"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Feng. "Me savvy you. You Ilishman, all same mick, all same flannel mout', all same bogtlotteh! You bum lailway man! You get dlunk, fo'get switch, thlain lun off tlack; you swingee lante'n, yellee 'All aboa'd!' you say, 'Jim Kli! what keepee Numbeh Eight?' You sellee ticket, knockee down change. No good, lailway man! Me savvy you, ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... merit; that Miss Blank has just slipped out to post a letter to Captain Jones; that Miss Dash wears false teeth and a wig; that General Tufto is almost as tightly laced as the beautiful Miss Hopper; that there's a bum-bailiff in the kitchen at Number Thirteen; that the dinner we ate t'other day at Timmins's is still to pay; that all is vanity; that there's a skeleton in every house; that passion, enthusiasm, excess of any sort, is unwise, abominable, a little absurd; and so forth. ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... plenty o' brass! To be able to set daan yor fooit Withaght ivver thinkin'—bith' mass! 'At yor wearin' soa mitch off yor booit; To be able to walk along th' street, An' stand at shop windows to stare, An' net ha' to beat a retreat If yo' scent a "bum bailey" ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... armed with jezails, umbrellas, brooms, catapults, pikes, brickbats, kukeries,[52] pokers, clubs, axes, horse-pistols, bottles, dead fowls, polo-sticks, assegais and bombs. They were commanded by a Highlander in a bum-bee tartan kilt, top-hat and one sock, with a red nose a foot long, riding on a rocking horse and brandishing a dem great cucumber and a tea-tray made into a shield. There was a thundering great drain-pipe mounted on a bullock-cart and a naked man, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... When an ugly "bum," well up to trap, creeps like a rascal from the sheriff's-office, and with his capias armed, ere you are half-dressed, gives you the chase, and, as you "leg" away for the bare life, his knuckles dig into the seat of your unmentionables, gripping you like a tiger—that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... temporary. But he is absolutely certain that but for one of the representatives of the class that is despised, driven about and persecuted by brutal policemen and ignorant judges, he would have become a bum, or, most likely, he would have committed suicide—at the point of which he was several times; only pity for his ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... Mike's place, not wishin' to deprive you of your share o' the sport. But I met a big policeman who said: 'Tell that red-headed Irish bum that it'll be better for his health to stay away from ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... to another. "Don't that sound like the Plaza Major in old Chihuahua by moonlight?" cried McKinney, as a swinging band march came squealing out through the door. "That's a piece by a Mexican band. Can't you hear the choo-choo, and the wee-wee, and the bum-bum? They're all there, sure's ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... the finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I manage for "kipping"?—which means sleeping. Did I know the rounds yet? He was getting on, though the country was "horstyl" and the cities were "bum." Fierce, wasn't it? Couldn't "batter" (beg) anywhere without being "pinched." But he wasn't going to quit it. Buffalo Bill's Show was coming over soon, and a man who could drive eight horses was sure of a job any time. These mugs over here didn't know beans about driving anything more ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... few times," he said; "once, I believe, by Jam-bum, the famous Yogi of the Carnatic; once, perhaps twice, by Boohoo, the founder of the sect. But it is looked upon as extremely rare. Mr. Yahi tells me that the great danger is that, if the slightest ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... my wardrobe; packed up a hero's dress in a handkerchief, slung it on the end of a tragedy sword, and quietly stole off at dead of night—"the bell then beating one,"—leaving my queen and kingdom to the mercy of my rebellious subjects, and my merciless foes, the bum-bailiffs. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... live; I will not touch thine eyes For all the treasure that thine uncle owns: Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy, With this same very iron to bum them out. ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... in hand, among the first. No scene of history has ever written itself so deeply on my mind; not because Balfour, that questionable zealot, was an ancestral cousin of my own; not because of the pleadings of the victim and his daughter; not even because of the live bum-bee that flew out of Sharpe's 'bacco-box, thus clearly indicating his complicity with Satan; nor merely because, as it was after all a crime of a fine religious flavour, it figured in Sunday books and afforded a grateful relief ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Don't know; some bum I suppose; looks like he had been on a big spree. I only hope I can keep him sober long enough to help me ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... 'pie' for the 'Greys' or 'Maroons.' I can excuse Caldwell for not playing his best, since he broke his finger in the beginning of the game and nobody knew it until twenty minutes later. Plucky of the youngster, but he ought to have told us. Ellis is all right, but that's the second time his bum ankle has given way, and I don't know whether he can stand the strain of a big game. Hodge has got the weight and the strength, but he leaves too much of the work to Trent. As for Boyd, I'm afraid ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... make you understand something important to everybody. You come in here and claim by the right of personal interest that we should be most willing to tell you our business. Then in the next breath you defend the installation over on the other side of town for their attitude in giving the bum's rush to people who try to ask questions about their business. Go read your Constitution, Mr. Fisher. It says there that I have as much right to defend my home against intruders as the A.E.C. has to ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... aus der Ferne toent es schwach, Ganz leise bumbumbumbum tsching; Zog da ein bunter Schmetterling, Tschingtsching, bum, um ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... Faith and Hope; if you apologize for vice, and show that wickedness is nice, it well may chance, when you are old, and in your veins the blood runs cold, there'll come your way some dismal wreck, who'll roast you sore, and cry: "By heck! And also I might say, by gum! 'Twas you that put me on the bum! Your writings got me headed wrong; you threw it into Virtue strong; and in the prison that you see, I'm convict ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... and her beguile In very likeness of a roasted crab; And when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale; The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And rails or cries, and falls into a cough, And then the whole choir hold their ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... is," I said. "Charlie says it's a good Monday night town because two through freights lay over there till daylight. Tuesday night we have to double back to Greenwich, and that's where Charlie gave us the bum deal. This gag of chasing us back over the same route is rotten, because somebody may be sitting up for us with a rock. But Charlie says Greenwich has developed into a great show town since five new families' moved there last summer. Wednesday we get into Stamford ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... saloons abounding in that locality, and here he watched the mounted police hard at work trying to again open the thoroughfare. While he thus passed the time until he could cross the street, he was accosted by a typical Chicago rum-soaked bum. "Say, friend," the semi-maudlin wretch pleaded while he edged most uncomfortably close to Joe, "would you mind assisting a hungry fellow who has not eaten a square meal in a week?" More for the sake ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... idea: As a witness you're on the bum, but as a spy, you're it. They know that you blabbed, and that I know it; they know I've had you in the hole. So now what I want to do is to make a martyr of you. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... particular innocence of either—Judas, immaculately attired in a white coat, arrived from downstairs with a step ladder and proceeded with everyone's assistance to reconstruct the original pipe. And a pretty picture Judas made. And a pretty bum job he made. But anyway the stove-pipe drew; and everyone thanked God and fought for places about le poele. And Monsieur Pet-airs hoped there would be no more ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... growled the Man-Who-Knew-It-All to the Bum Actor. "Screw out of the water every souse she makes; lot of dirty sailors skating over the decks instead of keeping below where they belong; Chief Engineer loafing in the Captain's room every chance he gets—there he goes now—and it's the second time since breakfast. And the Captain ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "I landed on a frame-up, that's all. This afternoon I saw Sharpe and this Ripley together in a bum wine-room on River Street, swapping so much of that earnest conversation that the partitions bulged, and I dropped to the double-cross that's being handed out to you. I've been trying to telephone you ever since, but when I ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... to look over his mercenaries as a whole and he gave a gasp of surprise at the row after row of villainous faces raised with sneering grins to his. Well in the front squatted "Bum" Jocelin, known to the water-front police for fifteen years,—six feet of threatening insolence; "Black" Morrison with two penitentiary sentences back of him; and "Splinter" Mallory, thin, leering, shifty. And yet Danbury, after he had recovered himself a bit, saw in their very ugliness the fighting ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... accidentally fell upon what she had voided. I was struck with its extraordinary thickness. I made no observation at the time, but it raised an idea that preoccupied me much. I had often thought over the pleasure that fucking Mrs. Benson's bum-hole had given me, hence I had tried to initiate both Miss Evelyn and Mary in that delightful route of pleasure, but, as before stated, had been unable to succeed with them from the great developement of my weapon. Thinking that if they could ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... why I'm here to-day. I knew you were thinking that. I knew it all the time I was in Colorado, growing up from a sickly kid, with a bum lung, to a heap big strong man. It forced me to do things I was afraid to do. It goaded me on to stunts at the very thought of which I'd break out in a clammy sweat. Don't you see how I'll have to turn handsprings ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... Lee?" said Manning. "Report me to the Council? They'll listen to me before they'd pay attention to complaints from a nobody who's been drifting around the outworlds for most of his life. That's all you are, you know, Lee—a drifter, a bum, like the rest of them. That's what everybody out here on the Edge is ... unless ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... pulmonary subject I, Tra la la la la, bum bum! It can't last long until I die, Tra la la la la, ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... is sure—if we turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for false arrest and put the whole administration on the bum," snarled O'Brien. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Harvey, "he could, but he wouldn't do it more than once. Those doors are almost red hot and would bum the flesh off the stoker's hand, whether it were grimy or not. I'll show you on my yacht some time. What you ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... let me think, reflect, cogitate, tickle the thinker. Best way is to start at the A, B, C—first principles, all that sort of thing. Supposin', supposin' you come into the room with that hat on—it's a bum hat, by the way—and some one pipes up; 'Get that at the fire sale?' What ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... "a bum joke you're trying to put over, or what? Come home at once!—Don't you know a packed house is waiting to see Miss Burton in her act? What do ye mean, come ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... of coma and leaves me with twenty-five dollars! That's what I get. What I've been doing is a longer story. I apologize for not having seen your friend who brought the letter, but it's up to you to apologize for a bum epistle to ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... occurred to him that it was not necessary to go into so much detail in breaking in a political recruit. When he resumed, it was in a good-natured tone of dismissal. "That's what you do, kid. To-morrow you get a sprained wrist, so you can't work for a few days, and that'll give you a chance to bum round and hear what the men are saying. Meantime, I'll see you ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... all right!" Tommy exclaimed. "He's a bum Chicago detective out after some fugitive from justice and he thinks its foxy to lie about his occupation and his residence. Don't you think I know the earmarks of ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... ain't got the information on hand to meet. Life insurance ain't by any means, in my mind, the only kind of protection that a man owes his widow. Provide for her Future—if you can!—That's my motto!—But a man's just a plain bum who don't provide for his own Past! She may have plenty of trouble in the years to come settling her own bills, but she ain't going to have any worry settling any of mine. I tell you, there'll be no ladies swelling round in crape at ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... a low, gruff voice. "I'm nothing but a roughneck, I know, and not worth much at that, but if it's any satisfaction to you to know you've bowled a bum like me over to His side, why ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... horn, Or if more arid aught ye know, By suns and frosts and hunger-throe. Then why not happy as thou'rt hale? 15 Sweat's strange to thee, spit fails, and fail Phlegm and foul snivel from the nose. Add cleanness that aye cleanlier shows A bum than salt-pot cleanlier, Nor ten times cack'st in total year, 20 And harder 'tis than pebble or bean Which rubbed in hand or crumbled, e'en On finger ne'er shall make unclean. Such blessings (Furius!) such a prize Never belittle nor despise; 25 Hundred sesterces seek ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... out to Sergeant M'Snape, "a body can breathe withoot swallowing a wheen bluebottles and bum-bees. A body can aye streitch himself doon under a tree for a bit sleep withoot getting wasps and wee beasties crawling up inside his kilt, and puddocks craw-crawing in his ear! A body can keep himself ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... engaged in carrying visitors who chose to admire the busy thoroughfare seated on the backs of these animals. The native camel-drivers in their national costumes moved around and mingled with the strangers—which gave the populated street a peculiar charm to the eye, whereas the "Bum-Bum Candy" sold by Egyptian confectioners, afforded a strange sensation to the ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... "Bum. My fever was high all night," moaned the sufferer. "I heard you fellows come up, and I hoped someone might drop in. I suppose you were ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... blotted out in two hours of stable squalors, but at midday we were anchored off Las Palmas (white houses backed by arid hills), the ill-fated Denton Grange lying stranded on the rocks, coal barges alongside, donkey engines chattering on deck, and a swarm of bum-boats round our sides, filled with tempting heaps of fruit, cigars, and tobacco. Baskets were slung up on deck, and they drove a roaring trade. A little vague news filtered down to the troop-deck; Ladysmith unrelieved, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... Mortimer," says I, "forgettin' what a great man you are so long as Father's payin' the bills, let's figure on just what your standin' is now. You're a bum bond clerk, on the ragged edge of ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... scout me for him at the corner of the orchard, like a bum-baily. So soon as ever thou see'st him, draw; and as thou drawest, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bum for his throttle, and a fresh application to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... second girl, an' de storeroom's never cleaned. Dere's nothin' to clean but a lot of stones an' bum ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... days, surrounded by bum-boats filled with picturesque natives of all colours, chattering like parrots, and almost as gaudy in their plumage. Meanwhile the crew were hard at work replenishing the coal-bunkers, filling up wood and ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... Lawlor, turning to his guest with a deprecating wave of the hand. "A cook what sings! Which in the old days I wouldn't have had a bum like that around my place, but there ain't no ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... cried, "and a bum waiter comes along and beats him up just when he is trying to have a little innocent sport on Christmas Eve. You take off your apron, young man, and get your time. I won't have no rough stuff ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... playing a tune in McGuffy's saloon, and it's cheery and bright in there (God! but I'm weak—since the bitter dawn, and never a bite of food); I'll just go over and slip inside—I mustn't give way to despair— Perhaps I can bum a little booze if the ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... noon and I was in the barracks reading about the world serious game in Chi yesterday and Florrie says she asked 1 of the boys where I was at and he told her I was polishing the general's shoes and wouldn't he do just as well. How is that for a fresh bum Al and of course I don't have to polish the general's shoes or any shoes and if I could find out who it was that Florrie was talking to I would polish their jaw ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... consumed a bottle with much assumption of inebriety. After dissembling complete disintegration and coma, Mr. Glotch raised his head from the ground and mourned, "Oh, boy! The guy that named this juice sure was a bum judge of distance." "You said it," echoed Mr. Trumpeter, and they were rewarded by a series of titters from the ladies which encouraged them ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... were launched on the waters of Red River, with Dan Davidson in the stern of one and Fergus McKay acting as his bowman. Okematan took the stern of the other, while Archie Sinclair wielded the bow-paddle, and Little Bill was placed in the middle on a comfortable green blanket with the celebrated "bum-rella" erected over him to keep off, not the rain, but, the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... onion, that tears it," Stevens declared as he unplugged. "No use going any further on these bum reference points. I'm going to report to Newton—he'll rock the Observatory on its foundations!" He plugged into the telegraph room. "Have you got a free high-power wave?... Please put me on ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... changed over into the Steenhundred and Umpty-umpth, wasn't it? The last that was heard from them they were at Blankville-sur-Bum. Now they've moved to Bingville-le-somethingorother. Clerk! Shove this in ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... be in bondage to any. And this was something of the reason, that they were so generally by all the Jews counted so vile and base, and reckoned among the worst of men, even as our informers and bum-bailiffs are ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... grand to ha plenty o' brass! To be able to set daan yor fooit Withaat ivver thinkin—bi'th' mass! 'At yo're wearin' soa much off yor booit. To be able to walk along th' street, An stand at shop windows to stare, An net ha to beat a retreat If yo scent a "bum bailey" i'th' air. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... of yore haid 'stead of brains. Yore disposition concernin' wimmen is gen'ally soured. You 'mind me of the man from New Jersey who come out west to buy a ranch. A hawss throwed him five times hand-runnin'. He ropes a steer that happens to run into the bum loop he was swingin' an' it snakes him out'n the saddle. A pesky cow chases him when he was afoot, a couple calves gits a rope twisted round his stummick an' lastly a mule kicks him into a bunch of cactus. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... kid," said Hetty, poising her knife, "is it as bad art as that? I ain't a critic; but I thought it kind of brightened up the room. Of course, a manicure-painter could tell it was a bum picture in a minute. I'll take it down if you say so. I wish to the holy Saint Potluck we had ...
— Options • O. Henry
... she was too far from home to dare. He presently put his head conveniently in between Sawdy and Lefever and offered some news of his own: "There's been a big electric storm in the up country, Sawdy; the telephones are on the bum." ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... family I should say nothing, of course; but he is, sir, a mere adventurer. His father is a common boatswain—a warrant officer—not a gentleman even by courtesy, and his mother, for what I know to the contrary, might have been a bum-boat woman, and his relations, if he had any, are probably all of the ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston |
