"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have got to stand together this way or there wouldn't be any political parties in a short time. Civil service would gobble up everything, politicians would be on the bum, the republic would fall and soon there would be the cry of "Vevey ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... other societies exist by the law, I say that we brisk boys of the Fleet live in spite of it; and thrive best when we are in right opposition to sign and seal, writ and warrant, sergeant and tipstaff, catchpoll, and bum-bailey." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... doesn't understand. They don't ever understand, these easy, half-alive, untempted folks! She's never been away from a world of afternoon calls, broughams and shopping! I tell her I'm a beer-bum—yes, that's the word for it in Australia! Not a pretty word—not a pretty thing either! I gave the Mater and Pater a picture of myself once—broken shoes tied on with string, trousers tied on with a bit of rope because I'd sold my braces for threepence—slinking ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... coming—he opened the door as they were scraping their shoes, and said, "Come in—come in—for the love of heaven come in, else you will ruin me entirely." "How so?" cried Opie "Marry, thus," replied the other, "my neighbors over the way will see you, and say, 'Fuseli's done,—for there's a bum bailiff,'" he looked at Opie, "'going to seize his person; and a little Jew broker,'" he looked at Northcote, "'going to take his furniture,—so come in ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... good head, Montana," said his honor. "Open up to that there Declaration. Here, Larsen, put your hand on this and swear you're telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They ain't going to be any bum testimony taken in this court. We ain't going to railroad ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... 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 ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... too, what though you have a Coach lined through with velvet, and four fair Flanders mares, why should the streets be troubled continually with you, till Carmen curse you? can there be ought in this but pride of shew Lady, and pride of bum-beating, till the learned lawyers with their fat bags, are thrust against the bulks till all their causes crack? why should this Lady, and t'other Lady, and the third sweet Lady, and Madam at Mile-end, be daily visited, and ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... drum? Bum! Bum! Those are the only two tones. Always bum! Bum! Hark to the plaintive song of the old woman, to the call of the priests! The Hindoo woman in her long robe stands upon the funeral pile; the flames rise around her and her dead husband, but the ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... "Why, that no good bum!" the old man shouted at me. "That no-good from nowhere! I'll fix him! Thinks he's something, does he? I'll show him! Anything he can do ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... give me the money and let me go now, and I won't ever come back!" cried Montgomery eagerly. "I been lookin' for the chance to get clear of this bum town! I'll stay away, don't you lose no sleep about that; I ain't got nothin' to ever ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... BUM-BOAT. A boat employed to carry provisions, vegetables, and small merchandise for sale to ships, either in port or lying at a distance from the shore; thus serving to communicate with the adjacent town. The name is corrupted ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... and made a desperate effort to master her fears; but the scene below grew more and more terrible. The wild shout of approbation which followed the proposal to bum the mill was caught up by one after another, till at last the whole band was filled with that one idea. A dozen men rushed inside, and began to hammer, and tear, and pull at the flooring and other parts of the wood-work, while others busied themselves with preparing splints with which ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... I'm Sam Clark, dealer in hardware, sporting goods, cream separators, and almost any kind of heavy junk you can think of. You can call me Sam—anyway, I'm going to call you Carrie, seein' 's you've been and gone and married this poor fish of a bum medic that we keep round here." Carol smiled lavishly, and wished that she called people by their given names more easily. "The fat cranky lady back there beside you, who is pretending that she can't hear me giving ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... said the hook-nosed man. "Pleased to have you come, fellow-bum. My name's Crook McKusick. I'm kind of camp boss. The boys call me 'Crook' because I'm so honest. You can ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... to obtain their rents was at once removed by Lord Roberts. In order to give effect to this decision it was necessary to appoint officials. Practically what was really required was a sort of glorified bum-bailiff, with the necessary assistance, the bum-bailiff holding a position similar to that of a magistrate. I was asked to suggest the name of a senior officer of the Australians who would be suitable. I did so. But the point arose by what name was the appointment ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... 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
... hole was dug, just four shaku (feet) in depth. The Osho[u] began the recitation of the sutra. The priests stood by in vigilant attention. As the last word reverberated on the bishop's lips they seized the sutra wrapped bamboo, slipped it in the long box—bum! the lock snapped. The congregation was tremendously impressed. For a decent time Shu[u]den remained in prayer and meditation. "The charm is complete. O'Iwa no longer wanders, to her own penance and the disaster of men. Henceforth he who says she does so lies. Hearken to the words ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... tonic and cosmetic, We may take our beauty sleep; We may rub and punch and powder But the claws go deep and deep; And before we understand it All our beauty's on the bum For the years are turning yellow ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... or Poor Robin's Character of an unconscionable Pawnbroker, and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man; with a friendly Description of a Bum-bailey, and his merciless setting cur, or follower. With Allowance. London, Printed for L. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... it's come, kids, come! "With a bim! bam! bum! Here's little Billy bangin' on his big bass drum! He's a-marchin' round the room, With his feather-duster plume A-noddin' an' a-bobbin' with ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... broke the hostile silence. "He ought to be here. I've sent for him. Sit down and wait, though f rom the looks of you, you haven't got a chance. I can't throw the public down with a bum fight. Ringside seats are selling at fifteen dollars, you ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... would appear that the purpose must be to deprive the student of any occasion for becoming pessimistic. Certainly nobody will ever have his convictions upset by looking at ancient cloths daubed over with linseed oil, nor by the bum-ta-ra of music. But, to my mind, in a country like Spain, it is better that our young men should be dissatisfied than that they should go to the laboratory every day in immaculate blouses, chatter like proper young gentlemen about El Greco, Cezanne ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... /vt./ To make highly efficient, either in time or space, often at the expense of clarity. "I managed to bum three more instructions out of that code." "I spent half the night bumming the interrupt code." In 1996, this term and the practice it describes are semi-obsolete. In {elder days}, John McCarthy (inventor of {LISP}) ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... all means," said Waymark, smiling, as he lit his cigar. The result was that, in a quarter of an hour Sally had related her whole history. As Ida had said, she came from Weymouth, where her father was a fisherman, and owner of bum-boats. Her mother kept a laundry, and the family had all lived together in easy circumstances. She herself had come to London—well, just for a change. And what was she doing? Oh, getting her living as best she could. In the day-time she worked ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... the Runt. "Metzer was fixin' ter snitch on him ter-night. Dey've got de goods on Stace, too. He made a bum job of it." ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... bum is the greatest thing about you, so that in the beastliest sence, you are Pompey the great; Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey; howsoeuer you colour it in being a Tapster, are you not? come, tell me true, it shall be the better ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Tyrolean harps; he just boldly said he was a sorcerer, and frightened us out of our boots, and we loved it. And then it came in my mind how the master had once flogged that boy, and the surprise we were all in to see the sorcerer catch it and bum like anybody else. Thinks I to myself, "I must find some way of fixing it so for Master Case." And the next ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... know what one is about, not know one's own interest, not know on which side one's bread is buttered; stand in one's own light, quarrel with one's bread and butter, throw a stone in one's own garden, kill the goose which lays the golden eggs, pay dear for one's whistle, cut one's own throat, bum one's fingers; knock one's head against a stone wall, beat one's head against a stone wall; fall into a trap, catch a Tartar, bring the house about one's ears; have too many eggs in one basket (imprudent) 863, have too many irons ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Danbury's first opportunity 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, ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... alligo, dan, Bobs o' vinegar, gentleman, Kiss, toss, mouse, fat, Bore a needle, bum a fiddle, Jink ma jeerie, jink ma jye, Stand you ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... balls and comedies, which was very far from the saint's doctrine. A preacher of that Order had the rashness and presumption to declaim bitterly against the book in a public sermon, to cut it in pieces, and bum it in the very pulpit. The saint bore this outrage without the least resentment; so perfectly was he dead to self-love. This appears more wonderful to those who know how jealous authors are of their works, as the offspring of their reason and judgment, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... a square deal—more than a square deal; for Sudden, Johnny knew, had paid him generously for repairing the plane while Johnny was sick. Bland had undoubtedly squandered the money in one long debauch, and there was no doubt in Johnny's mind of Bland's reason for missing his train. He was a bum by nature and he would double-cross his own mother, Johnny firmly believed. Yet, there was Johnny's boyish sympathy that never failed sundry stray dogs and cats that came in his way. It impelled him now to ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Even one or two judges in police courts I got acquainted with had that there idea of me. I always explains that I am not one, and am jest travelling around to see things, and working when I feels like it, and ain't no bum. But frequent I am not believed. And two, three different times I gets to the place where I couldn't hardly of told myself from a hobo, if I hadn't ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... room," invited Herbert, leading the way. "It's a pretty bum joint, but it's the best in the house—the best I could find in this wretched hole of a town. I'm mighty glad to see you, old pal, though I may not appear to be. Oh, blazes! but I have got ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... greybeard "full of excellent Glenlivat from the Cross Keys on Wednesday. Above them both the Reverend Erasmus Teends droned and drowsed, as Jess Kissock said with her faculty for expression, "bummelin' awa like a bubbly-Jock or a bum-bee in a bottle." ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... moseyin' down into It'ly on a bum railroad, staying at bummer hotels, and switching off to a rickety old chaise behind a pair of animated frames that showed the S. P. C. A. hadn't got as far as It'ly yet. Think of riding from the Battery to White Plains in a Fifth ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... that's all," said Overland, grinning. "Fifteen a month and found ain't bad for a bum, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... 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
... forget how much we who deal chiefly in new books are at the mercy of the publishers. We have to stock the new stuff, a large proportion of which is always punk. Why it is punk, goodness knows, because most of the bum books ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... pending, a young clerk from a store door, yelled to a passer-by on the opposite side of the street: "Were you at the circus?" The other yelled: "Yes." "How was it?" "Bum, but the concert's good. That Al. G. Field that was here last winter in the opera house, is with them. The concert's the best part of the whole thing. I guess the minstrels are busted, or Field wouldn't be ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... commotions at home; From our present distraction, and from work to come; From the same hand again Smectymnus, or the bum, And from taking Geneva in our way to Rome; From fools and ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... ship!" 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 ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... pulmonary subject I, Tra la la la la, bum bum! It can't last long until I die, Tra la la la ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... lady; But John and Fauconbridge are at my heels; [Sees John. And some odd mate is got into my gown, And walks devoutly like my counterfeit. I cannot stay to question with you now, I have another gown and all things fit, These guests once rid, new mate, I'll bum,[513] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... natter-list did, to load wi' shot as small as dust a'most, an' shoot little birds with. I've seed him miss birds only three feet away with it. An' one day he drew it all of a suddent an' let fly at a big bum-bee that wos passin', yellin' out that it wos the finest wot he had iver seed. He missed the bee, of coorse, 'cause it wos a flyin' shot, he said, but he sent the whole charge right into Martin's back—Martin was my comrade's name. By good luck Martin had ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... where they lived. I'm afraid I wasn't interested. Aren't you glad the fire didn't bum the cupola? I almost wish they could leave the house that lovely weathered brown tone, instead of painting it white with green blinds again. Dad would like it that way, too. I suppose everybody would say it was flying ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... hoss, if John D. Rockefeller shud come With all the riches his paws are on And want to buy you, you bum, I'd laugh in his face an' pat your neck An' say to him loud an' strong: "I wouldn't sell you this derned old wreck For all ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... him. "You big bum, do you think I really care?" He grinned. "Don't feel too guilty, Twin. We've been back to ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... was saying in English. "Bring the big bum inside. I'll carry the girl. Hurry; there'll be a million of ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... about it in the daytime. "Majority rules," they said, "and there's three of us against you. We can't sleep while you have that lamp burning. The light keeps us awake and it also makes the room so hot that the devil couldn't stand it. If you stay up reading to-night we'll give you the bum's rush." ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... "furriner"? Raines had not hinted it as a suspicion. He had spoken it outright as a fact, and he must have thought that her silence confirmed it. He had said that the "furriner" cared nothing for her, and had dared to tell her that she was in love with him. Her cheeks began to bum. She would call him back and tell him that she cared no more for the "furriner " than she did for him. She started from the steps, but paused, straining her eyes through the darkness. It was too late, and, with a helpless little cry, she began pacing the porch. She had scarcely heard what ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... Life-Guards, Washerwomen, Ghosts, Clowns and God-knows-what, 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, painted blue, ...
— 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
... him a queer look from eyes that seemed to bum like red coals, but he said nothing whatever. He took the coffee Sylvia held out to him and drank it as ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... bunch of men coming," Billy said; "if they put the place on the bum you've got to help me bounce ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... landlord confirmed the unwelcome fact with objurgations. "Now must come the po-liss, the coroner, trouble, and expense. And what have I who run my property honest and respectable got to pay for it? Some rags and a bum clock." ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... he said in a low, interested voice. "There's a whiskered bum dodging around your back hall here, and if I'm not very much mistaken, he's ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Mary. Miss Carstair, some calls her. I git money and clo's off her. I'd 'a' had some bum winters, hadn't ben ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... rest of your lives, you have the respect of every one who knows you, and the affection of every one who knows you well; in fact, you have nothing to work for, and every reason to be contented. So I suggest that you learn, in your later years, how to bum. I have no doubt that Mike will come across something very good in Colombia, if he doesn't get the fever, or break his blooming neck. I have never seen so aggressive a group of old men as you fellows are. You will not admit that you are more ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... old 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 Newton, in ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... Sot, you Cherokee!" screams out Mr. William. "Jump out of bed, and I'll drive my sword through your body. Why didn't I do it to-day when I took you for a bailiff—a confounded pettifogging bum-bailiff!" And he went on screeching more oaths and incoherencies, until the landlord, the drawer, the hostler, and all the folks of the kitchen were brought to lead him away. After which Harry Warrington closed his tent round ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Here I was, a recognized Broadway player of legitimate roles, a man who could play any juvenile Shakespearian role without a rehearsal, a member of The Lambs and The Players Clubs. And here I was sitting out on the end of a wharf because I didn't have money enough to hire even a bum rowboat. And the three first launches that had passed by were all owned by Vaudeville players—whom my legitimate friend 'did not know at all.' I thought it all out and then I turned to my ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... "They're Frenchmen. We'll follow them. They have two packs on their backs! Grub! And maybe we can bum them ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... vestibule of one of the many slum 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 of getting rid of his unpleasant company, than from a desire to accord charity, ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... he began apologetically. "I haf for Mis' Slawson a liddle bresent here. I tink she like it. She look so goot-netchered, und I know she iss kind to bum animals. My vife, her Maltee cat vas having some liddle kittens already, a mont' ago. I tink Mis' Slawson, she lige to hef von off dem pussies, ja? Annyhow, I bring her von here, und I esk you vill gif it to her mit my ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... and manner how Gargamelle was brought to bed, and delivered of her child, was thus: and, if you do not believe it, I wish your bum-gut fall out and make an escapade. Her bum-gut, indeed, or fundament escaped her in an afternoon, on the third day of February, with having eaten at dinner too many godebillios. Godebillios are the fat tripes of coiros. Coiros are beeves fattened at the cratch in ox-stalls, or in the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... darkness I am conscious of a big thrill of pride. The overland has stopped twice for me—for me, a poor hobo on the bum. I alone have twice stopped the overland with its many passengers and coaches, its government mail, and its two thousand steam horses straining in the engine. And I weigh only one hundred and sixty pounds, and I haven't a five-cent ...
— The Road • Jack London
... know when you are well off you won't have much to do with Jack Rover or his cousins. They are a bum lot and some day you will be ashamed of every one of them. Jack Rover never treated anybody square, and some day you can take it from me that I intend to pound his handsome face into a jelly. Better listen to my warning, or you will be ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... Umpth' was 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 ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... name is Jack Hoag; he's a little bit of a trapper and a big bit of a bum; stuck me last year. He doesn't come out this way; they say he goes out by the west ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of eleven Characters appeared in 1675; "A Whip for a Jockey, or a Character of an Horse-Courser," in 1677; "Four for a Penny, or Poor Robin's Character of an unconscionable Pawnbroker and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man, with a friendly description of a Bum-bailey, and his merciless setting cur or Follower," appeared in 1678; and in the same year the Duke of Buckingham's "Character of an Ugly Woman." In 1681 appeared the "Character of a Disbanded Courtier," and in 1684 Oldham's "Character of a certain ugly old P——." ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... "Dose bum an' saloon feller got all de bes' claims at Klondike," said Poleon. "I guess it's goin' ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... now were in full play, and his gaze came to rest upon Calvin Gray; his eyes began to blaze. "You—you big bum!" he cried. "I might have known ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... understand? Now a hobo is a different breed of cat than you think. Oh, people are getting educated to the idea that a hobo will work and move on, whereas a tramp will mooch and move on, and a bum will mooch and hang around, but you still find folks who are ignorant enough to ...
— See? • Edward G. Robles
... he 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 ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab; And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her withered 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 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe, And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.— But room, ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... 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
... red tie" (that was my cosmopolite), said he, "got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come from by the ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... he's crack-brained and cockle-headed about his nipperty-tipperty poetry nonsense—He'll glowr at an auld-warld barkit aik-snag as if it were a queezmaddam in full bearing; and a naked craig, wi' a bum jawing ower't, is unto him as a garden garnisht with flowering knots and choice pot-herbs. Then he wad rather claver wi' a daft quean they ca' Diana Vernon (weel I wet they might ca' her Diana of the Ephesians, for she's little ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hab de keen smell o' de root, An' it hab rich er tender yaller green! De co'n hit kinder twinkle when hit firs' begin ter shoot, While de bum'le-bee hit bum'le ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... hunting ground and all night long I prowled about. I sipped large schooners of beer at bars, listening to the burly dockers crowded close around me. I watched the waterfront, empty and still, with acres of spectral wagons and trucks and here and there a lantern. I had a long talk with a broken old bum who lay on his back in an empty truck looking up at the stars and spun me yarns of his life as a cook on ships all up and down the world. Now and again in the small wee hours I met hurrying groups of men, women and ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... boys were interrupted by the authoritative voice—"I told you to move on, didn't I—now if I tell you again I'll run you in. D'yer hear? What you boys let that old bum hang around you for anyway. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... not to come, with a hey, with a hey, Now safe is David's bum, with a ho; Then hey for Oxford ho, Strong government, raree show, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... for the pain his hurt caused him. They talked the matter over, and he, knowing that something must be done for the support of the family, gave, though unwillingly, his consent. Thus it happened that my mother again took to bum-boating. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... all the bullies, blackguards, bankrupts, blacklegs, bum-bailiffs, and even the gipsies in the neighbourhood," &c. {157} This and much more of a scurrilous character appeared in large type with the printer's name in ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... a minute, Wilbur," interrupted Charlie firmly. "You might just as well hop on a train and go back to Chicago. If you're expecting me to help you unload a lot of bum oil stock on Miss Alix Crown you're barking up the wrong tree,—I don't give a cuss if you are my own sister's son. Miss ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... morning I was awakened by a scratching noise on the iron quilt which covers my repose. A cold perspiration broke out on my forehead. I buried my head in the hardwood pillows and waited the end. Just then M. Stepupski, the Minister of the Department of Bum Shells, walked in through the ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... sure of something first pop, if old Grif is in town. You remember, I once told you all about him—M. F. Griffith, my old engineer—man who boosted me from a bum to a transitman. Whitest man that ever was! Last I heard, he'd located here in Chicago as a consulting engineer. He'll give me work, or find it for me; and Mollie—that's Mrs. Grif—she'll board me, if she has to set up a bed in her parlor ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... 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
... into the maelstrom of contradictory historical data, some of which credits Wiglaf with being the greatest ruler Mercia ever had and some of which indicates that he was nothing but a royal bum. It is not the purpose of this biography to try to settle the dispute. All we know for a fact is that he was a very human man who had faults like the rest of us and that shortly after becoming king ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... call me gude faller, Ay s'pose she tenk dat vill help some; And all of dem call me gude faller, And helping to put me on bum. Val, back to the pines, Maester Olaf, And driving yure old team of mules. Put dis in yure pipe, tu, and smoke it: Gude fallers ...
— The Norsk Nightingale - Being the Lyrics of a "Lumberyack" • William F. Kirk
... I ran away with the circus," he soliloquized in the midst of the throng milling up the Elevated station stairs. "And later, when I had come back from the circus, I took that long bum on brake-beams. And when I had come back from that, a little later I went off in the forecastle of the 'Tropic Bird' to Tahiti. And each time that flapping business came first. Every time I've done something wild and foolish, I've flapped first like this. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... Yes, I got it now," answered the proprietor, with some animation, as if suddenly interested. "He come in the week we opened—worst-lookin' bum you ever see—toes out of his shoes, coat all torn. Said he had no money and asked for something to eat. Billy here was goin' to fire him out when one of my customers said he knew him. I don't let no man go hungry if I can help ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the exception of a busted drive-shaft, a cracked crank-case, a loose steering-wheel, a bum battery, a dilapidated differential and faulty ignition, it is just as good as new. Outside of buying four sets of tires, three new springs, a new top, two rear axles, a couple of batteries, having the valves ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... "Messenger, send Mr Portfire here." The gunpowder functionary, he of the flannel cartridge, appeared. "Gunner, send one of your mates into the maintop, and let him bum a ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... in 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
... It's the woman's suit-case, and if we can't find out who she is from that, we're pretty bum, eh?" ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... enter to call on my friend, Mr. Elsworth, to sip an afternoon glass with him, when a big-booted fellow cried out, halt. Now, sir, the idea of asking a man well in both legs to halt, is preposterous. So I said, and walked on as straight as I could, when bang, bum, whiz, came one, two, three bullets scattering after ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... the archbishop of Canturburie. And where belike the said archbishop of Canturburie was loth to remooue, he set his buttocks iust in his lap, but he scarslie touched the archbishops skirt with his bum, when the bishops and other chapleins with their seruants stept to him, pulled him away, and threw him to the ground, and beginning to lay on him with bats and fists, the archbishop of Canturburie yeelding good for euill, sought ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... themselves a free people, and could never abide to 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 with us ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... They're going to approach the Freshies under strict rules. No parties. No dinners at the houses. No abductions. No big, tall talk about pledging to-night or staggering through a twilight life to a frowzy-headed and unimportant old age in some bum bunch. All done away with. Everything nice and orderly. Freshman arrives. You take his name and address. Call on him, attended by referees. Maintain a general temperature of not more than sixty-five when you meet him on the campus. Buy him one ten-cent cigar ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... out that night to stand his shift, he found Weary at his side instead of Cal. Weary explained that Cal was feeling pretty bum on account of that fall he had got, and, as Weary couldn't sleep, anyway, he had offered to stand in Cal's ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... Get to hell out of here. You'll be hung yet, you loafer. A good-for-nothing bum, that's what. Get out ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... I camped for the night under a big, bare-faced cliff that was about as homelike and inviting as a charitable institution, and made a bluff at sleeping and cussed my bum luck in a way that wasn't any bluff. At sun-up I rose and mooched on." His cigarette needed another match and he ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... cool," said Ide, "if you've told it to me straight. I should think a man put on the bum from a good job just in one day would be tearing ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... was ill in a dangerous Case, She lay in, and was just as some other Folks was: By the Lord, cries She then, if my Husband e'er come, Once again with his Will for to tickle my Bum, I'll storm, and I'll swear, and I'll run staring wild; And yet the next Night, the Man got her with Child. S. M. 1708. ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... and one of the shoulder seams is split; his slippers are run over; and his shirt should have gone to the wash last week. Also his chin is decorated in two places with surgeon's tape and has a thick growth of stubble on it. As I drifts in he's makin' a bum attempt to' roll a cigarette and is gazin' disgusted ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... dou, Napolium? De rumpitty, rumpitty, rumpitty poom! Ven you hear de sound of de droom, Oh denn you know dat de Dootch hafe coom, De treadful roarin Dootch, mit de droom Und de roompitty, pumpitty, poompity pum! De wild ferocious Dootch on a bum, Mit cannon roar und pattle hum, Mit fee und faw on de foe und fum! Led py de awful Breitemum! ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... she's to be envied a heap," said Mrs. Rust. "I 'lows all men has their faults, but Will Henderson ain't no sort of bokay of virtues. He's a drunken bum anyway." ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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 boys are ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... she says to me, smiling so cool and sweet like you wanted to eat her alive. 'All you've got to do is show us the way and carry the bums.' 'Carry the what?' I asks. 'The bums,' she says, an' then she explains that a bum is a thing filled with powder which makes a terrible racket when it goes off. So I took the bums, and the next day one of the Indians sprained a leg, and dropped out. He had the firecrackers, pretty near a hundred pounds, and we whacked up his load among us. I couldn't ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... it became dark, the camp fires were allowed to bum low; and shortly afterwards the whole corps, with the exception of the sentries, were sound asleep. At four o'clock they were roused, and marched silently off in the appointed direction. By five o'clock ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... no, hang him, the rogue has no manners at all, that I must own; no more breeding than a bum-baily, that I grant you:- 'tis pity; the fellow ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... aid the deputy marshal in kidnapping was not an act of levying war, or treason against the United States. "In so doing he is not acting the part of an honest, loyal citizen [who ought to do any wickedness which a bum-bailiff commands]; he may be liable to be punished for a misdemeanor for his refusal ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... bum, bum, diddle dum," and pranced around on a pair of short, fat legs in red stockings. Two fat little arms beat the drumsticks on the top of his head, or what appeared to be the top of his head, which was in reality a funny face, which winked and blinked as the drumsticks ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... and camels were 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 ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... 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. Whereupon ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... As the man climbed in Babbitt condescended, "Going clear down-town? Whenever I see a fellow waiting for a trolley, I always make it a practice to give him a lift—unless, of course, he looks like a bum." ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... around me. Says Corder, struggling with his pack, "Bann, will you help me into my corset." Pickle says to Reardon (out of David's hearing) "Ten cents for a bum piece of pie that you have to eat with your hands! That gets my goat." And just now has come a hoot from every part of the camp when from I company, in line to start and loading guns for a skirmish, sounded the pop of an accidental discharge. But the men ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... turned back to the lawyer. "I've a little personal business you might attend to," he said. Wilding set himself to listen, resignedly, imagining that this bum would ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... pursuit, Burley Balfour, pistol 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 from MINISTERING CHILDREN or ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... circus man, nor a Westerner, neither." The boss still stared. "And you don't look like a bum. ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... 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 ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... fifty in the audience. She couldn't act. I mean she couldn't draw. The whole company was on the bum and stone-broke. They'd scraped out of Australia and the Sandwich Islands, but it looked as if they'd stay in Calcutta, doing good works, such as mending roads for the public, to the ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... say, the poetry was strictly on the bum, but what it lacked in quality it made up in quantity and he could spiel it off by the yard. Whenever he got stuck for a rhyme he would blow the whistle which he used to call the crowd in front of the freak he was lecturing about and move to the next platform. That didn't happen often, but whenever ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... job even und preddy soon I am almost a bum. I hang around saloons und drink beer und do noding but spend a little money I pick up now un den by doing liddle jobs. Ah, now I have it. It vas de liddle spring. See? Zo. Most of dese vatches iss no good vatsoever. Dey make vatches diff'rend now as dey used to. Chust vun minute or two more ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... sized you up all wrong. You don't act like a bum at all; I guess you and me might rent a farm round here somewhere and make some money out of it next year. You're the first hobo I ever saw who could do a ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... about, and had to put into Loando. Understand, this was the first time we went into Loando. I have learned that wretched hole well enough since. And it was as we were running out of Loando, that, in reversing the engine too suddenly, lest we should smash up an old Portuguese woman's bum-boat, that the slides or supports of the piston-rod just shot out of the grooves they run in on the top, came cleverly down on the outside of the carriage, gave that odious g-r-r-r, which I can hear now, and then, dump,—down came the whole weight of the walking-beam, bent ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... Why, if old Gogie had to keep track of seventy-'leven accounts and watch every single last movement of a fool girl that can't even run the adding-machine, why, he'd get green around the gills. He'd never do anything but make mistakes! Well, I guess the old codger must have had a bum breakfast this morning. Wanted some exercise to digest it. Me, I was the exercise—I was the goat. He calls me in, and he calls me down, and me—well, just lemme tell you, Wrenn, I calls ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... Bum: "I wanna know kin I borry a red lantern off'n you? I find I gotta sleep in the street to-night an' I'll harfta warn the traffic ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... that the widow Clark, who was a sensible enough woman in the matter of roomers and household management and knew a bum from a modest paying laboring man as well as any one in the profession, was perplexed in the present situation as to the course of true wisdom? Incredible as it may seem, it was Adelle who during this time of doubt ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... race may drudge an' drive, Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an' strive; Let me fair Nature's face descrive, And I, wi' pleasure, Shall let the busy, grumbling hive Bum owre their treasure. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... then," roared the victim through a cloud of spray; "only don't lay it to me if anything happens. Penn, you go below right off an' git your coffee. You ought to hev more sense than to bum ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... was out o' sight, And darker gloamin' brought the night; [twilight] The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone, [cockchafer] The kye stood rowtin' i' the loan; [cattle, lowing, lane] When up they gat and shook their lugs, [ears] Rejoiced they werena men but dogs; And each took aff his several way, Resolved to meet ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... mun! 'twould ha' look'd busy like, in me, to say a word; so I took up a warming pan, and I bang'd bum bailey, wi' the broad end on't, 'till he fell o' the floor as fat ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... Now, where's them people? (Looks about suspiciously.) Haven't skipped, I hope! (Goes to room Right.) Anybody in here? Humph! Looks like they're hard up! A bum lot! (Belle appears Left with shawl over shoulders and a loaf of bread in her hand.) Oh! Here you are! I ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... The bum's eyes cleared long enough for him to peer into Dewforth's eyes in order to see if his madness was worth sharing, then they filmed over again as he ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... suppose, of the reputation of the Chief-Justice. For Sir Elijah Impey, though a very good man to write a letter, or take an affidavit in a corner, or run on a message, to do the business of an under-sheriff, tipstaff, or bum-bailiff, was not fit to give an opinion on ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... ever'thing. I puts my foot in my hand and went out and seen the world. I tramps up to New York, works my way over to England, tramps and peddles, and gits enough dough to pay my way back. Say, it's bum slow over there. Why, they ain't even on to street-cars in London! I makes more in a week at home than I do in a month in England. Say, where you ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... The rule for elevator boys is still somewhat in the air, because so few of these bum hotels over here have elevators, but you can sort of reason the thing out if you put your mind on it. When you get on a street car in Germany, what tip ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken |
