"Splutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... toward dusk (and awfully suddenly!)—flop! gobble! splutter! whoop!—and there he is, up on the limb, safe! Really safe! But it was an ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... mysterious recess of his clothing a quantity of red paper slips which he scattered at the entrance of the cavern. Then drawing from the same inexhaustible receptacle certain squibs or fireworks, he let them off and threw them into the opening. There they went off with a slight fizz and splutter, a momentary glittering of small points in the darkness and a strong smell of gunpowder. Polly gazed at the spectacle with undisguised awe and fascination. Hickory and Patsey breathed hard with satisfaction; ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... "Only a plebeian splutter of rage from our well-bred friend there," said Mackworth, pointing contemptuously at Kenrick, who stood with dilated ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... who jested about us between themselves in a continuous splutter of Chinese. We could tell, by their grimaces and gestures ... we rather liked their harmless, human impudence ... as long as they did the work, while we lazed about, talking ... while up and down the yellow sweep of the Pei-ho the little ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... hold back altogether, and he got what little sport he could out of it by putting some red pepper on Fatty's last mouthful of pie. He used a liberal dose, and the pie had scarcely disappeared within the stout youth's mouth when the boy began to splutter. ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... their hands held the glasses, but they did not drink, looking mostly at the wet rings on the polished table, or the little heaps of white ashes. A servant passing through scratched a match with a rasping splutter, and they twitched angrily at the interruption, fearing it would throw him off the track—he was so easily quieted, and when once one of his great gulfs of silence received ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... and vanished. The sound of the heavy plunge was followed by a regretful clamour all over the decks, and a general rush to the side. There was nothing to be seen; he had gone through the layer of fog covering the water. No one heard him blow or splutter. It was as if a lump of lead ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... firmly against the wood, he drew it downward vigorously and long. There was a faint crackle, a little splutter, and—glory of glories!—a tiny flame faltered ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... with an intermittent kind of splutter; indeed, one of his patients had observed that it was a pity such a clever man had a 'pediment' in his speech. But when he came to what he conceived the pith of his argument or the point of his joke, he mouthed out his words with slow emphasis; as a hen, when advertising her accouchement, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... linking her arm in Jessie's. "Let her splutter, Jess. We'll go to the Dainties Shop and ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... violent splutter of sparks, accompanied by a fizzing noise, and Jim knew that no power on earth could now avert the imminent explosion. Like a cat he worked his way backwards along the spar, which bent and ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... crash! went the musket-stocks; blows, kicks, cuffs; scratches, black eyes and bloody noses swelling the horrors of the scene! Thick thwack, cut and hack, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, head-over-heels, rough-and-tumble! Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter and splutter! cried the Swedes. Storm the works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the mine roared stout Risingh. Tanta-rar-ra-ra! twanged the trumpet of Antony Van Corlear;—until all voice and sound became unintelligible,—grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of triumph mingling in one hideous ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is not settled,' thought Isabelle. 'Poor Margaret!' She went about her many duties with the same silent sureness, the same poise as before. Whatever was happening to her was according to the discipline of her nature, controlled, suppressed. 'If she would only splutter,' Isabelle wished, 'instead of looking ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... spoke the machine gave a lurch, and the motor, instead of remaining silent, began to cough and splutter as in the ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... the young American looked behind him for the first time, and realized that he had a passenger. Promptly he throttled down his engine into a slow splutter, and turned in his seat as the machine came ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... "Ods splutter hur nails!" cried the giant, who was ashamed to be outdone by such a little fellow. "Hur can do that hurself!" and, snatching up the knife, he plunged it into his ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... pies and cake, And everything the mice could bake; They stuffed themselves with good fresh meal, And ruined all they could not steal; They slapped their long tails in the butter Until they made a frightful splutter; Then, sleek and fine in coats of silk, They swam about in buttermilk. They ate up everything they found, And flung the plates upon the ground. And catching three mice by their tails, They drowned them in the water-pails; ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... intrenchments. It is a spectacle entirely typical of a modern battle, for there is scarcely anything to see at all. If it were not for those shells being tossed to and fro on the right there, and an occasional splutter of rifle fire, one might easily suppose that the lines of blue-coated men lying about on the stubble were all dozing in ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... tug and, if the boy had seized him by the hand, he would have freed it at once, but it was not so easy with the sleeve; so he began to tug, and splutter with ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... while I have a penny of hers to spend," quoth the fool, feeling for another tune. "Should conspirators prevail, and the damnedest be, she hath yet the Manor of Rozel and my larder," urged Lempriere, with a splutter through ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "I'm writing this in Soho with a pen that was made in hell." Then there was a splutter of ink. "There," the letter went on, "that's the sort of thing it does. I believe this pen was brought to Soho by the first Frenchman to open a cafe here, and it's been handed down from proprietor ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Kirkaldy tolbooth. But what then? In a little after, having taken a gentleman prisoner, he went with him to a public house near Clunie in the parish of Kinglassie to see some public matters accommodated; but not agreeing, Wylie made a great splutter, and amongst other imprecations said, The devil take me, if I carry him not to Couper tolbooth this night. The gentleman's man, a young hardy fellow, told him roundly, his master should not go there. Upon which, Wylie gave him a blow: the fellow ran to a smith's shop, and getting ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... him," said Dick encouragingly, when, splash! Tom went overboard like a flash, the lower end of his pole having slipped on a smooth rock of the river bottom. There was a grand splutter, and it was fully a minute before Tom reappeared — twenty feet away and ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... storm," was Ormiston's salutation, "and a furious one. There go the fires—hiss and splutter. I knew how it ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... as mal, to be soft, let us take another word, such as feather. Here, again, we find that Mr. Wedgwood connects it with such words as Bav. fledern, Du. vlederen, to flap, flutter, the loss of the l being explained by such words as to splutter and to sputter. We have first to note the disregard of historical facts, for feather is O.H.G. fedara, Sk. pat-tra, Gr. pteron for peteron, all derived from a root pat, to fly, from which we have also ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... they sat toasting their fish and watching the salt driftwood splutter and crackle with blue flames, Marcella asked Wullie what he thought ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... planning which preceded crisis; who went into battle with a serenity infinitely ominous for those whom they attack. We instinctively associate serenity with the highest types of power among men, seeing in it the poise of knowledge and calm vision, the supreme heat and mastery which is without splutter or noise of any kind. The art of power in this sort is no doubt learned in hours of reflection, by those who are not born with it. What rebuke of aimless excitement there is to be got out of a little reflection, when we have been inveighing ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... the weary hack along a broken and stony cart-track, next over a ploughed field, then broke down a slap, as he called it, in a drystone fence, and lugged the unresisting animal through the breach, about a rood of the simple masonry giving way in the splutter with which he passed. Finally, he led the way through a wicket into something which had still the air of an avenue, though many of the trees were felled. The roar of the ocean was now near and full, and the moon, which began to make her appearance, gleamed on a turreted and apparently a ruined ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... another roof kept always over Earth. For the slavering madman has left a many like him clamoring and spewing about the churches that were named for us Twelve, and in the pulpits of the churches that were named for us: and we find it embarrassing. It is the doctrine of Mahound they splutter, and not any doctrine that we ever preached or even heard of: and they ought to say so fairly, instead of libeling us who were Apostles and gentlemen. But thus it is that the rascals make free with our names: and the cherubs keep track of ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... together. Maybe it was the gin, or the anxiousness, or the weakness and the hunger, and maybe it was the result of all of them, but at any rate I was all of a shake. Twice I failed to touch the fire-stick to the dynamite. Then I did, heard the match-head splutter, ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... The Castle was intensely still. He lowered the wick of the lamp before he left, watched the flame splutter and waited till it sank. Tiptoeing softly down the stairs, he slipped out noiselessly into the romance of the ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... again and brought out one of the two bottles which I owned—two bottles, just alike, one containing whisky, the other kerosene. In my confusion I—well, I was very hospitable, and I added as much kerosene as there was water; and when he had taken three large swallows, he began to spit and splutter; then to groan; then to double up on the hard rock in awful convulsions. I smelled the kerosene, and I felt that I had murdered him. It had come to this at last! My bashfulness was to do worse than urge me to suicide—it was to be the means of my causing the death of an estimable ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... of that vast apartment was disturbed by the sounds of Monsieur de Tressan's slumbers, the scratch and splutter of the secretary's pen, and the occasional hiss and crackle of the logs that burned in the great, cavern-like fireplace. Suddenly to these another sound was added. With a rasp and rattle the heavy curtains of blue ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... She murmured that she could not. "You can, you can, you can." He kissed her, all the while reiterating, "You can, you can, you can," until it became a sort of parrot cry. Several minutes elapsed, and the candle began to splutter ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... coming, a change that neither the Old Man nor the Mate liked, to judge by their frequent visits to the barometers. At noon the wind hauled into the sou'-west and freshened, white tops curled out of the mist and broke in a splutter of foam under the quarter, Channel gulls came screaming and circling high o'er our heads—a sure sign of windy weather. A gale was in the making; a rushing westerly gale, to clear the Channel and ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... off," with all sorts of official bustlings and activities, giving orders, delivering judgments, discharging directions here, there, everywhere that he could find a target. The librarian "showed off"—running hither and thither with his arms full of books and making a deal of the splutter and fuss that insect authority delights in. The young lady teachers "showed off" —bending sweetly over pupils that were lately being boxed, lifting pretty warning fingers at bad little boys and patting good ones lovingly. The young gentlemen teachers "showed off" with small scoldings ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... came out to take a hand, leaving Galeotto on guard within, and in a few minutes we had made an end of that resistance—the last splutter of ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... manned the breaks and began to pump, he roared at them, "Down on her, down on her, boys!" so that you would have thought the Neptune could put out the world if it was burning up. Instead of that there was usually a feeble splutter from the nozzle, and sometimes none at all, even if the hose did not break; it was fun to see the hose break. The Neptune was a favorite with the boys, though they believed that the Tremont could squirt farther, and they had a belief in its ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... when we picked him up it was obvious that he was dying. The violet beam vanished as his body struck it—vanished with a hiss and splutter, and a puff of sulphuric smoke that mingled with the smell of burning garments ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... Multitude," is as good a simile as Shakspeare ever made, for where is the artisan, but after having tasted it, began to spit and splutter as though he had been poisoned, while the aristocrat, the one in a thousand, licks his lips after it, as the greatest delicacy. This article is the roe of the sturgeon, salted down and pressed, and is imported into this country from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... number had found their way to other points of vantage, and were clustered about the funnel casings and turrets and even astride the great guns themselves. A murmur of men's voices, punctuated by the splutter of matches as hundreds of pipes were lit and relit, went up on all sides. The judges were taking their seats at the little tables on either side of the ring, and the referee, an athletic-looking Commander, was leaning over from his chair talking to ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... buttress, standing upon which I tapped the crystal gently with the tomahawk. It quivered. A shaft of rainbow tints dazzled my sight. I tapped again. As I touched it it third time, the fragile finger with which the gaunt old rock had scorned the plodding centuries vanished in a splutter ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... clearness and refinement which people who have been brought up in a damp climate and among smudged outlines so often mistake for hardness. Our great ammunition fire in the hollow of the hill burned merrily, and by-and-by a furious splutter of Mauser cartridges began, with every now and then the louder report of shells and great smoke balls hanging in the air. But sheer above all, above yellow veldt and ruined Boer laager, rose the hill, the position we had carried, grim and rigid against the sunset and ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... and his companion followed, and with a whirr of wheels and a splutter of sparks where the motor brush caught the rail, the little trolley drove ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... himself from struggling to come to the surface. Then he felt himself lying on his back in the water, supported by Frank. The motion was not unpleasant as he rose and fell on the waves, although now and then a splash of water came over his face, and made him cough and splutter for breath. He could see nothing but the blue sky overhead, could feel nothing except that occasionally he received a blow from one or other of Frank's knees, as the latter swam beneath him, with Ruthven's head on ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... you idiot!" the Major shouted. "I'll swear this beats any family on the face of the earth." He got up, knocking over his chair. "Go on. Don't stand there trying to splutter an explanation of your lack of sense! No wonder you have always failed to pass an examination. Not a word, Margaret. I know what you are going to say: Beats any family on ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... a section of Northern France, keeping a mile and more above the surface of the earth, when Jack called out in this fashion. Talking is never easy aboard a working plane. The splutter of the motor, added to the noise caused by the spinning propellers, as well as the fact that as a rule pilot and observer keep well muffled up because of the chill in the rarified air, all combine to make ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... are a godsend to give us the loan of your car!" There was a buzz and a splutter, and they were gone—gone clean out of Casey's life into the unknown whence ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... these ultra-red rays in Nature may be thus illustrated: I remove the iodine filter, and concentrate the total beam upon a test tube containing water. It immediately begins to splutter, and in a minute or two it boils. What boils it? Placing the alum solution in front of the lamp, the boiling instantly ceases. Now, the alum is pervious to all the luminous rays; hence it cannot be these rays that caused the boiling. I now introduce the iodine, and remove ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... when detached from the body of this instrument, although attuned to pitch, gives absolutely no musical sound; the lips of the player placed on the mouthpiece detached from the tube and bell of the brass instrument produce only a splutter; and a pianoforte without a sounding-board is nil. The air column in the tube of the French horn, and the sounding-board of the pianoforte develop the vibrations caused by the lips and strings into musical tones pleasing to the ear. The tuning-fork alone can ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... with the shade became aware of my presence for the first time, and threw his head back for a moment, and sidewise, to see me. I caught a momentary glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then he began to cough and splutter again. ...
— The Red Room • H. G. Wells
... he spoke the guttering tallow candle, swaying in its socket, suddenly went out with a loud splutter and a sizzle that echoed through the desolate room like ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... presence so near to him: 'It is very remarkable—we should be here, your majesty—very remarkable.' And then he subsided—happily unheard—into hopeless embarrassment. That is exactly how I feel, Stephen. I feel I can't stand it much longer, that presently I shall splutter and spoil the procession.... ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... was the real suggestion. He laid his pistol parts on the table and mixed himself a long drink. Standing as he did between Koho and the table, he interchanged the two bottles, drained his glass, made as if to search for something, and left the room. From outside he heard the surprised splutter and cough; but when he returned the old chief sat as before. The liniment in the bottle, however, was lower, and ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... crowd regards the capers of the man, and waits in suspense for the fatal attack. They wait; unconsciously the primitive instinct is awakened in them. They crave fight, they want to feel the delicious shiver produced by the sight of two bodies intertwining, the splutter of blood and pieces of torn, steaming human flesh flying through the cage and falling on the floor. They want to hear the roar, the cries, the shrieks of agony. . . . Then the crowd breaks into dark pieces, and disperses over the slimy marsh ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... daily life at General Headquarters the Commander's character is impressed. After lunch, for example, he spends an hour alone, and in this period of meditation the whole fateful panorama of the war passes before him. When it is over the wires splutter and the fierce life of the coming night—the Army does not begin to fight until most people go to ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... That wheeze like a pump, and hoot like an owl, From the coffin shape with its brooding face That stands on the stair, (you know the place,) Saying, "Click, cluck," like an ancient hen, A-gathering the minutes home again, To the kitchen knave with its wooden stutter, Doing equal work with double splutter, Yelping, "Click, clack," with a vulgar jerk, As much as to say, "Just see ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... of steaming tumblers filled the room. Dr. DEADEYE sat with the rest at the long deal table, puffing mightily at the brown old Broseley church-warden, whom the heat and the comfort of his evening meal had so far conquered, that he resented the doctor's treatment of him only by an occasional splutter. For myself, I sat where the warmth of the cheerful fire could reach my chilled toes, close by the side of the good doctor. I was a mere lad, and even now, as I search in my memory for these long-forgotten scenes, I am prone to marvel at my own heedlessness in thus affronting these lawless ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... feet touched a hard, rocky bottom, and he shot back to the surface, spluttering and blowing the water out of eyes, mouth and nostrils. A brown head was bobbing beside him. He seized it by the hair, pulled it up, and disclosed the features of Paul, his comrade. Paul, too, began to splutter and at the same ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Russia—the country where the state, more than ordinarily artificial and ill-balanced, was correspondingly weak—Fate had interpolated a blood-stained page of red and white terror in the years 1906-08. Although fitful, unorganized, and abortive, that wild splutter was one of the foretokens of the impending cataclysm, and was recognized as such by the writer of these pages. During the foregoing quarter of a century he had watched with interest the sowing of the dragon's teeth from which was one day to spring up a race of armed and ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... continued to splutter and all watched it as if fascinated, and the girls put their hands to their ears in anticipation of a fearful explosion. Then came a tiny flash, a strange clicking, and off flew the top of the cannon cracker, sending a shower of confetti of various ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... and I thank God that He has opened my eyes. You will never learn of me, because you cannot comprehend my ideas, and therefore it is of no use teaching you. Nobody opens a book to an idiot, that would foam and splutter over it; for you never could make him read. Ah! I see my way a little before me, and God vouchsafes to enlighten me ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... Special Constable to sit down. It is possible that a penalty of three days in a dark cell awaits the transgressor. We do not know, and we do not enquire. In that deadliest hour beyond the dawn, when the street lamps splutter out and the ruthless morning light reveals us to one another unwashed, unshaven and horribly all-nighty in appearance, it is indeed a grateful relief to sit down on the wooden Windsor chair and wait the six o'clock of release in blankness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... he was swooped to the world like a bird to his nest, Now is the drone of his coming the roaring of hell, Now with a splutter and crash are the engines ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... is BUCHANAN, slops over tremenjous, he do; Kinder poet, dear boy, I believe, and they always do flop round a few, Make a rare lot o' splash and no progress, like ducks in a tub, dontcher know, But cackle and splutter ain't swimming; so ROBERT, my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... saw Roger and the cook leap ahead, then the man doused the light. There was a sound of scuffling, a crash, a splutter of angry words. A moment later I heard the click of flint on steel, a tiny blaze sprang from the tinder, and the candle again sent up its ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... Cumberland obelisk—a gaunt column which the clustering ivy and shrubs at its base will some day topple down among the grass and heather—and to reach the Bishop's Gate through the single narrow stretch of Windsor Great Park that lies in Surrey. In winter, pheasants crouch under the brushwood or splutter through the trees; in summer the rhododendrons scent and ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... coins had been removed a sudden red glare on the walls of the chasm caused the three to leap to their feet. At the same instant the rain increased to a downpour, and they looked up to see a pine-knot torch in the opening above them splutter and go out. The wet darkness came ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions, will ferment, and fret, and chafe in their imprisonment, so the spiritual essence or soul of Mr Tappertit would sometimes fume within that precious cask, his body, until, with great foam and froth and splutter, it would force a vent, and carry all before it. It was his custom to remark, in reference to any one of these occasions, that his soul had got into his head; and in this novel kind of intoxication many scrapes and mishaps befell him, which he had frequently ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... when they write, Nor scold, nor keep a splutter: Their verses give delight, As soft and sweet ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... dropped his torch; its splutter Was extinguished in the gutter. "At my torch and crown of roses These young minxes cock their noses. Who'll buy my love-knots? Who'll buy my love-knots?" What's the use? 'Twixt Law and Passion, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... evidence I had before me as I walked back to my own house led inevitably to one verdict. I could almost reconstruct the ignoble pidgin-splutter in which Ching Po had told Stires, and was even now telling Follet. The wonder to me was that any one believed the miserable creature. Truth wouldn't be truth if it came from Ching Po. Yet if two men who were obviously prepossessed in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... silent. Shoop rolled a cigarette. The splutter of the sulphur-match, as it burned from blue to yellow, startled them. They relaxed, cursing off their nervous tension ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... nervous child, and she was in such terror from her really terrific experience that she threatened to go into convulsions. Andrew went over for his mother, whom he had always regarded as an incontestable authority about children. She, after one sharp splutter of wrath at the whole situation, went to work with the resolution of an ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fooling. See, the gas-jet here beside the dresser. Look—I can't turn it no higher. Hear it sing and splutter. You ain't ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... in the least to my surprise, made no attempt to interfere. Jack couldn't, for I was in the way. His father began to splutter helplessly. I shot out my foot, and swept the Major heavily to the floor. I plucked him up by his collar as if he were a rabbit, and choked him till his face was nearly black. Then I put him back in his chair, where he sat huddled ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... splutter; then he paused, turned suddenly and strode off toward his engine. The passenger train pulled slowly ahead. Tom ran to the switch, threw the handle, and swung aboard the ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... indignant rejection of the plan never attained speech, for, at that instant, from the green sea of banana trees beneath them, came the sudden purr of an engine. A minute later the splutter of an exhaust told them the silencer had been taken off. The huge-fronded banana trees were violently agitated as by the threshing of a hidden Titan. They could identify the changing of gears and the reversing and going ahead, until, at the end of five minutes, a ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... at last took her by the throat and linked her body. One evening, while conversing peacefully with Therese and Laurent, she remained in the middle of a sentence with her mouth wide open: she felt as if she was being throttled. When she wanted to cry out and call for help, she could only splutter a few hoarse sounds. Her hands and feet were rigid. She found herself struck ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... fellow, Greenly, that Comte de Vervillin!" murmured Sir Gervaise, in a tone of admiration, "and so have I always found him, and so have I always reported him, too! The fools about the Gazettes, and the knaves about the offices, may splutter as they will; Mr. de Vervillin would give them plenty of occupation were they here. I question if he mean to keep off in the least, but insists on holding every ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... convicting you of assigning a fine picture to a wrong church or gallery, he denied all your pretensions to judge of the picture itself. He had a reindeer's length of tongue, (how often did we wish it salted and dried!) and the splutter of words it sent forth, took off, as often happens, sufficient observation of the miserably small stock of ideas that he had to work upon. He enjoyed, as we all do, the blameless pleasure of dining out as often as he could; when, though he did not consume all the provisions, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the man's discomfiture before it occurred; I knew what a terrible splutter there would be when the stuff began to melt and run down his windpipe. I should have laughed aloud, but the bandage was hurting me terribly. With a vague hope of getting some relief from pain, I opened the door as softly as I could, went ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... I fired under the plane-trees failed to trouble the concert of the Cicadae; to-day, the dazzling light of the fire-wheels and the splutter of the crackers do not avail to distract the Spider from her weaving. And, after all, what difference would it make to my neighbour if the world fell in! The village could be blown up with dynamite, without her ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... somewhat flighty maid of Miss Webster, who, with her mother, was returning to the Court that evening. Absence had made his heart grow fonder, and it was beating much faster than usual as he stood on the station platform awaiting the arrival of the train, and, when it ran in with much splutter and fuss, not even by a turn of her head did Miss Rose show herself aware of Tom's presence. Instead, she was looking after her ladies, lifting out their various belongings—not a few in number—and ordering round the porters with a pretty pertness as she counted out ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... us in what part of the river we might be, only provided we didn't fall in. So Dennis led the way back, and he was the first to pick his way to the middle of the stream. Hilderman and I were some distance behind. Suddenly we stopped stock-still, and looked at him. He had begun to cough and splutter, and he seemed rooted to the small stone he was standing on in the middle of the stream. In a flash I understood, and with a cry I bounded after him, ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... bucket 's the bicker that keeps a man sicker, The bucket 's a shield an' a buckler to me; In pool or in gutter nae langer I 'll splutter, But walk like a freeman wha ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the silent, awe-stricken company, each member of which was wondering by how much of the loss his own meagre pay would be mulcted, there came a splutter of laughter. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... jealous Labor strike the hand that feeds, And burn the mills that grind his daily bread; Yea, in blind rage denounce the very laws That shield his home from Europe's pauperdom. See the grieved farmer raise his horny hand And splutter garlic. Hear the demagogues Fist-maul the wind and weather-cock the crowd, With brazen foreheads full of empty noise Out-bellowing the bulls of Bashan; and behold Shrill, wrinkled Amazons in high harangue Stamp their flat feet and gnash their toothless gums, ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... The blue smoke curls up from the censer and plays in the slanting sunbeams, the lighted candles faintly splutter. The singing, at first harsh and deafening, soon becomes quiet and musical as the choir gradually adapt themselves to the acoustic conditions of the rooms. . . . The tunes are all mournful and sad. . . . The guests are gradually brought to ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... straightened up. "Now! Look out, everybody!" he bawled. He struck a match and applied it to something that immediately began to splutter, and then he retreated a safe distance northward. All eyes were glued, as if fascinated, to the deadly, sputtering fuse. Soon came the dull, muffled roar of an explosion. The walls of the building sagged outwards, the roof caved in, and the whole ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... to good eyes, especially when the flame is in a mood to flicker and splutter, as gas sometimes does. Take a faint, wavering light and a piece of embroidery and you have as fine a recipe for premature blindness as can be unearthed in a month of Sundays. Sewing in the twilight is equally disastrous, as is the habit of facing ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... of fancy, or of hope, or fear, or love, or life." And after brandy, taken in sufficient quantity, it says, "Now, come, fool, grin and tumble, that your fellow-men may laugh - drivel in folly, and splutter in senseless sounds, and show what a helpless ninny is poor man whose wit and will are drowned, like kittens, side by side, in half an inch ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... quail, sparrows and ground-inhabiting birds bathe with the utmost frankness and a great deal of splutter; and here in the heart of noon hawks resort, sitting panting, with wings aslant, and a truce to all hostilities because of the heat. One summer there came a road-runner up from the lower valley, peeking and prying, and he had never any patience with the water baths of the sparrows. ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... was lost in a splutter of laughter from a group of sycophants who had overheard his grace's criticism and were but too ready to laugh at aught his grace might deign to utter. Her cheeks burned; it was by an effort that she suppressed the tears that anger was ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... preaching that men should return to a state of nature, great ladies suckle their young like animals, and the peasantry own their land like nobles. Luckily you'll hear little of this infectious talk in Turin: the King stamps out the philosophers like vermin or packs them off to splutter their heresies in Milan or Venice. But to a nobleman mindful of the privileges of his condition there is no more agreeable sojourn in Europe. The wines are delicious, the women—er—accomplished—and though the sbirri may hug one a trifle close now ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the candle burned down and went out in a splutter of grease, leaving the car in darkness, the train came to a slow stop, with a creaking and ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... splutter of arc welders, the slow banging of iron workers, the cough and hissing of jet sleds, the roar of activity that meant deadly danger to the Solar Alliance. Connel noticed as he moved across the canyon floor that the workers were ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... an absolute sin to put ourselves into a condition that makes others miserable. It is also wretched economy to burn the candle at both ends every day. When it is needed to aid us in some large piece of work the wick will be consumed, and the light will faintly flicker, or splutter feebly and die. ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Joshua, with a splutter of rage, "do I live to hear a Walda Nagasta suggest that the first prince of the land, her uncle and affianced husband, should be surrendered to our hereditary foes to be hanged like a worn-out hound, and do you, ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... unnecessary noise." He presented the salver to Lancaster, who mixed himself a brandy and soda with considerable splutter. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... soldiers, hearing the splutter of the motorcycles behind them, drew to one side of the road so as to allow the trio of boys to pass. Instead of doing this the chums dismounted ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... up at last. And a pretty sight he was, not like a bold pirate, but a great big "booby," Mother said, with the mud all over his clothes, and the water going slippity slop in his shoes, and he shouting, "Bbbbbbllllllllloooooooooo—splutter—gerchoo!" worse ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... now in a terrible muddle, The deputy deities all are at fault They splutter and splash like a pig in a puddle And dickens a one of 'em's earning his salt. For Thespis as Jove is a terrible blunder, Too nervous and timid—too easy and weak— Whenever he's called on to lighten or thunder, The thought of it keeps him awake for ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... instant inquisitively, and then sank, as if for ever, into the calm water, to reappear long after in some totally new and unexpected quarter. A napping duck or two, being wellnigh run over by the canoe, took wing with a tremendous splutter and a perfectly idiotical compound of a quack and a roar, while numerous flocks of plover, which had evidently meant to lie still among the sedges and hide while the canoe passed, sprang into the air at ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... took her hand in his. He had his sympathies for Stella Croyle, but her hopes held no positive promise of happiness for either her or Harry Luttrell—a mere flash and splutter of passion at the best, with all sorts of sordid disadvantages to follow, quarrels, the scorn of his equals, the loss of position, the check to advancement in his profession. Here, on the other hand, was the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being Secretary ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... amusedly, insufferably. The next second she sprang at him like a cat and slapped him across his insolently smiling face, and then flung Spanish oaths at him with such force and heat that they seemed to splutter in falling upon the chill of the air. Then she ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... this speech need not be repeated, as the widow's answer was made up of a great number of incoherent ejaculations, embraces, and other irrelative matter. But the two women slept well after that talk; and when the night-lamp went out with a splutter, and the sun rose gloriously over the purple hills, and the birds began to sing and pipe cheerfully amidst the leafless trees and glistening evergreens on Fairoaks lawn, Helen woke too, and as she looked at the sweet face of the girl sleeping ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... alike, upon our hands and at our mercy. But I was careful to keep Oahika until the last, and it was not until the schooner was fairly under way and heading out to sea that I cast him adrift and permitted him to go over the side, which he did in a splutter of mingled wrath and fear, pouring out a long string of what were probably native curses as he seized the steering paddle and violently thrust the canoe ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... I generally had Dolores for a companion, and I could certainly not have had a more charming one. The civil war—though the little splutter on the Yi scarcely deserved that name yet—was her unfailing theme. She was never weary of singing her hero Santa Coloma's praises—his dauntless courage and patience in defeat; his strange romantic adventures; the innumerable ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... same surgeon and sow-gelder averred, of the hydrophobia, foaming at the mouth, gnashing his teeth, and some said cursing, but that was a calumny, for something seemed to be the matter with his tongue, and he could not speak, only splutter—nobody venturing, except his amiable daughter—and in that particular act of filial affection she was amiable—to hold in the article of death the old man's head;—Be it that moping idiot that would sit, were she suffered, on, on, on—night and day for ever, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... that don't splurge and splutter. They give satisfaction to everybody. They burn evenly, and are altogether the swell thing in matches—and their heads don't fly off either," ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... over their painted pasteboard. It is the desire to conquer. Hours pass by. Night glooms. Dawn, it may be, rises unheeded; and they sit calling for fresh cards at the "Portland," or the "Union," while waning candles splutter in the sockets, and languid waiters snooze in the ante-room. Sol rises. Jones has lost four pounds: Brown has won two; Robinson lurks away to his family house and (mayhap indignant) Mrs. R. Hours of evening, night, morning, have passed ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had but just time to splutter out these comforting words and redescend the carriage, when the train put itself into movement, and the lifelike iron miracle, fuming, hissing, and screeching, bore off to London its motley convoy of human beings, each passenger's heart a mystery to the other, all bound the same road, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... satisfied, for, holding the brand before him, he took from the tiny bag around his neck a pinch of the magic powder that was included in his jujus, and pronouncing words that conveyed some mystical meaning, slowly let the powder fall into the flickering flame, causing it to hiss and splutter. ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... Miss Rugg, as she raised her glass to her lips in completion of it, had not happened to look at Young John; when she was again so overcome by the contemptible comicality of his disinterestedness as to splutter some ambrosial drops of rum and water around, and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... heaved up, as on a huge shoulder which slipped from under it; such occasional sea-quakes came probably from the swell of some steamer that had passed it in the dark; otherwise the waves were harmless though restless. But it was piercingly cold, and there was, from time to time, a splutter of rain like the splutter of the spray, which seemed almost to freeze as it fell. MacIan, more at home than his companion in this quite barbarous and elemental sort of adventure, had rowed toilsomely with the heavy oars whenever he ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... was smeared in a dozen places with the smoke of burning hamlets. Suddenly a soldier crouching beside me cried, "Les Allemands! Les Allemands!" and from the woods which screened the railway- embankment burst a long line of grey figures, hoarsely cheering. At almost the same moment I heard a sudden splutter of shots in the village street behind me and my driver screamed, "Hurry for your life, monsieur! The Uhlans are upon us!" In my desire to see the main German advance it had never occurred to me that a force of the enemy's cavalry might slip around and take us in the flank, which was ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... desire to assert his importance, to break, to crush; to be even with everybody for everything; to tear the veil, unmask, expose, leave no refuge—a perfidious desire of truthfulness! He laughed in a mocking splutter and said: ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... jostle, whirl and flutter! They whisper, babble, twirl, and splutter! They glimmer, sparkle, stink and flare— A true witch-element! Beware! Stick close! else we shall ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... feverishly. Only three couples were now turning in the middle of the room, then two, then none. There was a lack of arm-chairs for the men; the ladies hid their yawns behind their fans. At last the music ceased, and as no one said anything, a dead silence spread through the room. Candles began to splutter and went ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... the lady from his lap, rather roughly, it is to be feared. "Who—who the devil is this, anyhow?" he managed to splutter. ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... chatter at the mid-day meal was interrupted by the terrific splutter and throbbing of a motor-car. Those were still the days when touring cars with strangely clad occupants were less familiar, even on French roads, than they have since become, and the machines announced themselves from afar by their ponderous groans. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... splutter of words. The other's sentences were like a dash of cold water; they cleared his mind. There was menace in that heavy voice, in the other's attitude, in the frosty gleam of his eyes. That veiled threat sobered Martin. He stood still and played ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... city at this winter hour. This home-hurrying crowd—its excitement of escape! its eagerness and expectancy! its camaraderie! The arc-lights overhead glow and splutter with the joy they see on ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... the big ones himself," she would splutter as soon as she and her husband were where Grandfather Mole couldn't listen to what she said. And then, probably, Jolly Robin would laugh and tell her not to mind, for there ought to be ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and it was right entertaining to watch his face work as the words come along. It registered all the evil that Scotland has suffered from her oppressors since they first thought up the name for it. Finally he begun to splutter back—it must have sounded fine at the other end—but he had to hang up, he was that emotional. After he got his face human ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... and found one remaining. He tried to strike this, but the floor was wet, and it spat and went out. He cursed. He could not see where the door was situated. In his struggle he had quite lost his bearings. The strange beast, disturbed by the splutter of the match, began to move again. "Time!" called Woodhouse, with a sudden gleam of mirth, but the thing was not coming at him again. He must have hurt it, he thought, with the broken bottle. He felt a dull pain ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... manager was making some ineffectual attempts to claw something with his hands and to kick, when the welcome sound of quick footsteps sounded on the floor. The next moment Azuma-zi had left him and darted towards the big dynamo. There was a splutter amid ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... caught hold of the leg and pulled and pulled. There was a splutter of snorts, and, 'what in Hell's,' and the fat girth of an apple-shaped body ripped the tent pegging free and came out under the tepee skirt followed by another leg, and two oozy hands flabbily clawing ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... amazement at Michael, wondering if the strangely spent night had upset his reason. He could only splutter out between ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Dr. Howe, with an indignant splutter, "you don't understand these things my dear,—you're young yet, Helen. They were wrong through and through; so don't be absurd." Then turning half apologetically to John Ward, he added, "You'll have to keep this child's ideas in order; ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... opened to his sympathies of the human and equine misery in close association. But it was very difficult. "Poor brute, poor people!" was all he could repeat. It did not seem forcible enough, and he came to a stop with an angry splutter: "Shame!" Stevie was no master of phrases, and perhaps for that very reason his thoughts lacked clearness and precision. But he felt with greater completeness and some profundity. That little word contained all his sense of indignation and horror at one sort of wretchedness ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... glowing ashes and half-burnt embers. At this critical moment the stranger deliberately approached the hearth. He threw a whole flagon of liquor wilfully upon the waning faggots, and in a moment fiz, splutter, and smoke proclaimed that the warfare of the elements, like many others, had ended in the destruction of both the contending belligerents. The yule-log was extinguished. There was a general rush, and a consternation of so unequivocal a nature, that tables, benches, platters, and drinking utensils ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... which rather admires that inconvenient and gawky muddle of ironwork and Flemish architecture, the London Tower Bridge. When before this, temerarious anticipators have written of the mighty buildings that might someday be, the illustrator has blended with the poor ineffectual splutter of the author's words, his powerful suggestion that it amounted simply to something bulbous, florid and fluent in the vein of the onion, and L'Art Nouveau. But here, it may be, the illustrator ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... vote we adjourn this meeting," said Cupid, recovering from a fresh cough and splutter. "Or old Gurley'll be coming in to put me on a mustard plaster.—As for you, Infant, if you take the advice of a chap who has seen life, you'll keep your ideas to yourself: they're too crude ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... were in bed in a minute; and when they saw Hugh wash his face and hands, they sat up in bed to stare. One of them told him that he had better not do that, as the maid would be coming for the light, and would leave him in the dark, and report of him if he was not in bed. So Hugh made a great splutter, and did not half dry his face, and left the water in the basin;—a thing which they told him was not allowed. He saw that the others had not kneeled down to say their prayers,—a practice which ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... causiticity^, virulence; poignancy; harshness &c adj.; severity, edge, point; pungency &c 392. cantharides; seasoning &c (condiment) 393. activity, agitation, effervescence; ferment, fermentation; ebullition, splutter, perturbation, stir, bustle; voluntary energy &c 682; quicksilver. resolution &c (mental energy) 604; exertion &c (effort) 686; excitation &c (mental) 824. V. give energy &c n.; energize, stimulate, kindle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
