"Whiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... apples steeping in hot toddy came wafting out the portals of Malachi's pantry—a smell of such convincing pungency that even the most infrequent of frequenters having once inhaled it, would have known at the first whiff that some musical function was in order. The night was to be ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... were you, who vow you cannot suffer Whiff of the best,—the mildest "honey dew," I would not dance with smoke-consuming Puffer, If I ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... they shivered on their hard board seats. The wintry wind blew in gusts through the plentifully broken window panes—for glass was as brittle then as now and costlier to replace,—and every now and then sifted a whiff of snow down the backs of the sitters in the gallery. Fathers and mothers essayed to still their little one's chattering teeth by taking them in their laps and holding them tight, and where a woman was provided ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... know enough to respect the bitter leaves' desire to be let alone; but many a pail of milk has been spoiled by a mouthful of Helenium among the herbage. Whoever cares to learn from experience why this was called sneezeweed, must take a whiff of snuff made of the dried ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... is, but one. That brought Pemberton back to the problem of his mysterious assailant. Why had this Ganymedan tried to whiff him out of existence? Grant frowned. No one on board knew of his mission, not even the captain. On the passenger list he was merely Dirk Halliday, an inconspicuous commercial traveler for Interspace Products. Yet someone had manifestly penetrated his disguise ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... Boy's hand, and before he could more than draw back, a whiff of winter blew into the room, and a creature stood there such as no man looks to find on his way to an Arctic gold camp. A girl of twenty odd, with the face of a saint, dressed in the black habit of ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... her inner consciousness. Was the widower bent on making the most of his time in an endeavor to fascinate the Eastern belle? The ladies were hardly dressed when he reappeared, and was urging Miss Sanford to come out with him for a brief stroll to see the mountain prairie and take a whiff of Wyoming breezes, when the appearance of Mrs. Turner and others (who had just happened by, but hearing their voices could not resist rushing in to welcome Mrs. Truscott, etc., etc.) put an end to the possibility. It was a comfort to note that though perfectly courteous and pleasant in ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... to hum itself in his head as he walked toward Water Street—Ca ira—ca ira—les aristocrats a la lanterne. A whiff of the wind that blew through Paris streets in the terrible times had come across the Atlantic and tickled his ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... lounge and hover, sip champagne and whiff Mild cigarettes; these too, in secret sniff At 'the whole queer caboodle.' Why do they meet? How shall I say, good friend? Modern symposiasts seem a curious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... through English, French, Russian, Mongol, and Chinese, and after dinner smoked our pipes and cigars. The sargoochay had a pipe with a slender bowl that could be taken out for reloading, like the shell of a Remington rifle. A single whiff served to exhaust it, and the smoke passing through water became purified. An attendant stood near to manage the pipe of His Excellency whenever his services were needed. We endeavored to smoke ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... beyond, and on the handsome promenade the best-gowned of Europe, all in the brilliant sunshine of a soft spring day—what could be more charming? And then, suddenly, your unwilling nostrils breathe in a strong whiff of sewage. Have you been mistaken? Surely you are dreaming. The Casino dances on the water. A bevy of girls come out of the Hotel Ruhl to join the Lenten noon-day throng. Nothing disagreeable like sewage—but there it is again! Whew! Where can that sewer empty? Fault of ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... the room Cora Stanton, a Senior, stood with Jerry and the boy who made up the affirmative side of the debate. Cora was prettily dressed in blue taffeta, with a yellow rose carelessly fastened in her belt. Her hair had been crimped and Jerry caught a whiff of perfume. Then she glimpsed a trim little foot thrust out the better to show a patent leather pump and a blue silk stocking. For the first time since she had come to Highacres, Jerry grew conscious of her own appearance. Over her, in a hot wave of mortification, swept the realization ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... go by the Great Britain, many interruptions force me to close, unflavored by one whiff from the smoke of Auld Reekie. More and better matter shall my next contain, for here and in the Highlands I have passed three not unproductive weeks, of which ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Seraph took a long-drawn whiff from his silver meerschaum, and then a deep draught of soda and brandy to refresh himself after the narrative—biggest, best-tempered, and wildest of men in or out of the Service, despite the angelic character of his fair-haired head, and blue eyes that looked as clear and as innocent ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... south, the east, and the west, and told them the stone was red, that it was their flesh, that they must use it for their pipes of peace, that it belonged to all alike, and that the war-club and scalping-knife must never be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the ledge for miles was melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women—the guardian spirits of the place—entered them in a blaze of fire, and they are heard there yet answering to the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... time came. But there was nevertheless a considerable leavening of new members—young, enthusiastic and uncontaminated by the feuds and paltry personalities of an older generation. They brought, as it were, a whiff of the free, democratic air of the country to Parliament with them, and gave an example of fine unselfishness and devotion to duty which did not fail to have their influence on their elder and more cynical brethren. The feud between the Dillonites ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... endurable even on the oyster bank itself, which was about a mile to leeward of the island, although, by berthing the schooner every night right up in the weather corner of the lagoon, we managed to avoid getting more than an occasional whiff of it during ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... neighbors, who looked inquisitively as he sat by the mill-door, smoking, he complained of the quality of his tobacco, vowing that it made his eyes so tender that they watered upon the slightest whiff. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... where here and there a dull-red poppy peered at me through withering tangles; lilac and locust had already shed foliage too early blighted, but the huge and forbidding maples were all aflame in their blood-red autumn robes. Here the year had already begun to die; in the clear air a faint whiff of decay came from the rotting heaps of leaves—decay, ruin, and the taint of death; and, in the sad autumn stillness, something ominous, something secret and sly—something ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... from the last meet of the Pytchley that you and I rode to," remarks one brawny, blue-shirted and ankle-jacked giant to another, as they squat on a log, comfortably enjoying an early whiff of "Venus" from their short, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... a whiff of fresh and healthy air blowing through "Salome" except that which exhales from the cistern, the prison house of Jochanaan. Even the love of Narraboth, the young Syrian captain, for the princess is tainted by the jealous outbursts of Herodias's page. Salome ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... we'll settle that on shipboard," said Mr. Iff promptly. "As for knowing me—business of introducing myself. Mr. Staff, I want you to shake hands with my friend, Mr. Iff. W. H. Iff, Whiff: sometimes so-called: merry wheeze based on my typographical make-up; once a joke, now so grey with age I generally pull it myself, thus saving new acquaintances the mental strain. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... Attwood, his blue eyes shining with delight. "Hurrah, hurrah, for the Admiral's men!" And high in the air he threw his cap, as a wild cheer broke from the eddying crowd, and the arches of the long gray bridge rang hollow with the tread of hoofs. Whiff, came the wind; down dropped the hat upon the very saddle-peak of one tall fellow riding along among the rest. Catching it quickly as it fell, he laughed and tossed it back; and when Nick caught it whirling in the air, a shilling jingled ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... fetchin' 'em now, would ye, Telly?" he continued after drawing a long whiff of smoke and slowly emitting it in rings. "It's been so many years, an' since I got thinkin' 'bout it I'd like to take a look at 'em, jest to remind me o' that fortunate day ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... the salty, spray-laden breath of the marsh. It seems fairly to line the lungs with ozone. I know how grass-fed cattle feel at the smell of salt. I have the concentrated thirst of a whole herd when I catch that first whiff of the marshes after a winter, a year it may be, of unsalted inland air. The smell of it stampedes me. I gallop to meet it, and drink, drink, drink deep of it, my blood running redder with ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... light from the gunboat, a whiff of smoke. This time the shell finds its target. Myriads of sparks are whirled in a mad dance to the heavens, then drop again like golden rain into the river. Shell followed shell. The old warship, engaged in its last great battle, fought grimly on. Like the old Guard, ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... have given to either Phorenice or myself little enough of concern, as they are the trivial and common incidents of every siege; but the mammoth on which we rode had not been so properly schooled. When the first blue whiff of smoke came to us down the windings of the street, the huge red beast hoisted its trunk, and began to sway its head uneasily. When the smoke drifts grew more dense, and here and there a tongue of flame showed pale beneath the sunshine, it stopped ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... me, my bucko—to me and to the rest of the boys. Cleigh will not prosecute us for piracy if we play a decent game until we raise the Catwick. On old Van Dorn's tub we can drink and sing if we want to. If Cunningham gets a whiff of your breath, when you've had it, you'll get yours. Most of the boys have never done anything worse than apple stealing. It was the adventure. All keyed up for war and no place to go, and this was a kind of safety valve. Already half of them are beginning to knock in ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... fool's coat shall have a cast of martins and a whiff. To the health of Captain Rinocerotry! Look to it; let him ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... levels for the granddaughter of the good-wife Marcile. That petite personne, moreover, was a rather sophisticated young lady. One would never have seen her, in the mornings, munching a hunk of bread-and-butter "as long as from here to Easter." No; Jeannette has fulfilled her part, providing a whiff of marjoram and cottage flowers for the castle chambers. She has read, written and said her prayers. She has the firm outline, the rosy cheeks, the simplicity of a Watteau peasant-girl—nothing of the Greuze languish, with its hint of a cruche ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... absolutely the thing itself! Prince Ludwig had come with a sincere desire to see America. Every one knew that he was not seeing it at all. He would go back with memories of bands and flags and people all dressed up standing before him making polite speeches. But would he carry back one small whiff of the spirit of the country? Again Senator Bruner looked about him. The Speaker of the House was just beginning laying the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was contending hotly for a better hammer. "It's an insult to expect any decent man to drive tacks with a hammer like this," he ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... forgot all about Ike, but we once smelt a whiff of tobacco, which seemed to be mingled with the sweet scent of the ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... that, because none of the other Congregational ladies was half as pretty. To-night Aunt Isabel had on a billowy pale-blue organdy, and she looked more like an angel than ever. An ethereally radiant, laughing, vivacious angel. And whenever she moved near you, you caught a ghostly whiff of that delicious perfume. (Missy now knows Aunt Isabel got it from little sachet bags, tucked away with her clothes, and from an "atomizer" which showered a delicate, fairy-like spray of fragrance ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... set herself to build the foundations of a nation. She did not know whether she could do what she had set herself to do; but she began with that same dogged idealism and faith in the future which had buoyed up her first settlers; and there were dark days during her long hard task, when the whiff of an adverse wind would have thrown her into national bankruptcy—that winter, for instance, when the Canadian Pacific had no money to go on building and the Canadian government refused to extend aid. Had the Kiel Rebellion of '85 not compelled the ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... as he stood in his office, hat in hand, and a finger pointing to a prescription on his desk, which he was directing Narcisse to give to some one who would call for it, there came a sudden hurried pounding of feminine feet on the stairs, a whiff of robes in the corridor, and Mary Richling rushed into his presence all tears ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... from his course, he rode, rapidly at first, then more cautiously, toward the sound. Presently he caught a whiff of smoke that came with the light breeze from somewhere ahead on the ridge along which he was riding. Instantly he rode into a thick clump of cedars, and, dismounting, tied his horse. Then he went on, carefully and silently, on foot. Soon he heard voices. Again ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... on the Canada shore up past the Clifton House, towards the Burning Spring, which is not the least wonder of Niagara. As each bubble breaks upon the troubled surface, and yields its flash of infernal flame and its whiff of sulphurous stench, it seems hardly strange that the Neutral Nation should have revered the cataract as a demon; and another subtle spell (not to be broken even by the business- like composure of the man who shows off the hell-broth) is added to those successive ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Mussorgsky—a discovery which one finds some difficulty in crediting. Later, Debussy was undoubtedly affected, in a slight degree, by Cesar Franck; and there were moments—happily infrequent—during what one may call his middle period, when a whiff of the perfumed sentiment of Massenet blew disturbingly across his usually sincere and poetic pages. But for traces of Liszt, or Berlioz, or Brahms, one will search fruitlessly. That he does not, to-day, touch hands at any point with his brother musicians of the elder school ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... that brings a whiff of burning powder to one's nostrils.... In some way he blazons the scene before our eyes, and makes us feel the very impetus of bloody war."—Chicago ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... countries made fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, and we tried the same plan over and over again. Indeed we spent the better part of several days trying to get fire in that way, but without success; we could not even raise a whiff of smoke. That was about the worst misfortune that happened to us, for without fire to protect us at night, or to cook food during the day, we were continually in difficulties. But it was not long before we discovered a method of cooking after a fashion without fire. Of course you will ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... One has a whiff of fragrant woodlands and serene hay-cocks, a breath of cool air from the Jungfrau's snows, a sniff of delectable bacon and toast—and a zest for breakfast. And one sets about it with interest, with the breakfast of the next day as a thing to ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... moment, not without a whiff about him of the cigarette over which he had lingered so. It relieved him to see the two ladies seated opposite each other in the bow window, and to hear something like a laugh in the air. Perhaps they were discussing other things, and not this momentous marriage ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... bread and stirred up her griddle cakes for morning. It was early in the season to start with them, but with the first cold whiff Mr. Leverett began to beg for them. Then she fixed her fire, turned down her sleeves, took off the big apron that covered all her skirt, and rejoined the three by ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... his hat in the closet, opened the incubator on his culture tubes, trying to look busy. He slammed the door after one whiff and gripped the edge of the work table with ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... woman who smelled of snuff, and who, when she dressed him in the morning, looked at him with a pitying air; he was afraid of the doctor, who climbed the five flights of stairs twice a day now, and left a whiff of perfume behind him; afraid of his father, who did not go to his office any more, whose beard was often three days old, and who feverishly paced the little parlor, tossing back with a distracted gesture the lock of hair behind his ear. He was afraid of his mother, alas! of his mother, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... end. For him the old life on the range was dead—for had not Dill made him see it so? And did not every raw-red fencepost proclaim anew its death? For every hill and every coulee he buried something of his past and wept secretly beside the grave. For every whiff of breakfast that mingled with the smell of clean air in the morning came a pang of homesickness for what would ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... could you take me for anything but a workman? So I am. Chemistry is one of my hobbies, and I spend hours a day in my laboratory yonder. I have only just struck work, and as I had inhaled some not-over-pleasant gases, I thought that a turn down the road and a whiff of tobacco might do me good. That was how I came to meet you, and my toilet, I fear, corresponded only too well with my smoke-grimed face. But I rather fancy I know you by repute. Your name is Robert ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ourselves down according to custom in the same manner. The attendants were constantly on the move, some carrying fans made of feathers to whisk away the flies; another a lighted pipe, which was passed from one prostrate figure to another, each taking a whiff or two, while the rest were engaged in shampooing the royal personages.... Conversation, it may readily be imagined, was not well maintained under these trying circumstances, and had it not been for some excellent watermelons which were handed to us, the tedium of the interview would ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... your eye on a man. And I know him, zat man! When he is tired of you—whiff, away you go, a puff of smoke! And you zat I should make a Queen of Opera! A Queen? You shall have more rule zan twenty Queens—forty! See" (Mr. Pericles made his hand go like an aspen-leaf from his uplifted wrist); "So you shall set ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... living that way you would be no worse than you are now, selling drinks to people—beastly beer and spirits, rotten stuff fit to make an old he-goat yell if you poured it down its throat. Pooh! I can't stand the confounded liquor. Never could. A whiff of neat brandy in a glass makes me feel sick. Always did. If everybody was like me, liquor would be going a-begging. You think it's funny in a man, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... is nursed until it is two years old or older, and learns to smoke and to walk about the same time. The family pipe is laid upon the couch, and papa, mamma, and the children take a solacing whiff as the spirit moves them. These pipes are identical with those used by the Chinese, and hold but half a thimbleful of tobacco, the smoke being inhaled and ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... had a most generous and broadly open nose, and who was not blest with hands to hold it fast with, grew restive as the first whiff struck him; which resulted less, I suppose, from the intrinsic vileness of the smell than from the fact that he, in common with all peace-loving animals, had aroused in him an instinctive terror by the odor of blood. Pablo's voice, ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Red Hen came quickly in, and shut the door and locked it. "I'm glad I'm safely in," she said. Just as she said it, she turned round, and there stood the ugly old Fox, with his big bag over his shoulder. Whiff! how scared the little Red Hen was! She dropped her apronful of sticks, and flew up to the big beam across the ceiling. There she perched, and she said to the old Fox, down below, "You may as well go home, for you ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... but the smell of her is the most unpleasant thing about her. She's been tubbed and scrubbed and massaged and perfumed twice a day ever since I came here and she smells worse than a polecat, anyhow, all day long, even the moment after her maid has finished her toilet. A whiff of Meffia sets me frantic. I'd be capable of any crime to ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... fight, an' did. What's more, they were three good barks and nigh three hundred men to our sixty-eight men paddlin' in canoes. Ah, that was a day's work, if you will! I saw Peter Harris, as brave a commander as ever flew the black whiff, shot through both legs, but he was a-swingin' his cutlass and tryin' to climb the Spaniard's side with the rest when our canoe boarded. Through most of that battle we was standin' in bottoms leakin' full of bullet holes, a-firin' into the ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... taken it from any one else, but the whiff of burning tobacco, as Carlsen lit up, gave him an irresistible craving for a smoke. Besides, it wouldn't do for the doctor to know he mistrusted him. If he was to be a part of the ship's life, there was small sense in acting ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... for a whiff now!" chuckled Ditson. "I know you are. I got along a whole day, but it was a day of the ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... critic is in his reception of contemporary work; and Lamb must have found it much easier to be right, before every one else, about Webster, and Ford, and Cyril Tourneur, than to be the accurate critic that he was of Coleridge, at the very time when he was under the 'whiff and wind' of Coleridge's influence. And in writing of pictures, though his knowledge is not so great nor his instinct so wholly 'according to knowledge,' he can write as no one has ever written in praise of Titian (so that his very finest sentence describes a picture of Titian) and ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... I shall come to you. I have heaps of work pour manger. Till the spring I must work—that is, at senseless grind. A ray of liberty has beamed upon my horizon. There has come a whiff of freedom. Yesterday I got a letter from the province of Poltava. They write they have found me a suitable place. A brick house of seven rooms with an iron roof, lately built and needing no repairs, a stable, a cellar, an icehouse, eighteen acres of land, an excellent meadow ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... surprise me. But I was not prepared for what occurred soon afterward. Noticing a steamy vapor rising from a hole in the snow by the protruding roots of an overturned tree, I walked to the hole to learn the cause of it. One whiff of the vapor stiffened my hair and limbered my legs. I shot down a steep slope, dodging trees and rocks. The vapor was rank with the odor ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... crossed with items of interest, and Anne almost felt herself back in Avonlea while reading it. Marilla's was a rather prim and colorless epistle, severely innocent of gossip or emotion. Yet somehow it conveyed to Anne a whiff of the wholesome, simple life at Green Gables, with its savor of ancient peace, and the steadfast abiding love that was there for her. Mrs. Lynde's letter was full of church news. Having broken up housekeeping, Mrs. Lynde had ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Whiff! Though Pete tried, too late, to dodge the stone, it landed against his sombrero, carrying that away ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... road; now joining in conversation with a passenger, shrewd, sensible, and respectful; now exchanging a little elegant badinage with the coachman; now bowing to a pretty girl; now quizzing a passer-by; he was off and on his seat in an instant, and, in the whiff of his cigar, would lock a wheel, or unlock ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... the victory was felt everywhere. Not only were Max and Pete and Hilda jubilant over it, but the under-foremen, the timekeepers, even the laborers attacked their work with a fresher energy. It was like the first whiff of salt air to an army marching to the sea. Since the day when the cribbing came down from Ledyard, the work had gone forward with almost incredible rapidity; there had been no faltering during the weeks when Grady's threatened catastrophe was imminent, but now that ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... To-day all things are possible again! The fool has learned wisdom, and, I hope, become a man. But come," said he in a more natural tone, "let us get back to our ditch, and, while you tell me the particulars, if you don't object I should much like to try a whiff at that pipe ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... Roger had left the neighbourhood. In spite of all that Mrs. Gibson had said about Roger's visits being ill-timed and intrusive, she began to feel as if they had been a very pleasant variety, now they had ceased altogether. He brought in a whiff of a new atmosphere from that of Hollingford. He and his brother had been always ready to do numberless little things which only a man can do for women; small services which Mr. Gibson was always too busy to render. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... me such a bundle of nerves as I am now, that I couldn't have done it," he said. "But when I'm doing the doctor job I'm a different being; I lose myself. I just gave him another whiff of A.C.E., called to the nurses to fetch candles and got on with it. He's walking about London ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... a whiff, "make your conversation as short as possible, whether in Latin or Dutch, for, to tell you the truth, I am rather tired of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... him like that?" Nellie interrupted, jumping up and coming between the two men. Ned leaned eagerly forward, his hands on his knees, his eyes flaming, his face quivering, his teeth showing. Geisner leaned back quietly, alternately sipping his wine and water and taking a whiff from his cigarette. ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... the corner to enter the passage; then you come plump upon another from the hall door; then comes another, fit to knock you down, as You turn to the upper passage ; then, just as You turn towards the queen's room, comes another; and last, a whiff from the king's stairs, enough to blow you half a ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... It seems to me such an invention ought to be of vast use in a forced march. Then at night it might be used as a sort of tent, or in a heavy rain it would form a temporary shelter. What do you think of the idea?" His friend had listened with half-closed eyes. He blew a whiff of cigarette smoke from ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... might be arrested and the fair hopes of the missionary pioneers yet be justified. So long as they soak maize in the streams until it is rotten and eat it together with dried shark—food the merest whiff of which will make a white man sick; so long as they will wear a suit of clothes one day and a tattered blanket the next, and sit smoking crowded in huts, the reek of which strikes you like a blow in the face; so long as they will cluster round dead bodies during their tangis ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... hoarse and red-eyed from the whiff of phosphorus smoke, spoke with him. The U.P. man had sagged drunkenly into a chair, but the other newsmen noted that Dr. Barnes glanced at them as he spoke, ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... the truth when he speaks of his "whiff of song." All his notes are call-notes, and are addressed directly to his mate. The songbirds take up a position and lift up their voices and sing. It is a deliberate musical performance, as much so as that of Nilsson or Patti. The bluebird, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... thought or thing, whether it be verily so, yea or nay? and to have answer, and to rely on that? All the debt which such a man could contract to other wit, would never disturb his consciousness of originality: for the ministrations of books, and of other minds, are a whiff of smoke to that most private reality with which he ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sacrilegious adaptation, to a respectable-looking old gentleman, sitting out of doors upon a chair, and smoking his pipe—"c'est dommage, Monsieur, qu'on a converti l'eglise a"—He stopped me: raised his left hand: then took away his pipe with his right; gave a gentle whiff, and shrugging up his shoulders, half archly and half drily exclaimed—"Mais que voulez vous, Monsieur?—ce sont des evenemens qu'on ne peut ni prevoir ni prevenir. Voila ce que c'est!" Leaving you to moralize upon this comfortable morceau of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... whiff of it, too, Parks," I said, unsteadily, and in an instant my eyes were streaming; but I had escaped hysteria. "Straighten Rogers out and let him lie there," I gasped, and sat dizzily down upon the floor. But I dared not look at Hornblower. I felt that another glance at his dazed ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... enough I'll say, when you get a whiff of the hell-fire. Better wait here 'til I find a way through the brush. An' keep out of reach of the horse's heels with that slicker on. You can't never trust a cayuse, 'specially when they can't more'n half see. They're liable to take a crack ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... inhaled this air freely, I sought the conduit pipe, which conveyed to us the beneficial whiff, and I was not long in finding it. Above the door was a ventilator, through which volumes of fresh air renewed the impoverished atmosphere ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... long whiff from his pipe, "I must have been a great way off; and these same offers must have been ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... white and dull over the ground on a winter's morning, which will be blown away with the least puff of fresh air, there lie doleful dampnesses, in their sooty folds, over many a Christian heart, shutting out the sun from the earth, and a little whiff of wholesome activity in Christ's cause would clear them all away, and the sun would shine down upon men again. If you want to be a happy Christian, work for Jesus Christ. I do not lay that down as a specific by itself. There are other things to be taken in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... the void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black between the stars. As if to be more like a pedlar, I wear a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the inside of my hand was illuminated, and became for a second the highest light in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Butchers, for instance: they get like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff of that ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... she caught a whiff of burnt syrup, she hurried to the kitchen, where she found that her berries had boiled over, and were hissing and sputtering on the hot stove, raising a cloud of smoke so dense that she did not see the person who stood on the threshold of the door until ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... deliberation Bob returned the pipe to his mouth. He emitted another whiff or two ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... after a long and thoughtful whiff from his meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... tears and rejecting smoke through her nose. The Markgraf, feigning to kiss her, had blown a whiff of tobacco into her mouth. She did not get angry, did not utter a single word, but glared at her possessor with anger aroused way down at the ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... results the glass must be placed in dry air before it has appreciably cooled. This is easily done in the case of electrometer jars, and so long as the air remains perfectly dry through the action of sulphuric acid or phosphorus pentoxide, the jar will insulate. The slightest whiff of ordinarily damp air will, however, enormously reduce the insulating power of the glass, so that unvarnished glass surfaces must be kept for apparatus ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... notions as to how to get rid of the exhalations from drainage and to make certain that no whiff of any such vapours ever found its way up any offset into his kitchen or any latrine or bathroom, he had built in this small high tower a shaft reaching its top and full six feet square all the way up. At its bottom it widened out into a chamber fully ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... the first time, he had got a whiff of something unwholesome about the fellow—bad nerves, bad company, something on hand that he was ashamed of, a visitor old and vicious, who must have had a key to Cavenaugh's apartment, for he was evidently there when Cavenaugh returned at seven o'clock. Probably it was the same man ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... chance for a fair shot. Sneaking forward with the utmost caution, they were surely within twenty-five yards, but still the bushes screened the crab-eaters. As the hunters sneaked, the old bear stopped and sniffed suspiciously; the wind changed, she got an unmistakable whiff; then gave a loud warning "Koff! Koff! Koff! Koff!" and ran as fast as she could. The hunters knowing they were discovered rushed out, yelling as loudly as possible, in hopes of making the bears tree. The old bear ran like a horse with Skookum yapping bravely in her rear. The ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... had that jerky interjectional quality which belonged to people with a common grievance, but a different individual experience. Mr. Winslow had been unable to shave. Mrs. Markham, incautiously and surreptitiously opening a port-hole in her state-room for a whiff of fresh air while dressing, had been shocked by the intrusion of the Pacific Ocean, and was obliged to summon assistance and change her dress. Jack Crosby, who had attired himself for tropical shore-going in white ducks and patent leathers, ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... on his bicycle, and came in bringing a whiff of heartiness, self-complacency, and fresh air, saying, "Hallo! hallo! hallo! Priceless to find you in, Gillie!" All he got for it was that ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... radicals, to interfere with the work, but they were suppressed with comparative ease. The last uprising of the Parisian populace which threatened the Convention was effectually quelled (October, 1795) by a "whiff of grape-shot" discharged at the command of a young and obscure major of artillery, Napoleon ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Quilp, turning to the boy; 'fill your pipe again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I'll put the sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it red hot upon ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... some minutes later Dorothea was pouring her uncle's coffee, and as he took the cup she brought him he bowed ceremoniously, then put it down to light a cigar. There were times when he wished Dorothea were his. If she were his— He took a long whiff of his cigar and threw ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... — N. wind, draught, flatus, afflatus, efflation^, eluvium^; air; breath, breath of air; puff, whiff, zephyr; blow, breeze, drift; aura; stream, current, jet stream; undercurrent. gust, blast, squall, gale, half a gale, storm, tempest, hurricane, whirlwind, tornado, samiel, cyclone, anticyclone, typhoon; simoon^, simoom; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a whiff from his lips as if blowing away thistle down. "Run away, little ones, you ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... said his father. 'If you are satisfied, I shall try to be the same. Have you your pipe with you?—At your age I hadn't begun to smoke, and I should advise you to be moderate; but we'll have a whiff ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... for nothing," said his host, putting his long clay to the candle, and puffing out volumes of smoke. Tom felt more and more unequal to the situation, and filled his pipe in silence. The first whiff made him cough as he wasn't used to the fragrant ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... always liked. Couldn't she spend time to walk down there across lots and get some? Sally thought the onions could not be left. Truth to tell, her heart was in her mouth. She had been playing with edge-tools; but just then she smelt a whiff of smoke from Long Snapps's pipe, and the resolve of last night came back; her face relented, and George, seeing it, used his utmost persuasiveness; so the result was, that Sally washed her hands at the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... She-wolf, like his mother, yet different, a stranger, and instinctively the stray Cub sank to the earth, as the old Wolf bounded on him. No doubt the Cub had been taken for some lawful prey, but a whiff set that right. She stood over him for an instant. He grovelled at her feet. The impulse to kill him or at least give him a shake died away. He had the smell of a young Cub. Her own were about his age, her heart was touched, and when he found courage ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... during the lesson the fire began to smoke, and Mr. Gordon told Owen to open the window for a moment. No sooner was this done than the mischievous whiff of sea air which entered the room began to trifle and coquet with the perdulous half sheet pinned in front of the desk, causing thereby an unwonted little pattering crepitation. In alarm, Duncan thoughtlessly pulled out the pin, and immediately the paper floated gracefully over Russell's ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... the bulletin boards. She knew by heart that first list after Las Guasimas. One glance had burned it in forever. It had become one of the indelible scars of a lifetime. Yet those were the names of strangers. If a whiff from an avalanche can fell trees a mile away, how if ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... is ready; you sniff, Asking for that expected walk, (Your nostrils full of the happy rabbit-whiff) ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... coming toward him, the boy ran for dear life, trying to make the school door before Billy could overtake him. He did, but that was all. Billy had gotten a good whiff of the apples, and that settled it. He would have one of those apples, even if he had to chase the boy all over the school. He was hoping the boy would be so afraid of him that he would throw one of the apples at him. But no such good luck. Up the stairs ran the boy, trying to reach the room ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... Look out! What's the matter with you?" the cab-driver yelled, pulling his horses back and sidewise, but not before the pole of the hack had grazed Blair's shoulder. There was a screech of laughter, a woman's vociferating fright, a whiff of cigar smoke, and a good-natured curse: "Say, darn you, you're too happy to be out alone, sonny!" Blair did not hear them. Shantytown, black and silent and wet, huddled before him; from the smokestacks of the Works banners of flame flared out into ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... "that merely to catch a whiff now and then of a fragrance which is singularly pleasant to me, but which I am denied producing for myself, would add to the things that give me comfort. If you wouldn't mind smoking in the hall now and then, or, better yet, by my fireside, I ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... which our wives have to put up with, "he'd have been a Drake or a Dampier; in the seventeenth, the commander of a privateer or slaver; in this age, I shall not be at all surprised if he turns out a great railway or financial magnate. It's like a whiff of boyhood to talk with him; though he's a greatly different sort of man from what I should have expected to find him. I think ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... true enough, Colonel," replied the man, ignoring the title of "major," and taking a whiff from his pipe. "That may be true enough, but I calculate nature's got somethin' to say in this world. And I calculate I ain't a-going to risk my life, and the happiness of my wife and five children, by tryin' to stem the ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... during the lesson the fire began to smoke, and Mr Gordon told Owen to open the window for a moment. No sooner was this done than the mischievous whiff of sea-air which entered the room began to trifle and coquet with the pendulous half-sheet pinned in front of the desk, causing thereby an unwonted little pattering crepitation. In alarm, Duncan thoughtlessly pulled out the pin, and immediately ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... dimly lit windows here and there, and the shadows upon the ugly and often patched and crooked blinds of the people cooped within. Nor can you presently pass the beerhouse with its brighter gas and its queer, screening windows, nor get a whiff of foul air and foul language from its door, nor see the crumpled furtive figure—some rascal child—that slinks past ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... green-skulled crews! Well, well; belike the whole world's a ball, as you scholars have it; and so 'tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads, you're young; I was once. 3d Nantucket Sailor Spell oh! —whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a calm —give us a whiff, Tash. ( They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky darkens — the wind rises.) .. Lascar Sailor By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon. The sky-born, high-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... are hot and damp, and my legs are stiff with cramp, And the office punkahs creak! And I'd give my tired soul, for the life that makes man whole, And a whiff of the jungle reek! Ha' done with the tents of Shem, dear boys, With office stool and pew, For it's time to turn to the lone Trail, our own Trail, the far Trail, Dig out, dig out on the old trail— The trail that is ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... whiff of gas from the kitchen made her turn pale with dread. Then it flashed into her mind what must have happened—that sudden gust of wind had blown out the gas! As she ran to the kitchen, she realized that she had caught the same faint smell several times before. ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he fond of his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then, suddenly—as at a whiff of gardenias and cigars—his heart twitched within him, and he was sorry. One's father belonged to one, could not go off in this fashion—it was not done! Nor had he always been the 'bounder' of the Pandemonium promenade. There were precious ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... towns, Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on, From Maine to utmost Oregon; The factory-wheels a rhythmus hum; From brawling parties concords come;— All this I hear, or seem to hear; But when, enchanted, I draw near To fix in notes the various theme, Life seems a whiff of kitchen-steam, History a Swiss street-singer's thrum, And I, that would have fashioned words To mate that music's rich accords, By rash approaches startle thee, Thou mutablest Perversity! The world drones on its old tum-tum, But thou hast slipped from it and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... read in the papers that the Thames in London is most horrible. I have to cross Waterloo or London Bridge to get to the railroad when I come down here, and I can certify that the offensive smells, even in that short whiff, have been of a most head-and-stomach-distending nature. Nobody knows what is to be done; at least everybody knows a plan, and everybody else knows it won't do; in the meantime cartloads of chloride of lime are shot into the ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... Are they hot with you? Here they are heavenly. When the windows are open, the sweet warm air blows up from the river and across the White Lot, and we get a whiff of roses from the gardens back of the President's house; and when I reach home at night, the fragrance of the roses in our own garden meets me long before I can see the house. We have wonderful roses this year, and the hundred-leaved ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... A whiff restored his wife to consciousness. She opened her eyes, and smiling at her weakness, sought to rise. He held her down with gentle force and ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... of illness, danger, and disaster are always interposed? Unsuspectedly from the bottom of every fountain of pleasure, as the old poet said, something bitter rises up: a touch of nausea, a falling dead of the delight, a whiff of melancholy, things that sound a knell, for fugitive as they may be, they bring a feeling of coming from a deeper region and often have an appalling convincingness. The buzz of life ceases at their touch as a piano-string stops sounding when ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... was frightened. He walked in a big circle round and round the place where the plump chicken and the duck had been, and the more he walked, the more suspicious he became. He wrinkled and wrinkled his little black nose in an effort to smell the intruder, but not a whiff could he get. All was as still and peaceful as could be. Little Joe Otter's trout lay shining in the moonlight. The big head of cabbage lay just where Peter Rabbit and Jumper the Hare had left it. Reddy Fox rubbed his eyes to make sure that ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... men in frock-coats and shiny black hats, their women in most delicate veils over European dresses. The figures move quietly and speak softly, and the air is full of the rattle of crickets or cicadas and a pleasant scent of night flowers, and cheroot smoke, with a whiff of old ocean. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... davits, therefore it was to be assumed that her crew had not abandoned her; yet what had become of them? The answer was supplied a little later, for as the Flying Fish, with stopped engines, slowly drifted to within about a quarter of a mile of her, the party of curious gazers suddenly caught a whiff of horrible odour that told the whole story. She was a ship with a ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a "Hamlet-hesitating monarch," who had it not been for the burly giant Bismarck would have been swept into oblivion by the first whiff of gunpowder. A stickler for religious dogma, the pietists adored him, but the classes despised him; he was one of those men who discuss trifles with elegant ease, but who have no conception of what is behind this present widespread ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... dark: then the veil fell from her eyes and she saw. The truth spoke to her senses first—in the sordid disarray of breakfast, in the fusty smell of the room with its soiled curtains, its fly-blown mirror, its outlook on the blank court. A whiff of air crept in at the open window—flat, with a scullery odour which sickened her soul. In her ears rang the laugh of the woman ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that does not injure him, is a fool, and he ought to be shunned by all decent people. That's a nice bouquet you have in your coat. What is it, pansies? Let me smell of it," and the grocery man bent over in front of the boy to take a whiff at the bouquet. As he did so a stream of water shot out of the innocent looking bouquet and struck him full in the face, and run down over his shirt, and the grocery man yelled murder, and fell over a barrel of axe helves and scythe snaths, and then groped around for ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... at Kettle Point. The old woman lighted up her pipe, and whiffed away with her eyes half shut; after enjoying it for about twenty minutes or so, her old husband thought she had had enough, and taking it from her put it in his own mouth and had his whiff. When he had done, he restored it again to his wife. Underneath another old bedstead were a couple of large dogs, which occasionally let their voices be heard in a dispute; some of the stones on ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... sculpture, for, in addition to the draughtsman's and anatomist's sense of form, he had a strong sense of colour. To good music he was always susceptible. (To one breaking in upon him at certain afternoon hours in his room at South Kensington, "a whiff of the pipe" (writes Professor Howes), "and a snatch of some choice melody or a Bach's fugue, were the not infrequent welcome.") He played no instrument; as a young man, however, he used to sing a little, but his voice, though true, was never strong. But he ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... was shabby and dusty, and the trousers were worn at the heels. He threw his basket into a corner, and then himself on the rough bench nailed against the wall, and there, without speaking another word, he lay sniffing the odour of the meat like an animal going to be fed. Suddenly a whiff from the beer jug came into his nostrils, and reaching out his rough hand he looked into the jug to assure ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... silence. Andrew stood quite still. All around them was the soft weeping of dripping shrubs. An odorous whiff from the walled rose-garden ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... against a conflagration, or a tidal wave or cyclone. At the Cercle Militaire many of the bureaucrats, and especially the doctor who had treated the cow-boy, were for martial law, anyway. Napoleon knew, said the fierce medecin. "A whiff of grapeshot, and the reef would be again gleaming with lights, and the diligences would pour in with loads ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien |
