"Cuss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day after he had taken a seat, and puffed and blowed for the space of five minutes—"Cuss them stairs; they'll ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... exactly asleep," he acknowledged, without withdrawing his head. "Ye wus mutterin' 'way thar an' not disturbin' me none, till ye got ter talkin' 'bout sum feller called Sanchez. Then I sorter got a bit interested. I know'd thet cuss onct," and he spat, as though to thus better express his feelings. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... to be willing. I can't get the hang of Henderson. He doesn't seem to care what his wife does. He's a cynical cuss. The other night, at dinner, in Washington, when the thing was talked over, he said: 'My dear, I don't know why you shouldn't do that as well as anything. Let's build a house of gold, as Nero did; we are in the Roman age.' Carmen looked dubious for a moment, but ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... shouted a voice from the crowd, "bring out that old cuss. Drag him to the platform, we want to hear ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... invitation to “show” myself. I led the pony across the narrow trench which ran around the stockade, and, mounting him, rode into the yard. As I approached the party I overheard remarks, such as, “An army cuss”; “One of those little stuck-up officers.” But not appearing to have heard them, I got down, and asked what party they were. “Wood-haulers,” they replied; “taking building logs down the road”; followed by “Who are ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... trade. There's where they miss it. What's the use of hand-organs? What's the use of dancers? What's the use of statoos, whether plaster images or marble sculptoor? Can they clear forests or build up States? No, Sir; and therefore I say that this Italian nation will never be wuth a cuss until they are inoculated with the spirit of Seventy-six, the principles of the Pilgrim Fathers, and the doctrines of the Revolution. Boney knows it" —he added, sententiously—"bless ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... hundreds of men on the pay-roll, working night and day. I guess I do get an inkling of what you mean by making a thing. I made Ophir, and by God, she was a sure hummer—I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to cuss. But that Ophir!—I sure am proud of her now, just as the last time I ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... willing enough to let you have all you want, but I vow I don't just see exactly how I'm to do it. The key of the arm-chest is in the armourer's pocket, and I can't issue anything out of that chest without his knowledge. Now, I know that cuss, he's no friend of mine, and he'd just go straight away and tell Ralli what I'd done, and that'd set the Greek dead agin you all for a certainty and make things just as uncomfortable for you as could be. Besides which, Ralli 'd just take 'em all away from you again as soon as my ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... Norrard. A baldin hain't no more 'f a chance with them new apple-corers Than folks's oppersition views aginst the Ringtail Roarers; They'll take 'em out on him 'bout east,—one canter on a rail Makes a man feel unannermous ez Jonah in the whale; Or ef he's a slow-moulded cuss thet can't seem quite t' agree, He gits the noose by tellergraph upon the nighes' tree: Their mission-work with Afrikins hez put 'em up, thet's sartin, To all the mos' across-lot ways o' preachin' an' convartin'; I'll bet my hat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... dey looked like dey wuz live [HW correction: alive] wid varmints. De ho'ses broke dey bridles an' tore down de palin's an' lit out down de road. But dey [HW correction: dar] runnin' wuzn' nothin' to what dem Yankees done. Dey bust out cussin', but what did a bee keer about cuss words! Dey lit on dem blue coats an' every time dey lit dey stuck in a pizen sting. De Yankee's forgot all about de meat an' things dey done stole; dey took off down de road on er [HW correction: a] run, passin' de horses. De bees was right after dem in a long line. Dey'd zoom an' zip, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... ever hear the beat o' that!" shouted a pious fellow who was inventing cuss words that would pass ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... there's some class to old Sol but there isn't much to me. The judge didn't know which of us was lying until I told him that Sol was a trick dog and would the man who was trying to put one over on me run through his tricks to show they had worked together. The cuss turned green and stammered that he wasn't no animal tamer. The judge gave me a chance and we had a great performance in the courtroom. When it was over the judge said he guessed if I'd had Solomon long enough ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... cache some skins, I left my rifle in the grass near my traps, like a gosh darned fool. Who should came along but a party of them black niggers, the Crows; and the first thing they sot eyes upon was my shootin' iron. In course, I seed it all, and jist had to lay low and cuss my tarnal stupidity, while them 'ere Crows hopped around like mad at finding my rifle and things. They was so pleased, 'peared like they forgot theirselves, and didn't foller up my trail, but galloped off, carryin' my plunder along with them. He! he! they mount ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... blind, An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, My innard vane pints east for weeks together, My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins: Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, The crook'dest stick ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... well enough," continued Sam; "but I don't take a cent's wuth of stock in thet thar father of her'n. He's in with them sharps, sure pop, an' it don't suit his book to hev Foster hangin' round. It's ten to one he sent that cuss to watch 'em. Wa'al, they're a queer lot, an' I'm afeared thar's plenty of trouble ahead among 'em. Good luck to you, Major," and he pushed back ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... was heartrending; and though we exerted ourselves to the utmost from six o'clock in the morning until eight at night, we advanced our camp only two miles that day. And when we gathered around the fire at night, how we did "cuss" that river! None of us, however, was discouraged, nor flinched at the prospect. Our oil-tanned, cowhide moccasins and woollen trousers were beginning to show the result of the attacks of bush, rock, and water, but our blue flannel shirts and soft felt ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... insolent, you young cuss. Keep a civil tongue in your mouth or it won't be well for you. I want to know if you have a ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... Jove itself. Great was the excitement it produced among the warriors. A furious hubbub was heard to arise among them, followed by many wrathful voices exclaiming in broken English, with eager haste, "Know him dah! cuss' rascal! Cappin Stackpole!—steal Injun hoss!" And the' "steal Injun hoss!" iterated and reiterated by a dozen voices, and always with the most iracund emphasis, enabled Roland to form a proper conception of the sense in which his enemies held that offence, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... said Brocky Lane weakly. And then, more weakly still, in a voice which broke despite a manful effort to make it both steady and careless, "I never cuss like that unless I'm delerious, anyhow I never cuss when there's a lady. . ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... mused. "He sure is a rantankerous cuss when he's lickered up. He'd jest as soon ride his horse through that door as he would to walk through, an' he's always puttin' somethin' over on someone. But he's a man. He'd go through hell an' high water fer a friend. ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... I could hear him windin' away at the crankin' wheel, windin' and windin', and then stoppin' to cuss a ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... never been a breath of scandal attached to Diana Mayo's name. I've known the child since she was a baby. Rum little cuss she was, too. Confound that old woman! She would wreck the reputation of the Archangel Gabriel if he came down to earth, let alone that of a ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... and feelin's, too, An' they wuzzent nothin' he couldn't do, 'Cept to do another harm: Ketch a possum, kill a bear, Cuss an' dance, or lead in prayer; Jump a rope, or skin a cat, Make a speech or guess a riddle, Sing a song, or play the fiddle— No, Joe couldn't quite do that, Cause One-Armed Joe had lost an arm, But that's all he ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... proposition," Collins said, presently, as soon as he could catch his breath, "it is not you we want. We don't care a continental cuss for you. What we want is for you to keep quiet after we find Lyman. It is the Secret Service of the United States we axe afraid of. I'll make it half ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... jokin'. I meant it was such an honor for common folks like us to git inside of the palace of a high-toned cuss like Farnham; and the fact is, Sammy," he continued, more seriously, "I would like to see the inside of some of these swell places. I am a student of human nature, you know, in its various forms. I consider the lab'rin' man as the normal healthy human—that is, if he don't work too ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... "Cuss her," Mr. Rooney remarked, without either special interest or malice, and took his leisurely way ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... about? Warn't I in larst year, and the cuss as runs the show, he says to me, 'Allers welcome,' he says. None on your sarse, Bobby. I demands to see the cuss ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... merest trifles — a passing bumblebee, a visit from another bird to its tangle, an unsuccessful peck at a gnat — anything seems calculated to rouse its wrath and set every feather on its little body a-trembling, while it sharply snaps out what might perhaps be freely constructed into "cuss-words." ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... like that. It ain't becoming to one of your position in the church. Them black scowls and blue cuss-words ain't going ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... Mitchell, half-sorrowing, yet struggling to conceal tears of choked mirth over his roommate's late exhibition, recognized this violent interrupter as one Linski, a fellow freshman who sat next to him in one of his classes. "What's that cuss up to?" Fred wondered, and so did others. Linski ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... hide!" said the other ranger. "The little cuss knows you. Never thought them insects had ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... clever ole cuss," said Field, trusting to work some benefit by a judicious application of flattery. "It ain't every man which knows the kind of a tree to chop. Not all trees is Christmas-trees. But ole Jim is a clever ole ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... "Cuss a little, if it will help any," he suggested. "I had to get out of your way—out of your sight—and up there was the best place. I was on the roof of the caboose when it toppled over, so all I had to do was step ashore and ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... silverware to send to the vault, no bric-a-brac to pack, no furniture to cover, no bedding to put away, no rugs or furs or clothes to send to cold storage, no servants to wrangle with or discharge, no plumbers to swear over, no janitors to cuss at, no, not even any housecleaning to do before you depart—just move and nothing more. Just dump a little outfit into a canoe and then paddle away from all your tiresome environment, and travel wherever your heart dictates, and then settle down ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... made a vicious prod with the fork. It might easily have proved fatal, but Jim was near enough to seize the man's arm and wrest the fork from him. The fat man was white with rage. He blustered a good deal and finally went off sputtering comically although he used no cuss-words. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... a cracky whether we are or not! Those rag-tag and bobtail vermin are calling us names!—and, if I can't fight, by gad, I'll cuss back!" ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... stated. "Not one little wrangle, even. Of course I was expectin' it. I've watched 'em come around too many times not to know how they can cuss a man cold one minute, and then make him plumb ashamed of mankind in general, with beggin' and pleadin'. I just beat him to it the morning he woke up; I told him what he could have, and what he couldn't, and he took it calmly enough. He just set there, pretty blue and shaky, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... think they have decided yet. Possibly they are going to take us up to the leader of their fleet and let him decide. The cuss that is in command of this ship seems surprised to death to find out that I can comprehend the principles of his ship. He seems to think that I am a sort of a rara avis, a freak of nature. He intimated that he would recommend that we be used ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Jennif' cuss plenty heap, like missionary medicine-man. Look-see! Uncanoola no can find white squaw horse yonder. Mebbe Captain Jennif' ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... one of Nora's trunks is a set of my old gloves. There will not be any one up at the tennis-court this time of day. If you are not a mean cuss, if you are not an ordinary low-down imitation of a man, you'll meet me up there inside of five minutes. If you can stand up in front of me for ten minutes, you need not make any explanations. On the other hand, you'll hike out of ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... mean to offend thee, Mrs. Ormerod. A'm sorry A spoke. A allays do wrong thing. But A did so 'ope as tha might coom. Tha sees A got used to moother. A got used to 'earin' 'er cuss me. A got used to doin' for 'er an' A've nought to do in th' evenings now. It's terrible lonesome in th' neeghttime. An' when notion coom to me, A thowt as A'd mention ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... it and you'll remember it. I've known too many men think they'd paid a debt when they'd given their bond. I don't want you to think that. If you're goin' to pay me, you'll do it without a bond, and if you ain't, I ain't goin' to sue you; I'm jest goin' to think what a' o'nery cuss you are." ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... our Marster, was born clubfooted. His hands and foots was drawed up evvy which a way long as he lived. He was jus' lak a old tom cat, he was such a cusser. All he done was jus' set dar and cuss, and a heap of times you couldn't see nothin' for him to cuss 'bout. He tuk his crook-handled walkin' stick and cotch you and drug you up to him and den jus' helt you tight and cussed you to yo' face, but he didn't never whup nobody. Our Mist'ess, Miss Betsey, was ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... cash in on it now, next thing you know you'll be wonderin' where the time's gone, anyway. No sense in robbin' you of the best months of your life, just because you hadn't sense enough to rob yourselves of it—is there? Oh, I suppose I'm a kind of a sentimental cuss, but—must be I like the feelin' of it." He jerked his head toward Henry. "This is April. Take her off somewhere—Italy? South of France?—'till next August. Then you report back here, all fixed and ready to eat crow. ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... eyes glistening. "I tell ye, once let 'im git after a house he thinks a feller air in an' he'd turn it topsy-turvy, tissel end up. Why, Burnett can smell a man from prison a mile. I know him, I do! Hain't I seen,—and you have too, Orn,—many a poor cuss get away just like I did, mebbe over the river, mebbe a hundred miles or two, or he might even git in another state, but Burnett'll haul him back by his ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... reckon, dern, forsooth, his'n, an invite, entre nous, tote, hadn't oughter, yclept, a combine, ain't, dole, a try, nouveau riche, puny, grub, twain, a boom, alter ego, a poke, cuss, eld, enthused, mesalliance, tollable, disremember, locomote, a right smart ways, chink, afeard, orate, nary a one, yore, pluralized, distingue, ruination, complected, mayhap, burglarized, mal de mer, tuckered, grind, near, suicided, callate, cracker-jack, erst, railroaded, chic, down town, deceased ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... you on," stated the cynical Usial, speaking for his brother's benefit, "because you're a self-operating, red-hot gad that is helping me torment yon pirate with texts after I had run out of cuss words. Go ahead, Prophet! Shoot anything. It's a poor text that will not hit him ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... know what brought me to this cabin and to your presence—the presence of the man whose skins and whose traps I have stolen—and made me confess to his face and before these men here that I am a thief and a scoundrel; do you know what brought me here, a miserable cuss that I am and have been for years, John Norton?" And the man's speech was the speech of one who had been educated to use words rightly and was marked with ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... sinner sent To see how he liked pork 'n' pone flavored with wa'nut saplin', An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, starn-wheel chaplin. When I come out, the folks behaved mos' gen'manly an' harnsome; They 'lowed it wouldn't be more 'n right, ef I should cuss 'n' darn some: The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, "I'll du wut 's right, I'll give ye settisfection now by shootin' ye at sight, An' give the nigger, (when he's caught,) to pay him fer his trickin' In gittin' the wrong man took up, a most H fired lickin',— It's jest the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... don't remember asking you to sit down and put your elbows on that table, but I want to begin by saying that I will not be called Pauline. My name's Polly. You've got a way of saying Pauline, as if it were a gentlemanly cuss-word, that makes me want to scream. And while you're about it, why don't you say how-d'you-do to Claire? You ought to remember her, ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... has this cuss For conquest such a passion He needs must set his cap at us In this exalted fashion?" And then the people gave a cry, 'Twixt joy and apprehension, To see him pass the symbol ...
— William Tell Told Again • P. G. Wodehouse
... imagine a more useless existence than the one he revealed. At length he "got sick of the crowd and got the bug to go to war," as he expressed it, and wrote to his people to tell them he was starting, but received no answer. "My father was a Bible cuss," he remarked cheerfully,—"never got over ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... air ye afeard on?" he said. "I ain't goin' to kill ye this time, b'y; it's another cuss I'm after, a kinder sort o' skunk of a different colour, I guess. Look hyar, b'y, jest ye make tracks forrud when ye've told the stooard what I've said, an' see whether thet tarnation black nigger's asleep in his galley, or what. ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... interested the policeman. When the ambulance clanged away, he turned to a fellow patrolman who had joined him. "Funny what he says to the little cuss that done the damage. That's all he did call him—'nothin' else at all—and the cuss had broke both his ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... pipeclay! It's a regular cuss. Ah, it's you laughing now, sir. Can I do anything else ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... closer come tenderfoot, An' harder the whip to the hoss I put; But the Eastern cuss, with a smile on his face Ran up to my side with his easy pace— Rode up to my side, an' dern his hide, Remarked 'twere a pleasant day fer a ride; Then axed, onconcerned, if I had a match, An' on his britches give it a scratch, Lit a cigarette, said he wished ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... you can't set two bricks right, then set one. Anyway, do the things you can do, and don't kick because you can't do more. The trail I know. Gold I know. The Yukon I know. Then what's the use in quittin' it fer something I don't know, and don't care a cuss for anyway?" ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... get dolce far niente handed to you in chunks, but this country wasn't made for a white man to live in. You've got to have to plug through snow now and then, and see a game of baseball and wear a stiff collar and have a policeman cuss you. Still, La Paz is a good sort of a pipe-dreamy old hole. And Mrs. Conant is here. When any of us feels particularly like jumping into the sea we rush around to her house and propose. It's nicer to be rejected by Mrs. Conant than it is ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... would be out in the yard and I would hear her cuss the pateroles because they didn't want folks to 'buse their niggers. They had to git a pass from their masters when they would be out. If they didn't have a pass, the pateroles would ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... says I, "I reckon you an' me better try to live mo' righteously 'n what we've been doin', or he'll be took from us." An', sir, the very nex' communion we both up an' perfessed. An' I started sayin' grace at table, an' lef' off the on'y cuss-word I ever did use, which was "durn." An', maybe I oughtn't to say it, but I miss that word yet. I didn't often call on it, but I always knowed 't was there when needed, and it backed me up, somehow—thess the way knowin' I had a frock-coat in the press has helped me wear out ol' ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... found myself, some time ago, Growing too fond of cuss-words, so I made a vow to curb my passions And put my angry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sot On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized bone-yard lot. And where he died or how he died, it didn't matter a damn So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone "epigram". So I promised him, and he paid the price in good ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... get mighty mad. Der never wuz a madder beas' dan he wuz des den. He rip, en he r'ar, en he cuss, en he swar, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... I would like to be married at her home some time soon,' said I; 'and if you don't wish it that way,' said I, 'I guess we can find a place that will be big enough and will answer just as well,' said I; and then I began to start up warmer and get bolder, when he shut me off with a string of cuss words that ran all over me. I didn't suppose he could talk that way, but no one in the office seemed to mind, although I'll bet you could have heard him ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... to punish all of it I can get my hands on!" He turned toward the door. "And when I'm good and full of it," he added as an afterthought, "I'm liable to come over here and lick you, Lew, just for being such an agreeable cuss. You better leave your mother's address handy." He laughed a little to himself as he pulled the door shut behind him. "I bet he'll keep the frost thawed off the window to-day, just to see who comes up the ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... he ain't wise to. I'd like to say right here that this hash-slinger has got savvee. Great big savvee, an' a heap of it. I ain't a hell of a lot on the kid racket, they mostly make me sick to death. In a manner o' speakin', I don't care a cuss for Zip nor his kids. Ef they drown theirselves in a swill-bar'l it's his funeral, an' their luck, an' it don't cut no ice with me. But, cuss me, ef I ken stand to see a low-down skunk like this yer James come it over a feller-citizen o' Suffering Creek, an' it's our duty to see Zip gits thro'. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... wide open; nex he seized Miss Betsy as if his hand were a vice, and he world her out of the room; then up he goes to Mrs. S. "Get up," says he, thundering loud, "you lazy, trolloping, mischsef-making, lying old fool! Get up, and get out of this house. You have been the cuss and bain of my happyniss since you entered it. With your d——d lies, and novvle rending, and histerrix, you have perwerted Mary, and made her ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... strikin'-lookin' to come in here ez a common, everyday Injun, so it fell to me to loaf in, me bein' a tired-lookin' sort o' feller, anyway. But they're out thar in the woods a-waitin', Henry an' Tom Ross an' that ornery cuss, Jim Hart." ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pension to every mother who gives birth to seven living boys on American soil." To the question, "Are the conditions surrounding hired labor on the farm in your neighborhood satisfactory to the hired men?" he answers: "Yes, unless he is a drunken cuss," adding that he would like to blow up the stillhouses and root out whiskey and beer. To the question, "Are the sanitary conditions on the farms in your neighborhood satisfactory?" he answers: "No; too careless about chicken yards, and the like, and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... dodrabbit ye, Leezur!" said this native Artichoke, "ye never done an ongodly thing in yer life—'cept, maybe," he added, "to cuss a little when ye was ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... for guns and so on. Don't you believe you'd keep an eye around the corners, kind of—eh? I'll bet a hat he was taking it all in, lying there in his bunk, 'turned the other way.' Eh? I pity the poor cuss—Well, there's only one more entry after that. He's good ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... tall private. "You little fool. You little damn' cuss. You ain't had that there coat and them pants on for six months, and yet ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... Exhibit B were still back to back. Then Exhibit B responded: "Miss Morgan, you ast him if he didn't cuss and damn me, and say he was goin' to pound me to death if I ever come ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... back down, an' not till then!" He argued further: "Ner I can't see What's the use o' wings to a bumble-bee, Fer to git a livin' with, more'n to me;— Ain't my business importanter'n his'n is? That Icarus was a silly cuss,— Him an' his daddy Daedalus; They might 'a' knowed wings made o' wax Wouldn't stan' sun-heat an' hard whacks: I'll make mine o' luther, er suthin' ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Dave Blount. Get your gun, Bob, and go after him—kill the miserable sneaking cuss!" cried Uncle Sammy, who believed in settling all difficulties by bloodshed as befitted a veteran of the first war with England, he having risen to the respectable rank of sergeant in a company of Morgan's riflemen; ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... for me," he said. "It don't matter a cuss where or how I hustle my dry hash. I was born that way. Fix things the way you feel. Cut ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... of all hostility to me, declined tea because he had insomnia and explained just how it works to keep you awake, danced more and declared himself happy and bowed himself out—well pleased. He's as funny a cuss as I've seen in many a day. Lord Cowdray, who was telling Mexican woes to Katharine in the corner, looked up and asked, "Who's the little dancing gentleman?" Suppose X had known he was dancing for—Lord Cowdray's amusement, what do y' suppose he'd've thought? There are some strange combinations ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... he's a purty slick one," they heard the deputy say. "Austin said he had him dead to rights in his barn! That big bulldog of his had him treed on a beam, but when we got there, just after dark, the darned cuss was gone, an' the dog was trapped up in a box-stall. By thunder, it showed how desperate the feller is. He evidently come down from that beam an' jest naturally picked that turrible bulldog up by the neck an' throwed him over into ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... put it, "a dangerous old cuss." O'Brien was even worse. He was a bull-necked, bullet-headed, pugnosed young ruffian with beery eyes, who had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, but who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless way of conducting himself ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... "Cuss-an'-burn the nasty varmint!" said Fortner angrily, snatching up a pine knot from his feet and flinging it at the beast, which vanished into the darkness with another ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... this side of the Atlantic. Only, one is not quite sure how far their admiration extends. As far as can be guessed—for I have never come across any British attempt at a serious appreciation of Mr. Stockton—the general disposition is to regard him as an amusing kind of "cuss" with a queer kink in his fancy, who writes puzzling little stories that make you smile. As for taking him seriously, "why he doesn't even profess to write seriously"—an absurd objection, of course; but good enough for the present-day reviewer, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mountaineer—that is a trapper a good many years ago I met with your father Horace Greely on the plains, and greatly admired the old gentleman. The way I came to make his acquaintance is this. A drunken, unruly Cuss seeing that your father appeared quiet and peaceable thought it safe to play the bully at his expence so he commenced to insult and threaten Mr. Greely in a pretty rough manner. Seeing that your father was quiet and peaceable and did not wish ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... Colonel Cutler and Major Slasher talking over the war after dinner? or Captain Boarder describing his action with the 'Indomptable?' 'Hang the fellows,' says Boarder, 'their practice was very good. I was beat off three times before I took her.' 'Cuss those carabineers of Milhaud's,' says Slasher, 'what work they made of our light cavalry!' implying a sort of surprise that the Frenchman should stand up against Britons at all: a good-natured wonder ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had killed her husband started for the boy, who was a running for the train as fast as his little legs could go. But we was nigh enough then; and just as the Ingin was reaching down from his pony for the kid, Al Thorpe—he was a powerful fine shot—draw'd up his gun and took the red cuss off his critter without the paint-bedaubed devil know'n' ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... to our island, and tuck up his abode in a hole in a log. The cuss got kind of affectionate, and after a while crawled right into our hut to catch flies and other varmin. At last he got so tame he'd let me scratch his back. Then he tuck to our moss bed, and used up a considerable portion of his time there. Bill Bates hadn't the manners of a hog, and he kept a-droppin' ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... Ted with more fervor than elegance. "If the old chap had been done for I'd have felt like making for the river, myself. Funny, now the scare is over and he is all safe, I shall probably cuss him out as hard as ever next time he ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... you cain't talk. Whilst you'se dumb I'se a mind to use some cuss words on you what ol' Cap'n Jack learned me. Sho' would use 'em, 'ceptin' dey'd burn you to a cinder. Stay here whilst I 'vestigates an' sees kin I 'cumulate some stove juice to heat you ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... bet? He's got shet of a foot, or he'd a cut like the rest of the lot. Don't you wash him, nor feed him, but jest let him holler till he's tired. It's a blasted shame to fetch them fellers in here, along side of us; and so I'll tell the chap that bosses this concern; cuss me if I don't." ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... credit to me. I doan't care wan iotum for the thought of churchyard mould—not wan iotum. I knaw the value of gude rich soil tu well; an' a man as grudges the rames[3] of hisself to the airth that's kept un threescore years an' ten's a carmudgeonly cuss, surely." ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... will take any reasonable amount for it above 2 percent of its face because experienced parties think it will not keep but only a little while in this kind of weather & is a kind of proppity that don't give a cuss for ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... mine, and I love it, and I won't have it profaned by any growling, dyspeptic little squirt from a land where they have pie for breakfast. I positively forbid you to touch that water without my permission. I forbid you to cuss my mozo without my permission, and I forbid you to damn this country in my hearing. Just at this particular moment, Boston, the only things which you have and which you can call your own, and do what you please with, are your soul, your prickly-heat and your blistered heel. I'm fully ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... fellow," said he, "so long as you regard me as an honest cuss, nothing matters in ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... proper, in his chuckly sorter style, With his thumb 'ooked orful hartful, and his chickaleary smile. "JIM," sez he, "wot price your jabber? Do yer think the blooming blokes Cares a cuss for me and you, JIM, any more ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... I were well enough to cuss and bite, I wouldn't! No, SIR! I wouldn't have the old fake in the house. Makes me tired, his everlasting palavering and soft-soaping. He's all right for an ordinary bellyache or holding some fool woman's hand, but I wouldn't call him in for an honest-to-God illness, not much I wouldn't, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Kiota end of it. Before I had time to explain the matter to myself, Williams spoke: "I guess he's got out all the vigilantes;" and then bitterly: "The boys in old Mizzouri wouldn't believe this ef I told it on him, the doggoned mean cuss." ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... there," cried the weak-eyed girl, as Ralph was opening a door. "Ole Mowley's in there, and she'll cuss you." ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... hear the old man swear, mentally, but he went on with the amendment—"or try to. I'm afeered that even the best on us, at some time or nuther, have been up to some devil"—(sly, but awfully emphatic nudge from Grandma) "ahem! we're all born under a cuss!" persisted Grandpa, with irate satisfaction. "I've steered through a good many oceans," he continued, more softly, "but thar' ain't none so—misty—as this—a—" (portentous nudge from Grandma,) "as this pesky ocean of Life! We've got to keep ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... shot right through his heart, and I hope a swingin' cuss 'ill come on him that put ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... characteristic silence, Mose said slowly: "Anyhow, I want you to understand that I'm much obliged for your good will; I'm not worth a cuss at putting things in a smooth way; I think I'm getting worse every day, but you've been my friend, and—and there's no discount on my words when I tell you you've made me feel ashamed of myself ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... kid. When I got up this morning—" Billy shrugged his shoulders again and pointed to his empty pistol holster. "Everything was gone— dogs, sledge, extra tent, even my rifle and automatic. He wasn't quite bad, though, for he left me my grub. He was a funny cuss, too. Look at that!" He pointed to the bakneesh wreath that still hung to the front of his tent. "'In honor of the living,' " he read, aloud, "Just a sort of reminder, you know, that he might have hit me on the head with a club if ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... yours. Money down on delivery is the only terms. I want to know the money's there, and you want to know the goods are there. The name of the Count Ro-Say-No would be a sufficient guarantee for anybody in the world but a cuss like me. I'm business. In matters of business, gentlemen, delicacy and consideration for high-flown feelings don't enter into my composition, not for a cent's worth. If I was trading with Queen Victoria I should want to know where the money was coming from. ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... Farmer informed me, was originally and exclusively an inspiration from the intellect which animated his, Farmer's, proper clod; nor was he greatly exhilarated when I narrated to him the tradition of the turnspit, whose memory, I regret to record, he spurned as that of a "mean cuss," destitute of that poetry which dwelleth in the pastoral ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... you, and don't cuss. You did a cowardly thing, pardner—an unmanly thing—low down and or'nary. You don't deserve to live any longer; but my darter, back East at school, thinks I've killed enough men for one lifetime, and mebbe she's right—mebbe she's right. Anyhow, she don't ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... that article of his wife's apparel which the vulgar will call "stays." In earlier days a husband used to lock his wife in a pair of iron-bound corsets when he went away from home, keeping the key in his pocket, and thus not caring a tinker's cuss if his home were simply overflowing with handsome gentleman lodgers! The poor wife couldn't retaliate by locking her husband in such a virtuous prison, because men never wore such things—which, perhaps, was one or the reasons why they didn't, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... in earnest about it, and he talks so sensible about other things, besides appearin' so white clear through, that I can't help likin' the cuss. ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... joint assembly. Butler was conspicuous in that scene of turbulence and disorder. On the occasion of some ruling by the Whig Speaker, Mr. George Bliss, a worthy and respectable old gentleman, Butler called out in a loud voice: "I should like to knife that old cuss." That utterance was quoted not only all over the Union, but in foreign countries, in England, and on the continent, and in the West Indies, as a proof of the degradation and licentiousness of popular governments. It is a singular fact that a like question as to the authority ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... gol-dum little cuss!" D'ri shouted as he went over to him. "Can't no snookin' wolf crack our bones fer us. Peeled 'em—thet 's what we done tew 'em! Tuk 'n' knocked 'em head over heels. Judas Priest! He can peck a ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... "'Cuss him!' Dick said to me, and I could see his hold on his rifle tighten, 'what does he look at Queen May like that for? You mark my words, Abe, trouble will ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... are times a duty Must be done, however saddening; It is hard to tell a beauty That she's very often maddening. And I would not now be saying Harsh and cruel words to fuss you, But when traffic you're delaying You are forcing men to cuss you. ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... darnedest obstinate cuss I ever saw in my life. You'll tip over backwards first thing ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... have," Mrs. Brooks smilingly assured her. "A woman without a man is only half a human being, anyway, you know—and vice versa. I know. We can cuss the men all we want to, my dear, and some of us unfortunately have a nasty experience with one now and then. But we can't get away from the fundamental laws ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... connected with its palmy days will be best given in the narrator's own words: "We had a blacksmith who misused his wife. The citizens took him down to the bridge, tied a rope around his body and threw him into the river. They kept up their lick until they nearly drowned the poor cuss, then whispered to him to be good to his wife or his time would be short. He took the hint, used his wife well, and everything was lovely. That was the first cold-water cure in Pueblo, and I ain't sure but the last." This incident serves ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... she began to cuss me, an' I jumps up mad, but right dignified an' says, 'Mrs. Somers, I'll require you to stop ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey |
