of whom at that time traveled to Salt Lake, by what is known as the Arkansas River route. In so doing, they came near the vicinity of the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... fellows," chuckled Larry, who had perhaps himself felt a little twinge of jealousy because a greenhorn had so suddenly leaped into the front when older and more experienced scouts ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... mind how criss-cross he is," declared Patricia valiantly. "I'm only the rankest greenhorn, anyway. He can't expect me ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther |
