"Cuff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Harding would experience were he suddenly flung into Bohemian society. He might find great talents there—but even genius would not compensate him for disorder and licence. The dinner might be excellent, but he would find no pleasure in it if the host wore a painting jacket; a spot of ink on the shirt cuff would extinguish his appetite, and a parlourmaid distress him, three footmen induce ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... the supervisor pushed the operator to one side, and barely restrained the impulse to cuff him on the side of the head. "Now what did you do? Why did you meddle with it when it was coming in so clear ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... portfolio of large lithographs and engravings in mezzotint and line, to accompany the work. It was most fortunate for Ruskin that his drawings could be interpreted by such men as Armytage and Cousen, Cuff and Le Keux, Boys and Lupton, and not without advantage to them that their masterpieces should be preserved in his works, and praised as they deserved in his prefaces. But these plates for "Stones of Venice" were in advance of the times. The publisher thought ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... feelings toward their slaves, regarding with increased disgust and aversion those who can habitually tease and worry such loveliness and generosity[23]. After the visitor had been in contact with the slave-holding spirit long enough to have imbibed it, (no very tedious process,) a cuff, or even a kick administered to a slave, would not be likely to give him such a shock that his memory would long retain the traces of it. But lest we do these visitors injustice, we will suppose that they ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... did his Petition grant, And said he lik'd him dearly, Which gave to Donald more content, Than Twenty Shillings yearly: This wily Leard Rode in the Guard, And lov'd a strong Beer Barrel; Yet stout enough, To Fight and Cuff, But was ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... about an old she-bear that had two cubs. Haught happened to ride within sight of her when evidently she thought it time to put her cubs in a safe place. So she tried to get them to climb a spruce tree, and finally had to cuff and spank them to make them go up. In connection with this story he told us he had often seen she-bears spank their cubs. More thrilling was his fourth story about a huge grizzly, a sheep and cattle killer that passed through the country, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... view with toleration, Such a folly I forgive and I forget. Him who rocks the little boat, or him who rides the cyclemotor I dislike a little more than just enough; But you might as well be knowing that the guy who gets me going Is the man who wears his kerchief in his cuff. ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... thyself to equity and fair dealing and leave frowardness and tyranny; and thou shalt fare all the better for it." But the wolf would not accept his counsel and answered him roughly, saying, "What right hast thou to speak of matters of weight and importance?" And he dealt the fox a cuff that laid him senseless; but, when he revived, he smiled in the wolf's face and, excusing himself for his unseemly ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... harbour every vessel, down to the smallest sailing-boat, was bedecked with bunting from bowsprit-end to taffrail. The bells rang on like mad. The bells. . . . He dropped the hand which had been shading his eyes, let dip his frayed cuff in the water of the fountain and, removing his hat, dabbed his bald head. This—had he known it—worsened the smears of dust. But he was not ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... delights to play with poor female hearts. A scuffle ensues; a clatter is heard among the knives and forks of the dessert; a glass tumbles over and breaks. An "Oh!" escapes from the innocent lips of Maria, The disturbance has been caused by the broad cuff of Mr. Warrington's coat, which has been stretched across the table to seize Lady Maria's hand, and has upset the wine-glass in so doing. Surely nothing could be more natural, or indeed necessary, than that Harry, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from behind the counter a beautiful brochure illustrated with photographs of Phoebus Apollo in what were described as "American Beauty Garments—neat, natty, nobby, new." The center pages faithfully catalogued the ties, shirts, cuff-links, spats, boots, hats, to wear with evening clothes, morning clothes, riding ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... to cuff you," said the exasperated Mr. Hildreth who had never been known to raise his hand against anyone. (Warren had once remarked that when he raised his voice he needed no further reinforcements.) "It's a pity when we have the first tomatoes and more than we can use, not ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... strange parting message, not reassuring and quite enigmatical. I took my Mauser and also hid in the cuff of my coat my cyanide of potassium. The Baron was quartered in the yurta of the military doctor. When I entered the court, Captain Veseloffsky came up to me. He had a Cossack sword and a revolver without its ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... the child. A boy or girl of twelve or fifteen has no fear of a beating from father, or mother, or governess, or school-teacher. School-masters are no longer allowed to whip their pupils, or even to cuff them. ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... on me," said the officer, and he commenced without further inquiry to cuff his prisoner over the head in a very rough manner, when suddenly the dude wrested himself clear and let the officer have one on the ear, and then the crowd laughed and jeered as the cop went reeling. Another officer arrived on the ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey
... had come from nobody knew, but there he was, as big as life. When Old Man Coyote ran into him, he growled a deep, provoked growl and whirled around with one big paw raised to cuff whoever had so nearly upset him. Old Man Coyote, more frightened than ever, yelped and ran harder than before, so that by the time Buster Bear saw who it was who had run into him, he was safely out of ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... assistance from a passer-by who had seen the catastrophe, puffing and panting, but still retaining the hold he had taken of Theodore's collar, he hauled the boy to his feet, and, regardless of the punishment he had already inflicted, gave him a hard cuff ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... come on an' he met Delia. Delia was eighteen an' just back from visitin' in the City, with her veil a new way, an' I never see prettier. She was goin' to take charge o' the odd waists table, an' Abel was runnin' 'round helpin'—Abel wa'n't the white-cuff kind, like some, but he always pitched in an' stirred up whatever was a-stewin'. He come bringin' in an armful o' old shoes somebody'd fetched down, an' just as she was beginnin' on the odd waists, sortin' 'em over, he met Delia. I remember she looks up at him from ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... lodged half-a-dozen instruments of ignition and combustion in Sam Winnington's hair, singeing it and scorching his ears. Had Sam not been the best-natured and most politic fellow in the world, he would have dragged the aggressor by the collar or the cuff over the smoking crackling wood, and made the ladies shriek ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... her father came in from his work and, removing his cuffs, laid them on the table. The little girl crept to the table, and raised herself to a standing position, holding on to the table. She then took a cuff in one hand, and inserted the other hand into it, thus, for the first time, standing unsupported. She put on the other cuff in like manner, and then marched across the room, as proud as you please. For a few days she could walk only with cuffs, but ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... matter? I see nothing very strange about a scratch," said Greene, in an unconvincing sort of voice. "It was your cuff links probably. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Meriem came in contact was, almost without exception, either indifferent to her or cruel. There was, for example, the old black hag who looked after her, Mabunu—toothless, filthy and ill tempered. She lost no opportunity to cuff the little girl, or even inflict minor tortures upon her, such as pinching, or, as she had twice done, searing the tender flesh with hot coals. And there was The Sheik, her father. She feared him ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Not only was he anxious to learn it for the sake of passing away the time and making himself understood, but his efforts were greatly stimulated by the fact that if any of the crew addressed him in French a cuff on the head was generally the penalty of a failure to comprehend him. The consequence was that when six weeks after sailing the cry of land was shouted by the lookout in the tops, Ralph was able to understand almost ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... from its immaculate linen cuff lay unnervously on the glass top of his desk, but the fingers now began ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... bath. Something in its manner inspired him with a vague distrust. He noticed that this morning it soaped itself with a peculiar care, that it displayed more than usual interest in the trivial details of dress. It rejected an otherwise irreproachable shirt because of a minute wine stain on the cuff. It sniffed critically at its coat and trousers, and flung them to the other end of the room. It arrayed itself finally in a brand-new suit of grey flannel, altogether inexpressive of his role. He could not but feel that its behaviour compromised the dignity ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... sight to behold the venerable mathematician as he pleaded with me not so utterly to disregard precedent in the use of cotangents; or as he urged, with eyes almost tearful, that ordinates were dangerous things to trifle with. All in vain. More theorems went on to my cuff than into my head. Never did chalk do so much work to so little purpose. And, therefore, it came that Furnace Second was reduced to zero in Professor Surd's estimation. He looked upon me with all the horror which an unalgebraic nature could inspire. I have seen the Professor walk around ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... coming in and out of the drug store, the grocery store, and haberdasher's, or lingering in front of the Post Office, which was on a corner under the I.O.O.F. hall. Young men, in shirt sleeves, with brown, wicker cuff-protectors over their forearms, and pencils behind their ears, bustled in front of the grocery store, anxious and preoccupied. A very old man, a Mexican, in ragged white trousers and bare feet, sat on a horse-block in front of the barber shop, holding a horse by a rope around its ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... neighbourhood where there were garrisons, to make known to the gentlemen that if they would make their way within four days, on the next Sunday, to the town of Carignano, in the costume of men-at-arms, he would give a prize, which was the cuff of his lady, from whence hung a ruby of the value of a hundred ducats, to him who should be victorious in three encounters with the lance, without a barrier, and ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... the crushed catnip—Dane was not sure he liked it. But a moment later Sinbad streaked in from the corridor and committed the unpardonable sin of leaping to the table top just before Mura who had taken the flask from Dane. He miaowed plaintively and clawed at the steward's cuff. Mura stoppered the flask and put the cat ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... man, visibly affected by this unexpected generosity, "n' no, I can't let you do that. I should be glad of a ride that would cost you nothing and the company nothing; but I can't—I can't take your money," and he turned away, touching the cuff of his coat, first to his right and then to his ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... your property," says he, a-wiping his forehead with the cuff of his coat. "Never see ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... coward,—thus! No fear! A cuff on the brow does good: The feel of it hinders a worm inside which bores at the brain for food. See now, there certainly seems excuse: for a moment, I trust, dear friends, The fault was but folly, no fault of mine, or if ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... how ye're negleckit, How huff'd, an' cuff'd, an' disrespeckit! Lord man, our gentry care as little For delvers, ditchers, an' sic cattle; They gang as saucy by poor folk, As I wad by a ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... to the city matron, who having taken her station next to us in the second row, had at last seated herself so that a considerable portion of the back part of her head-dress was in my mother's face: moreover, the citizen's huge arm, with its enormous gauze cuff, leaning on the partition which divided, or ought to have divided, her from us, considerably passed the line of demarcation. Lady de Brantefield, with all the pride of all the De Brantefields since the Norman Conquest concentrated in her countenance, threw an excommunicating, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... present-day coat worn by men was introduced in England by Charles II, having been patterned after a Persian coat brought to his attention. This coat, straight and collarless, was buttoned from neck to knees where it ended. The close sleeves were short, and finished with a deep turned back cuff, below which extended the lace ruffles of the shirt sleeve. In cold weather, a greatcoat of frieze (a shaggy-piled woolen fabric) was worn ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... a patent raillery, a quizzical insolence, which convinced Hillard that the Italian had not given chase out of an idle purpose. While this idea was forming in his mind, the Italian inspected his cuff, brushed his sleeve, and then recalled that he was ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... parquetry, silks, satins, pure linen and pure wool, diversified by a few walking-sticks and a cuff link or so. Faced by a judge-like middle-aged authority in a frock-coat, Mr. Prohack suddenly lost the magisterial demeanour which he had exhibited to a defenceless girl in the car. He comprehended in a flash that suits of clothes were a detail in the existence of an idle man and that neckties and ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... come to the worst. Probably this conclusion brought a ray of hope into the melancholy face of the chief, and the old priest himself left off trembling. They even smiled, and, in their conversation, which assumed a lighter tone, I caught and recorded in pencil on my shirt-cuff, for future explanation, words which sounded like aiskistos aneer, farmakos, catharma, and Thargeelyah. {25} Finally the aged priest hobbled back into his temple, and the chief, beckoning me to follow, passed within the ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... care anything for poetry and can find him a stub of pencil and an unoccupied cuff, he will be most completely in his element; for if there is any one occupation more closely identified with him than another, it is that of poet. And though all Auto-Comrades are not poets, all poets are Auto-Comrades. Every poem ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... the masters from inflicting cruelties upon them. We shall go into no metaphysics to show the absurdity of this pretence. The man who robs you every day, is, forsooth, quite too tender-hearted ever to cuff or kick you! True, he can snatch your money, but he does it gently lest he should hurt you. He can empty your pockets without qualms, but if your stomach is empty, it cuts him to the quick. He can make you work a life time without pay, but loves you too well to let you go hungry. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... in the middle of the lake, and it was pretty late in the evening, he thought he would have something to eat first, before starting to work. Just as he was at his busiest with this, Old Eric rose out of the lake, caught him by the cuff of the neck, whipped him out of the boat, and dragged him down to the bottom. It was a lucky thing that Hans had his walking-stick with him that day, and had just time to catch hold of it when he felt Old Eric's claws in his neck, so when they got down to ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... on deck, selected a small head of cabbage from a broken crate and hurled it forward. Then he sprang back into the pilot house and straightened the Maggie on her course again. He leaned over the binnacle, with the cuff of his watch coat wiping away the moisture on the glass, and studied the instrument carefully. "I don't trust the danged thing," he muttered. "Guess I'll haul her off a coupler points an' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... things. The manufacture of Christian Science jewelry was at one time a thriving business, conducted by the J. C. Derby Company, of Concord. Christian Science emblems and Mrs. Eddy's "favorite flower" were made up into cuff-buttons, rings, brooches, watches, and pendants, varying in price from $325 to $2.50. The sale of the Christian Science teaspoons was especially profitable. The "Mother spoon," an ordinary silver spoon, sold ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... the edge of the crag when one of the eaglets suddenly spread out his wide, stiff wings and pushed them over the precipice. They recovered themselves before they had fallen far, and flew to the ledge again just in time to see the father eagle cuff his naughty son very soundly. But the mother only laughed in ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... and of absently—thinking of other matters—tamping the gold-tipped thing against the cover. This was an item that he had overlooked. He should have done that in the cabaret scene. He also mastered the Parmalee trick of withdrawing the handkerchief from the cuff of the perfectly fitting morning coat. That was something else he should have done in The Blight of Broadway. Little things like that, done right, gave ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... careful inspection of the colonel. That gentleman, daintily picking a fleck of dust from his cuff, looked unconcernedly off into the sky, whistling softly, and Courtney, pushing his hand into the discard, lighted a cigar, while the colonel met Washer's raise and added a tantalizing ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... easily enough," the soldier said with a laugh. "He is an ill favoured looking varlet; and is, I doubt not, a pestilent heretic. It would be a pleasure to cuff him even without ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... all pride and sunny smiles regarding her noon-mark (particularly after hearing it was not to be paid for), fell suddenly into a stormy mood, and once more began to cuff the children right ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... Without giving reasonable time for politeness, Daley seized the bottle, and putting it to his mouth, gauged about half its contents into his homony dept, smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with his cuff, and, passing the balance back, shut and rebolted the door, after saying, "Good luck till yees, an' I wish yees a merry time." The reader may imagine what provision the State or the sheriff had made for the comfort of these poor men, one of whom ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... feet impatiently, stretched his arm, and shot out his striped cuff and walked to and fro ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... man's hands and no escape was within her reach. 'What's the odds?' said Mrs Pipkin as they settled their bonnets in a room at the Inn just before they entered the church. 'Drat it,—you make me that angry I'm half minded to cuff you. Ain't he fond o' you? Ain't he got a house of his own? Ain't he well to do all round? Manners! What's manners? I don't see nothing amiss in his manners. He means what he says, and I call that the best of ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Jarmuthian raised an enormous hand and dealt the captive American a stinging cuff which ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... of impulse which, when it does come, shatters routine and habit to bits, seized the bear. Without premeditation, he dealt the trainer a cuff that knocked him clean over a wagon-pole and broke his arm. Before any of the other attendants could realize what had happened, the bear was beyond the circle of wagons, and half-way across the buckwheat-fields. In ten ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to turn upward as a cuff, is much more effective than a simulated cuff, just as the thing itself is always better than an imitation. A sleeve that stops short at the wrist joint should be relieved by ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... Canute gave Elfgiva—that he won from the giant Rothgar? Heaven forbid that I should press upon her secrets! My ears tingle yet from the cuff I got only for looking at yonder dirty scroll. Yet how long is it since you were taken into their councils, Tata? Yesterday you were no better able than I to say how things were ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... me to the field," I said hotly, "By St. Andrew! I will cuff his ears and send him back ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... showed him a, small pile of five and ten-dollar bills, exactly two hundred and seventy-five dollars in all. Then he found another jewel case, and from it extracted a second diamond stud and a pair of very fine cuff buttons. ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... for when the priest asked Petruchio if Katharine should be his wife, he swore so loud that she should, that, all amazed, the priest let fall his book, and as he stooped to take it up, this mad-brained bridegroom gave him such a cuff, that down fell the priest and his book again. And all the while they were being married he stamped and swore so, that the high-spirited Katharine trembled and shook with fear. After the ceremony was over, while they were yet in the church, he called for wine, and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... assumed a kind of ascendency among the quadrupeds—sitting in state in Scott's armchair, and occasionally stationing himself on a chair beside the door, as if to review his subjects as they passed, giving each dog a cuff beside the ears as he went by. This clapper-clawing was always taken in good part; it appeared to be, in fact, a mere act of sovereignty on the part of grimalkin, to remind the others of their vassalage; which they acknowledged by the most perfect acquiescence. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... are." Yates drew back his coat sleeve, and presented his wrist. The dangling cuff was speedily clamped upon it. The constable mounted the patient horse that stood waiting for him, watching him all the while with intelligent eye. The two prisoners, handcuffed together, took the middle of the road, with a horseman on each side of them, the constable bringing up the rear; ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... like it better than it likes me," the boy replied. "When I get to do the fine work I shall like it, but at present it is 'fetch this tool, Ulf, or file that iron, or blow those bellows,' and if I do but smile I get a cuff." ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... the Port? Nearer now, nearer—Ah! bloodthirsty villain, Is 't you? Too late I closed the blind! Alas! List! there's another trump!—There, two of 'em!— Two? A quintette at least. Mosquito chorus! A—ah! my cheek! And oh! again, my eyelid! I gave myself a stunning cuff on the ear And all in vain. Flap we our handkerchief; Flap, flap! (A smash.) Quick, quick, bring in a lamp! I've switched a flower-vase from the shelf. Ah me! Splash on my head, and then upon my feet, The ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... me from them,' said Bude, and he gently stroked the strange muddy pearls in the sleeve-links on his loose shirt-cuff. 'Angels and ministers of grace defend us,' he exclaimed, crossing himself (he was of the old faith), and he ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... that again, I'll cuff you," he said quietly; and still protested, with many compliments, that he ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... hair on his head—high living ungrew it; and we can prove it—the other a young man whose worth and sophistication he impressed upon you in two convincing ways—he swore that all the wine was corked; and he wore diamond cuff buttons. This young man perceived irresistible excellencies in Nancy. His taste ran to shop-girls; and here was one that added the voice and manners of his high social world to the franker charms of her own caste. So, on the following day, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... pay a call on Mrs Bosenna. She had as good as engaged him by a promise, and, moreover, there was her cuff to be returned. . . . Well, the visit must be paid this morning. 'Bias would be arriving by the afternoon train; and, apart from that, when you've a daunting job that cannot be escaped, the wise course is to play the ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... friend of your husband's here to-night, who will be so glad to see him again. They haven't met since he was his fag at Rugby." After dinner he was introduced to me—Admiral Glynn—a charming man, said his last recollection of W. was making his toast for him and getting a good cuff when the toast fell into the fire and got burnt. The two men talked together for some time in the smoking-room, recalling all sorts of schoolboy exploits. Another school friend was Sir Francis Adams, first secretary ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... was seen scribbling for dear life upon his shirt-cuff, while others, to the common danger, endeavoured to practise the complicated sword-brandishment which is consequent upon the order "Fall ...
— 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
... feminine heart are short upon these discomfitures. In a very few seconds she laid her hand upon the cuff of my coat, in order to finish her reply; so, some way or other, God knows ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... The Curtain rises upon the Second Hact. Hover three years 'ave elapsed since Robert Brierley—(&c.) We are in May Hedwardses lodgings. She is torkin to 'er goldfinch. If you boys don't give over larkin' and stand back, you'll get a cuff on some of your 'eds. "Goldie," she sez, "I've 'ad a letter from 'Im this morning!" And the bird puts his little 'ed a one side, and a'most seems as if he compre'ended 'er meanin'! Mrs. Willoughby is 'eard outside ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... give but a portion of his time and effort to his life's work until he was sixty years of age. I first remember him as a bank examiner. I remember his going away for trips to examine banks, of his packing his valise and putting on a white or "boiled" shirt, the gold cuff buttons, his combing his beard, the wonder and mystery of it all. Then he became a "mugwump" and the new party gave his bank-examining to someone else; and, as he expressed it, "I had to stir my stumps," and he took up the ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... Logotheti quietly pulled his cuff over his hand, produced a pencil instead of his fountain pen, and proceeded to divide five hundred thousand by four hundred and eighty-four to three places ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... the strangest of all. The first greeting of one amazon to the other is to slap her face. The visitor always slaps the hostess first, and if the visit is welcome the visitor gets a cuff on each cheek, and if it is not convenient to receive the visitor no ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... come to my help, and carried me clear away. But at school I never heard the end of this, for they would call me "Half-and-half" and "The Great Britain," and sometimes "Union Jack." When there was a battle between the Scotch and English boys, one side would kick my shins and the other cuff my ears, and then they would both stop and laugh as ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bad, when he knows more than all those chaps put together. I'd give anything if I could show him off as I used to. Folks always liked it, and I was ever so proud of him. He's mad now because I had to cuff him, and wont take any notice of me till I make up," said Ben, regretfully eyeing his offended friend, but not daring ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... door slammed behind the last man the widow walked over and gave Bidwell a cuff. "Get off thim boondles. Gaw set on a chair like a man, an' not squat there like a baboon." She pitched his bundles through an open door into a small bedroom. "Ye know where yer bed is, I hope! ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... she usually found him willing enough to accept. It was not as if his visitors had been worth anything!—They were simply musical fellows like himself; and dressed as such—without even so much as a touch of gold on cuff ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... 1 pair Socks (whole). 1 pair do. (not so whole). 17 Collars. 1 Shirt 1 quart Cuff-Buttons. 1 suit discouraged Gauze Underwear. 1 box Speckled Handkerchiefs. 1 box Condition Powders. 1 Toothbrush (prematurely bald). 1 copy Martin F. Tupper's Works. 1 box Prepared Chalk. 1 Pair Tweezers for encouraging Moustache to come out to breakfast. 1 Powder Rag. 1 Gob ecru-colored ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... which the people were waiting. I took my station amongst them, which happened to be next to two bakers' boys, who were in earnest conversation, when I was edified by the following observations. "Do you know why Alphonse left his place?" "Yes," replied the other, "because his master gave him a cuff on the head." "That certainly was a very great indignity;" observed the younger; "to receive a blow is very humiliating." "That is true," replied the other, "but figure to yourself the folly of a lad, for the sake of a paltry thump, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... on the hearthrug of old Daniel Multenius's room? It was not to be believed that the old man had dropped it there—no, affirmed Melky to himself, with conviction, that bit of personal property had been dropped there, out of a loose shirt-cuff by some man who had called on Daniel not long before Andie Lauriston had gone in, and who for some mysterious reason had scragged the old fellow. And now the question was—who ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... various extraordinary appearances in his face, chest, and shoulders, - the more alarming because unaccompanied by any noise whatever. These emotions, however, gradually subsided, and after three or four short relapses he wiped his eyes with the cuff of his coat, and looked about ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... Maud S. had a steel bar down the back of each leg, with a cuff above and a cuff below the knee. Hawkins was quite right— so far as I could see; Maud was anchored until some well-disposed person brought a hack-saw ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... straightened his right leg and relaxed the left one. 'In the last three weeks a pair of pyjamas, my other coat, two borrowed umbrellas, and a set of cuff-links have gone. If things go much better I shall have to live in a tub like Diogenes. But—do the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... to cheer the morose Britt. Some days the usurer-suitor wanted to cuff the optimist; some days he felt that he would go crazy unless Harnden could extend some hope, suggest some way of changing the ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... Dutch fluently; but, as the skipper was drunk half his time, and the mates the other two quarters, I could not get much out of them. The only fellow who really was of use was young Rip Van Winkle. He took a liking to me, as I did to him, from the first, and I often saved him from many a cuff and kick which he was wont to receive from the crew. He was, I confess, a sort of 'dirty Dick' on board, and so he would have continued had I not taught him to clean himself; and now he is as fond of washing as any one, except when the weather is cold, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... any sich good luck," she could hear Will say; "'tis my wife, oh dear!" and he cowered down, expecting the hearty cuff which he received duly, as the White Witch, leaping out of the boat, dared any man to touch it, and thundered to her husband to go ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... do. I first caressed the soft velvet on his cuff, and then. I stroked the hand it surrounded. It was his foresight, his goodness, his silent, strong, effective goodness, that overpowered me by their proved reality. It was the assurance of his sleepless interest which broke on me like a light from heaven; it was his—I will dare to say it—his ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, does not heat relax?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you are not to imagine the water is to be very hot. I would not coddle the child. No, Sir, the hardy method of treating children does no good. I'll take you five children from London, who shall cuff five Highland children. Sir, a man bred in London will carry a burthen, or run, or wrestle, as well as a man brought up in the hardiest manner in the country.' BOSWELL. 'Good living, I suppose, makes the Londoners strong.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I don't know that it does. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... satisfactory compromise was effected by which the host agreed to be undressed and put to bed, provided Quin would later submit to the same treatment. It was not the first time Quin had thus assisted a brother in misfortune, but he had never before had to do with gold buttons and jeweled cuff-links, to say nothing of silk underwear and sky-blue pajamas. Being on the eve of adopting civilian clothes for the first time in two years, he took a lively interest in every detail of his patient's ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... me now, and bend my spirit downward; All Venice free, and every growing merit Succeed to its just right; fools shall be pulled From wisdom's seat; those baleful unclean birds, Those lazy owls, who, perched near fortune's top, Sit only watchful with their heavy wings To cuff down new-fledged virtues, that would rise To nobler heights, and make ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... widow by the death of Domitius, who had employed all her blandishments to allure him to her embraces, while he was a married man; insomuch that Lepida's mother, when in company with several married women, rebuked her for it, and even went so far as to cuff her. Most of all, he courted the empress Livia [654], by whose favour, while she was living, he made a considerable figure, and narrowly missed being enriched by the will which she left at her death; in which she distinguished him from the rest of the (404) legatees, by a legacy of fifty millions ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... With din of tin and copper clatter With bang and whang of pan and platter? O when I find Him fast I'll bind And upside down I'll hold him; And when a-home I gallop late-o I'll give him no more cold potato, But cuff him, box him, bang him, scold him, And drench him with a pail of water, And fill his mouth with wool and mortar, Because he don't do things he oughter, But does the things he ought not to, Then tell me true, Both ram and ewe, Wherever have that Martin got to? For ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... pore white-trash boys at Morison's shanty Town, called me 'Ashcat' onc't; Mr. Wright he cotched him, and licked him with his own hands, suh! An' he was as kind to Marster Sam as if he was a baby. But Marster Sam hit him a lick. No, suh; it weren't right—" Simmons rubbed the cuff of his sleeve over his eyes, and the contents of the tilting decanter dribbled down the front of ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... began smoothing it with loving hands, tenderly tracing its lines with her forefinger. As she was about to fold it and lay it in its accustomed place her hand came in contact with something hard in the cuff of one sleeve between the ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... William; but it was another case of confidence, and he who sits among Gipsies by hedgerows green must not be over-particular. Il faut heurler avec les loups. "Ain't it wrong to steal dese here chickens?" asked a negro who was seized with scruples while helping to rob a hen-roost. "Dat, Cuff, am a great moral question, an' we haint got time to discuss it—so jist hand down ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... its big depot sheds filled with clangor and swarming with emigrants gave him a foretaste of Chicago. Two of his companions proceeded to get drunk and became so offensive that he was forced to cuff them into quiet. This depressed him also—he had no other defense but his hands. His revolvers were put away in his valise where they could not be reached in a hurry. Reynolds had said to him, "Now, Mose, you're going into a country where they settle things with fists, so leave your guns at home. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... my child," advised Emma. "I have no time for speculation. I am starting on a hunt in darkest Deanery for my cuff links. They are tucked away in some remote corner of the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... is anything like his mother's at his age I know we shall get along famously together. I will board and clothe him for two years; he shall attend the best schools in the place, I promise nothing further, only then, when the boy leaves me, he shall have all he deserves, if it should be only a cuff on the ear. In case you should find any difficulty in defraying his expenses, I enclose money sufficient for that purpose. I know not the reason, but I feel a strong desire to see your boy, and find out what he is ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... the remembrance of what Fitzjocelyn had long ago forgotten—a passionate blow given to deter him from a piece of wilful mischief, in which he was persisting for the mere amusement of provoking. It stood out among all other varieties of cuff, stroke, and knock, by the traces it had left, by Mrs. Frost's grief at it, and the forgiveness from the Earl, and it had been the most humiliating distress of James's childhood. It humbled him ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bought a centre piece, Kizzie a collar-and-cuff set, and Alene looked longingly at a pair of dainty moccasins that were now, alas, beyond her means. She thought regretfully of the cut-steel purse ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... fled the calf, And what was that? Did the gosling laugh? 'Tis a merry roar From the old barn-door, And he hears the voice of Jotham crying, "Say, D'rius! how de yeou like flyin'? Slowly, ruefully, where he lay, Darius just turned and looked that way, As he stanched his sorrowful nose with his cuff. "Wall, I like flyin' well enough," He said; "but the' ain't sich a thunder-in' sight O' fun in 't when ye ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... Sacred Mystery, he kept an eye on the behaviour of some little boys who sat demurely on the doorstep of the sanctuary, and, catching one of them at some mischief, interrupted the service to fetch him a cuff on the ear and ejaculate, "Curse thy father, child of Satan!" Among those of the congregation who lay face to the earth, Iskender presently recognised Elias; and close to him, both standing, were Selim and Daud, sons of Musa. No one seemed to ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... all he can;" and the black made a rush at one of his retreating companions whom he saw in the act of throwing away his rough cutlass; and catching him by the shoulder he gave him a heavy cuff on the ear and then forced him to pick up the weapon he had discarded and join a few compatriots who were ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... should not disgrace the flag, come when it will; but to tell you the truth, my dear Emily, I cannot, say I look forward to that elevation, with any degree of satisfaction. Three stars on each shoulder, and three rows of gold lace round the cuff, are no compensation, in my eyes, for grey hairs, thin legs, a broken back, a church-yard cough, and to be laughed at or pitied by all the pretty girls in ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "Marse's coachman called Tom 'Cuff', kaise he bought from old Dr. Culp. He driv two black hosses to de carriage. Marse's saddle hoss was kinder reddish. Gen'ally he do his practice on hossback. He good doctor, and carry his medicine in saddle bags. It was leather and ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... about?" he asked in a very cross tone. The big policeman said something to him in a low voice, and they both stepped out on the veranda. The first thing that the sleepy policeman started to do was to cuff all of us boys. But Mr. Daddles spoke up sharply, threatening to get him into trouble for it, ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... and then with John Rau, and not forgetting the Nieue steward, and then he went down the forward ladder, and I'm blest if he didn't put his arm round the Chink, and burst out sobbing—yes, sir, like a great overwrought girl, sitting on the tool chest, limp as a rag, and wiping his eyes with the cuff of his blue-striped panjammers, the Chinaman, patting him like he might a dog, saying, "Poor captain! Never you mind, captain! She all lite now, captain," while the prisoners broke out in a big gabble of how they were saved, and ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... city incarnate. He loved it, calling it God's country, as he called the smoke Prosperity, breathing the dingy cloud with relish. And when soot fell upon his cuff he chuckled; he could have kissed it. "It's good! It's good!" he said, and smacked his lips in gusto. "Good, clean soot; it's our life-blood, God bless it!" The smoke was one of his great enthusiasms; he laughed ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... up as we changed places that I thought my cuff must have brushed Pluto, but it was just Meadows making a long-odds hop from Earth to Uranus. The operator no longer even flinched before punching the distances and bet on his little computer, and groping in his cash drawer ...
— Fee of the Frontier • Horace Brown Fyfe
... had an enemy," he continued, "you could have her gown ruined in the foyer of the San Carlos; if it were a man he would be caught at his club with an uncomfortable ace in his cuff. At least so I'm assured. I haven't had any reason to look the society up yet." He laughed prodigiously. "Even murders are ascribed to it. Careful, Cesare, or a new valet will cut your throat some fine morning and your widow walk away with ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... a lap dog, licking dirty feet, A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat, Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate, But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... dressed with a childish attempt at display. His shirt-front was decorated with a diamond, and his cuff-buttons were of onyx with diamond settings. His clothes were expensive and perceptibly new, and he often changed his costumes, but with a noticeable disregard for propriety. He was very conscious of his silk hat, and frequently wiped it ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... portals of the haven were the venerable sea-wagons—the coasters known as the "Apple-treers." Their weatherwise skippers, old sea-dogs who could smell weather as bloodhounds sniff trails, had their noses in the air in good season that day, and knew that they must depend on a thinning wind to cuff them into port. One after the other, barnacled anchors splashed from catheads, dragging rusty chains from hawse-holes, and old, patched sails came sprawling down with chuckle of sheaves and lisp of ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... at one for five minutes the roadway became impassable. All the idlers and beggars in that district gathered to watch the strangers, and the Maalem was the only one who could keep them at bay. Salam would merely threaten to cuff an importunate rogue who pestered us, but the Maalem would curse him so fluently and comprehensively, and extend the anathema so far in either direction, from forgotten ancestors to unborn descendants, that no native could stand up for long against ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... and worldly man who had been almost everywhere; in his conversation he threw out lightly the names of distant States and cities. He wore the rings and pins and badges of different fraternal orders to which he belonged. Even his cuff-buttons were engraved with hieroglyphics, and he was more inscribed than an Egyptian obelisk. Once when he sat down to chat, he told us that in the immigrant car ahead there was a family from "across the water" whose destination was ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... Porky cheekily. "What would I want to yell for? I don't want to get arrested any more than I am. I want to go home! tell you, how could I hear anything when I was asleep? I want to go home! What's it to me what you talk about?" He sniffed, and drew his cuff across ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... wing, Sunless to shine and impotent to sting. To estimate in easy verse I'll try The controversial value of a lie. So lend your ears—God knows you have enough!— I mean to teach, and if I can't I'll cuff. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff. The great clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often got a rush of blood to the head—his circulation was not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... your toilet be eminently simple, for you will find the time coming when to button a cuff or arrange a ruff will be a matter of absolute despair. You lie disconsolate in your berth, only desiring to be let alone to die; and then, if you are told, as you always are, that "you mustn't give way," ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... of enlightenment Ercole forgot to cuff the jester for his insolence, and allowed himself once more to be hurried along, across the outer court and up the steps that ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... called coward, Captain John Quin; and this is the way I'll drink his health. Here's your health, Captain John Quin!' And I flung a glass of claret into his face. I don't know how he looked after it, for the next moment I myself was under the table, tripped up by Ulick, who hit me a violent cuff on the head as I went down; and I had hardly leisure to hear the general screaming and skurrying that was taking place above me, being so fully occupied with kicks, and thumps, and curses, with which Ulick ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... arms as you an' I have that have growed up on a hickory helve he'd a known that his was nothing to brag of. I didn't know just how good a man Abe was and I was kind o' scairt for a minute. I never found it so hard work to do nothin' as I did then. Honest my hands kind o' ached. I wanted to go an' cuff that feller's ears an' grab hold o' him an' toss him over the ridge pole. Abe went right ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... send them home in it? No, I might miss them—better stick it out here! What a jolly laugh! What a tipping face—strawberries and cream, hay, and all that! Millicent Villas!' And he wrote it on his cuff. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Mrs. Lyndsay, who was highly amused by watching his movements, he refilled his glass, and tossed it off with the air of a child who is afraid of being detected, while on a foraging expedition into Mamma's cupboard. This matter settled, he wiped his mouth with the cuff of his jacket, and assumed a look of vulgar consequence and superiority, which must have forced a smile to Flora's lips had she been at all in ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Ditton exploded, turning scarlet. With a cocked eye and a jaunty movement of the head Mr. Titherage shot out his right shirt cuff, and pointed a stout forefinger at certain hieroglyphics ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... corner of our cabin, and sometimes not speak for hours—or he would remain the whole day looking out at the sea, as if watching for something, but what I never could tell; for if I spoke, he would not reply; and if near to him, I was sure to receive a cuff or a heavy blow. I should imagine that I was about five years old at the time that I first recollect clearly what passed. I may have been younger. I may as well here state what I gathered from him at different times, relative to our being ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... Have you weaned her yet? Don't she ever feel sorry, now I am away, that she used to nurse so much more than her share? She needs to have you cuff her ears now and then, that Tabby. She never had any sisterly affection for me, although one of my eyes was a week longer getting open than hers. I shan't forget it in a hurry. I often think it over, as I lie here on the hearth-rug, listening to the everlasting click, click of Miss Nipper's knitting-needles. ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... more than an hour with a pointless hook. I detected this trick at last, by observing the rogue grinning with delight when he saw a large trout rise and dash harmless away from the angle. I gave him a sound cuff, Alan; but the next moment was sorry, and, to make amends, yielded possession of the fishing-rod for the rest of the evening, he undertaking to bring me home a dish of trouts for my supper, in atonement for ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... snapped Marsham's operator, who had opened the perilous game that morning, and, smiling, jotted a note on his cuff. He had made just eighty thousand dollars on that one transaction. The market strengthened a little in the afternoon on short covering, the matter of investment being thrown to the winds. Consolidated was now a ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... in the way of polishing his clappers on the cuff of his jacket and fingering the keys of his accordion to make sure they were in proper working order, Leander extracted with one finger a few bars of "Yankee Doodle" from the last-named instrument, and gave an imitation ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... interpretation—if you feel that way about it. And I remember, in my rambles along the famous thoroughfare, seeing a saturnine old fellow in a dingy black coat and slouch hat, with a sour snarl on his unprepossessing features, who made it his business, all day, to cuff and kick the little boys whom he caught throwing confetti, or picking up the fallen bouquets, and to shove the latter down into the sewer which ran beneath the street, through the apertures opening underneath the curb. He seemed to have ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... one and all, bent their eyes on the man in black, who smeared his face with his cuff, and ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with the intoxication of her own words. Her friends near by kept nudging her, egging her on to stand her ground. Dolores, meanwhile, began to toss her gorgeous head like a lioness preparing to cuff at a hornet buzzing behind her back. However, the processions were debouching into the square, and a wave of expectancy ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Why should I? I was in my own house, and an Asturian is fit company for a king, and is often of better blood. Oh, what a strange supper was that. If the servant made the slightest mistake in helping him, up would start the jorobado, jump upon his chair, and seizing the big giant by the hair, would cuff him on both sides of the face, till I was afraid his teeth would have fallen out. The giant, however, did not seem to care about it much. He was used to it, I suppose. Valgame Dios! if he had been a Spaniard, he would not have submitted to it so patiently. But what surprised me most was, that after ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... bottom of your second cuff, I should think," Dennison called out, and I could not stand that libel, so I addressed the rest of my speech to him. It was, at any rate, fluent, and although the President tried to stop me I had ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley |
