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noun
Mess  n.  
1.
A quantity of food set on a table at one time; provision of food for a person or party for one meal; as, a mess of pottage; also, the food given to a beast at one time. "At their savory dinner set Of herbs and other country messes."
2.
A number of persons who eat together, and for whom food is prepared in common; especially, persons in the military or naval service who eat at the same table; as, the wardroom mess.
3.
A set of four; from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner. (Obs.)
4.
The milk given by a cow at one milking. (U.S.)
5.
A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding; as, he made a mess of it. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mess" Quotes from Famous Books



... friends!" he said. "Between you and Sam, you've got things in a lovely mess, Minnie. What are you going to do ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... agent and he put a price that surprised me. But the owner wanted to leave town immediately and had made it very low, to get the cash. He'd had hard luck; his wife in a mess with another man, ran up big bills against him—he wanted to get away and never see the town again. So I bought the place and asked the agent to rent it for me, for I was pretty busy just then. A little ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... [Lat.], captain; crackajack [U.S.]. supremacy, preeminence; lead; maximum; record; trikumia [Gr.], climax; culmination &c (summit) 210; transcendence; ne plus ultra [Lat.]; lion's share, Benjamin's mess; excess, surplus &c (remainder) 40; (redundancy) 641. V. be superior &c adj.; exceed, excel, transcend; outdo, outbalance^, outweigh, outrank, outrival, out-Herod; pass, surpass, get ahead of; over-top, override, overpass, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... a mess, from Sid's point of view. We came in at a weird angle and heated up to beat hell before there was enough atmosphere for our rudder to swing us around straight. He bounced us off twice after that as we slowed down, but the creak ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman

... said he. "His wife's caught on to a little game he's been up to, and she's the only human being he's afraid of. She came in here, one night, and led him out by the ear. What a fool a man is to marry when there's a chance of running into a mess like that! But—you made a hit with him. Besides, he needs you. Your family—" Buck checked himself, feeling that drink ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... nastier job than a spell of coal-shifting on board. It is a pity that such a useful thing as coal should be so black! What we are doing now is only hoisting it from the hold and filling the bunkers with it; but every man on board must help, and everything is in a mess. So many men must stand on the coal-heap in the hold and fill the buckets, and so many hoist them. Jacobsen is specially good at this last job; his strong arms pull up bucket after bucket as if they ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... the Philippines presents some interesting phases. Our club of American officials decided to run a mess, so we employed a cook and a house boy, then each of us provided himself with a personal servant, making a total of six servants for four men—it takes about this proportion of servants to live in any ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley

... "He's mistaken if Miss Fanny wan't tellin' 'em a stretcher this time," for which declaration Lucy rewarded him with a smart box on the ear, saying, "Is you no better manners than to 'cuse white folks of lyin'? Miss Fanny never'd got as well as she is if she's picked up a mess of lies to ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... innocent! He tippled, tippled. Then I came along and set up my sign, Edmund Crabbe Hawtree, Esquire; no, we'll drop the last and stick to E. Crabbe without the Esquire, d——n it! Lord! what a mess I've made of it, and this rankles, Ringfield. Listen. Over at Argosy Island there's a slabsided, beastly, canting Methodist Yankee who has a shop too. Must copy the Britisher, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... his brother to stare at him with his mouth open in an imbecile sort of way, which seemed to excite Mac still more, for, turning to his young host, he said, in a low voice, and with a look that made the gentlemen on the chairs sit up suddenly: "I beg pardon, Van, for making a mess, but I can't stand by and see my own brother tempt another man beyond his strength or make a brute of himself. That's plain English, but I can't help speaking out, for I know not one of you would willingly hurt Charlie, and you will if you don't ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... own way. He's got no children"—and stopped, recollecting the continued existence of old Jolyon's son, young Jolyon, June's father, who had made such a mess of it, and done for himself by deserting his wife and child and running away with that foreign governess. "Well," he resumed hastily, "if he likes to do these things, I s'pose he can afford to. Now, what's he going to give her? I s'pose he'll ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... very carefully thought out, and, though both animals and vehicles were undoubtedly overloaded at the start, this soon rectified itself, as consumable stores could not be replaced. We had one camel per battalion for officers' mess, and he started out very fully laden. He was a good deal less heavily loaded towards the end of the operations. Next day we marched on beyond the Wadi at Gamli—a very dusty and tiresome march—and were to have remained there throughout the next day. Word came in, however, that the Turk was ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... replied Drake; "and I carried out my contract, too. I've only been back in China a couple of weeks. But we must not stay here yarning; this is much too dangerous a place to be swapping experiences in. These will keep until later, when we are out of this mess." ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... by, and it was time for the return journey. The same noise and excitement and delay occurred, and it was afternoon ere the canoe left the beach. The evening meal, a mess of yam and herbs, cooked in palm oil, which had been carried on board smoking hot from the fire and was served in the pot, had scarcely been disposed of when the splendour of the sunset and afterglow ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... Leigh. "I have nearly filled the bag, as you may see, and some of the birds are fine big fellows, and should be excellent eating. At any rate we will sample them at mess this evening. But I must be off and get the men together. As you two have liberty until we start for the ship, you may take this musket and ammunition, if you like, and try to shoot something on your ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... told me!" he protested. Dolores laughed triumphantly, with her arm about his shoulder. "I knew my dear old Peter too well for that," she exulted. "If I had told you, what a pretty mess we'd be in now, Peter! You would have insisted on calling Captain Rydal into our cabin and shooting him from the bed—and then where would we have been? Don't you think I'm handling it pretty ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... that you have no ill-feelings against the enemy, and may not even fear him, you destroy him as best you can. On the evening before our first battle we were sitting about the mess table—most of us officers of the line. None of us had ever killed a man. I said: 'Friends, when I meet the first Russian officer tomorrow my impulse will be to shake his hand.' My comrades agreed with me. But on the following ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... 'bout 21 or 22 years ole. When marster got back wid 'em de overseer tole him he had ruined his plantation. De boys soon become sick wid yeller fever an' both died. Dey strowed it 'round, an' many died. Marster shore made a mess o' things dat time. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... himself, pausing for a few minutes' rest, "little did you think you'd git into such an 'orrible mess as this w'en you left 'ome. Sarves you right ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... mine own, 165 And the king's of this country; But me were lever[42] be hanged and drawn Or that[43] he wist thou lay me by. When thou com'st to yon castle gay, I pray thee courteous man to be, 170 And whatso any man to thee say, Look thou answer none but me. My lord is served at each mess With thirty knightes fair and free; I shall say, sitting at the dess[44], 175 I took thy speech beyond the sea." Thomas still as stone he stood, And he beheld that lady gay; She came again as fair and good And also rich ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... fellow-creature, old, weary, and worn. All pity is drowned in a wild devotion, A grim savage joy within every breast; The streets are all in a buzzing commotion, Expectant of this worse than cannibal feast. From the provost down to the gaberlunzie, From fat Mess John to half-fed Bill, From hoary grand-dad to larking loonie, From silken-clad dame to scullion Nell; The oldest, the youngest, the richest, the poorest, The milky-breasted, the barren, the yeld, The hardest, the softest, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... hot water and made very soft is also an excellent material to make moulds from, especially as it does not make a mess, and is ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro

... sir," I answered, "my friend here would be literally selling his birthright for a mess ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... Elsie, and was so horrified when she saw the carpet and her cap in such a mess, and "darling doggie" all "wetsey-petsey," that she locked me up in my room for the rest of the day on bread and water! and there was gingerbread, with raisins in it, baking down ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... of view, in which one discusses it as if it was a European hand of bridge, or the purely interested point of view, in which one regards it only as a matter affecting one's individual comfort. I know a Mess, well up in the Front where they measure the mud by feet, in which they were discussing the War raging at their front door as if it had nothing to do with them beyond being a convenient thing to criticise. Men who were then likely to be personally removed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various

... People return'd from hauling the Sean, having caught as much fish as came to 2 1/2 pound per Man, no one on board having more than another. The few Greens we got I caused to be boil'd among the pease, and makes a very good Mess, which, together with the fish, is a great refreshment to the people. A.M., a party of Men, one from each Mess, went again a fishing, and all the rest I gave leave to go into the Country, knowing that there was ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... say, scandalous. Let me tell you, sir, of an experience in Winnipeg only last week. It was, my fortune to fall in with the commanding officer of a Saskatchewan unit. I found him in a rage against the church and all its officials. His chaplain had become so hilarious at the mess that he was quite unable to ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... won't take charge of them!" Torry exclaimed. "I caught that big fellow, and I donate it to the officer's mess of the S. P. ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson

... the ways of good Queen Bess, Who ruled as well as ever mortal can, sir, When she was stogg'd, and the country in a mess, She was wont to send ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... succumb to irrationality, as rational persons invariably end by doing. But, oh, dear me! oh, Osiris, Termagaunt, and Zeus! to think there are at least a dozen other ne'er-do-wells alive who would prefer to make a mess of living as a grand-duke rather than as a scribbler in Grub Street! Well, well! the jest is not of my contriving, and the one concession a sane man will never yield the universe is that ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... officer! You're out of action! My word! You've made a beastly mess of it! You're not on church parade, you know! You advanced across the open for three quarters of a mile in close column of platoons! Three batteries of field artillery and four machine guns have blown you to blazes! You ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... it'—excuse me, sir—'I told you to do it, ain't that enough?' Well, this Schuster, sir, he worried all the time. He got so he cut himself shaving. Damnedest thing. Oh, hell, maybe for the last week, every morning, he came out a bloody mess. Patches of toilet paper all over his face. 'I can't shave,' he'd say. 'My God, I can't shave.' He wasn't nervous, either. His hands were okay. They didn't shake. It's just that he couldn't shave. Like I say, ...
— General Max Shorter • Kris Ottman Neville

... their poison in one home seems to make them wax and grow fat in another. Borax and powdered sugar, scattered thickly over shelves and around baseboards and sink, is a favorite remedy with many, but it is an unsightly mess, particularly in summer, when the sugar melts and becomes sticky. After all, experience has demonstrated that the one really effectual method of extermination is to besiege the roaches in their own bailiwick—the pipes and woodwork about the ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... better," observed Martha, inspecting him as they walked along. "It wouldn't have, though, if Primmie had finished the job. I was so busy that I let her start on it, but when I saw what a mess she was makin' I had to drop everything else and do ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the most opulent and powerful spirits ever seen on earth have scarcely done more than indicate what kind of birthrights they bartered away for a mess of pottage. Coleridge, for example, ceased to write poetry after thirty because, by dissipating his overplus of life, he had too grievously ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... matter and gained a new perspective. He was pretty well satisfied in his own soul that the thing he had set out to do was not "on the level." It began to be pretty plain to him that that "rich guy" might be in the way of getting hurt or perhaps still worse, and he had no wish to be tangled up in a mess like that. At the same time he did not often get a chance to make twenty-five dollars, and he had no mind to give it up. It was not in his unyellow soul to go back on his word without refunding the ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... selected fishes, neither rich nor bony, were cut in pieces into a great kettle; then some of the blood, and handfuls of maize and vegetables, were added. The whole art lies in the proper proportions of the mixture, which the uninitiated never understand. Of this delicious mess Herr Timar himself consumed an incredible quantity. Where good wine flows and fish-soup is brewed, be sure there will be gypsies to be found. Almost before they thought of it, a brown band of musicians appeared, who, as soon as the cymbal-player was seated ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... answer to this last remark, so Mosk launched out on another topic. 'I like yer cheek, I do,' he growled; 'it's you that have got me into this mess, and now you wants me to take up with ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... obtained from the nearest butcher's shop. In respect to teaching something about the biology of plants, there is no practical difficulty, because almost any of the common plants will do, and plants do not make a mess—at least they do not make an unpleasant mess; so that, in my judgment, the best form of Biology for teaching to very young people is elementary human physiology on the one hand, and the elements of botany on the other; beyond that I do ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley

... blackened pot to the pump, filled it with water, and carried it back to the kitchen. The fire was nearly out, and logs had to be piled on and blown up with the bellows before the pot could be set on again. Grizzel looked round for a towel to clear up the horrible mess with, but Bridget had washed her towels that morning and they were all hanging out to dry ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... among the men of the armies of the two nations are fewer, but when the allied forces entered China the comradeship which arose between the American and British troops, to the exclusion of all others, is notorious. Every night after mess, British officers sought the American lines and vice versa. The Americans have the credit of having invented that rigorous development of martial law, by which, as soon as British officers came within their lines, ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... evidence of carelessness. No deflector screens were set up. A Moreku tribesman could put a stone from a sling in there, and really mess them up—if he could sneak in close ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole

... bridge. The ship listed about ten degrees to the starboard and remained steady. The time was 7.15 A. M. All the water-tight doors, dead lights and scuttles had been securely closed before the torpedoes left the ship. All mess stools and table shores and all available timber below and on deck had been previously got up and thrown overside for the saving of life. A second torpedo fired by the same submarine missed and passed ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... so he humored it and they ambled along at "sumpty-sump miles an hour," as Roy said, "but what care we," he added, "as long as she goes." They anchored for several hours in the middle of the day and fished, and had a mess of fresh ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... command of a ship like the Kansas at his age? An' to get five hundred pounds an' a gold chronometer because the skipper of the Florida was too full to hold on to the bridge? You mark my words. He'll be made commodore of the fleet after he pulls the Kansas out of this mess." ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... talk like a book," muttered the old gentleman. "But I know that the end of it will be wretchedness for everybody. People who go on as you do about instincts, and fine feelings, and all that stuff, are just the ones who get into some dreadful mess at last. I tell you that such ideas are some of the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... to desert the bus," complained the other, giving his wrecked plane a wry look. "But then what's the use of sticking it out? Chances are we'll be through the mess before they ever get it in fighting trim again. Yes, I'll go along, boys, if you'll lend me a shoulder. Gave that game leg another little knock in falling; but then, I might have broken ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... in a short round frock, high buskins, an old wide-awake, short curly hair, and a very large nose, stood in front of the dairy door, mixing a mess of warm milk for the ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... party seemed very happy, my boon ally was fun itself, and I was much entertained with the mess he made when any of the foreigners at table addressed him in French or Spanish. I was particularly struck with a small, thin, dark Spaniard, who told very feelingly how the night before, on returning home from a party to his own lodgings, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... at my exhibition of nerves, and thrust into my hand a steaming mug with an "'Ere, this'll do yer good." It was a nauseous mess,—ship's coffee,—but the heat of it was revivifying. Between gulps of the molten stuff I glanced down at my raw and bleeding chest and turned ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... a noble ship full of eager passengers, freighted with a rich cargo, steaming at full speed from England to America. Two thirds of a prosperous voyage thus far were over, as in our mess we were beginning to talk of home. Fore and aft the songs of good cheer and hearty merriment rose from ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... half-way through the mess of lentils, protested with his mouth full that he had heard and would obey. But his tone was so indifferent as to increase his parent's wrath. To one deep in thought of the valley of gold, her words seemed trash. She stormed unceasingly till they had both lain down ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... reverence, were not some throats so much wider than others. You will always see that one porker half empties the trough before others have moistened their snouts in the mess." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... boat, sat gazing silently about him, while from time to time Sydney turned his eyes to find that his companion was examining him closely, and with a supercilious air which made the new addition to the midshipmen's mess feel irritable and ready ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... us bless Our Gracious Queen and eke the Fire Brigade, And bless no less the horrid mess they've been and gone and made; Remove the dirt they chose to squirt upon our best attire, Bless all, but most the lucky chance that no ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... this point of view the new fashion in the makeup of the periodical literature is a barbaric and inexcusable interference with the process of aesthetic education. A page on which advertisements and reading matter are mixed is a mess which irritates and hurts a mind of fine aesthetic sensitiveness, but which in the uncultivated mind must ruin any budding desire for subtler harmony. The noises of the street, with all the whistles of the factories and the horns of the motor ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... about? Or blind astray, does she make her sport To brazen and chance it out? I watched when her captains passed: She were better captainless. Men in the cabin, before the mast, But some were reckless and some aghast, And some sat gorged at mess. ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... purchased; and the American Government, as it only paid the Indians at the rate of one cent and a fraction per acre, will make an enormous profit by the speculation. Well may the Indians be said, like Esau, to part with their birthright for a mess of pottage; but, in truth, they are compelled to sell—the purchase-money being a mere subterfuge, by which it may appear as if their lands were not wrested from them, although, in ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... it twice—do you hear! This is all your fault, Tempenny. You have got me into a pretty mess upon my word. My wife won't believe me, and I shall never ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris

... evening of the 26th, Sir George Colley, after mess, suddenly gave orders for a force of a little over six hundred men, consisting of detachments from no less than three different regiments, the 58th, 60th, 92d, and the Naval Brigade, to be got ready for an expedition, without revealing his plans to anybody, until late ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... it. I knew, to be sure, that somehow Chandon had made a mess of things—turned unbeliever, and ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... weighed down our hearts was like the fog that stretched along the bosom of the Potomac, and enfolded the valley of the Shenandoah. A drizzling rain had set in at twilight, and, growing bolder with the darkness, was beating a dismal tattoo on the tent—the tent of Mess 6, Company A, —th Regiment, N. Y. Volunteers. Our mess, consisting originally of eight men, was reduced to four. Little Billy, as one of the boys grimly remarked, had concluded to remain at Manassas; ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... on the committee, please! Couldn't we get leave for a dormitory tea? I know Miss Rodgers rather frowned on them last term, but perhaps if we wheedled Miss Morley she'd say 'yes.' We'd promise to clear up and not make any mess, and to finish promptly before prep time. That ought ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... you peering from the bushes at the Devil's Hole, do you? Yes, I am quick-eyed enough to read every thought in your black heart. Do I not know that you came in the canoe with the white medicine man from Oswego? Do I not know that you listened outside the open window of the mess-room at Fort Niagara, while the white chiefs talked at night? Do I not know that you painted your face, with the thought that the white man was a fool and would no longer recognize you? Then you came in this canoe that you might make it go slow, like a swan whose wing is broken by the hunter. Do ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... killing of the pigs on the site of the grave, the whole performance appears to be quite informal. After the eating of the pigs, perhaps on the same day, or if, as is probable, the feast lasts until late in the evening, then on the next day, the women of the village clear away the filthy mess of blood and garbage by which the village enclosure is filled, and sweep the enclosure from end to end with branches of trees. Then the bulk of the villagers leave the village and go off into the gardens and the bush for a period ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... I was a full-blown sergeant. I made a mistake in walking into the sergeants' mess with the Koran under my arm. It was difficult to explain what sort of book it was. One day ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... dwelling; a third is hoeing in his field of Indian corn. Here comes a huntsman out of the woods, dragging a bear which he has shot, and shouting to the neighbors to lend him a hand. There goes a man to the sea-shore, with a spade and a bucket, to dig a mess of clams, which were a principal article of food with the first settlers. Scattered here and there are two or three dusky figures, clad in mantles of fur, with ornaments of bone hanging from their ears, and the feathers of wild birds ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... picked up by the natives from the water's edge, and brought to us amidst a very general rejoicing. The exploded Mugger floated down the stream, and the current soon carried it out of sight. We were not at all sorry, for it looked such a horrible mess that we felt no ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... while I was still without I saw a match flash and the lamplight kindle in the windows. The station was a wonderful fine place, coral built, with quite a wide verandah, and the main room high and wide. My chests and cases had been piled in, and made rather of a mess; and there, in the thick of the confusion, stood Uma by the table, awaiting me. Her shadow went all the way up behind her into the hollow of the iron roof; she stood against it bright, the lamplight shining on her skin. I stopped in the door, and she ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... have to, since you couldn't make one for yourself," laughed Nora. "Never mind, you'll be a man when you grow up and you won't have to mess around a kitchen. Here you are!" and she caught him up, all doughy as he was, and carried him to the big tent where his mother soon had him ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis

... and grounded on the sand. The masts were off even with the deck. The hold was full of water. When the fishermen went down inside to bail her out with pails, their bare feet, entangled in the mess of line and baskets and cordage, stepped finally on something soft. After a first instinctive cry of horrified revulsion, the men reached down under water with their hands and drew ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the sun is not so long in passing through the twelve signs, as the son of a fool hath been disputing here about had I wist.[55] Out of doubt, the poet is bribed of some that have a mess of cream to eat, before my lord go to bed yet, to hold him half the night with raff-raff of the rumming of Elinor.[56] If I can tell what it means, pray God I may never get breakfast more, when I am hungry. Troth, I am of opinion he is one of those hieroglyphical writers, that by ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... MESS. But, my dear mistress, thou shalt learn every thing clearly, and I will speak from the very commencement, unless my memory, in something failing, deceive my tongue. For when we came to the inclosure and flowery meads of Diana, the daughter of Jove, where there was an assembly of the army of ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... not going to—to turn into a bat and fly away. I'm just a poor devil of a doctor who's gotten himself into one unholy mess." There was no reason, he was thinking, to take out his own misery and despair by shouting at this poor kid. God knew what she'd been through with his irresponsible other self—Forth had admitted that that damned "Jason" personality ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... they camped again outside Peshawur, a reward of three thousand rupees that had been offered on the border outlaw's head was paid to Cunningham in person—a very appreciable sum to a subaltern, whose pay is barely sufficient for his mess bills. So, although no public comment was made on the matter, it was considered "decent of him" to contribute the whole amount to a pension fund for the dependents of ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... the Piave; only a pile of broken stuff now anyhow. But the church was standing that night, a lovely old church with a tower pierced with windows. We stuck in a traffic jam in front of that church. The roads were one solid column going forward into the mess. Mile after mile of it in one stream—and every parallel road must have ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... he was in hospital in a chapel, and it took him a long time to realise he was alive. "They generally take you into chapel before they bury you," he said, "but I told 'em they done it the wrong way round with me. That was the worst mess ever I got into in this War," he ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for pretense, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had dispatched all that remained ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... unnatural and unhealthy compulsion we force them into a certain amount of cerebral activity. And then, after a few years, with a certain number of windmills in their heads, we turn them loose, like so many inferior Don Quixotes, to make a mess of life. All that they have learnt in their heads has no reference at all to their dynamic souls. The windmills spin and spin in a wind of words, Dulcinea del Toboso beckons round every corner, and our nation of inferior Quixotes jumps on and off tram-cars, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... morning, Frank arose, as usual, at four o'clock, and, shouldering his fish-pole, started off through the woods to catch a mess of trout, intending to be back by breakfast-time. But, as the morning was cloudy, the trout bit voraciously, and in the excitement of catching them, he forgot that he was hungry, and it was almost noon before he ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon

... It remains that I should endeavour to describe the style of living which he established for the whole body, irrespective of age. It will be understood that, when Lycurgus first came to deal with the question, the Spartans like the rest of the Hellenes, used to mess privately at home. Tracing more than half the current misdemeanours to this custom, (2) he was determined to drag his people out of holes and corners into the broad daylight, and so he invented the public mess-rooms. ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon

... The sticky mess emptied itself over his clothing. Then the young oarsman tripped him up, and over he ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill

... He had no more sympathy for Bob's reasons than the bunch had; it was "simply a horrible mess—an outrageous slaughter of talent." That was what they decided. Bob's ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... sir. Who's a-goin' to touch me? Called in a watchman. Whole mess of 'em had cut. Who knows 'em? Nobody knows 'em. Man that was stuck never see the fellers as stuck him in all his life till then. Didn't know which one of 'em did it. Didn't know nothing. Don't now, an' never will, 'nless he meets 'em in hell. That's all. Feller's dead, ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor

... in the tandem. If you kill him, or the other way, just do it outside, will you, so as not to make a mess? Now we'll lunch, and then Bob, ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... in the old mess-hall, back on their former footing. Word by word it came out of the Duke—his admiration for this boy who had made his own way. Every blow he had dealt his grandfather's personal pride had brought the reactionary glow of appreciation of this scion ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... again at the unhappy mess into which man all by himself has brought politics and public affairs. Is it not too bad to leave him longer alone in his misery? Like the naughty boy who has broken and destroyed his toys, who needs mamma to help him mend them, and perhaps also to administer to him such ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... nurse! What a day! Doctor's not been yet. And he's bound to come now I've just cleaned up, trapesin' wi' his gret feet. He's got the biggest understandin's of any man i' Lancaster. My husband says they're the best pair o' pasties i' th' kingdom. An' he does make such a mess, for he never stops to wipe his feet on th' mat, marches straight ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... trust to find her lord in Vahuka, With happier tears and softening voice she said To Keshini: "Speed yet again, my girl; And, while he wots not, from the kitchen take Meat he hath dressed, and bring it here to me." So went the maid, and, waiting secretly, Broke from the mess a morsel, hot and spiced, And, bearing it with faithful swiftness, gave To Damayanti. She (O Kuru King!)— That knew so well the dishes dressed by him— Touched, tasted it, and, laughing—weeping—cried, Beside herself ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... with you? And how are Joe and Jack and Jimmy and all the rest of the boys at home?' Do you know how I used to put in my time the first few nights I was over here in London? I used to hang around Covent Garden with my head back, sniffing. The boys that mess about with the flowers there used to stub their toes on me so often that they got to look on me as ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... to herd sheep. Thirty men out all night and what do you get? A dozen mullet-headed miners. You bag the mud-hens and the big game runs to cover. I wanted Glenister, but you let him slip through your fingers—now it's war. What a mess you've made! If I had even ONE helper with a brain the size of a flaxseed, this game would be a gift, but you've bungled every move from the start. Bah! Put a spy in the bull-pen with those prisoners and make them talk. Offer them anything ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... too late, I discovered among the officers of that terror of the sea an old friend with whom I had revelled in the halcyon days at Stag Racket Bungalow, Honolulu. He was then on the U. S. man-of-war, Alaska of jolly memory; and he, with his companions, constituted the crack mess of the navy. But the Alaska is a sheer hulk, and her once jovial crew scattered hither and yon; he alone, in the solitude of these unfreighted waters, remains to tell the tale. I thought it a happy coincidence that, having met him first under Old Glory, ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... Tippecanoe, and afterward President of the United States. In this connection Fenimore Cooper, just before Harrison's inauguration as President, uncovered a long forgotten bit of romance which he related confidentially in a letter to his old mess-mate Commodore Shubrick as a "great political discovery." "Miss Anne Cooper was lately in Philadelphia,"—the letter is dated February 28, 1841,—"where she met Mr. Thomas Biddle, who asked if our family ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... I ever welcomed him more sincerely than I did as, finally, I crawled slowly out from the bird lime, exhausted by the effort that I had made to free myself from the sticky mess. ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... seem to show that I have succeeded in avoiding any kind of conflict with you. Your own speech was most judicious. What a mess Mr. G. has made of it! What will be the end of it all? Why the d—— could he not wait till Parnell had quarrelled with the Tories? I fancy that a large number, perhaps the majority, of Liberals will ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... man is not a fallen creature; indiscreet at times, maybe, and so forth, yet not wholly depraved. How man comes by this indiscretion, seeing God made him upright, he is discreet enough not to reveal. 'Dear heart!' said I, 'but how comes it, if so be, that man shall sell his eternal birthright for a mess of sorry pottage, as over and over again you and I have seen him do? Call you this but indiscretion? Methinks you should scarce name it thus if Mrs Aletheia yonder were to cast away a rich clasp of emeralds for a piece of a broken bottle of green glass. If you whipped her not well for such ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... "And a pretty mess they are like to make of it!—what with infidelity and blasphemy—I must say it—blasphemy!—Really you must do something, Mr. Bevis. Things have arrived at such a pass that, I give you my word, reflections not a few are made upon the rector for committing his flock ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... younger in character than in years, was too boyish as yet to be safely consigned to those trials of tact and temper which await the neophyte who enters on life through the doors of a mess-room. His pride was too morbid, too much on the alert for offence; his frankness too crude, his spirit too untamed by the insensible ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it is not yours," said Dan, hotly. Then he came nearer, and the anger died out of his eyes. "Don't let's quarrel, grandpa," he pleaded. "I've gotten into a mess, and I'm sorry for it—on my ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... among his messmates. Witness the following elegy upon the supposed loss of the vessel, composed the night before Rodney's celebrated battle of April the 12th, 1782. It alludes to the various amusements of his mess:— ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... or dowsets. Now to these full dishes may be added sallets, fricases, 'quelque choses,' and devised paste; as many dishes more as will make no less than two and thirty dishes, which is as much as can conveniently stand on one table, and in one mess; and after this manner you may proportion both your second and third course, holding fullness on one half the dishes, and shew in the other, which will be both frugal in the splendor, contentment ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... (three out of the five companions seemed to have been usually called "Bill"), "Bill, your boots are in a mess." ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... questions only went to the people when the gerusia thought fit or could not otherwise agree. Assemblies of the people with judicial functions were unknown in Carthage. The powerlessness of the citizens probably in the main resulted from their political organization; the Carthaginian mess- associations, which are mentioned in this connection and compared with the Spartan Pheiditia, were probably guilds under oligarchical management. Mention is made even of a distinction between "burgesses of the city" and "manual labourers," ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... "Now, mess-mates, I've been rummagin' my brains a bit, and the outcome of it is as follows:—'Whatever is worth doin' is worth doin' well,' as the old proverb puts it. If we are to explore this country, we must set about learning to shoot, for if we don't, we are likely to starve in the midst of plenty, and ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... until Calabar is reached, carries but few passengers, and, except to receive cargo, the ship is not fully in commission. During this first week she is painted, and holystoned, her carpets are beaten, her cabins scrubbed and aired, and the passengers mess with the officers. So, of the ship's life, we acquired an intimate knowledge, her interests became our own, and the necessity of feeding her gaping holds with cargo was personal and acute. On a transatlantic steamer, when once the hatches are down, the ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... will come to grief. She's overmasted, and the fellow who has her ought not to be trusted with her. He's going to make a mess of things." ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... print, in which was represented a shrivelled hand stretched through an iron grate, in the stone floor of a prison-yard, to reach at a mess of porrage, which affected me with more horrid ideas of the distress of the prisoner in the dungeon below, than could have been perhaps produced by an exhibition of the whole person. And in the following beautiful scenery from the Midsummer-night's dream, (in which I have ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... air the growing lethargy of the company of diners vanished, and all joined with a will in the recital of all its verses. In the glow of loyal enthusiasm that filled the room the ice gradually melted, and as we surveyed the fluid mess upon our plates we knew that our dinner was gone ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various

... her all in flames, seized the head-dress and flung it upon the ground. Madame de Charlus, in her surprise, and indignant at seeing her self thus uncovered, without knowing why, threw her egg in the Archbishop's face, and made him a fine mess. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... am going to unhook you. Dear me, what a mess you have made of your fine collar! I don't know what Lottie will say when she sees it. Lucky girl to be out to-night and escape all this fuss! She always gets the best of things. I never wish to spend such an evening ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... up yondeh to dat resteraw an' git me de bigges' mess o' fried fish I kin hol'—dat's me; ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... wonder the clubs didn't know of R. Somers! R. S. on his handkerchiefs and all that. He used a false name 'cause he didn't want it known that Randolph Schuyler came to see Miss Van Allen! Oh, here's a mess! Where's that girl? ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... little fat man, with an apron tied round his waist, a long red toque on his head, and his shirt-sleeves rolled above his elbows, put his hands to his mouth, and gave a loud halloo. Then from every part of the works poured the men belonging to his mess, going first to the creek to wash their hands. As soon as they were seated, the little fellow filled their plates first with soup and next with pork and beans, out of another steaming pot. Ten minutes of rapid feeding satisfied their appetites, and they adjourned to the fallen trees and scattered ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... amid many groans to expose the disgusting mess he had made around his knee, when a step was heard outside. The door ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... think of it, people may rub elbows and still have an ocean or two between them. I don't know where Frosty was, all through that long day's ride; for me, I was back in little old Frisco, with Barney MacTague and the rest of the crowd; and part of the time, I know, I was telling dad what a mess he'd made of bringing up ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower

... A nice mess they made of it with their amiable dishonesty. And pray take notice that after the first White Lie or two, circumstances overpowered them, and drove them on against their will. It was no small part of all their misery that they longed to get back ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... wearied by their exertions in the fierce heats of September. Murmurs were heard in the ranks and at the mess tables that Bonaparte's reports of these exploits were tinged by favouritism and by undue severity against those whose fortune had been less conspicuous than their merits. One of these misunderstandings was ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... my Chatham lecture very fairly, though almost all my apparatus went astray. I dined at the mess, and got home to Isleworth the same evening; your father very kindly sitting ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... somehow be managed without noise, for the sake of—the ladies, most of all, and next, for the sake of Captain Sabine. As a Frenchman and an officer, it would certainly be a lot worse for him than for us, if we landed him in any mess with the authorities." ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... ancient battlements, the streets are narrow and crooked, while the filth is indescribable. The visitor who wishes to see something of the work and to enjoy the hospitality of the noble company of Presbyterian missionaries on Temple Hill must either pass through that reeking mess or go around it. There is, after all, not much choice in the routes, for the Chinese population outside the walls has simply squatted there without much order, and the corkscrew streets are not only thronged with ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN



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