"Palaver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... generosity!' said Fledgeby. 'That's a good connexion! Bring out your vouchers, and don't talk Jerusalem palaver.' ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... you can play the innocent, Dr. Thor; but it's no use keeping up the game. You took me in at first; you took me in right along. You were going to be a friend to me!—and buy the place!—and keep me in it to work it!—and every sort of palaver like that!—when you was only after ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... would keep his braves peaceable. Captain Conkey told Daugherty that he believed he would go down and see the chief, and Bill answered him, to "go if you d—ed please, and you want to lose your scalp, for they will surely not put up with your palaver." Conkey concluded that he had better remain in the home of his enemy than risk his precious scalp at the camp ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... any other man, but they knew that old Isaac was as honest as could be and that their money would be safe with 'im, and at last, after a lot of palaver, they wrote out a paper saying as they were willing for 'im to 'ave their money and give it to 'em bit by bit, till ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... had a last palaver with our guide; he said that the extreme denseness of the fog gave assured token of "an ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... order, and once more the soldiers quietly surrounded the herd of cattle, and drove them to head-quarters as before. The old scene was re-enacted. The new sheik, Morbe, together with Allorron and many headmen, arrived. Again a long palaver took place, through the medium of Tomby, the interpreter, and the promises of good ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... go from my word. The man shall want for nothing, sir. But please don't ask me to love my enemies, and all that Rot. I scorn hypocrisy. Every man hates his enemies; he may hate 'em out like a man, or palaver 'em, and beg God to forgive 'em (and that means damn 'em), and hate 'em like a sneak; but ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... "O, palaver and stuff. Somebody's dreadfully ill—dying, I believe, and that somebody is wife, or mother, or son to this brute you challenged. He's got to go, the coward. If you are ever in his vicinity again, and send him your card, ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... animal. To ascertain this fact was the point at issue, and the learned advocates contrived to puzzle the cause in such a manner, that, after a hearing of three days, the court broke up without coming to any determination upon it; and a second palaver was, I suppose, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... over, and palaver, Rowley, Keith, &c. and Coffin to abuse the Earl! Now, I can tell you, that he is ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... it down to his conceit. I thought that he fancied he could win any woman, and me without the least palaver or trouble. I felt annoyed. I said aloud, "I will become engaged to you;" to myself I added, "Just for a little while, the more to surprise and take the conceit out of you when the ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... company, Bill was, for all he was so sick; for he had great sperrits, and could argue somethin' surprisin' and grand. 'You're a good girl, Katie,' was the last words he ever said. I never was no hand to make a big palaver, so just as soon as the funeral was over I went right on with my sewin' and finished up everything I had in the house, for I needed the money to pay the expenses; and, besides, I made the first payment on the stone—it's a lovely one, John, cost me $300, but I don't mind that. ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... referred to native cloth and mats. Large quantities of cinnet are plaited by the old men principally. They sit at their ease in their houses, and twist away very rapidly. At political meetings also, where there are hours of formal palaver and speechifying, the old men take their work with them, and improve the time at the cleanly, useful occupation of twisting cinnet. It is a substitute for twine, and useful for many a purpose, and is now sold to the merchants at about a shilling ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... the first part, sir, where he walked into thieving. Don't like his telling 'em he loves 'em. 'Tisn't to be supposed a gentleman could really love such rubbish as that. Sounds like palaver. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... succinctly. It was like a bomb, and a bomb is the very last thing in succinctness. It comes to the point without palaver or conjecture, and it reduces havoc to a single ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... heard much of her stage life. At first he took all this palaver with a grain of salt, the babbling of an ardent nature interested in the flighty romance of the studio world. By degrees, however, he became curious as to the freedom of her actions, the ease with which she ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... her sympathy with his natural vexation at finding that a traffic which he had really ameliorated at considerable loss of profit, was still considered objectionable; but he silenced this at once as palaver, and went off to fetch his wife to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all ready, looking very fierce, to attack each other with clubs and other weapons, only neither side dared to begin. I asked them to do the fighting out in the open, so that I could take a picture of it, and this cooled them down considerably. They sat down and began a long palaver, which ended in nothing at all, and, indeed, no one really knew ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... I began, when Buck, ever the man of action, with a scorn of palaver, strode past me, and, having prodded with the pistol that part of the bedclothes beneath which a rough calculation suggested that Mr Abney's lower ribs were concealed, uttered the one ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... man may call a palaver of all small chiefs unless he notifies the government of his intention, for the government is jealous of self-appointed parliaments, for when men meet together in public conference, however innocent ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... very tender terms to reproach him with his inhumanity and indifference. To this expostulation he replied, "Zounds! what would the woman have? Let the parson do his office when he wool: here I am ready to be reeved in the matrimonial block, d'ye see, and d— all nonsensical palaver." So saying, he retreated, leaving his mistress not at all disobliged at his plain dealing. That same evening the treaty of marriage was brought upon the carpet, and, by means of Mr. Pickle and the lieutenant, settled to the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... impression of indifference to the flight of time, if not of absolute laziness. The workers seem ready to sit down for a smoke and a chat at any hour of the day. In the home and in ordinary social life, the loss of time seems to be a matter of no consequence whatever. Polite palaver takes unstinted hours, and the sauntering of the people through the street emphasizes the impression that ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... to read our modern acquired feelings into the simple but familiar terms employed by our continental predecessors. What the early English called a king we should now-a-days call a chief; what they called a meeting of wise men we should now-a-days call a palaver. In fact, we must recollect that we are dealing with a purely barbaric race—not savage, indeed, nor without a certain rude culture of its own, the result of long centuries of previous development; yet essentially military and predatory in its habits, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... Lord deliver us from all Cant: may the Lord, whatever else He do or forbear, teach us to look facts honestly in the face, and to beware (with a kind of shudder) of smearing them over with our despicable and damnable palaver into irrecognisability, and so falsifying the Lord's own Gospels to His unhappy blockheads of Children, all staggering down to Gehenna and the everlasting ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... and we will have a lecture, or a conference-meeting. Subject, 'Work and Wages.' I'll have some posters out too. Every one will know what we mean, that we are honest men and true; and you will be spared this everlasting palaver. Then we will have some rules, or by-laws, or something, for the workmen. Talk to Mr. Winston about it. He would make a capital speaker, with ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... house. Which she observing, occupied herself for a few days in inflaming his passion, and then affecting to be dying of love for him, sent privily to him a woman that she had in her service, and who was an adept in the arts of the procuress. She, after not a little palaver, told him, while the tears all but stood in her eyes, that for his handsome person and winsome air her mistress was so enamoured of him, that she found no peace by day or by night; and therefore, if 'twere agreeable to ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... labor, and an emission of nonsense and falsity, and electioneering beer and bribery and balderdash, which is terrible to think of, in deciding. Your National Parliament, in so far as it has only that question to decide, may be considered as an enormous National Palaver existing mainly for imaginary purposes; and certain, in these days of abbreviated labor, to get itself sent home again to its partridge-shootings, fox-huntings, and above all, to its rat-catchings, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... might well be permitted to continue" in West Africa.[899] In that region "a slave man could hold property of his own. If he were a worthy, sensible person, he could inherit." He could take part in discussions and the palaver, and could defend himself against abuse. There are now no slaves bought or sold, but there are "pawns" for debt, who are not free.[900] On the one hand, the slave trade in Africa has required for its successful ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... palaver seemed amiable enough, and we saw Jan even go the length of making a present of grilled mutton—chiefly bone, but ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... hold a palaver. While this was going on, Keona carried Alice in his unwounded arm to the other end of the cave, and, making his exit through a small opening at its inner extremity, bore his trembling captive to a rocky eminence, shaped somewhat like ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... first to return to the village, and as it was he that Tarzan was most anxious to interview, he lost no time in entering into a palaver with the black. ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the age at which our maidens go to their first ball, her nervous system, which never was particularly sensitive anyway, is completely blunted, so that she takes it as a matter of course to be sold again and again as a piece of property. One hears often enough of a 'woman palaver,' which is regarded exactly like a 'goat palaver,' as a damage to property, but one never, positively never, hears of a love-affair. The negress never has a sweetheart, either in her youngest days ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... I don't like the look o' things, an' if they're not careful there'll be bother. It'll take the men at the top all their time to hold the bottom ones down. It ought never to have been allowed to begin with. The minute they started their drillin' an' palaver, they ought to 'a' been stopped. Have you seen ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... it's an easy landing. Being so close to 'em they're sure to know all about it; but even if they didn't, the chap that got away would tell 'em. I don't much expect an attack to-night—the bands won't be back yet. They'll have a grand palaver to-night, and there'll be a big talk afore they decide what is best to be done; so I think we're safe for to-night. To-morrow we'll set to work and build a shelter for the pretty ones up above, where they'll be safe from stray shots. Then we'll throw up a breastwork with loose rocks on the top ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... so much palaver, when the thing's plain enough?" said Bob peevishly, raising his head ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... where the brothers, after some palaver, offered me L105 for the sheets of Napoleon, to be reprinted at Paris in English. I told them I would think of it. I suppose Treuttel and Wurtz had apprehended something of this kind, for they write me that they ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... this, after thanking me, he departed, gratified with his gratuity, rejoiced at his reception, and most undoubtedly benefited by the beer with which I had encouraged his palaver—a word, by the way, which is not inappropriate, since it contains in itself the very word of words, the lav, which means a word, and is most antiquely and excellently Gipsy. Pehlevi is old Persian, and to pen lavi is Rommany ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... after some palaver he let me in together with the two loafers carrying my luggage. He grumbled at them however and slammed the gate violently with a loud clang. I was startled to discover how many night prowlers had collected in the darkness of the street in such a ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... table—in his huge white cravat, yellow vest, and new pair of second-hand plush smalls, disappearing below to develope his calves, which are enveloped in gaiters,—gingerly beckoning the man with the bad hat, who had been tuning the piano, and Mr. Palaver, the Mizzlington Artist in hair, to follow, that they may escape ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... tongue from those used by the chief interpreter, and both utterly without perceptible resemblance to the rolling consonants and gutturals of the savages. Marcoy imbibed a strong impression that the only terms understood in common were the words of Spanish with which the palaver was thickly interlarded. This was the first time the interpreters were put on their mettle in a strictly professional sense, and the test was not altogether triumphant. However, by a careful raising of the voice in all difficult passages, and a wild, expressive pantomime, an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... sufficient indigenous population had settled there, but it was no less easy to judge that some local arrangement concerning these exceptional places, conciliating every interest, might easily be made. Would that be possible nowadays, when electioneering palaver has embittered the whole business? After leaving St. George, we spent a long time hunting for our colony of St. Pierre Miquelon in continuous fogs, and only succeeded in finding it by means of a plan of my own invention. The weather happening to ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... on the road to-day with a line of shoes made out of soft blotting paper, if they had good things said about them in the magazines and if flaming posters went with them than to try to dish out oak-tanned soles with prime calf uppers at half price and with a good line of palaver. It's the lad who sticks type that, when you get right down to it, ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... it's all right," came from Gasper Pold. "We ain't going to harm you. We only want to have a little peaceable palaver." ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... his capacity! He had four in here. Sober as a judge! Did you notice his eyes? They fair made me shiver when he looked at me when I was talkin' about his old man. I'm goin' to be damn careful about my palaver after this. Friend! Well, if I wasn't his friend I'd be damn careful not ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... seats in the corner of the room, saying, 'Sit down there,' in a manner quite in keeping with his stogies raised on the desk directly in our face. Such freedom, nay, such bestiality, I could never tolerate. Indeed, I prefer the suavity and palaver of Turkish officials, no matter how crafty and corrupt, to the puffing, spitting manners of these come-up-from-the-shamble men. But Khalid could sit there as immobile as the Boss himself, and he did ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... palaver! I'd inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours To the torrent of trash which around him he pours, Pumped up with such effort, disgorged with such labour, 50 That——come—do not make me ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... book. The little Alice, looking very heavy and feverish, leant against her, and Mrs. Rawlins went on talking of the colds, the gruel she had made, and her care for her pupils' ailments, and Lady Temple listened so graciously that Alison feared she was succumbing to the palaver; and by way of reminder, asked ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to parley with the categorical native; but his attempts at palaver were eminently unsuccessful. The naked black man was master of ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... it, to prevent her taking him back upon a very small show of repentance if the needed emotions were in prospect. He had decided pretty finally that it would be Bessie rather than another when he received a letter from Mrs. Vostrand. It was dated at Florence, and after some pretty palaver about their old friendship, which she only hoped he remembered half as fondly as she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... secret upon which any secret society holds a caveat. Wisdom can not be corraled with gibberish and fettered in jargon. Knowledge is one thing—palaver another. The Greek-letter societies of our callow days still survive in bird's-eye, and next to these come the Elks, who take theirs with seltzer and a smile, as a rare good joke, save that brotherhood and good-fellowship are actually a saving salt which excuses much that would ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers." Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... am chang'd, like shillings from the Mint Sent forth to find another one's protection! Chang'd as palaver which the members print And do not follow after their election! Ah! Mr. Cross, your gratitude is low, You might have ask'd me ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... the water and milk necessary for our march, in readiness. He promised compliance and disappeared. About 3 P.M. the Bedouins, armed as usual with spear and shield, began to gather round the hut, and—nothing in this country can be done without that terrible "palaver!"—the speechifying presently commenced. Raghe, in a lengthy harangue hoped that the tribe would afford us all the necessary supplies and assist us in the arduous undertaking. His words elicited no hear! hear!—there was an evident unwillingness on the part ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... keeps— when I saw a queer expression come into her eyes. In the doorway stood an Indian boy. He looked like her, but was younger and slimmer. She took him into the kitchen and they must have had a great palaver, for he didn't leave until after dark. Inside the week he came back, but I missed him. When I got home, Paloma put a fat nugget of gold into my hand, which Vahna had sent him for. The blamed thing weighed ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... They paused when they saw Livingstone seated on his camp-stool, with his double-barrelled gun across his knees, and his Makololos ready with their javelins. The chief and his principal men sat down in front at Livingstone's invitation to talk over the matter, and a palaver began as to the fine claimed by the Chiboque. "The more I yielded, the more unreasonable they became, and at every fresh demand a shout was raised, and a rush made round us with brandished weapons. One young ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... halt. Perceiving that I was in trouble, I made signs for pardon, the safest thing to do, though I did not know what offense I had committed. My interpreter coming up, however, put me right, but not until a long palaver had ensued. The deputy's hail, liberally translated, was: "Ahoy, there, on the frantic steed! Know you not that it is against the law to ride thus through the village of our fathers?" I made what apologies I could, and offered to dismount ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... make Big Pig mouf water, en bimeby, atter some mo' palaver, she open de do' en let Brer Wolf in, en bless yo' soul, honey! dat uz de las' er Big Pig. She aint had time fer ter squeal en needer fer ter grunt 'fo' ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... said Blair, earnestly; "I mean the thing. Without any palaver, we three fellows are friends,—and I'm glad of ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... good," quoth Dick. Then to the old black, who had stood by, saucer-eyed and speechless, the while: "Anthony, do you be as big a numbskull as you were born to be, and hold these redcoat gentlemen in palaver till we can win out at ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... prate, prattle, babble, gabble, jabber, tattle, twaddle, blab, gossip, palaver, parley, converse, mumble, mutter, stammer, stutter.> (With this group compare the Say and Speak ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... will, will you, young scapegrace? What did you come here for anyway? Not to palaver about how thankful you are that you got knocked out, stayed a week in bed and had your salary paid all the time. I'll bet you didn't come for that. Want a raise ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... said the man. "We're going to hang you for peaching against your pals; and that's an end of the palaver." ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle
... matters out of doors, and to a few matters indoor, and he has accepted me upon my own terms, and has, on the whole been better pleased with me than I had any reason to expect. For this I am duly grateful; why say more? Yet now that I am upon my feet, so as to speak, and palaver is the order, I will keep ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... peculiarly Irish. The Irishman knows because he knows, and that's all there is about it. He is dramatic, emotional, impulsive, humorous without suspecting it, and will fight friend or foe on small provocation. Then he is much given to dealing in that peculiar article known as palaver. The farewell address of Henry Clay to the Senate, and his return thereto a few years later, comprise one of the most Irishlike proceedings to be ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... you are gone, please?" And coming over and laying his hand on his father's shoulder, he repeated his request—all in the softest, winningest way you can well imagine. For, whenever he had an object near at heart, and knew he could gain it by a little palaver, Sprigg could appear as soft and winning as any young tom-cat ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... March 4th.—This day was appointed for the formal election of a successor to the throne of King George. By noon, the whole of the chiefs and headmen were assembled in the Palaver House, when the Regent, or person appointed to administer the government during the interregnum, proposed, in a speech of some length, John Macaulay Wilson to be the future King of the Boollams. Previous to this, a deputation had been sent requesting ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... will go up and talk with Lillie, and condole with her; and perhaps we shall bring her round. And then when my husband comes home next week, we'll have a family palaver, and he will find some ways and means of setting this business straight, that it won't be so bad as it looks now. There may be arrangements made when the creditors come together. My impression is that, whenever ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... stopped and the others gathered round him. This was when they were some 1,800 yards away, about on a level with the end of Incidentamba. They had evidently seen something and sniffed danger, for there was a short palaver and much pointing. A messenger then galloped back to the main body, which turned off behind Incidentamba with its wagons, etc. A small number, including a man on a white horse, rode off in a vague way to the west. The object ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... by requesting that he would take his messmates to the bows, and leave the helm with me, as I wished to explain the matter myself in private. He consigned his soul, in set terms, to the devil, if any other man than myself should be allowed to make a priest's palaver-box of the Saucy Sally, and sulkily retired, rolling his quid with indefatigable energy, and squirting jets ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... set yourself up as judge between the Tarentini and us before rendering to us an account of your crossing over into Italy at all. I will come, therefore, with all my army and will exact the appropriate recompense both from the Tarentini and from you. What use can I have for nonsense and palaver, when I can stand trial in the court of Mars, our progenitor?" After sending such an answering despatch he hurried on and pitched camp, leaving the stream of the river at that point between them. Having apprehended some ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... nuisance!" he murmured. "Before they have finished their palaver as to how the accident happened and have repaired the damage, we shall have been here a full half-hour.... Jules will be in ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... if the very language of our parlors would lose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are necessarily so far fetched, through slides and dumb-waiters, as it were; in other words, the parlor is so far from the kitchen and workshop. The dinner even is only ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... rejoined, "is a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,—you are not an American, and therefore cannot claim even our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... a lower terrace, where I invited him to sit on the green sofa; and we grouped about him. Julian at first went rushing through our ranks like a young Olympian exercising heroic games, and finally extended himself on the grass to listen to the palaver. Mr. Hosmer began with the Great Daniel [Webster], who died at three o'clock this morning. He expressed admiration of him, as we all did; and I thought his death an immense loss. Mr. Hosmer was very glad that ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... with the proprietaries. Each side declared itself disposed towards "reasonable accommodations;" but Franklin supposed that "each party had its own ideas of what should be meant by reasonable." Nothing came of all this palaver; which only meant that time was being wasted to no better purpose than to show that the two parties were "very wide, and so far from each other in [their] opinions as to discourage all hope of agreement." But this had long been evident. The lawyer ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... of replying, the group of men clustered on deck aft turned to each other and seemed to hold a brief consultation. Finally, after a short palaver, one of ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... took his departure, and soon after daybreak the cousin and the page came to bid Don Quixote farewell, the former returning home, the latter resuming his journey, towards which, to help him, Don Quixote gave him twelve reals. Master Pedro did not care to engage in any more palaver with Don Quixote, whom he knew right well; so he rose before the sun, and having got together the remains of his show and caught his ape, he too went off to seek his adventures. The landlord, who did not know Don Quixote, was as much astonished at his mad freaks as at his generosity. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... given up to him. This the men of Connecticut refused to do. Whereupon Sir Edmund with a military following presented himself at their Assembly, declared their governing powers to be dissolved, and, after much palaver, caused the charter itself to be laid upon the table before him. The discussion had been long, having lasted through the day into the night, and the room had been lighted with candles. On a sudden each light disappeared, and Sir Edmund ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... forming such relations of peace and amity with the natives as should enable him to procure the necessary supplies and prosecute his work unmolested. Much to his dismay, he had hardly begun his diplomatic palaver with the chiefs, when he learned that to keep one tribe friendly he must fight its battles against all other tribes on the island. The natives of Nookaheevah were then divided into a large number of tribal organizations. With three of these the Americans ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... some idea into her head about the property, or about her own will, or about the solicitor, or about a tombstone, and that it was worrying her. She and Miss Ingate (who had now returned home) had had a very extensive palaver, in low voices that never ceased, after the triumphant departure of Mr. Foulger. Audrey had cautiously protested; she was afraid her mother would be fatigued, and she saw no reason why her mother should be acquainted with all the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... preliminary palaver, a feast of baked pigs and various roots was spread before us; of which we partook sparingly, and then proceeded to business. The captain stated his object in visiting the island, regretted that there ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... heap of folks wantin' to palaver," he said lowly. "An' no one is crowdin' me. That's polite an' proper. Seems you all sort of guessed there's plenty of room, an' crowdin' ain't necessary. I'd thank every specimen to hook his thumbs in ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... "better drop in an' hear the sky-pilot's palaver before you go. It'll do you a whole lot of good, an' it can't do you no ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... sauntered the Kid with the air of princes. Work had not diminished his love of pomp and show and his passion for the costly and genuine. On a corner they saw a group of the Stovepipe Gang loafing, immaculate. They raised their hats to the Kid's girl and went on with their calm, unaccented palaver. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... be, and self-dissolved; shall grant money-supplies and talk; watch over the administration and authorities; discharge for ever the functions of a Constitutional Great Council, Collective Wisdom, and National Palaver,—as the Heavens will enable. Our First biennial Parliament, which indeed has been a-choosing since early in August, is now as good as chosen. Nay it has mostly got to Paris: it arrived gradually;—not without ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... good little soul you are, Verity—you always say just the right thing! Tell Goliath, with my love, that I am busy, so there must be no pipe and no palaver to-night. I shall have to be up betimes too;" and then he took counsel with Verity as to the hour when his ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... God they were not as other men are, not slaves like their grandfathers. Well, just at the height of the jubilation, the tribes within twenty miles of the town sent in to say that they, also, were holding a palaver, and it was to mark the fact that they never had been slaves and never would be, and, if the governor doubted it, to send out his fighting men and they'd prove it. It cast quite a gloom over ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... the stones there, after blocking the place below. One of these two bits of work is bound to keep those who have dismounted to climb after me from climbing any farther, and when I begin to fire at them pretty sharply they'll turn back at once, get to their horses, and join their mates, to have a palaver and come to the conclusion that it isn't safe to stop in the valley, because they'll be expecting every moment for fire to be opened by us. Then they'll ride back without another shot being fired at them, for the simple ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... are in a position to dictate terms at present, if that's what you are getting at?" Tony exclaimed. "Why not get down to business without all this palaver? Look here, I'll pay you 10,000 pesetas to set Miss Rostrevor at liberty and give her safe conduct back to the Castle ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... He would not like to take them back to their villages with the news that a grist of them had been killed and narry a scalp taken. I expect you will see this afternoon some of them come down to palaver ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... King's English, and your high—flying dominie body, who whumles them outright. I speak in a figure. But all these are as dust in the balance to the wearisome man of ponderous acquirements, the solemn blockhead who usurps the pas, and if he happen to be rich, fancies himself entitled to prose and palaver away, as if he were Sir Oracle, or as if the pence in his purse could ever fructify the cauld parritch in his pate into pregnant brain. There is a plateful of P's for you at any rate, Tom. Beautiful exemplification of ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... for holding a grand palaver at Wolf's Hope on the subject of Caleb's requisitions, and he was invited to attend at the hamlet for ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... is the gist of all this palaver? I'll be damned if I can stomach a sermon," Pancracio ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... the company cried out, "Who goes there? stand!" I accosted them; "Gentlemen," said I, "I am a poor traveller, almost"—While I spoke, they came round me; and he that had first hailed me, said, "Damn me, tip us none of your palaver; we have heard that story of a poor traveller any time these five years. Come, down with your dust! let us see what you have got!"—"Sir," I replied, "I have not a shilling in the world, and am more than half starved beside."—"Not a shilling!" answered ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... CHARLIE, my boy! I'd hang on by my eyelids; and so will the nobs, Despite Mounseer Roosso's palaver or rattletrap rubbish like BOB'S. As HUXLEY sez, Robbery's whitewashed by centries of toffdom, dear boy. Poor pilgarlicks whose forbears wos honest rich perks earn't expect ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... to the appetite of the natives. One disappeared in the act of landing, and the two others were gone before three weeks had elapsed. My uncle fancied that his rank would secure a favourite sent to him from Europe. He one morning received a deputation from the king of a native town, requesting a palaver, or conference. It was granted, and his sable majesty formally made proposals for Caesar to figure as a roast at a grand feast, which he was about to hold. My uncle indignantly refused; the king increased the sum offered, till it amounted to ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... the best of everything. If the furnishings of his home became the least dingy he was for having them torn out and sold and the house done over. If he traveled, money must go ahead of him and smooth the way. He did not want argument, useless talk, or silly palaver as he called it. Every one must discuss interesting topics with him or not talk at all. Letty understood him thoroughly. She would chuck him under the chin mornings, or shake his solid head between her hands, telling him he was a brute, but a nice kind ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... the wind, which is just the intolerable truth. Thanks to Maga for giving them the echo of their palaver! and may the first reformed Congress vote her a gold medal for the good she has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... then—she stood for an instant with the door in her hand. Mr. Openshaw looked as if he were deep in his book, though in fact he did not see a line; but was heartily wishing the woman would be gone, and not make any palaver of gratitude. But ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... sermons o' yours, p'r'aps they'd do down in some city place; but they're like your wife's bunnit here, they're too flowery to suit us. What we want to hear is the plain, old-fashioned Word of God, without any palaver or 'hems and ha's. They tell me there's some parts where hell's treated as played-out—where our ministers don't like to talk much about it because people don't want to hear about it. Such preachers ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... mouth, and, having been placed on the mat in the same manner as when alive, his betel box is set by his side. The friends and relatives then go through the form of conversing with him, and offering the best advice concerning his future proceedings. This palaver over, the corpse is placed in a large wooden box, and kept in the house for several months. At the expiration of this time, the relatives and friends again assemble, and the coffin is taken out and deposited ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... services and thinking, maybe, that I could not do without him, demanded, unless I chose to pay considerably in excess of his regular dues, to be put on shore. I took the fellow at his first bounce. He and his grip-sack were landed on the bank there and then, with but little "palaver" over it. It was then said, so I learned after, that "old S——" would drop into the wake of some ship, and save his pilotage; in fact, they didn't know "what else he could do," as the pilots were then all engaged for ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... and palaver as he may, it remains true that the Socialist Party of America teaches the same treasonable doctrines of violence and insurrection as the Russian Bolshevists, but in a more covert way. We have a sample in the pamphlet, "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... Here they transhipped into a German vessel that took then via Hong-kong, Manila, New Guinea, Rockhampton, and Brisbane, to Sydney. There the animals were inoculated for the N'th time and a good deal of palaver indulged in before they were again shifted to the Lyttelton steamer. The poor beasts suffered from the heat, particularly the dogs, although they had been close-clipped for the ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... thousand square miles of forest and rivers, the dark savages, as they squat at night in the forest around their palaver-fires, tell one another stories of the Great-White-Ma-Who-Lived-Alone, and the stories they tell ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... sez Brer Rabbit, "so's der res' may hear. I sorter members der las' time we confabbed togedder, sezee, when we war des as soshubble ez er basket er kittens, twel bimeby you kinder went down to der bottom kerblunkity-blunk, and den you sorter rounded on me 'bout der privit palaver, en I des don't like der way ez der sym'tums seem to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... mental and physical lure for him that was irresistible, and that was all he desired to know. No other woman was holding him like that. It never occurred to him that he could not or should not like other women at the same time. There was a great deal of palaver about the sanctity of the home. It rolled off his mental sphere like water off the feathers of a duck. He was not eager for her money, though he was well aware of it. He felt that he could use it to her advantage. He wanted her physically. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... as "The Constitutions of Clarendon." I shall not easily forget my pleasure in discovering that the quotation "Nollumus leges Angliaemutari" on which Noodle relied in his immortal oration, is to be found in the record of the Barons' great "Palaver." ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... ahead with your palaver. I'll have to hand it to you when it comes to talk. I am not educated that ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... Now whose would it be? Come, come, I'll speak to the point. I'm no man for palaver. 'Tis an ear you've whispered more than one sweet thing into, I'll warrant. You're young, Philip, young: you think you can fall in love and nobody find it out. Why, I hadn't been landed two hours, and asked the news, when I was told that you ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and unrolling her knitting and looking icily out of the window, as she continued to stand opposite the squire. Poyser might sit down if he liked, she thought; she wasn't going to sit down, as if she'd give in to any such smooth-tongued palaver. Mr. Poyser, who looked and felt the reverse of icy, did sit ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... ma'am," he said. "But I reckon we'll go now. It's cert'nly a fine day for ridin'." He stood silent for a moment, looking about him. Then he flushed. "Why, I'm gettin' right box-headed, ma'am," he declared. "Here I am standin' an' makin' you sick with my palaver, an' your horse waitin' to be ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... visits explain why Sekelenke kept his tusks so carefully. These Mambari are very enterprising merchants: when they mean to trade with a town, they deliberately begin the affair by building huts, as if they knew that little business could be transacted without a liberal allowance of time for palaver. They bring Manchester goods into the heart of Africa; these cotton prints look so wonderful that the Makololo could not believe them to be the work of mortal hands. On questioning the Mambari they were answered that English manufactures came out of the sea, and beads were gathered on its shore. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... and the more intelligent parts of soldiering, so he encouraged these negroes, duller than oxen, and made them useful pioneers. Here is his own simple record of the way he got to the hearts of the Levy: "How they enjoy the palaver in which I tell them that 'they are the eyes to the body of the snake which is crawling up the bush-path from the coast, and coiling for its spring! The eyes are hungry, but they will soon have meat; ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... annoyed. Bayweather and his palaver! "I don't do anything for them, except give them as good wages as the business will stand, and as much responsibility for running things as they'll take. Beyond that, I let them alone. I don't believe in what's known as 'welfare ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... he swung round and throwing himself into the armchair enquired politely after the health of Barbara and Susan. As far as the Persian journey was concerned the palaver was ended. He did not intend to give me his reasons for staying in England and I could not demand them more insistently. At any rate I had discovered the cause of his grumpiness. What creature of Jaffery's temperament could be contented with a soft bed in the ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... up, young man; I distrust a fellow that has much palaver. You look too manly for it. I calculate your capital ain't much above ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... of course we were stuck with nothin' to lift off with. It looked all right. We'd unload our goods, an' if the local crowd couldn't use them all, why they'd pass the rest on at a profit to themselves. So we come out to palaver, an' then they won't let us go back in the ship. We were just lucky my com man had sent out a landing report when it looked like we piled up, or the Space Force patrol never woulda ...
— A Transmutation of Muddles • Horace Brown Fyfe
... sticks together, rattling old pans, making the most horrid noise, in order to drive him out of the town into the sea. The custom is preceded by four weeks' dead silence; no gun is allowed to be fired, no drum to be beaten, no palaver to be made between man and man. If, during these weeks, two natives should disagree and make a noise in the town, they are immediately taken before the king and fined heavily. If a dog or pig, sheep ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... introduction fills the untutored mind of his master with wonderment concerning what the peasants have told him about the bicycle. The Pasha Khan makes his appearance without having taken the trouble to open the envelope. He is a dull-faced, unintellectual-lookiug personage, and without any preliminary palaver he says: "Bin bacalem," in a dictatorial tone of voice. "Bacalem yole lazim, bacalem saba," I reply, for it is too dark to ride on unknown ground this evening. " Bin bacalem, " repeats the Pasha Khan, even more dictatorial than before, ordering a servant to bring a tallow candle, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... historical truth. It might be—he wasn't clear; it might be—the question was deep, too deep, probably, for his wisdom; at any rate he had to control himself not to interrupt angrily such dry, interested palaver, the false voice of commerce and of cant. He stared tragically out of the window and saw the stupid rain begin to fall; the day was duller even than his own soul, and Jersey Villas looked so sordidly hideous that it was no wonder Mrs. Ryves ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... (1850) do not add much that is new to Past and Present (1843) or to Sartor (1831); and little of what they add is either needful or true. The world had been fully enlightened about Wind-bags, Shams, the approach to Tophet, Stump-orators, Palaver-Parliaments, Phantasm-Captains, and the rest of the Sartorian puppet-pantomime. There was a profound truth in all of these invectives, warnings, and prophecies. But the prophet's voice at last got so shrieky and monotonous, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... as he'd got a creel of crabs to take round, so I got in and we rowed: and we went through the Devil's Drift, and he says to me sudden like, 'When we're man and wife, Marie, what'll your father do to keep hisself?' 'Keep hisself,' I said, 'why ain't we agoin' to keep him?' And then he began such a palaver about a man bein' bound to keep his wife but not his father-in-law, and it not bein' fit for three grown people to live in one room, as if my father and mother and his father afore him and all his brothers ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... fruitless bargaining with the native chiefs, in all of which Coker regretted that the slave-traders had so ruined the people that it seemed impossible to make any progress in a "palaver" without the offering of rum. Meanwhile a report was circulated through the country that a number of Americans had come and turned Kizell out of his own town and put some of his people in the hold of their ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... that the vessel was headed in towards the coast. In a short time we dropped anchor in a snug harbour with a narrow entrance, where we lay completely concealed from any vessel in the offing. In a short time a chief came off in a canoe, and the captain had some palaver with him, and he returned on shore. The captain then said that a number of blacks had agreed to come on board to take their passage to some place or other, to work as labourers, but that after having signed their papers they had refused to come, 'so you see, my young ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... not waste any time in needless palaver. The hours were precious to him, and even an Indian can cut time ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... gabble, murmur, prattle, blurt, chat, gossip, palaver, tattle, blurt out, chatter, jabber, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... children crying—Haji Sunan went out to quiet them. Then a fort sentry fired at something moving on the river, and nearly killed a villager bringing in his women-folk in a canoe together with the best of his domestic utensils and a dozen fowls. This caused more confusion. Meantime the palaver inside Jim's house went on in the presence of the girl. Doramin sat fierce-faced, heavy, looking at the speakers in turn, and breathing slow like a bull. He didn't speak till the last, after Kassim had declared that the Rajah's boats would be called in because the men were required to ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... a palaver before he'd let me in, but when I was in I seed what de matter was. He had a sojer dere, a Linkum sojer, bad wounded, what he'd found in de woods,—he was a runaway hisself, ye see, like me,—an' he'd tuck him to dis ole cabin an'd been nussin him on for good while. When I seed dat I felt drefful ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... old palaver, talk is cheap, but it takes money to buy whiskey. Look as smart as you can (hands letter), and deliver this letter before it's too late. There's nothin' like doin' things with despatch when you're in a hurry. Wait, your ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... but the agent was afraid to adopt the only course an Indian respects,—prompt and forceful measures. "Talk" means to him delay, compromise, confession of weakness. "Well, if you must palaver," said Boynton, finally, "take me along. I've had more to do with those beggars than Davies, and," he added to himself, "I'll make it possible to ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the Captain, staring the Doctor broad in the face, "I've got wind of the whole affair; now ease off your palaver. You've married my daughter Betsy, in a joke; she's fit for the wife of a Commodore, and all I've got to say is, if you want her, take her; if you don't want her, you're a fool, and ought to be made a powder-monkey for the rest ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... in the fewness of perfect sonnets. There are, however, far more perfect sonnets than perfect epics. A perfect sonnet may be a heavenly accident. But such accidents can never happen to writers of epics. Some years ago we had an enormous palaver about the "art of the short story," which numerous persons who had omitted to write novels pronounced to be more difficult than the novel. But the fact remains that there are scores of perfect short stories, whereas it is doubtful whether anybody but Turgenev ever did write a perfect novel. ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... Several received this palaver with a contemptuous but very appropriate curl of the nose; and Mealy Whitecotton offered to bet a half pint "that I couldn't do the like again with no sort o' wabbles, he didn't care what." But I had already fortified myself on ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... laughed, sceptically, confidently, as one who could not be deceived. "Pooh!" she said. "That was only a try-on. That was only so that he could begin his palaver! Don't tell me! I may be a simpleton, but I'm not such a simpleton as he thinks for, nor as some other folks think for, either!" (At this point Hilda had to admit that in truth her mother was not completely a simpleton. In her mother was a vein of perceptive shrewdness that occasionally cropped out ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... not convinced by his employer's logic. "Well, well," he said sulkily, "I am going, so there's an end of it, and there's no good in having any more palaver about it. You have your object in running rotten ships, and you make it worth my while to take my chances in them. I'm suited, and you're suited, so there's no more to ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand. He didn't give a continental for any body. Beg your pardon, friend, for coming so near saying a cuss-word—but you see I'm on an awful strain, in this palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything so mild. But we've got to give him up. There ain't any getting around that, I don't reckon. Now if we can get you to help ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... palaver's this?" asked Mr. Dennis, with supreme disdain. "We ain't got no sentimental members ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... mind for an answer, I had given him my address in St. James' Square, and had again mingled with the crowd. Alas! I was not fated to get back to Flora so easily! Mr. Robbie was in the path: he was insatiably loquacious; and as he continued to palaver I watched the insipid youths gather again about my idol, and cursed my fate and my host. He remembered suddenly that I was to attend the Assembly Ball on Thursday, and had only attended to-night by way of a preparative. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in no mood for straddling, for palaver, for "carrying water on both shoulders." He was weary to death of talk and compromise and temporize and discretionize and all the other "izes" by which the politicians were hedging right and wrong and somehow euchring the many in the interests of the few and transforming democracy into plutocracy. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... as pale as a shroud, an' hair as black as a crow, an' eyes that looked at ye an' never seen ye. No more did she talk much, an' whin Paddy 'ud be sayin' his fine spaches, she'd listen wid her eyes cast down, an' whin she'd had enough av his palaver, she'd jist look at him, an' somehow Paddy felt that his p'liteness wasn't the thing to work wid. He cudn't undhershtand her, an' bedad, many's the man that's caught be not undhershtandin' thim. There's rivers that's quiet on top bekase they're deep, an' more that's ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... been my ghost, cap'n," he said, "if you hadn't hurried right along. These friends of yours were bent on spoiling a good man to make bad meat. They wouldn't listen to any kind of reason. Can I have a palaver with ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... lord of Canada, called Donnacona, with twelve boats and accompanied by sixteen men, approached the ships. When abreast of the smallest of our vessels he began to make a palaver or preachment in their fashion, while moving his body and limbs in a marvellous manner, which is a sign of joy and confidence, and when he arrived at the flag-ship where were the two Indians who had been brought back from France, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... out of their assiettes. At home they will eat perforce cankey, fufu, kiki, and bad fish, washing them down with mimbo, bamboo-wine, and pitto, hopless beer, the pombe of the East Coast. Here they abuse the best of roast meat, openly sigh for 'palaver-sauce' and 'palm-oil chop,' and find fault with the claret and champagne. Chez eux they wear breech-cloths and nature's stockings—eoco tutto. Here both men and women must dress like Europeans, and a portentous spectacle it is. The horror reaches its height at Sierra ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... an' gin'l'min an' ladies," he say', "dis am a right bad case ob lazy majesty, 'ca'se de king been step on. Whin yivery li'l' black boy whut choose' gwine wander round at night an' stip on de king ob ghostes, it ain't no time for to palaver, it ain't no time for to prevaricate, it ain't no time for to cogitate, it ain't no time do nuffin' but tell de truth, an' de whole truth, an' nuffin' ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... caught the D.D.s with guile. There were Stickeen Indians there catching salmon, and among them Chief Shakes, who our interpreter said was "The youngest but the headest Chief of all." Last night's palaver had whetted the appetites of both sides for more. On the part of the Indians, a talk with these "Great White Chiefs from Washington" offered unlimited possibilities for material favor; and to the good divines the "simple faith and childlike docility" of these children of the ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... kind of palaver naturally roused my childish curiosity as to the subject of intoxicants. But, like a docile daughter, I fell into the career marked out for me by my father. I became a militant for the Pan-Antis. I distributed tracts by the million; I wrote a little poem on the idea that ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... comprehension. He loved the straight, quiet speech of Englishmen. There was no flurry or palaver about this specimen. He spoke as a man quite sure of himself and wholly independent ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... have thought on it, and will think on it. We be all determined, so there be an end of the matter, and an end of your palaver. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... Cook was chosen for this important mission. What manner of man was he, who in that time had risen from life in a mud hut to the rank of a commander in the Royal Navy? In manner, he was plain and simple and direct, no flourish, no unnecessary palaver of showy words, not a word he did not mean. In form, he was six feet tall, in perfect proportion, with brown hair and eyes, alertly penetrating, with features sharp rather from habit or ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... natural vein in which she commences it, an excellent, even an original, book might have been the result. As for Lilias and Ronald, they are mere romantic figments, with nothing of the genuine Scottish peasant about them; they do not even speak the Caledonian dialect; they palaver like a ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... enjoy the campaign, for they knew that their women would never be touched, that their wounded would be nursed, not mutilated, and that as soon as each man's bag of corn was spent they could surrender and palaver with the English General as though they had been a real enemy. Afterwards, years afterwards, they would pay the blood-money, driblet by driblet, to the Government, and tell their children how they had ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... of the morning are slipping away; we must construe our hieroglyphics without further palaver. The sleeper lies upon his side, his left hand resting near his face upon the pillow. Were he to move it ever so little during our examination, the history of years might be thrown into confusion. Nevertheless, we shall ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... Penelope, the all-but-flapper, an insufficient chaperone. She expresses her disapproval with a hardy insolence which must be rare with vicars' sisters in these emancipated times. Naturally when you have a great deal of palaver about Betty's husband having deserted her two years ago after a serious tiff, and no word spoken or written since, you rightly guess that the expected new Adjutant, Captain Rymill, will be none other than the missing man. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... that is what I like to hear. I hate palaver. Let one give his orders, and the rest obey them. We are not above half ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... of a woman, Pattering along in her loose-heel'd clogs, Pushed the brass-barr'd door of a public-house; The spring went hard against her; hand and knee Shoved their weak best. As the door poised ajar, Hullabaloo of talking men burst out, A pouring babble of inflamed palaver, And overriding it and shouted down High words, jeering or downright, broken like Crests that leap and stumble in rushing water. Just as the door went wide and she stepped in, 'She cannot do it!' one was bawling out: A glaring hulk ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... faiths, for they knew that he honored their opinions. No more dramatic incident illustrates his spirit than the one occurring in the inter-faith meeting at the Rockdale Temple Annex when he confessed his faith. Dr. Heller says there had been a great palaver of generalities by the two preceding speakers, and Mr. Nelson commenced his address by bluntly asking the audience if they wanted him to speak as he saw the truth, and they roared back, "Yes!" Thereupon he launched forth with the ringing declaration, "Let us be honest! ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... 'magnus Apollo.' Sefton is excellent as a commentator on Brougham; he says that he watches him incessantly, never listens to anybody else when he is there, and rows him unmercifully afterwards for all the humbug, nonsense, and palaver he hears him talk to people. They were twenty-seven at dinner. Talleyrand was to have gone, but was frightened by being told that he would get nothing but beefsteaks and porter, so he stayed away. They dined in the brewhouse and visited the whole establishment. Lord ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Mayor and Sheriffs, arrayed for the hunt, with buglers and dogs attending, stood across the way, and with mighty ceremony and palaver admitted her to the City. Woe betide them, for all their gold collars and maces, had they ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... with indifference when he represented to certain Landdrosts and Field Cornets that he had not come to talk politics, but to complain of a theft. Those to whom he spoke looked upon the cattle raid not as robbery, but as "annexation" or "commandeering." A man, listening to the palaver, exclaimed: "Well, anyhow, we shall have cheap beef as long as Montsioa's cattle last." At the hotel of the place Mr. Mackenzie met some Europeans, who were farming or in business in the Transvaal. They said to ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... "Den, atter some mo' palaver, Brer Fox make a bargain dat Mr. Buzzard wuz ter watch de hole, en keep Brer Rabbit dar wiles Brer Fox went atter his axe. Den Brer Fox, he lope off, he did, en Mr. Buzzard, he tuck up his stan' at de hole. Bimeby, w'en all git still, Brer Rabbit sorter scramble ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... lighted room for the benefit of the dark square below, his hands in his pockets, his head down, a reflective frown about his eyes. A half-intoxicated old ruffian, a policeman, and a man in a straw hat had stopped below, and were holding a palaver. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wearily. "Said he'd dropped Mrs. Dunlap and the Selim woman at about 2:30 and had been ordered to return around 6:30.... Knows nothing, of course." The chief of the Homicide Squad drew a deep breath. "Well, Bonnie, he has nothing on me. In spite of all the palaver I ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... countra laird, May warstle for your favour; May claw his lug, and straik his beard, And hoast up some palaver. My bonnie maid, before ye wed Sic clumsy-witted hammers, Seek Heaven for help, and barefit skelp Awa' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... and that is having torn up the draft she sent to pay me back her passage money, and putting the bits in an envelope and posting them to her without a word. I suppose it should have been done through a lawyer, with all the proper palaver. Perhaps she didn't tell you about that. I somehow fancy she didn't. But I know that it would have hurt her—I knew that when I did it. And perhaps that is why I did it. You are right. I haven't acted the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed |
