"Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was just herself in a pretty little morning house gown of blue gingham. She was minus the dust-cap and the ruffled apron, but she had a dab of flour on the left cheek, and a smutch of crock on her forehead. She had, too, a cut finger on her right hand, and a burned thumb on her left. But she was Billy—and being Billy, she advanced with a bright smile and held out a cordial hand—not even wincing when the cut finger came under ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... he sat down and wept; and from the streaming tear drops sprang into being, as his first boon, a progeny of ghosts and goblins, of an aspect so loathsome and dreadful, that he was ready to faint away. At one time, after profound meditation, different beings spring forth: one from his thumb, another from his breath, a third from his ear, a fourth from his side. But enough of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... a question," said Holmes, with his finger and thumb in his waistcoat pocket. "Should I be too early to see your master, Mr. Silas Brown, if I were to call at five o'clock ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... see a gardener using any spraying contrivance on the end of a hose. In his thumb and forefinger, which he skillfully moves over the flowing stream, he has a combination of sprayers that can produce the heaviest stream or the finest mist at will. This is to be recommended, but few will care to follow the course of ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue
... baby reached out and closed his little fingers about Tenney's thumb. Tenney stood there, his heart swelling within him at the contrast between the child's forgivingness and her cruelty. Now she had the child's outer things off, and she rose with them in one hand, carrying the child on the other arm, and it was ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... daily, for many days successively. In these occupations the natives make use of a peculiar shrill whistle to frighten down the birds; it is produced by pulling out the under lip with the fore-finger and thumb, and pressing it together, whilst the tongue is placed against the groove, or hollow thus formed, and the breath strongly forced through. Whistling is also practised in a variety of other ways, and has peculiar sounds well known to the natives, which ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... had been sipping his wine. As Emily suddenly looked up and addressed him, he twirled the glass carelessly between his thumb and finger, remarking, as if this were the only feature of the story that at all impressed him, "A mole, did you say? ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... Minerva to save your life," replied Jimmy disrespectfully, "her nake ain't no bigger 'n that," making a circle of his thumb and forefinger. "Miss Cecilia, Miss Cecilia," he shrieked tantalizingly, "is ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... handed it to him. He took it, turned it over, looked at the policeman half frightened, and pointed with his fat thumb ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... secure evenness of touch. Double passages, such as double thirds and sixths, should be divided and each half practised separately, with legato touch. Octaves should be practised with loose wrists and staccato touch. As a preparatory study practise with thumb alone. The thumb must always be kept curved, with joints well rounded out; it should touch the keys with its tip, so as to keep it on a level with the other fingers. Paderewski is ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... make a great difference to a sailor. When we got on deck, the man at the wheel struck eight bells (four o'clock in the morning), and "All Starbowlines, ahoy!'' brought the other watch up, but there was no going below for us. The gale was now at its height, "blowing like scissors and thumb-screws''; the captain was on deck; the ship, which was light, rolling and pitching as though she would shake the long sticks out of her, and the sails were gaping open and splitting in every direction. The mizzen topsail, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... rolling his head against the back of the sofa, and looking up at the chandelier, "sometimes a man has more freedom than he's got any use for. I don't know as I want to be back under Tweet's thumb, but I guess the Scripture was about right where it says it ain't good for a man to be alone. ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... in feathers all fine, Who stood on the ocean's rim; There were numberless leagues of excellent brine— But there wasn't enough for him. So he knuckled a thumb in his painted eye, And added a ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... given Drake an exaggerated reverence for the printed page. He was inclined to set Mallinson on a pinnacle, and scourge himself at the foot of it for his earlier distrust of him. He opened the book again at the beginning, and let the pages slip across beneath his thumb from cover to cover; 413 was marked on the top corner of the last; 413 pages actually written and printed and published; all consecutive too; something new on each page. He turned to ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... Is the free edge or the root the thickest? Trim closely the thumb nail and the nail of the middle finger of one hand and try to pick up a pin, or other minute object, from a smooth, hard surface. The result indicates what use of the nails? Suggest ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... mumbled something, but her enunciation was indistinct, owing to the fact that her thumb was in her mouth. Helen finished tying a bow of ribbon upon the leg of a stool, patted it ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... or thumb in order to turn over leaves. Many respectable people are addicted to this habit, but it is a vulgar one. Besides, it is entirely useless. The same remarks might be applied to the habit of suffering the corners of the leaves to turn up, in 'dog's ears.' Keep every ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... a table, placing your hands upon it, clenching the fists, keeping the back of the hand on the table, the thumb doubled over the fingers. Now fix your gaze upon the fist for a while, then gradually extend the thumb, keeping your whole attention fixed upon the act, just as if it was a matter of great importance. Then gradually extend your first finger, then your second and so on ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... in process of formation. Thus, the Finns, Lapps, Tartars, and Mongols, have no generic words for river, although even the smallest streams have their names. They have not a word to express fingers in general, but special words for thumb, fore-finger, etc. They have no word for tree, but special words for pine, birch, ash, etc. In the Finn language, the word first used for thumb was afterwards applied to fingers generally, and the special word for the bay ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... grinder, too, taken on at the same time, a short round-looking man, with plump cheeks, and small eyes which were often mere slits in his face. He had a little soft nose, too, that looked like a plump thumb, and moved up and down and to right and left when he was intent upon his work. He was the best-tempered man in the works, and seemed to me as if he was always laughing and showing his two rows ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... that the servant who was doing it should not be frightened. Although the dog had learned to trust me thoroughly, he snapped at me once involuntarily and bit me—apparently very slightly—in the upper joint of my right-hand thumb. There was no wound visible, but it was soon evident that the periosteum had become inflamed from the contusion. As the pain increased more and more with the use of the thumb, I was ordered to do no writing until my hand was quite healed. If my plight was not quite so terrible ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... white man could have done better. He threatened the right flank—Captain Perry hastened men to strengthen it and then White Bird turned the left flank. The volunteers ran away, Chief Joseph grabbed the best position; now he had the soldiers under his thumb, and they ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... my father was an intelligent man. From my cradle onward I was surrounded by replicas of ancient art; at ten years of age I read Gil Blas, at twelve La Pucelle. Where others had Hop-o'-my-thumb, Bluebeard, Cinderella, as childhood friends, mine were Venus and Apollo, Hercules and Lackoon. My husband's personality was filled with serenity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness which fell upon him soon after our marriage could long ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... months. For five months of this time she had been stitching the seams and hems of umbrella covers for 35 cents a hundred. Her usual output was about 200 a day. By working very fast, she could in a full day make 300, but when she did, it left her thumb very sore. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... grade, caramel; boil the sugar for a few minutes and dip the point of a spoon into it; if the sugar falls in large drops from the spoon it has reached the 1st grade; continue the boiling for a few minutes longer; dip your first finger into it and press the finger against the thumb; then open the fingers and if the sugar forms a thread between the 2 fingers it has reached the 2d grade; after boiling a little longer dip in a spoon and if a pearl hangs onto a long thread of the ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... rises) I God, woman, a man can't git no peace wid somebody like you in town. (He goes angrily into the store followed by MRS. ROBERTS. The boy sits down on the edge of the porch sucking the baby's thumb.) ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... from the bad taste of the time by his papers upon Chevy Chase, though he had gone some way to meet it by endeavouring to satisfy the Dennises of 'that polite age,' with authorities from Virgil. Among the jests was a burlesque criticism of Tom Thumb. What Addison thought of the 'little images of Ridicule' set up against him, the last paragraph of this Essay shows, but the collation of texts shows that he did flinch a little. We now see how he modified many expressions in the reprint of this Essay ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of nationality in Europe bristles with difficulties. It cannot be solved by theory and rule of thumb. What is a nation? Shall it be determined by speech, by blood, by geographical boundary, by historic tradition? The freedom and independence of a country can and ever should be assured when with one voice it demands the same. It is seldom as ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... as that through without cratin'?" says I to a guy behind the chicken wire, jerkin' me thumb at Mr. Sleuth. "What's ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... gradually becomes more definite in details limned from life. 'The Jesuits have so many loopholes for escape, pretexts, colors of insinuation, that they are more changeful than the Sophist of Plato; and when one thinks to have caught them between thumb and finger, they wriggle out and vanish' (ib. vol. i. p. 230). 'The Jesuit fathers have methods of acquiring in this world, and making their neophytes acquire, heaven without diminution, or rather with augmentation, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... lifted to strike her. The young woman stooped her head with a cry. He darted round the table to interpose between them. But the mother had caught hold of her; the handkerchief had fallen from her neck; and the youth saw five blue bruises on her lovely throat—the marks of the four fingers and the thumb of a left hand. With a cry of horror he rushed from the house, but as he reached the door he turned. His hostess was lying motionless on the floor, and a huge gray wolf came ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... have any bitter, sour, or otherwise undesirable taste or aroma. Texture registers more accurately the physical nature of the ripening. The cheese should not be curdy and harsh, but should yield quite readily to pressure under the thumb, becoming on manipulation waxy and plastic instead of crumbly or mealy. Body refers to the openness or closeness of the curd particles, a close, compact mass being most desirable. The color of cheese should be even, not ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... of considerable time, for with their masts they would have to clear away the branches to a considerable height. Down near the water the branches by which we pushed ourselves along were those of the undergrowth, with many rattans and other creepers varying from the thickness of one's thumb to that of one's wrist, and these would take a great deal of chopping before one of their war boats could be pushed through, but higher up they would probably have much thicker branches to contend with. It may be that they can lower their masts; but even if they ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... repaired, I came upon the chest, and opening it, discovered my boys' hoard, and in it this packet of books. I sat down on the top of the chest and read them all through, from Jack the Giant-killer down to Hop o' my Thumb without rising, and this in the broad daylight, with the yellow sunshine nestling beside me on the rose-coloured silken seat, richly worked, of a large stately-looking chair with three golden legs. Yes I could tell you all those stories, not to say the names ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... the housewife saw it, and she nipped it between her finger and thumb, and, because it was only half-baked, it fell with a "splatch" ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... to it. When she reached the chorus she stopped. Then away up in the balcony sounded the tiny treble of a boy's soprano, sweet as the ring of silver. The audience turned, to a man, and we seen, perched among the newsboys, the littlest, golden-haired youngster, 'bout the size of your thumb, his eyes glued to the face of his mother on the stage below, pourin' out his lark song, serious and frightened. Twice he done it, while by main stren'th I held his father to the enjoyments of a two-dollar ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... space between the rafters is filled up with what they call ribs—viz. the wood of the bread-fruit tree, split up into small pieces, and joined together so as to form a long rod the thickness of the thumb, running from the ridge pole down to the eaves. All are kept in their places, an inch and a half apart, by cross pieces, made fast with cinnet. The whole of this upper cagelike work looks compact and tidy, and at the first glance is admired by strangers as being alike ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... tramp, in a hard voice. "Go ahead, an' get done with it. I'm tired of standing here." He had released his thumb from the spring of the electric torch, and the light went out, making the spot seem all the ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... the aged butler, filling his clay from Shelton's pouch; then, taking a front tooth between his finger and his thumb, he began to feel it tenderly, working it to and fro with a sort of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fie! (273). fiakr-o cab. fiancx-o betrothed man, fiance. fid-i to rely upon, trust. fidel-a faithful, loyal. fier-a proud, haughty. fil-o son. filozof-o philosopher. fin-i (trans.), to finish, end. fingr-o finger; "dika fingro", thumb; "montra fingro", index finger; "longa fingro", middle finger; "ringa fingro", ring-finger; "malgranda fingro", little finger. firm-a firm, steady. fisx-o fish. fizik-o physics, physical science. flag-o flag, banner, small standard. flank-o ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... eyes in my head when I chose you, Babet, and the soft place was in my heart!" replied Jean, heartily. The compliment was taken with a smile, as it deserved to be. "Look you, Babet, I would not give this pinch of snuff," said Jean, raising his thumb and two fingers holding a good dose of the pungent dust,—"I would not give this pinch of snuff for any young fellow who could be indifferent to the charms of such a pretty ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... are plump, with light, semi-transparent fat, soft breast-bone, tender flesh, leg joints which will break by the weight of the bird, fresh colored and brittle beaks, and windpipes that break when pressed between the thumb and fore-finger. They are best in fall ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... a small drawer under the shelf, and brought out an ugly-looking weapon, tried the hammer movement with his thumb, and handed it over to me with ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... glass five inches long and three inches wide. Along the lower edge of each strip was pasted a slip of white paper. He asked people to pass their hands through their hair (thus collecting upon them a thin coating of the natural oil) and then making a thumb-mark on a glass strip, following it with the mark of the ball of each finger in succession. Under this row of faint grease prints he would write a record on ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Germans who have no scruple about swallowing slave grown sugar. Surely this sophistry is worthy only of the worst class of false witnesses. "I perjure myself! Not for the world. I only kissed my thumb; I did not put my lips to the calf-skin." I remember something very like the right honourable Baronet's morality in a Spanish novel which I read long ago. I beg pardon of the House for detaining them with such ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... grin threw the door open and indicated with his thumb that Swetenham and Dick might advance. He winked at them as they passed him, a fund of malignant impudence in his eyes. The room inside was small and scattered with a profusion of clothes. Fanny, ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... touched each one of the ten little fingers, and as he touched them he said their names: "Little Thumb; Forefinger; Thimble-finger; Ring-finger; Little Finger; Little Thumb; Forefinger; Thimble-finger; Ring-finger; Little Finger!" And as he named the fingers, one after another, the tiny fairies bowed their tiny heads; there was a fairy for ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... to some: Green loans whaur they ne'er fash their thumb. But mark the muckle winds that come Soopin' an' cool, Or hear the powrin' burnie ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hired dress-suit case with an effort to please, Add a half-dozen stumbles and trips; Remove his right thumb from the cranberry sauce, Roll in ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... an attestation in Mr. Hastings's favor, and we shall produce it as a part of our evidence. Oh, my Lords, consider the situation of a people who are forced to mix their praises with their groans, who are forced to sign, with hands which have been in torture, and with the thumb-screws but just taken from them, an attestation in favor of the person from whom all their sufferings have been derived! When we prove to you the things that we shall prove, this will, I hope, give your Lordships a full, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... histories. The eldest, a homebred lordling, who, from the moment he slipped his mother's apron-strings, had fallen into folly, and then, to show himself manly, run into vice, lost his life in a duel about some lady's crooked thumb, or more crooked mind. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... counting their money. It was evident that Mr. Books was not in sympathy with the great enterprise his employers were developing, for he was continually saying witty but malicious things about Gusher, and would even point significantly with his thumb over his right shoulder. When a more than ordinarily verdant customer would come with his money, Mr. Books would shrug his shoulders, drum with his fingers on the desk, and hum a tune to ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... separated from his father. He believed the reason to be, because she had seen him once vomit the paws of a dog and the fingers of a child. He added that the Lord of the Forest had strictly forbidden him to bite the thumb-nail of his left hand, which nail was thicker and longer than the others, and had warned him never to lose sight of it, as long as he was in ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... Howard was at Cadiz with Walter Raleigh and the young Earl of Sussex, and would by no means hear of it. So Master Bailiff Stubbes, who, 'tis said, doth owe Sir Thomas forty pound, and is therefore under his thumb, forthwith refused the company license to play in Stratford guildhall, inn-yard, or common. And at that the master-player threw his glove into Master Stubbes's face, and called Sir Thomas a stupid old bell-wether, and Stratford burgesses silly sheep ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... and many privileges, on account of the danger and unpleasant nature of his task. He has worked at this saw for about forty years, and in that time has handled, according to his record, some twenty-five millions of horns, or over two thousand for every working day. He has scarcely a whole finger or thumb upon either hand—many of them are entirely gone; but most of these were lost during his apprenticeship. The least carelessness was rewarded by the loss of a finger, for the saw cannot be protected with ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... mother and five children, the oldest thirteen, the youngest not yet three, a poor, deformed, little thing that has consumption of the bowels, brought on by scanty and irregular food. Its tiny legs are scarcely thicker than my thumb, and you cannot look at its patient, wasted, little face, that looks old enough to have endured twenty-five years of misery, instead of three, without the heartache. I ask the mother how she earns her living, and she points to a package that has just come in. Picking it up, and untying the ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... Villon writes as one having a very full knowledge of all branches of the subject, and in days when foreign competition has enforced on English manufacturers the importance of no longer being content with rule-of-thumb methods which have come down to them from their forefathers it certainly should be worth the while of English tanners to see what lessons they can learn from French practice, and French practice, we should imagine, could hardly have a better exponent ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... said Adair, absently rolling his cigarette between his thumb and finger. "Also, it's another pity that I am such a hopeless quitter. I believe I could pull this thing out yet, if I could ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... him, he hops a little nearer; not too near, however, either to mislead you or to put himself in your hands, but just near enough to tempt you to try to tempt him. You hold out a nut, and then, with a quick dart and a sharp peck with a bill trained to certain and sure work, your thumb and finger lose that which they held, and Mr. Bluejay is eating it in perfect security well beyond your reach. Oh, he is a fascinating creature is this bunch of beautiful blue feathers decorating the harshest voice of all birddom in ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... encountered unexpected difficulties, and his progress was finally checked by a box canon from which he escaped with difficulty, spending a night without food or water on a chilly mountain top known as "Thumb Peak." The following morning he managed to cross to a high mountain called Santo Tomas, whence he returned to Baguio. He was, however, of the opinion that the trip down the canon could be made without special difficulty by a party suitably provided ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Mr. Dolph was as comfortably stout as a man should be who is well fed and forty. He stood with his back to the fire, pulling at his whiskers—which formed what was earlier known as a Newgate collar—with his right thumb and forefinger. His left thumb was stuck in the armhole of his flowered satin waistcoat, ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... fast? In cases where there are serious complaints to remedy but where there are no life threatening disease conditions, a good rule of thumb is to fast on water for one complete day (24 hours) for each year that the person has lived. If you are 30 years old, it will take 30 consecutive days of fasting to restore complete health. However, thirty fasting days, done a few days here and ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... never lives the span of life allotted to man. After many small warnings his thumb weakens. He neglects that; and he gets touches of paralysis in the thumb, the arm, and the nerves of the stomach; can't digest; can't sweat; at last, can't work; goes to the hospital: there they galvanize him, which does him no harm; and boil him, which ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... and on the eastern front had been added that Gothic porch of which Emily had heard,—and a flagrantly modern Gothic porch it was, flanked by two comical little turrets, with loopholes, from which a thread-paper or Tom Thumb might have defended it. Otherwise it resembled a church porch, except for the formidable points of a sham portcullis; but there was no denying that it greatly increased the comfort of the house, with its two sets of heavy doors, and the seats on either side. The great hall ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... matter," continued Mr. Bangs, catching a white moth between his thumb and forefinger and taking apparent pleasure in its annihilation, "and I've decided not to get a new man in for the summer, but to let you take the work for the present and see what you can do ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... but her arm was linked in Agatha's, and she was drawn along in spite of herself. Smilash did not move. Agatha strolled on coolly, and as she passed him, adroitly caught the apron between her finger and thumb and twitched it from his face. Instantly Henrietta uttered a piercing scream, and Smilash caught her in ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... very many of the captains were more accomplished than the stolid persons concerning whom so many droll legends still linger; but the fact remains, that valuable property and valuable lives were entrusted to men who wrought solely by rule of thumb, and that the trust was, on the whole, very wisely bestowed. With clumsy old craft that sailed in heavy weather as though they were dragging an anchor at the bottom, and that missed stays on the ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... in his work, unbent his back, stood up, and regarded his thumb with as much intentness as if he were an Indian fakir pledged to look at nothing else for a stated number of years. He pinched the nail, shook his hand, and then, abandoning it as an object of interest, was about to inflate the mended tyre ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... wondering where the driver of the milk wagon was all this time. And so were Uncle Lucky and Billy Bunny, and if you'll wait a minute I'll tell you, as soon as my typewriter behaves itself, for it got so excited when Luckymobile ran into the milk wagon that it caught my thumb and pinched it. ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... Beer complained of the lack of uniformity in neckties. Some wore a Tom Thumb variety, and others wore scarves. This was a state of things to be deplored, and he considered that the Raad should put its foot down and define the size ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... an' for instance here's one who's double-crossin' you," said Pearce, in slow, tantalizing speech, as if he wore out this suspense to torture Kells. And without ever glancing at Joan he jerked a thumb, in significant ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... the poor befogged boy, holding the doomed bill between his thumb and finger, and staring gloomily at the flickering candle. At last the look of indecision vanished, and he began rapid ...
— Three People • Pansy
... of this series is almost as thick as that employed for series XII. There is a vast difference, however, in its appearance, as the paper of series VI. is much harder than that of series XII. It feels greasy when rubbed between the thumb and finger, and the color of the paper is distinctly different from ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... them up with a kiss. She pursed up her lips, and gave a most fascinating little nip to her vowels, which, as a rule, she sounded short. "Money," said she again, and the ten-dollar note fluttered like a green leaf from between the large thumb and forefinger of her coarse ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder up the stairs. "My Captain, you know; if he's the friend of your Captain, I suppose you ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... will," said Vas Kor, feeling the point of his blade with his left thumb. "In the name of Nutus, Jeddak of Dusar!" he cried, and ran ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mysteriously measured it with a calculating eye, and had estimated, and scowled in doubt, and scratched her head, and pursed her sweet red lips, and had secretly spanned the baby, from chin to toe and across the back, with an industriously inquiring thumb and little finger. But a borrowed baby, it seems, is of no use whatsoever; the satisfaction is said to be temporary—nothing more—and to leave a sense of vacant arms and a stinging aggravation of envy. So what Pattie ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... partly persuadable, though dreadfully ill of rheumatism. They rouse Comte Maurice; and Valori, by this Comte's caprices, is driven out of patience. "He talked with a flippant sophistry, almost with an insolence" says Valori; "nay, at last, he made me a gesture in speaking,"—what gesture, thumb to nose, or what, the shuddering imagination dare not guess! But Valori, nettled to the quick, "repeated it," and otherwise gave him as good as he brought. "He ended by a gesture which displeased me"—"and went to bed." [Valori, i. 148, 149.] ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... said Lamb meditatively, cracking a walnut between his finger and thumb, and slowly skinning it—"I don't know; Gilks might have done us a ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... came breathless from the grocery with a great bottle of fancy pickles; Billy brought up beer from the cellar; Clem Cudahy cut a thick slice of butter from a two-pound square, and helped it into the serving-dish with a pudgy thumb. A large fruit pie and soda crackers were put on the table with the main course, when they sat down, hungry ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... thumb on the brake of the reel, gave him absolutely no leeway, and the tuna was stopped within twenty feet, to be reeled in again. In the meantime, the gaffer had recovered his weapon, and as the big fish was brought to the side of the boat, he struck again, this time succeeding in holding ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... more beautiful than the scenery of Port Louis harbour. High above the town rises La Pouce, or the thumb mountain, clothed with trees to its very top. It forms one of an amphitheatre of queer-shaped mountains, at the foot of which nestles comfortably the capital of the island. To the left, seen over a range of hills, rises "Pieter ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the boy. "What d'you think I came 'way off here for? Just to sit around and suck my thumb? Huh! I guess I can do as much toward finding Uncle Brocky as ever you will, ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... or a hen on a het girdle; but she's a yauld, poutherie Girran for a' that, and has a stomack like Willie Stalker's meere that wad hae disgeested tumbler-wheels, for she'll whip me aff her five stimparts o' the best aits at a down-sittin and ne'er fash her thumb. When ance her ringbanes and spavies, her crucks and cramps, and fairly soupl'd, she beets to, beets to, and ay the hindmost hour the tightest. I could wager her price to a thretty pennies, that for twa or three wooks ridin at fifty miles a day, the deil-stricket a five gallopers ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... cavalcade and the forest had vanished, and there was the motor-car, just spinning past him. He was on the Wimbledon Common of the twentieth century once more. He stroked his clean-shaven chin with his finger and thumb, and walked slowly along the path by the side of the road, and then across ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... Norman retorted, indicating the Count with his thumb. "Or 'twill be up with you—on ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... party. He sucked his thumb and looked solemnly at the aunts and cousins. He even tried to put the puppy cat in his mouth. Natsu took him away at last and put him to bed. Then everybody had tea and good things to eat until it ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Forcheville who had read a letter addressed to Swann, he might have found words in it of another, a far more tender kind! He took a firm hold of the card, which was sliding to and fro, the envelope being too large for it and then, by moving it with his finger and thumb, brought one line after another beneath the part of the envelope where the paper was not doubled, through which alone it ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Princess of Cashmere at the great fair at Cabul, which is the most important fair in the whole world. And this was the reason why the old Prince of Cashmere had brought his daughter to the fair: he had lost the two most precious objects in his treasury; one was a diamond as big as my thumb, on which, by an art then known to the Indians, but now forgotten, a portrait of his daughter was engraved; the other was a javelin, which of its own accord would strike whatever mark ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... several days before the village people discovered who she was. The information had to be obtained, by a process like mental thumb-screwing, from the old man who tended Evelina's garden, but at last they knew. She was the daughter of a cousin of Evelina's on the father's side. Her name was Evelina Leonard; she had been named for her father's cousin. ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... it unmolested. In such conflicts they bite viciously, tear each other with their hooks, and scream incessantly, till, taking to flight, the persecuted one reaches some place of safety, where he hangs by one foot, and grasping the fruit he has secured in the claws and opposable thumb of the other, he hastily reduces it to lumps, with which he stuffs his cheek pouches till they become distended like those of a monkey; then suspended in safety, he commences to chew and suck the pieces, rejecting the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... underneath it: at the same time he felt along the tiger's skin on the opposite side to the hole, rolled the bullet about under the cuticle where it had lodged after passing through the animal, and deftly making an incision with his knife drew it forth betwixt his thumb and finger. He handed it to the gentleman whose guests we were, and to whom the rifle belonged which had been placed in our howdah, and then modestly withdrew from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... window accordingly, leaped out into the court, and arrived thus at the entrance-door before the Rhingrave, who thought the devil must have carried him there. The Duc de Coislin, however, had managed to put his thumb out of joint by this leap. He called in Felix, chief surgeon of the King, who soon put the thumb to rights. Soon afterwards Felix made a call upon M. de Coislin to see how he was, and found that the cure was perfect. As he was about to leave, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... you're gone, we shall make a temporary grave. I dare say two," and he jerked his thumb ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... great lords alone can eat it. Dessert is a cause of ruin. Adolphe often hears Caroline say to Madame Deschars: "How do you manage?" Conferences are held in your presence upon the proper way to keep cooks under the thumb. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... something else just as bad! Probably she'll withdraw her permission and keep you under her thumb as she ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Vanar chief, to ire inflamed; And, as the Rakshas near him drew, Ten leagues in height his stature grew. Then straight, her threatening jaws between, A gulf of twenty leagues was seen. To fifty leagues he waxed, and still Her mouth grew wider at her will. Then smaller than a thumb became, Shrunk by his power, the Vanar's frame.(797) He leaped within, and turning round Sprang through the portal at a bound. Then hung in air a moment, while He thus addressed her with a smile: "O Daksha's child,(798) farewell at last! For I within thy mouth ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... BACK VIEW. Notice the line of arm and racquet is straight and the hand on top of the handle. The thumb in my stroke is around the handle, but may be placed up the handle if desired. Personally, I do not use it, and do not advocate it, as it tends to detract from the freedom ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... to swear to the performance of them; first in the manner of my own country, and afterward in the method prescribed by their laws; which was, to hold my right foot in my left hand, to place the middle finger of my right hand on the crown of my head, and my thumb on the tip ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... bones and leather waiting for them with his own Hard Cash, and with theirs; for, creeping awestruck round that mummified figure seated dead on his pool of sovereigns, they soon noticed in his left hand a paper: it was discoloured by the vapour, and part hid by the dead thumb; but thus much shone out clear and amazing, that it was a banker's receipt to David Dodd, Esq., for L. 14,010, drawn at Barkington, and signed for Richard Hardie by Noah Skinner. Julia had drawn back, and was hiding her face; but soon curiosity struggled with awe ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... flotillas Have been embodied as by sorcery; Soldiers made seamen, and the ports transformed To rocking cities casemented with guns. Against these valiants balance England's means: Raw merchant-fellows from the counting-house, Raw labourers from the fields, who thumb for arms Clumsy untempered pikes forged hurriedly, And cry them full-equipt. Their batteries, Their flying carriages, their catamarans, Shall profit not, and in one summer night We'll ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... hooded women, heads of Artemis with the crown of Cybele, winged heads, or heads covered with the Phrygian cap, portrait-heads of girls or children, with their sharp profiles still perfect, and the last dab of the clay under the thumb of the artist, as clear and clean as when it was laid there some ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ROSBROOK, Saddler, of Barrow, near Bury, Suffolk, was attacked with a scrofulous complaint in his left thumb, from whence it removed to his left hip and thigh; from thence to the left knee, and then into his face and the glands of his throat; from whence issued a clear water, insomuch that he was under the necessity of keeping a piece of sponge constantly applied to it, especially at meal times. In ...
— Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer • John Kent
... Novella. This picture, which represents the Adoration of the Shepherds, was painted in 1485, when the artist was thirty-six. It is essentially pleasant: a religious picture on the sunny side. The Child is the soul of babyish content, equally amused with its thumb and the homage it is receiving. Close by is a goldfinch unafraid; in the distance is a citied valley, with a river winding in it; and down a neighbouring hill, on the top of which the shepherds feed their flocks, comes the imposing procession of the Magi. Joseph is more than commonly perplexed, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... heathen, as its use has been almost universal. From its shape, having neither beginning nor ending, it is regarded as an emblem of eternity, constancy, and integrity. It is placed on the fourth finger of the woman's left hand, and the ancient ceremony of doing so was to place it first on the thumb at the Name of the first Person of the Trinity; on the next finger, at the Name of the Son; on the third at the Name of the Holy Ghost, and then on the fourth finger, and leaving it there at the word "Amen." The ring is, also, frequently ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... hand he clutched the sill, with the other he reached up and shifting the safety-catch on with his thumb, let his revolver ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... a great many of them. The minister and doctor usually had a ring at every funeral they attended. It is told of an old Salem doctor, who died in 1758, that he had a tankard full of mourning-rings which he had secured at funerals. Men sometimes wore thumb-rings, which seems no queerer than the fact that they carried muffs. Old Dr. Prince of Boston carried ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... direct to her own mistress, the interrogatory was more meant for the Condesa, between whose fingers and thumb she saw the thing she was ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... short by as many too broad, to elicit the admiration of the gallants of the present age, who rave, and go distracted about gossamer divinities scarcely six inches in circumference. She was about four feet four in stature, and her foot would have crushed Cinderella, and used her slipper for a thumb-cot. Such was Mary Madeline Mumbles in her eighteenth year, and never was child more like parent, than was this young lady ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... fish cut under the gills and squeeze out the contents by pressing upward from the middle with the thumb and finger. To open large fish split them from the gills halfway down the body toward the tail; remove the entrails and scrape and clean, opening far enough to remove all the blood from the backbone, and wiping ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... ways, and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I've got to have two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... something the matter with my right thumb, and can't (as you see) write plainly. I sent a word to poor Robert Chambers,[32] and I send my ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... sweetest kisses frae her glowing mouth; While hard and fast I held her in my grips, My very saul came louping to my lips; Sair, sair she flet wi' me 'tween ilka smack, But weel I kenned she meant nae as she spak. Dear Roger, when your jo puts on her gloom, Do ye sae too and never fash your thumb: Seem to forsake her, soon she'll change her mood; Gae woo anither, and ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... on him. Another story, the moral of which was "to teach girls the danger of coquetry," is told by Schoolcraft (Oneota, 381-84). There was a girl who refused all her suitors scornfully. In one case she went so far as to put together her thumb and three fingers, and, raising her hand gracefully toward the young man, deliberately open them in his face. This gesticulatory mode of rejection is an expression of the highest contempt, and it galled the young warrior so much that he was taken ill and took to his bed ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Physical exuberance is the first. To a considerable extent joy depends on an overplus of health. The joy of artistic creation, for instance, lies not so intensely and intoxicatingly in what you may some time accomplish as in what has actually just started into life under your pencil or clayey thumb, your bow or brush. For what you are about to receive, the Lord, as a rule, makes you duly thankful. But with the thankfulness is always mingled the shadowy apprehension that your powers may fail you when next you wish to use them. Thus ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... wound or giving cooling drink was a pleasure worth risking life for at any time. It was here that I received my only wound during the campaign. I threw myself too hastily on the ground, in obedience to the command of those around me, to escape a threatening shell, and fell heavily on the thumb of my right hand, dislocating it. It was bound up on the spot and did not inconvenience me much, but it has never returned to its ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... called for more cases. The next two yielded projectile-type handguns for ten men, with ammunition, and standard Planeteer space knives. The space knives had hidden blades, which were driven forth violently when the operator pushed a thumb lever, releasing the gas in a cartridge contained in the handle. The blades snapped forth with enough force to break a bubble or to cut through a space suit. They were designed for the sole purpose ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... in a chessboard pattern, and with a tunic pleated in horizontal rows; his right elbow is supported by the left hand, while the right is raised to a level with his eyes, his fist is clenched, and the thumb inserted between the first and second fingers in the customary ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... I have (a) had all my teeth out; (b) partially sprained my right thumb; (c) am very hot; (d) can't smoke with comfort; whence I may leave even official intelligence to construct an answer ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... eternally on the move. It's their hellish industry and activity that gives them such a pull, and makes most people afraid of them. But when a hand like that takes them by the throat"—he held up his right hand as he spoke, with the thick uncouth fingers and massive thumb arched menacingly in a powerful muscular tension—"when THAT tightens round their neck, and they feel that the grip means business—my God! what good ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... ringed, though, like the earth-worm, but smooth and glossy, dappled with darker spots, especially on one side, which may be the upper one. Put round its mouth twelve little arms, on each a hand with four ragged fingers, and on the back of the hand a stump of a thumb, and you have Synapta Digitata (Plates IV. and V., from my drawings of the live animal). These hands it puts down to its mouth, generally in alternate pairs, but how it obtains its food by them is yet a mystery, ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... reading-table littered with books, magazines or papers. In a rack or case at the wall are to be found copies of the "Seattle Union Record," "The Butte Daily Bulletin," "The New Solidarity," "The Industrial Worker," "The Liberator," "The New Republic" and "The Nation." Always there is a shelf of thumb-worn books on history, science, economics and socialism. On the walls are lithographs or engravings of noted champions of the cause of Labor, a few photographs of local interest and the monthly Bulletins and Statements of the Union. Invariably ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... cease." Well pleased, the saint wrote on with careful pen. The candle was consumed; the devil then Lighted his thumb; the saint, quite undisturbed, Finished his treatise to the final word. Then he looked up, and started with affright; For lo! the thumb blazed with a lurid light. "Your thumb is burned!" said he. The child of sin Changed to his proper form, and with a grin Said, "I will quench it in the martyrs' blood Your book will cause to ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... decide for themselves.' I said that because I didn't want Mrs. Vyse to think us old-fashioned. She goes in for lectures and improving her mind, and all the time a thick layer of flue under the beds, and the maid's dirty thumb-marks where you turn on the electric light. ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... Brit muttered, staring at the low ceiling. "Can't prove nothing—couldn't convict anybody if we could prove it. Bill Warfield's got this county under his thumb. Rabbits in a trap. Raine, you better pack up and go home to your mother. There's goin' to be hell a-poppin' if I live ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... get me under their thumb!" growled Werner to Glutts. "I know they would like nothing better than to find all sorts of fault and ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... his waistcoat pocket, drew out a crown-piece, held it for a moment betwixt finger and thumb, and dropped it into ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... frequent use of her large learning and culture in her novels. In the earlier ones a Greek quotation is to be found here and there, while in the later, German seems to have the preference. In The Mill on the Floss she describes Bob Jakin's thumb as "a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey." Such references to recent scientific speculations are not unfrequent. If they serve to show the tendencies of her mind towards ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... appeared. He jerked a thumb towards the classroom. 'I've locked dem in. What's doin', Buck?' he asked, indicating me with a ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... always to my news. This fellow is a perfect savage, as strong as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil. He chewed Downing's thumb nearly off before they could master him. He hardly speaks a word of English, and we can get nothing out of ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on February 15th, I again had difficulty in getting a room; so I waited, and whilst my men searched about for a place where I could sleep, an extremely tall fellow came up to me, and having felt with his finger and thumb the texture of my tweeds and expressed ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... bacon-flick, cut me a good bit; Cut, cut and low, beware of your maw; Cut, cut and round, beware of your thumb, That me and my merry men may have ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... found in France several human hands were engraved, but having only four fingers each. On this point Mr. Lartet assures us that some savage tribes still depict the hand without the thumb. Representations of birds and reptiles are very rare; fishes are more common. On a piece of reindeer's horn was found this representation of the head and chest of an ibex. Of special interest to us is a ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... about again," said the captain, as he appeared, in his usual gruff but not unkind tone. "When I brought the ladies aboard, I didn't think that they'd prove so useful in looking after the sick; though I doubt if she," and he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at his wife, "has troubled ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... full minute Rod stood as motionless as if he had been paralyzed, scarcely breathing in his excitement. The four fingers and thumb of the hand had left their impressions with startling clearness. The fingers were long and delicately slender, the palm narrow. The imprint had assuredly not been made by the hand of ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... then there's no accountin' for tastes, as Dr. Colles said, when he saw me bite Cusack Rooney's thumb off." ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... has been found to have no optical activity. After the dish has been thoroughly rinsed, enough water is added to bring the contents of the flask to about 80 c.c. and it is gently rotated until all the sugar has dissolved. The flask should be held by the neck with the thumb and finger, and the bulb not handled during this operation. Care must be taken that no particle of the sugar or solution is lost. To determine if all the sugar is dissolved, the flask is held above the level of the eye, in which position any undissolved crystals ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... reputation they gave me. I recall that one of my aunts came in one day and, seeing me out in the yard most ingloriously tousled, asked my good mother: "Is that your child?" Poor mother! I have often wondered how much travail of spirit it must have cost her to acknowledge me as her very own. One thumb, one great toe, and an ankle were decorated with greasy rags, and I was far from being ornamental. I had been hulling walnuts, too, and my stained hands served to ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... driving like a piston; the American had craned his neck and in order to protect his face held it pressed close to George's breast. Drennen's right arm was about George's body, caught against the floor as they fell, Drennen's left hand with thumb sunken deep was already at the Canadian's throat. The snarl upon Drennen's face was the more marked now, more filled with menace and hate as his body experienced the torture of the ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... of different sizes. Sometimes they were as small as one's thumb, sometimes as large as the hand of a child of four years old. The most remarkable feature of these tiny figures was the enormous head and the pointed hump that so often adorned their backs. Their look was on the whole more comical than ugly. ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... rounded, the neck stout and short, the muzzle sharper than that of the beaver, and the whiskers very long and stiff. There are, as in the beaver, two incisor teeth, and eight molar, above and below—twenty teeth in all. The limbs are short. The fore feet have each five fingers not webbed, the thumb being very small: the hind feet have the same number of toes; the great toe and three next toes being joined by a web which extends to their ends, and the little toe being free, but edged with a membrane on its inner side. The nails are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... fellow-beings was before herj and at another time she would have found much to interest and amuse her. In one corner a newly imported German with an Orson-like head, thumb-ring, and the fragrance of many meerschaums still hovering about him, was hammering away upon some disputed point with a scientific Frenchman, whose national politeness was only equalled by his national volubility. A prominent statesman was talking with ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... he said, indicating the fleeing musicians with his thumb. "Allee same muchee flaid noisee," and then his round face dimpled into ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... reply, Duvall placed his hand in his pocket and drew out, between his thumb and forefinger, a tiny white pellet, no larger than the head of a match. "You are no doubt acquainted, Monsieur de Grissac," he said, ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... as he got up and shook out the coat. "Well, Babe, old socks, how's things goin'? How"—he threw his thumb back over his shoulder toward the east—"how 'bout over there? What ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... the pot, and sinking his voice to a whisper, "but there wasn't but fifteen in the bag, and the woman took twelve of 'em fur her kittle, and ye can't make three taters look act'ally crowded in two gallons of soup, can ye, Bill?" And the old man punched that personage in the ribs with the thumb of the hand that was free from service, while he kept the ladle ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... mention of more than a few of the many interesting books, manuscripts, works of art, antiques and relics, found in this Library and Museum. Among them stands the desk at which little "Willie" sat at school, also a ring which he wore at his thumb (later in life), and upon which are engraved the letters "W.S." and a "true lover's knot." I spent nearly an hour here, a studying how things looked in Shakespeare's time. The ground floors of the house, are covered with flagstones broken in varied forms, as accident ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... the permanent K.P. here," Fuselli jerked his thumb towards the door of the building. "Not a bad job, off two days a week; no drill, good eats.... At least you get all you want.... But it surely has been hell emptying ash cans and shovelling coal an' now all they've done ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... quite wrong, George," Andrew said. "The voices of women vary like the thumb-marks of criminals. There are no two attuned exactly alike. It is the receptive organs that are at fault. We, who have lost one sense, find the others a little keener. The laughter of that girl—George, will you keep me a few days longer? Somehow I cannot bring myself ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... second look for Sukey to recognize in that miserable creature, drawing every breath in pain, the haughty Captain Snipes, who had scourged and disgraced him. Snipes had severe internal injuries and was dying. Sukey's thumb lifted the hammer of his gun, then he gazed on the agonized face of his enemy, and, the tears starting to his eyes, he let down the hammer. At this moment Fernando came up, and ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... chestnut coller, smart active boy, and swagers in his walk. Susan is about 35 years old, dark chesnut coller and stout built, speaks rather slow and has with her four children, three boys and one girl—the girl has a thumb or finger on her left hand (part of it) cut off, the children are from 9 months to 8 years old. (the youngest a boy 9 months and the oldest whose name is Lloyd is about 8 years old) The husband of Susan (Joe Viney) started off ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... to hear, or to care. He was afar, wandering from it. "Ever notice that he has only one thumb? Same way with his father. Probably a family trait. I wish there were more families like 'em. This house is full of trollops and rascals. So is Newport. The house at Newport is full of rapscallions. Believe I'll offer it to the Government for a hospital. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... the singular effects of excessive thirst upon the eyes of the horses; they absolutely sunk into their heads until there was a hollow of sufficient depth to bury the thumb in, and there was an appearance as though the whole of the head had shrunk with them, producing a very unpleasant and ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... Furneaux, snapping a thumb and forefinger. "Don't worry about that! Put yourself in the position of the Chinese Ambassador. He can't even guess who may be the ruler of China from one day to another. Yesterday it was an old woman, today a dictator, tomorrow the mob; who can foretell what shape the lava erupted ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... a little sandy kitten which trembled exceedingly through all its fluffy fur, and piteously mewed. He held it forth to us, finger and thumb about its tiny neck, across the narrow way; but stretch as far as we could we could not reach it. Willy undertook to catch it if it were thrown, but the young man said that for worlds he would not endanger the ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... hand for his map of La Palma de la Mano de Dios, Jose, the Indian, had traced the course of the river along the base of the fingers flowing toward the gulf which lies between the edge of the palm and the thumb—this same inner edge of the hand representing roughly the high ground that shuts out the waters of the sea. The thousands of acres of The King's Basin lands lie from sea level to nearly three hundred feet below. ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... palm with finger and thumb very daintily, and, before I knew what she was doing, or could have moved to hinder her if I had the mind, she raised her arm over her head and with all her strength flung the guinea into ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... "Keep your thumb on that," said he; "I'm not supposed to precognosce every lodger in Tynree upon his politics. I'm off Clan Chattan myself, and not very keen on this quarrel—that's to say, I'll take no side in it, for my trade is feeding folk and not fighting them. Might I be asking if you were of the band of ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... particular, can be shown clearer than daylight," says Harvey. "The vena cava enters the heart at an inferior portion, while the artery passes out above. Now if the vena cava be taken up with forceps or the thumb and finger, and the course of the blood intercepted for some distance below the heart, you will at once see it almost emptied between the fingers and the heart, the blood being exhausted by the heart's ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the housekeeper, completing her meaning by a movement of the thumb toward the upper story. "That's by his way of it; but I've an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr. Michael. Bribe—me!" she repeated, with inimitable scorn. "That's no' kind ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Little passed his arm around her neck, and with his thumb opened widely the patrician-veined lids of her sweet blue eyes. "Thank Heaven, there is yet no dilation of the pupil; it is not too late!" He cast a rapid glance around. The nozzle and about three feet of ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... nothing have. My uncle will be gazetted to-day. Poor man, he will be delighted; and as he certainly owes it much to me, he will, I suppose, be very grateful—or hate me ever afterwards—that is a toss up. A benefit conferred is a complete hazard between the thumb of pride and the forefinger of affection. Heads gratitude, tails hatred! There, that's a simile in the fashion of the old writers: 'Well ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with fear; it is just the sight of that poor fellow's blood. There is nothing to be ashamed of in that. Why, I saw Will Atkins, who was one of the best fighters and single-stick players in Hedingham, go off in a dead swoon because a man he was working with crushed his thumb between two heavy stones. Look, Lionel, what cracks there are in the wall here. I don't think it will stand long. We had better run up and tell Captain Vere, for it may come toppling down with some of ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... luciscope and then he made a few adjustments with a thumb-screw that projected from the side ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... of the snaffle, somewhat as the rough-rider or colt-breaker uses the reins of a single snaffle; but the reins should enter the hands outside instead of inside the fourth fingers, and they should quit the hands between the first and second fingers instead of between the first finger and thumb, as will be explained in ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... the rifle the other deer, which was a doe, scampered a few yards, then, turning back her head, gazed with wondering eyes upon her fallen mate. Johnny took from his pocket a cartridge, and, holding it between thumb and finger, looked inquiringly at Dick. Dick shook his head, and in another instant the doe had scampered out of danger. Dick helped Johnny skin and dress the deer, and learned a lot while doing so, but he seemed less happy than a boy should be ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... elevations, a set of characters when examined and measured under the microscope utterly different from those in every other case. Each is unique, in its pits, lines, circles and irregularities. The laws of chance are as much against two of them having the same markings as they are against the thumb prints of two human subjects being identical. The firing-pin theory, which was used in a famous case in Maine, is just as infallible as the finger-print theory. In this case when we find the owner of the gun making an 'L' mark we ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve |
