"Buttonhole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that could be easily remedied," she added, with a touch of archness. Then Mr. Iglesias thought it time to depart. In the hall his host held him, literally by the buttonhole, looking up with squinting blue ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... the reader by the "introduction" buttonhole, I want to make a suggestion or two about using a book like this. Do not, on the one hand, read it through and then put it away with the dictionary and the family Bible, and trust to memory for the instruction it may give; do not, on the other hand, wait until you think it is time ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... never believe that Frenchmen are changed, until I hear that there is no ballet in Paris; you might as well tell me, that the Swiss will abjure the money which makes a part of his distinction, as the Frenchman give up the laced coat, the powdered queue, and the order of St Louis at his buttonhole. Those things are the man, they are his mind, his senses, himself. He is a creation of monarchy—a clever, amusing, ingenious, and brave one; but rely upon my knowledge of human nature—if French nature be any thing of the kind—that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... on the arm of our dear Prince?" asked a little fat man, girt in a white satin waistcoat, and a spray of white lilac in his buttonhole. ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... it, and it really did look pretty from a distance, with its little close-clustered red roofs like a buttonhole bouquet floating on the sea. As the steamer brought us nearer the island something of the glamor faded; but there were about a dozen girls assembled to watch the arrival of the boat, wearing rather nice, winged white ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... present moment, however, Miss Anita Ferguson, clad in a black habit, with a white rose in her buttonhole, and a neat black derby with a scarf of white crepe de chine wound about it, had gone on the mesa for a horseback ride, so Polly and Margery had borrowed the cosy ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... students at the table were interrupted by the approach of a tall, dudish-looking individual, who wore a reddish-brown suit, cut in the most up-to-date fashion, and who sported patent-leather shoes, and a white carnation in his buttonhole. The newcomer took a vacant chair, ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... at him came Birdie Andrews, hat in hand, and when the halfback arrived he bowed and asked him to stop. The runner declined. McMurty was right behind and he also begged the runner to stop. Boggs tried to buttonhole him. Skeeter Wilson, who was as fast as a trolley car, ran along with him for twenty-five yards, pleading with him to listen to reason and consent to be downed. It was no use. The halfback went over the goal line. The Kiowa delegation didn't know whether to go crazy with ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... low collar of enormous circumference encircled his short neck and his tie was drawn through a Zodiac ring. His clothes were ill-fitting—shapeless trousers and a voluminous morning coat, in the buttonhole of which was a pink carnation with a silver papered stem, an immense watch-chain spread across a coarsely knitted waistcoat of Berlin wool. And he seemed out of breath. The pistol in his extended hand vibrated in sympathy with an accelerated ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... lappels thrown back, displaying a crimson—velvet facing, also richly embroidered, and an embroidered scarlet waistcoat; a large solitary star glittered on his breast, and the grand cross of the Legion of Honour sparkled at his buttonhole; his black neckerchief had been taken off; and his cocked hat lay beside him on a sofa, massively laced, the edges richly ornamented with ostrich down; his head was covered with a red velvet cap, with a thick gold cord twisted two or three turns round it, and ending ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... in my own name, you know," he observed lightly, at last laying down his bow, and replacing the dainty white rose in his left top buttonhole. "Not official for a bank EMPLOYE to operate on the Stock Exchange. The chiefs object to it. So I do my little ventures in Tom's name instead, my brother-in-law, Tom Whitley's. Those Cedulas went up another eighth yesterday. Well hit again: I'm always lucky. And that was a good thing I put ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... machine, without the buttonhole parts, $60. This last is beyond all question the simplest, easiest to manage and to keep in order, of any machine in the market. Machines warranted, and full instruction given ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... up, and there stood in the doorway a rubicund-nosed gentleman, in a green coat and huge wonderfully gay coloured cravat, leather breeches, and top-boots, with a hunting-whip under his arm, a peony in his buttonhole, and a white hat which he flourished in his right hand, while he kept scraping with his feet, making his ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... Mick was full of the spirit of adventure, and looked forward to that spring Wednesday when he should leave for Queenstown, his mother made up for his heartless joy by her lugubriousness. As the time drew near she would buttonhole all and sundry whom she could catch to pour out her sorrows. The trailing gown and ragged lace shawl became a danger signal which we would all flee from, an it were not sprung upon us too suddenly. We had a shrewd suspicion that the tears Mrs. Sheehy ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... de St. Louis selling pates.—It is impossible, La Fleur, said I.—La Fleur could no more account for the phenomenon than myself; but persisted in his story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its red riband, he said, tied to his buttonhole—and had looked into the basket and seen the pates which the Chevalier was selling; so could not be mistaken ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... on the bench near the end of the lane. By his side was a basin tied up in a cotton handkerchief; in the buttonhole of his coat there was a sprig of sweet-william. The girls from the big house came and stood still in front of him, staring at him rudely, ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... a sinister voice here added in my ear, "that if he wishes to effect an entrance into the gambling den which his son haunts, he must take the precaution of tying a bit of blue ribbon in his buttonhole. It is a signal meaning business, and must not be forgotten," chuckled the old fellow, evidently deceived at last into thinking I was really one of ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... employed watchers, who picketed the block where Parnell and his wife lived, and telegraphed to Christendom the time the lights were out, and whether Mr. Parnell appeared with a shamrock or a rose in his buttonhole. The facts that Mrs. Parnell wore her hair in curls, and smilingly hummed a tune as she walked to the corner, were construed into proof of brazen guilt and a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... have dared; to-day there was a slight indefinable change in the manner of Mr. Carlisle towards herself, which cast a spell over her. He stood beside Black Maggie, the carnations making a rosy spot in the buttonhole of his white jacket, while he gave some order to the groom—Eleanor did not hear what, for her mind was on something else; then turned to her and took her down, that same indescribable quality of manner and handling saying to all ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... staggered. She looked quickly at old Perce and saw that he was in his best clothes, with a lovely new spotted blue and white tie, and a dahlia in his buttonhole. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... narrow stone stairway somewhere at the back of New Scotland Yard, and so came to the inspector's room. Bray was waiting for us, smiling and confident. I remember—silly as the detail is—that he wore in his buttonhole a white rose. His manner of greeting me was more genial than usual. He began by informing me that the police had apprehended the man who, they believed, was guilty ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... Sabbath clothes, with a rose from the Dovecot hot-house for buttonhole (which he slipped into his pocket when he saw other boys approaching), delivered them at the doors of the aristocracy, where, by the way, he had been a few ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... order our horses, Cleveland, round to the Piccadilly gate, and walk through the Guards. I must stretch my legs. That bore, Horace Buttonhole, captured me in Pall Mall East, and has kept me in the same position for upwards of half an hour. I shall make a note to blackball him at the Athenaeum. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... tony. They didn't flash any jewelry, but her shoes and gloves were made to order and her coat had a Paris mark inside. The brother and sister must be way up, too; he was dressed quiet but rich, and he had a Bankers' Association pin in his buttonhole. Yes, they wasn't paupers, and that's the only fake sign I've seen about Mrs. Markham. But that's nothin'. Stands to reason the best people go to the best mediums, just like they go to the ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... roses which he had seen and admired earlier in the day. So fresh, and fair, and innocent! Were all young girls so fragrant and flower-like as this? Then he thought of the little prickles which had stung his hand as he had picked a bud from the same bush for his buttonhole, and smiled with latent mischief. After all, the remembrance did not lessen the likeness. Miss Margot looked as if she might—under provocation—display a prickle or two ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... kind of roses you always want so desperately at about Christmas-time when you can only get mistletoe, which is pale right through to its very scent, and holly which pricks your nose if you try to smell it. So now everyone had a rose in its buttonhole, and soon everyone was sitting on the grass in Regent's Park under trees whose leaves would have been clean, clear green in the country, but here were dusty and yellowish, and brown ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... over indeed when I ought to be plucking nosegays of Lysimachia clethroides and Pyrethrum uliginosum to put in my buttonhole! I prefer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... Reggie alone in the room reading his letters. He was dressed in loose white flannel, and in the buttonhole of his thin jacket a big green carnation was stuck. It looked ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... dining-room at half-past six when the two girls went down to breakfast. All the others came trooping down a few minutes afterwards, Reginald got up to the last degree of four-in-handishness which the resources of his wardrobe allowed, and with a flower in his buttonhole. There was a loud cry for eggs and bacon, kippered herrings, marmalade, Yorkshire cakes; but neither Ida nor Bessie ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... asked him how to find anything you wanted quickly, and he pointed the column where events are listed; and when I found the third page there was your face so splendidly reproduced, and you seemed so fine and noble to me I forgot about the dress suit and the badge in your buttonhole, or to wonder when or how or why it could have happened. I just sat there shouting in my soul, 'David! David! Medicine Man! Harvester Man!' again ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... You deserve a more responsible post than that, Comrade Windsor. Where is your proprietor? I must buttonhole him and point out to him what a wealth of talent he is allowing to waste itself. You ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a posy, too; I like you to wear one in your buttonhole as the ladies' grooms do in the Park," said the child, settling a scarlet poppy ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... tooth-picks, cigars, newspapers, songs and flowers. The flower-girls are hideous little creatures, but their wares are beautiful and command a ready sale. These are made into hand bouquets, and buttonhole bouquets, and command from ten cents to several dollars each. When the day is wet and gloomy, and the slush and the mud of Broadway are thick over everything animate and inanimate, and the sensitive soul shrinks within itself ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... breast, and his way of speaking and everything he did indicated his unusual position. But Dolokhov, who in Moscow had worn a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman's padded coat with an Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of the room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denisov and began questioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov told him of the designs the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... a flower in his buttonhole, welcomed Roger uproariously. "Here's Whittington," he said. "You ought to hear his poem, fellows, about a little cat. He had us all ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... but just the two-legged, complicated shape they ought to be! It was like a miracle to Betsy! Then Cousin Ann helped them sew the seams on the machine, and they all turned to for the basting of the facings and the finishing. They each made one buttonhole. It was the first one Betsy had ever made, and when she got through she was as tired as though she had run all the way to school and back. Tired, but very proud; although when Cousin Ann inspected that buttonhole, she covered her face with her handkerchief ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... Mr. Richard Vanderpole took place on a Thursday night. On Monday morning a gentleman of middle age, fashionably but quietly dressed, wearing a flower in his buttonhole, patent boots, and a silk hat which he had carefully deposited upon the floor, was sitting closeted with Miss Penelope Morse. It was obvious that that young lady did not altogether appreciate the honor done to her by a visit from ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to every one's surprise, did turn up, after most of St. Marys had seated themselves in the new oak pews. There was Dibbott, in carefully pressed light gray trousers, white waistcoat and a red flower in his buttonhole; Mrs. Dibbott in spotless linen, for the day was warm. Then the Bowers, the husband with his metropolitan manner acquired on frequent business trips to Philadelphia and converse with city capitalists, his wife in silk and a New York ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... tail-coat, with a huge yellow bandana dangling from a rear pocket; a red cotton umbrella with a brass ring on one end and a glass hook on the other; light blue shapeless trousers; a flaming orange—colored vest; a huge standing collar, and in his buttonhole a ridiculous artificial flower. This type of comic singer is unknown in American concert-halls of any grade, though he is sometimes seen at the German concerts in the Bowery of the lowest class. Here he is very cordially esteemed. The ladies behind him yawn in a furtive manner under cover ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... in, my dear, you know y' way, I guess," sighed Mrs. Bowker, passing a small, worn hand across her faded eyes. "There's five dozen more collar-bands I must stitch an' buttonhole t'night—so go your ways, my dear." So saying, Mrs. Bowker went back to her labour, which was very hard labour indeed, while Hermione led the way into a tiny room, where, on a small, neat truckle-bed covered ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... thin to afford a speck of shade as they sat there in the eye of the westering sun. The man (aged about one-and-twenty) wore the uncomfortable Sunday-best of a mechanic, with a shrivelled, but still enormous, bunch of Sweet-William in his buttonhole. The girl was dressed in a bright green gown and a white bonnet. Both were flushed and perspiring, and I still think they must have ordered hot cocoa in haste, and were repenting it at leisure. They lifted their ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fellows in the world. Indeed, I could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side and had a large bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the buttonhole of his coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care and business, but he is particularly so during this season, having so many commissions to execute in consequence of the great interchange of presents. And here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... manner I thought I saw before me a woman of seventy dressed as a man, thin and emaciated, but still proud of her looks, and with claims to past beauty. His cheeks and lips were painted, his eyebrows blackened, and his teeth were false; he wore a huge wig, which, exhaled amber, and at his buttonhole was an enormous bunch of flowers, which touched his chin. He affected a gracious manner, and he spoke so softly that it was often impossible to hear what he said. He was excessively polite and affable, and his manners were those of the Regency. His whole appearance ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... broader at the end than its extreme length, and her eyes, instead of being horizontal, were set up like two perpendicular eggs, one on the broad, the other on the small end. Her mouth was no bigger than a small buttonhole until she laughed, when it stretched from ear to ear—only, to be sure, her ears were very nearly in ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... particularly interesting. The ceremony, I suppose, is adequate; the institution, I dare say, is useful or it would not have endured. But the human relation thus recognised is a mysterious thing in its origins, character and consequences. Unfortunately you can't buttonhole familiarly a young girl as you would a young fellow. I don't think that even another woman could really do it. She would not be trusted. There is not between women that fund of at least conditional loyalty which men may depend on in their dealings with each other. I believe ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... — " began the other stiffly, but broke down, shook his seal ring at Rex, and walking over to the glass, rearranged the bit of wild hyacinth in his buttonhole ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... to witness, still remains a theory, and Adrian Brownwell traipsed up and down the earth, in his lavender gloves, his long coat and mouse-coloured trousers, his high hat, with his twirling cane, and the everlasting red carnation in his buttonhole. His absence made it necessary for Molly Brownwell to leave the sacred precincts of the home many and many a Saturday afternoon, to go over the books at the Banner office, make out bills, take them out, and collect the money due upon them and pay off the printers who got out ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... for the good sense of the public to distinguish true remedies from false, pure wine from adulterated; or, it is for the good sense of the public to distinguish in a buttonhole the decoration awarded to merit from that prostituted to mediocrity and intrigue. Why, then, do you call yourselves the State, Power, Authority, Police, if the work of Police must be performed by the good sense ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... mind the young lady who grabbed my walking-stick and presented me with a shilling cloakroom ticket, or the other who placed a buttonhole in my coat (two-and-sixpence), or the third who sprayed me with scent (one shilling, but had I known of the threatened attack I would have paid two shillings for immunity), or the fourth, who snatched ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... apartment that morning. His furniture had gone toward certain debts. His clothes, save what were upon him, had descended to his man-servant for back wages. As he sat there was not in the whole city for him a bed or a broiled lobster or a street-car fare or a carnation for buttonhole unless he should obtain them by sponging on his friends or by false pretenses. Therefore he had chosen ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... meals, in their walks; listening to my father's songs, my mother's sweet playing, and always unseen and unheeded by them. Moreover, I soon learned to touch things without sensibly blurring the dream. I would cull a rose, and stick it in my buttonhole, and there it remained—but lo! the very rose I had just culled was still on the rose-bush also! I would pick up a stone and throw it at the wall, where it disappeared without a sound—and the very ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... except the expression of Noble's face and the somewhat ill-chosen pansy in his buttonhole hinted of the remarkable. Yet even here was a thing for which he was not responsible himself; it was altogether the work of Julia. What her work was, in the case of Noble Dill, may be expressed in a word—a word used not only by the whole Atwater family connection, in completely ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... have been going it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of the green tabs will make of it. A hint is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... one that bloomed in his mother's sitting-room way up in the country. He had not thought, for a long time before, of the dear old woman who supposed her son was turning his wits to good account in the city. But Miss Sydney did not know how much he wished for a bit to put in his buttonhole when she indignantly went back to the dining-room to wait until that impertinent ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... come home to care for you, and in the future you have nothing to do but to sit still, with your dear old lame feet on a cushion;' now helping Harold water the flowers in the borders, and pinning a June pink in his buttonhole, while he longed to take her in his arms and kiss her as in the days when they were children together; now, going with him to milk Nannie, who, either remembering Jerrie, or recognizing a friend ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... the "music" of old Kentucky Bourbon; but he could not withstand the power of the melody below. Quickly he donned his clothing; he put his vest on over his coat; put his collar on hind side foremost; buttoned the lower buttonhole of his coat on the top button, stood before the mirror and arranged his hair, and started down to see the ladies and listen to the music. But he stumped his toe at the top of the stairs, and slid down head-foremost, and turned a somersault into the midst of ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... listen, old fellow and I'll tell you all about it. First of all, there was a perfect jam in the town hall. I sat up in front, with a lot of fellows, and had a splendid view. The old Italian came out dressed in his best suit of clothes black broadcloth, flower in his buttonhole, and so on. He made a fine bow, and he said he was 'pleased too see ze fine audience, and he was going to show zem ze fine animals, ze finest animals in ze world.' Then he shook a little whip that he carried in his hand, and he said 'zat zat whip didn't mean zat he was cruel. ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... of individuals scrutinising me in what I deemed a most suspicious manner. Both were Frenchmen evidently; they wore billycock hats and carried stout sticks; and one of them, swarthy and almost brigandish of aspect, had the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole. It was easy to take these individuals for French detectives, and I hastily jumped to the conclusion that they were ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... photograph, as she writes a very good hand. Her husband is also one of the highest chiefs in Fiji, and speaks good English. They proved most hospitable, and presented me with some Fijian fans when I left the next morning, and the Princess gave me a buttonhole of flowers out of her garden. Dick Seddon, the Premier of New Zealand, had once visited them, and I noticed his portrait that he had given them fastened to a post in their hut. I left Navuso by steam launch which called at the large sugar-mills a little lower down, and reached Suva that afternoon, ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... the rear, escorted by Kit. It was a most imposing party, I assure you, for Toby had a red feather-duster in his head, two remarkable flags waved over the carriage, Kit had a blue bow on his neck, which nearly drove him wild, Demi wore a nosegay of dandelions in his buttonhole, and Mrs. Jo carried the queer Japanese umbrella in ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... dear, good clever one, whom I love very much. Do you know what? From this day forth I confer on you the rank of page to me; and don't you forget that pages have to keep close to their ladies. Here is the token of your new dignity,' she added, sticking the rose in the buttonhole of my jacket, 'the token ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... them through the campaign and put an unbiased opinion into a man's house each day for less than he now pays for gas. Just before election you could go into your private office, throw in a large dose of campaign whisky, light a campaign cigar, fasten your buttonhole to the wall by an elastic band, so that there would be a gentle pull on it, and turn the electricity on your mechanical thought supply. It would save time and money, and the result would be the same as it is now. This would only be the beginning, of course, and after a while ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... stand drinks to himself until he is put out. This is, of course, only one way of being a poet. If he perseveres he will ultimately write lyrics for the music halls and make a fortune. He will then wear a fur coat that died of the mange, he will support a carnation in his buttonhole, wear eighteen rings on his right hand and one hundred and twenty-seven on his left. He will also be entitled to wear two breast-pins at once and yellow boots. He will live in England when he is at home, and ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... old gentleman, with a number of orders at his buttonhole, presently entered the room, and sauntered up to the marble table, before which reposed Simon and his clerical friend. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, as he took a place opposite them, and began reading the papers ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was not disappointed of his walk. He appeared dressed in his best, with a large bunch of primroses, bought in the market the day before in his hand, and two or three in his buttonhole. ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... we had sea room and no fear of driving upon rocks. It is blowing a good deal now, as you see by my writing. I have a small ink-bottle of glass, made like an eel-pot (such as tax- gatherers use), tied to my buttonhole, and with this I can scribble away in almost any sea. Dear me! you could not sit still a minute, even now. I was qualmish on Saturday, and for a minute sick, but pretty comfortable on Sunday, though wearied by the constant pitching ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stitch contour: Maidenhair in buttonhole stitch. Star in buttonhole stitch on background ...
— Jacobean Embroidery - Its Forms and Fillings Including Late Tudor • Ada Wentworth Fitzwilliam and A. F. Morris Hands
... an asylum, you see two or three different patients buttonhole a fourth and pour their grievances into a listening ear, you may safely suspect ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... your telegram and here I am," said a gentleman with a grey moustache, who entered my study, dressed in a dark-brown frock-coat and a wide-brimmed hat, with a red ribbon in his buttonhole. "What's the matter?" ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... wildly over his shoulders, as if electrified: he had a quick eye, and wore enviably well-fitting ducks: his neck, besides supporting his head and all its contents, supported an inextricable labyrinth of gold chains; from every buttonhole of his waistcoat the chains they came in, and the chains they came out, like the peripatetic man on the Boulevards who sells them: his gloves, well-fitting, and buttoning at the wrist, were of the whitest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... helas! extinct—had read my 'Remarks on Sicily'—it reminds her of my uncle, but with more of grace—I feared she thought there was less energy—assured no—a softer style of presentation, more of the literary grace, but the same first grasp of circumstance and force of thought—in short, just Buttonhole's opinion. Much encouraged. I have a real esteem for this patrician lady." The acquaintance lasted some time; and when Mr. Cotterill left in the suite of Lord Protocol, and, as he is careful to inform us, in Admiral Yardarm's flagship, one of his chief causes of regret is to leave ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passing fair. She may say how lovely you are while her fingers are still moist with your blood. Tell me, will this be kindness? It may be your fate to be imprisoned in the hair of one whom you know to be heartless or to be thrust into the buttonhole of one who would not dare to look you in the face were you a man. It may even be your lot to be confined in some narrow vessel with only stagnant water to quench the maddening thirst that warns ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... the Cross of the Legion of Honor, founded by Napoleon I., and since always regarded as the highest of such distinctions in France. The cross is not usually worn, but in its place a bit of red ribbon in the buttonhole.] ...
— Bataille De Dames • Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve
... once he heard something move on the far side of the wall: he paused to make sure, and then he whistled, the sounds outside ceased, and in a moment something fell softly behind him. He turned quickly and snatched up a little buttonhole of flowers with a still smaller note tied ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... At the hedge, he added: "I'd like to put a bit of arbutus in your buttonhole, for ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... at him somewhat disapprovingly, but said nothing; and presently the three rose, without vocal suggestion from any of them, and strolled thoughtfully back to the theatre, pausing a moment by the way, while Tinker bought a white carnation for his buttonhole. There was a good deal, he remarked absent-mindedly, in what Mr. Potter had said about lightening ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... traveller shipped with a flower in his buttonhole. His girl gave it to him on the wharf, and told him to keep it till it faded, and then press it. She was a barmaid. She thought he was "going saloon," but he came forward as soon as the wharf was out of sight. He gave the flower to the stewardess, and told us about these things one moonlight ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... cut short by a ring of the bell, immediately answered by Ballard's man, and Jerry entered. He was, I think, attired in one of Jack's "Symphonies," wore a blossom in his buttonhole, swung a stick jauntily, and altogether radiated health and good humor, greeting ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... be an actress than a writer. Wouldn't you like me to leave college and go into a dramatic school? And then I'll send you a box for all my performances, and smile at you across the footlights. Only wear a red rose in your buttonhole, please, so I'll surely smile at the right man. It would be an awfully embarrassing mistake if I picked out ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... I was the following day: how fearful, when the morning broke grey and lowering: how grateful, when the benignant sun shone out later, and promised a brilliant afternoon: how carefully I dressed, and what a price I paid for the flower for my buttonhole! ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... through the buttonhole of her raincoat, she glanced about her curiously. Somehow, behind every clump of shrubs and every branching pine tree she felt black eyes staring at her and yet she was sure she was alone. Again she started ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... want long books and least of all story books in the woods—these are for the library—but rather scraps and extracts and condensations from which thoughts can be plucked like flowers and carried for a while in the buttonhole. So it is that I am fond of all kinds of anthologies. I have one entitled "Traveller's Joy," another, "Songs of Nature," and I have lately found the best one I know called "The Spirit of Man" by Robert Bridges, the ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... that, which makes you feel smaller and smaller until you could crawl into your own watch pocket and live happily there ever after. There'd be slews of room and when you wanted the air of an evening you could climb up in a buttonhole of your vest and be quite cosy and comfortable. But shrink as you may, there is now no hope of escape, for she has reached out and grabbed you firmly by the wrist. She has you fast. You have a feeling that eight or nine thousand people have assembled behind you and are all gazing ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... here," she called out to Karl, "and see what I've found now!" She showed him a clump of pure white heather; "it is tremendously lucky," she said, "and you shall have a bit too." So saying she stuck a piece of white heather in his buttonhole—real white heather, not the faded flowers which children sometimes mistake for it. ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... bad apples in the streets and brings them home and doesn't eat them, and then I am obliged to put them in the balcony because they make the room smell faint. Also he meets countrymen with honeycomb on their heads, and leads them (by the buttonhole when they have one) to this gorgeous establishment and requests the bar to buy honeycomb for his breakfast; then it stands upon the sideboard uncovered and the flies fall into it. He buys owls, too, and castles, and other horrible objects, made in bog-oak (that material which is not appreciated ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... he—the man, has taken possession of him? Thomas says the two sneak off together every chance they get, and sometimes are n't back till eleven or twelve. I wish dadda would put a stop to it. Like as not, 't is for pilfering they are bound." Miss Meredith began anew on the buttonhole, and had she been thrusting her needle into either man or dog, she could not have sewed with a more ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... I cried, with enthusiasm. "You are, Dawson, the perfect detective. As a criminal I should be mightily afraid of you. But, as in my buttonhole I always wear the white flower which proclaims to the world my blameless life, I am thoroughly enjoying this visit and our cosy chat beside the fire. Shall I telephone to my office and say that I shall be unavoidably detained from duty for an indefinite time? 'Detained' would be the strict truth ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... it. I know he was the one stuck that cold fried egg in P'fesser Bartet's overcoat pocket at dancin'-school, and ole p'fesser went and blamed it on me. Then, Carlie, he cum up to me, th' other day, and he says, 'Smell my buttonhole bokay.' He had some vi'lets stickin' in his buttonhole, and I went to smell 'em and water squirted on me out of 'em. I guess I've stood about enough, and if he does another thing I don't like, he ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... stranger was a very tall man in dark clothes, who gave an instant impression of long rectangularity. He had a long nose, a long upper lip which hung over a thin slit of a mouth which resembled a buttonhole slightly frayed by wear. His chin was long and square and, like his upper lip, blue, as though a stiff black beard were in constant battle with a razor. His eyes were large and regarded Renwick with a mild ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... it was a warm day. He discovered a military-looking old man in a close-buttoned black coat, with an order at his buttonhole, a neck-cloth twisted an incredible number of times around his throat, a well-brushed hat, and light trousers. The gentleman nodded to a young lady, who went off towards the town, and then continued his walk ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... May Mayer's great-great-grandfather have a bright Paradise! He also must have been a tailor. When it came to giving himself a family name, he could not find a better one than Heifer. He might have called himself Thimble, Lining, Buttonhole, Bigpatch, Longfigure. These are not family names either, it is true, but they are in some way connected with tailoring. But Heifer? What did he like in the name of Heifer? You may ask why not Goat? Are there not people in ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... Confederate boy, lying in the angle of a worm fence. His uniform was worn and ragged, mud-stained as well as blood-stained; the cap which had fallen from his head was a tatter, and the torn shoes were ready to drop from his stiffening feet; but in a buttonhole of his tunic was stuck the inevitable toothbrush, which continued even to the end of the war to be the distinguishing mark of gentle nurture,—the souvenir that the Confederate so often received from fair sympathizers ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... A stout man with a felt hat on his head and a badge in the top buttonhole of his coat was striking the ground with a ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... came to me that his clothes had undergone much the same change as his dwelling. In his golden days in London he had been a good deal of a dandy; he usually wore white waistcoats at night; was particular about the flowers in his buttonhole, his gloves and cane. Now he was decently dressed and that was all; as far below the average as he had been above it. Clearly, he had let go of himself and no longer took pleasure in the vanities: it seemed to me ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... gentlemen. He has a pair of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient as it should seem for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he wore suspended by a riband from his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, the dogs barked, Puss scampered, the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... to take me with her, and for the first time I saw the Count Louis, Madelaine's fiance. He was a very handsome young man, of majestic and distinguished air. He had hair and eyes as black as ink, red lips, and a fine mustache. He wore in his buttonhole the cross of the royal order of St. Louis, and on his shoulders the epaulettes of a major. He had lately come from San Domingo [where he had been fighting the insurgents at the head of his regiment].[23] ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the landlord, who seemed to have been proud of the official visit to his guest. He was profuse in his attentions, and even introduced him to a singularly artistic-looking man of middle age, wearing an order in his buttonhole, whom he ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... run a seam, overcast, roll and whip, hem, tuck, gather, bind, make a French seam, make buttonhole, sew on buttons, hooks and eyes, darn and patch. Submit ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... profession, for he looked a typical desperado. His velvet coat had the air of having been slept in for weeks, and had certainly never been on terms of acquaintanceship with a brush; and, besides the usual Anarchist badge, a red tie, a blood red carnation flamed defiance in his buttonhole. ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... quite a different style is made in applied work on unbleached cotton sheeting. A pattern of yellow fruit or flower with leaves is cut out in coloured serges sewn on with crewels in buttonhole stitch; stems, veins, and buds being also worked in crewels, and the ground slightly darned in dim yellow crewel. It is elaborate, but a very pleasant ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... their pasteboard countenances close to the sculptor's with an unchangeable grin, that gave still more ludicrous effect to the comic alarm and sorrow of their gestures. Just then, a figure came by, in a gray wig and rusty gown, with an inkhorn at his buttonhole and a pen behind his ear; he announced himself as a notary, and offered to make the last will and testament of the assassinated man. This solemn duty, however, was interrupted by a surgeon, who brandished a lancet, three ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
