"Bit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a bullet hole in the upper left arm plugged with a bit of cotton; and a deep furrow across the temple, which was bleeding. His rigid fingers were still gripping his six-shooter. He lay partly on his side, facing Leddy, who had rolled over on ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... tarragon, burnet (pimpernel), chives, and garden cress (peppergrass); scald two minutes, drain quite dry; pound in a mortar three hard eggs, three anchovies, and one scant ounce of pickled cucumbers, and same quantity of capers well pressed to extract the vinegar; add salt, pepper, and a bit of garlic half as large as a pea, rub all through a sieve; then put a pound of fine butter into the mortar, which must be well cleansed from the herbs, add the herbs, with two tablespoonfuls of oil and one of tarragon vinegar, mix perfectly, and if not of a fine green, ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... some who were quicker pickers exceeding that amount, and others falling below. They decided to pool the general proceeds, and present the sum cleared—L4, 16s. 8d.—to the Hospital for Disabled Soldiers as their "bit" towards their country. They went back to school feeling highly patriotic, and burning to boast of their experiences to those slackers who had chosen the parental ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Office people. You see, our first battalion has had a lot of casualties and three of us subs are being taken from the third. We've got to join the day after to-morrow. Bit of a rush. And I've got things to get. I'm afraid I must ask you to give me a leg up, ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... the stock article of our stage. For one thing, she refrained from dropping her aitches and stumbling over them on her first entrance in order merely to win a laugh and so lift her little role from the common rut of "lines" to the dignity of "a bit." For another, she seldom if ever brandished that age-honoured wand of her office, a bedraggled feather-duster. Nor was she by any means in love with the ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... has had his morning frolic he should not be chased or frightened into his cage. When the little fellow is hungry he will be glad to go back, especially if he sees there a bit of food that he likes. In time he will even learn to fly to the outstretched finger of his master or mistress, and to answer, as well as he can, the caressing tones which ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... every movement was torture. When some resisted, they were pinned to the earth with bayonets, and left writhing like worms, to die by inches. I can't forgive the devils for that.' 'I fear you've got more than you bargained for.' 'Not a bit of it; we went in for better or worse, and if we got worse, we must not complain.' Thus talked the beardless boy, nine months only from his mother's wing. As I spoke, a moan, a rare sound in a hospital, fell on my ear. I turned, and saw a French boy quivering ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... rather a disagreeable predicament, for I didn't, of course, return the mother's affection a bit, while I was certainly dreadfully spoony on ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... unable to count them. They were literally too many for me. The difficulties of the work, it should be explained, are greatly enhanced by the fact that at the very corner where the influx is largest none of the low-flying birds can be seen except for a second or two, as they dart across a bit of sky between the roost and an outlying wood. To secure anything like a complete census, this point must be watched continuously; and meantime birds are streaming in at the other corner and shooting over the distracted enumerator's ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... to catch them; but they were not too much hurt to defend themselves; and one of them bit me so severely in the hand, that I was glad to let him go; while the rest, picking themselves up, hopped off at a rate which ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... he continued, "that things had been growing a bit rough for you, losing those pupils after you'd been at the expense of taking the Grange, and all that, ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... donations and contributions, here and there, from wealthy Catholics. What we have in view is the financial assistance of the Church in the East, as a whole, as a corporate body. Every Catholic in Canada must become more or less interested in "Home Missions" and be willing to do "his little bit." As the small fibrous roots are the feeders and strength of the tree, so also the small and continued donations of all Catholics in the East will be the support of our missions in the West. In the various Protestant denominations, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... softly that Richard heard nothing, she stole up behind him, and gave his elbow a great push just as, with the sharpest of penknives, he was paring the edge of a piece of old paper, to patch the title. The pen-knife slid along the bit of glass he was paring upon, and cut his other hand. The blood spouted, and some of it fell upon the title, which made Richard angry: it was an irremediable catastrophe, for the paper was too weak to bear any washing. He laid hold of the child, meaning once more to carry her from the room, and ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... intelligence that it was a good day for a passage to Mull; and just as we rose, a sailor from the vessel arrived for us. We got all ready with dispatch. Dr Johnson was displeased at my bustling, and walking quickly up and down. He said, 'It does not hasten us a bit. It is getting on horseback in a ship. All boys do it; and you are longer a boy than others.' He himself has no alertness, or whatever it may be called; so he may dislike it, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... thousands of acres each, like Lincolnshire, what would Belfast have become? Little more than a port for the shipping of live stock to Liverpool and Glasgow. Before the famine, the food of the small farmers was generally potatoes and milk three times a day, with a bit of meat occasionally. But salt herrings were the main reliance for giving a flavour to the potato, often 'wet' and bad. After the failure of the potatoes, their place was supplied by oatmeal in the form of 'stirabout.' Indian meal was subsequently found cheaper and more wholesome. ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a-telling on you," here interrupted Jupiter; "de bug is a goole-bug, solid, ebery bit of him, inside and all, sep him wing—neber feel half so hebby a ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... country, they said, was a mark of nobility. The men were very swarthy, with curly hair; the women were very ugly, and extremely dark, with long black hair, like a horse's tail; their only garment being an old rug tied round the shoulder by a strip of cloth or a bit of rope (Fig. 371). Amongst them were several fortune-tellers, who, by looking into people's hands, told them what had happened or what was to happen to them, and by this means often did a good deal to sow discord in families. What was worse, either by ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... Your idea is really to give old New York a Christmas party, eh? Very pretty! Very pretty, indeed! But if you insist on exploding money all over the place, I don't see why you shouldn't get a run for it. Besides, I need a bit of it myself. What you want is a press agent. You're starting all wrong. People in New York can't understand or believe anything except through the language of the press agent. You take one on your staff, and in three days you'll ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes
... study another word to-day!" Helena tipped the table, spilling the books to the floor. "I want to go out in the sun. Go home, Miss Phelps, that's a dear. Anyhow, it won't do you a bit ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... mark the line for the second turning, but it is not a good plan, especially in shirt-making, as the edge of the stuff, too apt in any case, to cut and fray, is, thereby, still further weakened. Hems in woollen materials, which will not take a bend, can only be laid and tacked, bit by bit. In making, what are called rolled hems, the needle must be slipped in, so as only to pierce the first turning, in order that the stitches may not be visible on ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... garden that Napoleon subsequently gave to the little King of Borne; the same that Charles X. gave to the Duke de Bordeaux, and that Louis Philippe gave to the Count de Paris. How many recollections cluster around this little bit of earth, which has always been prematurely left by its young possessors! One died in prison scarcely ten years old; another, hurried away by the tempest, still younger, into a foreign land, only lived to hear the name of his father, and see ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... of our mental endowments or the advice of friends; by the necessity of our circumstances or the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise we must be content to go on making each day according to the pattern shown us—not as a whole, but in detail—sure that some day each bit and scrap, each vail and hanging, will find its place, and the tabernacle of ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... thee called," responded Aunt Deborah reprovingly. Aunt Deborah was not very large, and her smooth round face under the neat cap, such as Quaker women wear, was usually smiling and friendly; but it always seemed to Ruth that no least bit of dirt or untidiness ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... ourselves. An oculist with diseased eyes would not be likely to be a successful operator. 'Physician, heal thyself' would fit him well, and be certainly flung at him. A cleansed eye will see the brother's mote clearly, but only in order to help its extraction. It is a delicate bit of work to get it out, and needs ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the Clergy Reserves, and a co-ordinate standing with the Church of England, as the endowed Church establishment of Upper Canada. The other religious persuasions had not the privilege of having matrimony solemnized by their own ministers, or the right of holding a bit of ground on which to worship God, or in which to bury their dead. It soon began to be claimed by the leaders of the Church of England that their Church had the sole right to the Clergy Reserves and ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... clock in the chubby arms of the fat cupid on the mantle, she noticed the time with a start of dismay. She must arise at once or she would be late to her work. Why, she wondered, had not someone called her. Then, a crumpled sheet of tissue paper and a bit of narrow ribbon on the floor, near the table, caught her eye and ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... always appeared in white, but this one didn't. He was dressed just like any other fisherman, in a dark grey jacket and trowsers and a tarpaulin. It seemed to me at first he wanted to git out of the way, but I made tracks for him, for I didn't then a bit mistrust about its being a sperit, and halloed out, 'Who's that?' The sperit, as soon as he heard me, came straight up, and then I noticed he had two fish dangling down by a string, and says he, in a sort o' hoarse voice, as if he'd caught cold lying in the ground, 'It's me; it's the ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... bit," said Ghamba; "perhaps I will tell you, and perhaps I won't. I like you; you have given me tobacco, and you are not too proud to come and talk to a poor old man. Now, you say you would like to make five hundred pounds and buy ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... we take up without a purpose is an opportunity lost of taking up a book with a purpose—every bit of stray information which we cram into our heads without any sense of its importance, is for the most part a bit of the most useful information driven out of our heads and choked off from our minds. It is so certain that information, i.e., the knowledge, the stored thoughts and observations ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... the housemother offered comfits, and Christina's soft voice was worst of all, for the child, probably taking her for Our Lady herself, began to gasp forth a general confession. "I will never do so again! Yes, it was a fib, but Mother Hildegard gave me a bit of marchpane not to tell—" Here the lay sister took strong measures for closing the little mouth, and Christina drew back, recommending that the child should be left gradually to discover their terrestrial nature. Ebbo had looked on with extreme disgust, trying to hurry Friedel, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... startled the whole group. The cavalcade halted abruptly. The leader made a gesture to the squire who led his war-horse. The noble and practised animal remained perfectly still, save by champing its bit restlessly, and moving its quick ear to and fro, as aware of a coming danger,—while the squire, unencumbered by the heavy armour of the Germans, plunged into the thicket and disappeared. He returned in a few minutes, already ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... morn, She flung the white foam-flakes from nostril to neck, And chased him—I hatless, with shirt sleeves all torn (For he may ride ragged who rides from a wreck)— And faster and faster across the wide heath We rode till we raced. Then I gave her her head, And she—stretching out with the bit in her teeth— She caught him, outpaced him, and ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... a yellow autumnal ray into the square of the cloisters, beaming upon a scanty plot of grass in the centre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of dusky splendor. From between the arcades the eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky or a passing cloud, and beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey towering into the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... an abundant interchange of civilities, but nothing concluded, the Ministers declining every proposition that Lord Harrowby made to them, though Lord Grey owned that they did not ask for anything which involved an abandonment of the principle of the Bill. They are, then, not a bit nearer an accommodation than ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... existence. It's absolutely chronic. Perhaps you wonder why I'm here. Don't think I wanted to come here. Not me! I was sent. It was like this.' She gave him a rapid summary of her troubles. 'There! Don't you call it a bit thick?' ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... to look at and with an eye twinkle that suggests a disposition to cut up occasionally. Stanley is a good runnin' mate, so far as looks go. He could almost pose for a collar ad, with that straight nose and clean cut chin of his. But he's a bit stiff ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... sitting leaning on his elbow, his face beaming with jollity, as he waited, with a full cup, for Deschenaux's toast. But no sooner did he hear the name of his sister from those lips than he sprang up as though a serpent had bit him. He hurled his goblet at the head of Deschenaux with a fierce imprecation, and drew his sword as he rushed ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... bit, stop a bit, dear aunt!" said the king, smiling; "for the second part of my sentence will serve as a corrective to the first. Well, my dear aunt, some of them appear old and others ugly, thanks ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... jig it lid rim tin rig is sip fix dig bib bit tip six fig jib hit nip din big rib sit lip ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... me a bad character when ... Just examine your conscience a bit and compare us. Hunger and heat wear you out and drive you mad; cold makes your ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... begin morally to reprobate each other. So you told Mr. Johnson that he is conceited? And I suppose you added, that he was also dreadfully satirical and skeptical? What was his rejoinder? Let me see. Did he ever tell you that you were a little bit affected?" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... bit of cheese and a bit of bacon,' she explained. 'Till Monday morning, you say? I should not think ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... and attractive than she had ever done before, and Polly was more merry and full of life, not a bit abashed by the ceremony through which she then had to go. Jack performed his part well throughout the whole of it, and in the evening no one danced more lightly and merrily, or laughed louder than did he. At supper he sang some of his ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Buck," says the Sheriff, "I would like to, just as soon as not, but I've got a disagreeable bit of business with you, and it would be hardly friendly to eat your dinner before apprizing ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... This is a bit of the shady side after all the sunlight. It is a place for the invalid to rejoice in, and those in robust health can find enough to do ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... Cerizet. "La Peyrade was telling me only yesterday, by way of explaining Thuillier's idiotic simplicity, that he had believed a most ridiculous bit of humbug. The 'honest bourgeois' is persuaded that the seizure was instigated by Monsieur Olivier Vinet, substitute to the procureur-general. The young man aspired for a moment to the hand of Mademoiselle Colleville, and the worthy Thuillier has been made to imagine that the seizure ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... them a little fresh fish or a tiny bit of very fresh meat, though they like best the living things they find in the bottom of ...
— The Insect Folk • Margaret Warner Morley
... George Steevens, who figures so much in Boswell's work, was the author of an antiquarian hoax played off on a learned brother, of the same class as "Bill Stumps, his mark." He had an old inscription engraved on an unused bit of pewter—it was well begrimed and well battered, then exposed for sale in a broker's shop, where it was greedily purchased by the credulous virtuoso. The notion, by the way, of the Club button was taken from the Prince Regent, who had his Club and uniform, which he allowed favourites ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... be sure you didn't," said the little old man, "of course not. As a friend of mine used to say to me, 'What is there in chambers in particular?' 'Queer old places,' said I. 'Not at all,' said he. 'Lonely,' said I. 'Not a bit of it,' said he. He died one morning of apoplexy, as he was going to open his outer door. Fell with his head in his own letter-box, and there he lay for eighteen months. Everybody thought he'd gone out ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... report of his rifle the tiger stopped short in apparent surprise, then turned and bit savagely at its shoulder for an instant, after which it wheeled again toward Delcarte, issuing the most terrific roars and screams, and launched itself, with incredible speed, toward the brave fellow, who now stood his ground pumping bullets from ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... unpleasant, but I remembered the comfortable home and the supper that came after the work, and how I used to eat my fill in safety. And here I was, likely to be scalped or burned to death, and my innards just a griping and a yearning for a b-bit of ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... this mean? Is it, I ask, confessed, then,—is it confessed that we are no nearer a peace than we were when we snatched up this bit of paper called, or miscalled, a treaty, and ratified it? Have we yet to fight it out to the utmost, as ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, 160 And cried, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... old so-called Titanic nature, and come to the same point as the Titans when they rebelled against God, leading a life of endless evils. But why have I said all this? I ask, because the argument ought to be pulled up from time to time, and not be allowed to run away, but held with bit and bridle, and then we shall not, as the proverb says, fall off our ass. Let us then once more ask the question, To what end ...
— Laws • Plato
... of fact, I'm expected to," confessed Mr. Dillingford. "We've been drawing quite a bit of custom to the tap-room. The rubes like to sit around and listen to conversation about Broadway and Bunker Hill and Old Point Comfort and other places, and then go home and tell the neighbours that they know quite a number of stage people. Human ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... after a bit. "We can't have any fun here. Let's go and sail the boat I made. I was looking for you when Jane said she gave you the sugar. I couldn't think what you were going ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... "and I knows fair Miss Clorinda 'grees wid dem—she coincidates, if yer'll 'scuse the leetle bit ob dictionery." ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... for, and the back or front of the camera raised or lowered, until the thread cuts the line drawn below. Here then we have the most perfect line that can be obtained, at the expense of two bullets and a bit of silk, answering every purpose of the best spirit-level, and applied in one-half the time. It has since occurred to me, that as we sometimes require to measure the distance for stereoscopic pictures, this thread ought to be about three feet long; and we might as well make three knots, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... don't encourage others about; but if you can do with good men who have somewhat passed their prime, but are still capable of service and handy with their arms, I know just the men that will suit you. We had a little bit of trouble in the regiment a week since; four of the men—Allan Macpherson, Jock Hunter, Donald Nicholl, and Sandy Grahame—came in after tattoo, and all a bit fu'. It was not here they got it, though; I know better than to supply men with liquor when it is time for them ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... with clipped wings; haud passibus aequis [Lat][Vergil]. gradually &c. adj.; gradatim[Lat]; by degrees, by slow degrees, by inches, by little and little; step by step, one step at a time; inch by inch, bit by bit, little by little, seriatim; consecutively. Phr. dum Roma deliberat Saguntum perit[Lat]; at ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... wanting to get near you and smash you up, I have. You've gone a bit too far, you have ... No sugar without a card, and then only half-a-pound, and they do say it'll only be a quarter soon. And matches!—only one box at a time, and they don't strike, and how's a body to light a fire ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... house-furnishing that the tendency of the daughter of the Quakers shows the most frequent variation. Occasionally one sees the outcropping of a really artistic spirit—peculiarly refreshing because so rare—which has only in a woman's mature years ventured to indulge in a bit of happy color; but the venture if successful is always reserved and simple; and the most of such ventures ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... was now a grandpap and a widower, and I thought of my old friend, Mrs. Jones, and I wondered what had become of them. If she and her husband were living, I would certainly give them a call. Then, if I should find her a widow, there might be a little bit of new romance started in the Old Dominion. I could think of her only as the lovely girl of nineteen; but I had to reflect that she, too, might now be a withered grandmother. I went on the Seaboard Road and landed right in our old wagon yard. The beautiful oak grove was all gone, streets and hundreds ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... I shall not mind a bit about your thinking Phebe the handsomest, because she is. Isn't she, boys?" asked Rose, with a mischievous look at the gentlemen opposite, whose faces expressed a respectful admiration which ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... little girl in all the world?" he said, handing her the box of confections. "I didn't think I'd be able to make it, till I wired. While this bit of important business lasts we must ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... Woodlands a bit of enchanted forest cut from an old black-letter legend, in which one half expected to meet mediaeval knights on foaming steeds—every-day folk ride jogging horses—threading their way through the mysterious forest aisles in search of those romantic adventures which were necessary to give ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... have looked wholly in vain through all my books on birds, to find some account of the muscles it uses in hopping, and of the part of the toes with which the spring is given. I must leave you to find out that for yourselves; it is a little bit of anatomy which I think it highly desirable for you to know, but which it is not my business to teach you. Only observe, this is the point to be made out. You leap yourselves, with the toe and ball of the foot; but, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... farther back, and after I had been at it some time, on looking up found myself right in front of another intrenchment of the enemy. They sent a few rounds at me, but they struck just in front and ricochetted over my head. After a bit, it getting darker, I got up and walked back, and there was nothing but dead ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Pope called his witnesses. He was a very short time examining them; he bit his lips when he heard their answers. Mrs. Tarbell's cross-examination was also short. Alexander whispered to her to cut it short,—that the testimony was almost an admission of her case by itself. But to Mrs. Stiles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... distress with a species of bitter satisfaction. "That'll take the fight out of you, my girl," she said. "Or if it doesn't, I've another sort of remedy yet to try. Now, you start on that letter, do you hear? It'll be a bit shaky, but none the worse for that. Write and tell him you've changed your mind! Beg him humble-like ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... said, caressingly; "she did it all herself —every bit," and he took the room in with a glance which was full of affectionate worship. One of those soft Japanese fabrics with which women drape with careful negligence the upper part of a picture-frame was out of adjustment. He noticed it, and rearranged it with cautious pains, stepping ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... evening. They were in Holar all the day, and there came some poor women and said they had come from far. Those brothers asked them for tidings, and they said they had no tidings to tell, "But still we might tell you one bit of news." ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... machinery. He was going to try for a job as a chauffeur or foreman mechanic. He thought he knew where he could get one; but supposing he couldn't get it, if his father cared to take him on at the works for a bit he'd come like a shot; but he couldn't stay there, because ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... is of the Mecklenburg breed. In looking whether the bit suited his mouth, I saw that he was rising seven, the very age when the training of a horse intended for a charger should commence. The forehand is light. A horse which holds its head high, it is said, never tires his rider's hand. The withers ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... said Dick, "it's all right—we've done 'em at last; and now you may depend upon it they won't be in a hurry to come here again. You keep your own counsel, or else somebody will serve you out for this. I don't think you're altogether averse to a bit of fun, and if you keep yourself quiet, you'll have the satisfaction of hearing what's said about this affair in every pot-house in the village, and ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... later she came round and thanked me with tears in her eyes. The puma had suddenly struck real mid-season form. It clawed the elevator-boy, bit a postman, held up the traffic for miles, and was finally shot by a policeman. Why, for the next few days there was nothing in the papers at all but Miss Devenish and her puma. There was a war on at the time in Mexico or somewhere, and we had it backed off the front page so far that it ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... grown for want of meat Give me then an ant to eat, Or the cleft ear of a mouse Over-sour'd in drink of souce; Or, sweet lady, reach to me The abdomen of a bee; Or commend a cricket's hip, Or his huckson, to my scrip. Give for bread a little bit Of a pea that 'gins to chit, And my full thanks take for it. Flour of fuzz-balls, that's too good For a man in needihood; But the meal of milldust can Well content a craving man. Any orts the elves refuse Well will serve the beggar's use. But if this may seem too much For an ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... The alt shift key on an IBM PC or {clone} keyboard; see {bucky bits}, sense 2 (though typical PC usage does not simply set the 0200 bit). 2. /n./ The 'clover' or 'Command' key on a Macintosh; use of this term usually reveals that the speaker hacked PCs before coming to the Mac (see also {feature key}). Some Mac hackers, confusingly, reserve ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... think I am cruel," she said, in the same calm, considerate tone she had used throughout. "But I never gave you any encouragement, Frank—not in the way you wanted or expected. You were the only person I knew who was the least bit cultivated and nice and travelled and out of the commonplace. I can't tell you how much you brightened my life here, or how glad I was when you came or how sorry I was when you went away—but it wasn't love, Frank—not the love you wished ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... interrupted Valentin, "is not your memory just here leading you the least bit astray? Our mother is, I may say, distinguished for her small respect of abstract reasoning. Are you very sure that she replied to your striking proposition in the gracious manner you describe? You know how terribly incisive she is sometimes. Didn't she, rather, do you the ...
— The American • Henry James
... "Wait a bit, boys," Smoke cried. "Maybe he doesn't understand. Let me explain it to him. Look here, George. Don't you see, nobody is charging anything. They're giving everything to save two hundred Indians from starving to death." He paused, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... altar, and I have poured out upon it the best blood of Massachusetts, and I cannot take money for that." Mere sentiment, truly, but the sentiment which ennobles and uplifts mankind. It is sentiment which so hallows a bit of torn, stained bunting, that men go gladly to their deaths to save it. So I say that the sentiment manifested by your presence here, brethren of Virginia, sitting side by side with those who wore the blue, has a far-reaching and ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... "but wait a bit till there are no witnesses. And by the way, old chap, I must tell you that you're a ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... constant striking, to delay and confuse the deer. It was a hard ride and a fine combination which secured the quarry, and, as with all sport worth the name, it was even chances on the deer. When the combination failed and the deer got away, it was a bit of human nature to see the meeting between the hawks and the dogs. The hawks would be sitting on the ground or on a bush, evidently and unmistakably using language of the most sulphurous nature; while the dogs came up, their tongues out, their tails between their legs, and with a general air of ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... kissed him (as she said) to kiss away all her sisters' unkindness, and said that they might be ashamed of themselves, to turn their old kind father with his white beard out into the cold air, when her enemy's dog, though it had bit her (as she prettily expressed it), should have stayed by her fire such a night as that, and warmed himself. And she told her father how she had come from France with purpose to bring him assistance; and he said that she must forget and forgive, for he was old and foolish, and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to the scene of action came Dame Hamilton, and seizing her young stepson, she tore him away from Lenora, administering at the same time a bit of a motherly shake. Willie's blood was up, and in return he dealt her a blow, for which she rewarded him by another shake, and by tying him ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... as a flash to catch a point, leaned over the box-rail and looked at the champions with fire in her eye. "Oh, you just wait! wait!" she bit out ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... information; an excellent musical critic, who was not afraid to criticise Sybil's singing; a connoisseur in bric-a-brac, who laughed at Madeleine's display of odds and ends, and occasionally brought her a Persian plate or a bit of embroidery, which he said was good and would do her credit. This old sinner believed in everything that was perverse and wicked, but he accepted the prejudices of Anglo-Saxon society, and was too clever to obtrude ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... cruel edict of the Scottish bishops, and it hardly admits of doubt that he submitted to Melanchthon, and got corrected by him, his little treatise against their decree, forbidding the New Testament Scriptures to be used by the laity in the vernacular. It is a very pithy and forcible bit of pleading for the right of the Christian laity to possess and study the Scriptures in their own tongue. This remarkable treatise struck the true key-note in the contest it ushered in, and helped it on to victory—a ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... cannot get away it must go on. Look here, Ned. I don't reckon to take anything out of this house that I didn't bring in it, or isn't freely offered to me; yet I don't otherwise, you understand, intend making myself out a d—d bit better than I am. That's the only excuse I have for not making myself out JUST WHAT I am. I don't know the fellow who's obliged to tell every one the last company he was in, or the last thing he ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... I as much right to light on Earth as on any other bit of cosmic dust?" I asked, laughing and forgetting how much snubbing he requires in the delight of seeing any ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... of the town together. Ascott, the theaters, Vauxhall, and the convivial taverns in the joyous neighborhood of Covent Garden, were visited by the vivacious squire, in company with his learned brother. When he was in London, as he said, he liked to do as London does, and to "go it a bit," and when he returned to the west, he took a new bonnet and shawl to Mrs. Hobnell, and relinquished for country sports and occupations, during the next eleven months, the elegant amusements of ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and John Fletcher, called All is True, or, as we now know it, Henry VIII, produced with unusual magnificence. Upon the entrance of the King in the fourth scene of the first act, two cannon were discharged in a royal salute. One of the cannon hurled a bit of its wadding upon the roof and set fire to the thatch; but persons in the audience were so interested in the play that for a time they paid no attention to the fire overhead. As a result they were soon fleeing for ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... me like a prison, and I cannot long endure it. But the slightest rise and fall in the road,—a mossy bank at the side of a crag of chalk, with brambles at its brow, overhanging it,—a ripple over three or four stones in the stream by the bridge,—above all, a wild bit of ferny ground under a fir or two, looking as if, possibly, one might see a hill if one got to the other side of the trees, will instantly give me intense delight, because the shadow, or the hope, of the hills ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... "She needn't be a bit the worse on that account. Whenever I hear that there is a woman whom nobody visits, I always feel inclined to go and pay ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... misfeature; gratuitous inelegance. 2. A {hack} or {crock} that depends on a complex combination of coincidences (or, possibly, the combination upon which the crock depends for its accidental failure to malfunction). "This hack can output characters 40—57 by putting the character in the four-bit accumulator field of an XCT and then extracting six bits —- the low 2 bits of the XCT opcode are the right thing." "What randomness!" 3. Of people, synonymous with 'flakiness'. The connotation is that the person so described ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... to bring with the experiment a dash of elation. Now, driving through water appears to be no longer the fashion in our fastidious century; someone might get a wetting, possibly, has been the conclusion of the prudent. And thus a very innocent and exciting bit of fun has been gradually relegated among ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... unsympathetic everything looked! I felt chilly, and a cold shudder ran down my limbs. Absolute silence prevailed, in the street, in the house, in the room, where lay the dead woman staring fixedly before her. Kosinski had sunk into a chair, his head between his hands. I looked at him in silence and bit my lip. An unaccustomed feeling of revolt was springing up in me. I could not and did not attempt to analyse my feelings, only I felt a blind unreasoning anger with existence. How stupid, how objectless it all seemed! ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... the impression that we can do anything. I took the girl into my room and gave her some good advice, telling her she had much better marry the young man you saw—they had been engaged, and quarrelled—and I told of some cases like her own that had come under my own knowledge. She wept a bit, admitted I was right, and then suddenly flung herself on top of me and started hugging and kissing me. I got her outside, told her mother that the matter was all right, when I'm blessed if she didn't try it on too. That was just as you came ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... MURDOCK is seen leaning a bit over the balustrade of the porch and shielding her eyes with her hand from the late afternoon sun, as she seemingly looks up the Pass to the left, as if expecting the approach of someone. Her gown is simple, girlish and attractive, and made of summery, filmy stuff. Her ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... too, as is the way of womankind, she studied the outside a long time before she opened it. As the months passed by, the handwriting became familiar, but a coquettish grandmother may have flirted a bit with the letter, and put it aside—until she could ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... she said at last. 'But I do not see that there can be any doubt. O Berbel, Berbel! What do you think there is written inside this little bit of paper?' ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... flesh." A small pair of scales descended from the heavens, and the transaction was carried out. The little bird settled itself upon one side of the scales, and the saint placed in the other platter a good slice of his flesh, but the beam did not move. Bit by bit the whole of his body went into the scales, but still the scales were motionless. Just as the last shred of the holy man's body touched the scale the beam fell, the little bird flew away and the saint entered into nirvana. The falcon, who had not, all said and done, made a bad ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... to," and the old man glared upon the boys as if he had been charged with some serious offence. "De' yez think that I'm goin' to blab all about our good-turn? Not a bit of it. Let's git down to business now, ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... in this was the little bit of human nature; the tact displayed by the sex, which appears to be innate, and which never deserts them. Had I prompted a boy, he would most likely have turned his head round towards me, and thus have revealed ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... very kind gentleman, and your word was worth any other ten men's in most things; but where it might be to get a friend out of trouble, and, for aught he knew, foe either, why then, he thought your honour might fib a bit." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... made her up a place to sleep in; this lodging she occupied some time, and he used to bring her forth at whiles with secrecy at night. I meanwhile having brought this part of the Colossus almost to completion, left it alone, and indulged my vanity a bit by exposing it to sight; it could, indeed be seen by more than half Paris. The neighbours, therefore, took to climbing their house-roofs, and crowds came on purpose to enjoy the spectacle. Now there was a legend in the city that my castle had from ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Betty, "If you like I'll fit on that black bodice for you, Mrs. Symes. If the other ladies don't mind waiting for the reading a little bit." ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... the boat, or the submarine. There were rumors in plenty; but the police knew them to be false. As to the reckless stories that appeared in the newspapers, they had most of them, no foundation whatever. Even the best journals cannot be trusted to refuse an exciting bit of news on the mere ground ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... dismissed, we carried off my Aunt Kezia as if she had been a casket of jewels. And as to what the fine folks said behind our backs, either of her or of us, I do not believe either Hatty or I cared a bit. I can answer for one of ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... as low about leaving her as ever I was in my life; and so is the poor cretur. She won't eat a bit of victuals till I come back, I'll be sworn; not a bit, I'll be bound to say that; and myself, although I am an old soldier and served my king and country for five-and-twenty years, and so got knocked ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... somebody to be fond of," meditated she. And "old fashioned piece of goods" as she was—according to Mrs. Jones (who now, from the use she was in the Jones's menage, patronized and confided in her extremely) some little bit of womanly craving after the woman's one hope and crown of bliss crept into the poor maid-servant's heart. But it was not for the maid-servant's usual necessity—a "sweet heart"—somebody to "keep company with;" it was rather for somebody to love, and perhaps take care of ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... entirely satisfied with himself, and especially with his friend. Leopold threw overboard the ground bait, and soon, with a shout of exultation, he announced the presence of a school of mackerel. The lines were immediately in the water, and the fish bit very sharply. Leopold and Stumpy had nothing to do but pull them in and "slat" them off as fast as they could. The boat was filling up very rapidly; but suddenly, the school, as though called in after recess, sank down and disappeared. Not another bite could be obtained, ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... the rest, back there," she protested, in a low voice. "At least, there is something open, and a little green in spring, and the nights are calm. It seems the least little bit like what it used to be in Wisconsin on the lake. But there we had such lovely woodsy hills, and great meadows, and fields with cattle, and God's real peace, not this vacuum." ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... of trunks and baskets," Pao-ch'ai put in laughing, "which haven't been yet cleared away. And how could one tell in which particular one, they're packed up? Wait a few days, and when things will have been put straight a bit, we'll try and find them: and every one of us can then have a look at them; that will be all right. But if you happen to remember the lines," she pursued, speaking to Pao-ch'in, "why not recite ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... duck-pond, when there came toddling up to them such a funny little girl! She had a great quantity of hair blowing about her chubby little cheeks, and looked as if she had not been washed or combed for ever so long. She wore a ragged bit of a cloak, and had only one ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Wait a bit. We might as well make ourselves comfortable while we're about it. I'll sit down on this box, and the rest of you gather around on the floor. I've got a big proposition to make, and ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... happen sometimes," agreed Jack, yawning. "This warm day's made me feel a bit lazy but as soon as we get a move on all that will slip away like ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... five feet six inches to five feet nine in height, broad shoulders, with large heads and overhanging brows; but it was not remarked that any of their teeth were wanting (as we afterwards observed in others); their legs were long and very slight, and their only covering a bit of grass suspended round the loins. There was an exception in the youngest, who appeared of an entirely different race: his skin was a copper colour, whilst the others were black; his head was not so large, and more rounded; the overhanging ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... "Not a bit of it," answered the major, stepping nearer to the stove. "Come along. We are snowbound, and had ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... chapter as Churchill, alias Oars, a youth of fifteen, who had constant recourse to Louis for information. He now laid his dog's-eared Eutropius before Louis, and opened his business with his usual "Come now, tell us, Louis—help us a bit, Louis." ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... The Biter Bit. Song. Words and music by Henry Pontet.—A warning to any who would marry for money, and not for love. In learning the above three songs I am sure that singers will be as much distracted as I have been by little squares like lottery coupons announcing that somebody else's ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... mix food for a beetle and to carry it to him. A pig or a dog will at least pounce upon our excrement without more ado, but this foul wretch affects the disdainful, the spoilt mistress, and won't eat unless I offer him a cake that has been kneaded for an entire day.... But let us open the door a bit ajar without his seeing it. Has he done eating? Come, pluck up courage, cram yourself till you burst! The cursed creature! It wallows in its food! It grips it between its claws like a wrestler clutching his opponent, and with head and feet together rolls up its paste like a rope-maker ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... again. I don't see why it should, but his recurrence to that subject irritates me a little. I suppose you might say—why don't you shut him up by answering him? There is no logical answer to that I suppose: but I may ask in my turn: 'What right has he to ask questions anyway?'" W. laughed a bit. "Anyway the question comes back to me almost every time he writes. He is courteous enough about it—that is the reason I do not resent him. I suppose the whole thing will end in an ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... force of a Parliamentary movement. Sometimes it is the widow. But that personality has been used to exhaustion. It would be sweating in the cruellest sense of the word, overtime of the grossest description, to bring the widow out again so soon. She must have a rest for a bit; so instead of the widow we have the market-gardener—the market-gardener liable to be disturbed on the outskirts of great cities, if the population of those cities expands, if the area which they require ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... we shall see them in ample time to avoid running over them. And, in addition to all this, we maintain a first-rate lookout, one on each bow, two in the waist, and the officer of the watch up here on the poop; so we need have no fear of collision. Take my word for it, Mr Conyers; you are every bit as safe aboard here, sir, as if you ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... he spoke, and his hair, coiled under the great wig, fell to his shoulders, and sparkled yellow in the candle-light. He tossed his head to shake the hair back from his cheeks. "When it is dress', I am transform nobody can know me; you shall observe. See how little I ask of you, how very little bit. No one shall reco'nize 'M. Beaucaire' or 'Victor.' Ha, ha! 'Tis all arrange'; ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... voice answered: "Better so Than bolder flights that know no check; Better to use the bit, than throw The reins all loose on fancy's neck. The liberal range of Art should be The breadth of Christian liberty, Restrained alone by challenge and alarm Where its charmed footsteps tread the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... beginning there was nothing at all except darkness. All was darkness and emptiness. For a long, long while, the darkness gathered until it became a great mass. Over this the spirit of Earth Doctor drifted to and fro like a fluffy bit of cotton in the breeze. Then Earth Doctor decided to make for himself an abiding place. So he thought within himself, "Come forth, some kind of plant," and there appeared the creosote bush. He placed this before him and set it upright. But it at once fell over. He set it upright again; ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... rice-valley there is a fourth hill-chain, lower and richly wooded, on reaching the base of which the traveller must finally abandon his kuruma, and proceed over the hills on foot. Behind them lies the sea. But the very worst bit of the journey now begins. The path makes an easy winding ascent between bamboo growths and young pine and other vegetation for a shaded quarter of a mile, passing before various little shrines and pretty homesteads surrounded by high-hedged gardens. Then it suddenly breaks into steps, or rather ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn |
