"Fingered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... answer. Monsieur Robert Darzac seemed agitated. I saw that his hand trembled as it fingered his watchchain. Monsieur Dax coughed, as did Monsieur de ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... He fingered the brass knob of the door that led forward to the regular coaches, turned it presently, and closed it ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... me who she was,—the beautiful Sie-Thao? For a thousand years and more the trees have been whispering above her bed of stone. And the syllables of her name come to the listener with the lisping of the leaves; with the quivering of many-fingered boughs; with the fluttering of lights and shadows; with the breath, sweet as a woman's presence, of numberless savage flowers,—Sie-Thao. But, saving the whispering of her name, what the trees say cannot ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... you look hungry. Catch! there's an apple for nothing, just to taste. Be in time, be in time before they're all sold!" Amelius moved forward a few steps, and was half deafened by rival butchers, shouting, "Buy, buy, buy!" to audiences of ragged women, who fingered the meat doubtfully, with longing eyes. A little farther—and there was a blind man selling staylaces, and singing a Psalm; and, beyond him again, a broken-down soldier playing "God save the Queen" on a tin flageolet. The one silent person in this sordid carnival ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... keeping, and particularly so when the skins are valuable, and in cases where the home shanty is left unguarded. The value of prime otter or mink pelt is a matter of no small importance, and a good trapping ground furnishes a rare field for light fingered prowlers who are well posted on the market price of raw furs, and who are constantly on the lookout for such prizes, either in the shape of the prepared skin, or on the back of the live animal. These "trap robbers," or poachers, are the pests of trappers, and many have learned from dear ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... from the frozen fjords of Aelborg and the crowded tideways of the Hooghley. They are extraordinarily unprepossessing, most of them, for the time was not yet when sea-going was considered, save as a last resource, like selling newspapers or going to America. These men were mostly artisans, thick-fingered mechanics who had gone to sea, driven by some obscure urge or prosaic economic necessity, and the sea had changed them, as it changes everything, fashioning in them a blunt work-a-day fatalism and a strong, coarse-fibred character admirably adapted to ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... whose deaf and dumb legs were safely out of sight in the garden back of the house, Bobby finished the last of his cookies, and began to explore. Accompanying his investigations with a running fire of questions, he fingered the unfinished basket and the tools and material on the table, examined the wheel chair, and went from end to end of the balcony porch. Hanging over the railing, he looked down from every possible angle upon the rocks, the stairway and the dusty road below. Exhausting, at last, the possibilities ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... mark, trained, initiated, prepared, primed, finished. clever, cute, able, ingenious, felicitous, gifted, talented, endowed; inventive &c 515; shrewd, sharp, on the ball &c (intelligent) 498; cunning &c 702; alive to, up to snuff, not to be caught with chaff; discreet. neat-handed, fine-fingered, nimble-fingered, ambidextrous, sure- footed; cut out for, fitted for. technical, artistic, scientific, daedalian^, shipshape; workman- like, business-like, statesman-like. Adv. skillfully &c adj.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... green fields; but the fields are there, for those who can see them, behind the veil of smoke, and through them a wayfarer may still travel with the Knight who loved freedom and courtesy, the Monk shaking his belled bridle, the Ploughman on his mare, and the dainty fingered Prioress with her eyes as grey as glass, riding to join other pilgrims travelling east to Canterbury by the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... but she whose black hair discontents her, sings, and Pippa "listens and comes close," for the song has words as sweet as any of her own . . . and the red-fingered one calls to her to come closer still, they won't eat her—why, she seems to be "the very person the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in love with." She shall hear all about it; and on the steps of the church Pippa is told by this creature, Zanze, how a foreigner, ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... each one hand on my prick and the other on my buttocks. When we had once more worked ourselves up to fucking heat, we reversed the previous position, and I fucked Lizzie. Mary was gamahuched and bottom-fingered by Lizzie, while she employed herself with Lizzie's clitoris and my bum-hole. Lizzie was far hotter and more salacious than any of us, and spent copiously on my delighted prick, which enjoyed excessively the warm bath of glutinous liquid that was poured down upon it. I gave ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... man. Never before have I known her seized with a desire for such prodigality of vesture. I have looked upon her, all these years, as a sober and discreet woman, well content to wear what was quiet and becoming to her station; but now—truly my heart melted when I saw how she fingered the goods, and desired John, my assistant, to cut off such lengths as she desired from some of my ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... gave her her baby-name, Missyuss, because as a child she used to call her English governess that. All the time she examined me curiously and when I looked at the photograph-album she explained: "This is my uncle.... That is my godfather," and fingered the portraits, and at the same time touched me with her shoulder in a childlike way, and I could see her small, undeveloped bosom, her thin shoulders, her long, slim waist tightly ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... T.O. fingered a letter in her hand in a nervous, undecided way, as if she were half inclined to read it to the other girl. It was not Emmeline Camp's brother's letter. It had come ten days ago, and she herself knew it by heart. How many, many times she had read it! She had cried ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... like ground lightning, the elephant fumbles ceaselessly, the monkey pulls things about."[2] "The most casual notice of the activities of a young child reveals a ceaseless display of exploring and testing activity. Objects are sucked, fingered and thumped; drawn and pushed, handled ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... a button. The light died in the pilot-house, leaving only the hooded glows of the dials, switches, and small levers. Night seemed suddenly to close in about the vast machine. Till now it had been forgotten, ignored. But as darkness fingered at the panes, something of the vastness of sky and air made itself realized; something of the illimitable scope ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... slid his left hand into an inner coat pocket, briefly fingered a device of the approximate size and shape of a cigarette, drew his hand out again. ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... only donned them in order that she should be entreated to take them off. The rings and chased work had left upon her skin, fine and tender as the interior pulp of a lily, light rosy imprints, which she soon dissipated by rubbing them with her little taper-fingered hand, all rounded ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... the 'Touchwood' mascot?" he asked. She signified a negative, and then nervously fingered her gauze. "No? It's a well-known mascot. Sort of tiny imp sort of thing, with a huge head, glittering eyes, a khaki cap of oak, and crossed legs in gold and silver. I hear that tens of thousands of them are sold. But there is nothing like ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... the electric light, slipped her new kimono about her, and looked long and earnestly at the new clothes within reach of her hand. There they were, real to her touch; there was her fine new hand-bag; and most real of all was the feel of the money in it. Nancy fingered the money, thoughtfully smoothing out the bills. "As soon as we are settled, you will have your allowance, and I shall of course provide you with a check-book," Mr. Champneys had told her. "In the meanwhile you will naturally ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... in the air like an eagle, for his limbs were strong again; and he flew all night across the mountain till the day began to dawn, and rosy-fingered Eos came blushing up the sky. And then, behold, beneath him was the long green garden of Egypt and ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... seemed to experience much difficulty in swallowing the contents of the tumbler which I held to his lips; and, from the way in which he fingered the swollen glands, I could see that his throat, which I had vigorously massaged, was occasioning him great pain. But the danger was past, and already that glassy look was disappearing from his eyes, nor did they ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... others flattened their noses against the shop window, and presently a large, dirty, short-fingered hand with a very big diamond ring came stretching through the green half-curtains at the back of the shop window and took away ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... safety of camp. Fortunately there came to me a vision of the three umbrellas and of Mr. Tubbs heroically exposing his devoted bosom to non-existent perils, and I resolved that the superior smiles with which I had greeted Aunt Jane's recital should not rise up to shame me now. I fingered my automatic and marched on up the hill, trying not to gasp when a leaf rustled or a cocoanut ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... first choir breathed in flutes, And fingered soft guitars; The second won from lutes Harmonious chords and jars, With drums for stormy bars: But the third was all of harpers and scarlet trumpeters; Notes of triumph, then An alarm again, As for onset, as for ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... took the letter and read it, standing, frowning and heavy. Magister Udal ate; the old man fingered his furs and, leaning far back in his mended chair, ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... at the baseball field, he played a butter-fingered game. He could not hold the ball, and his throws to bases ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... suitors and was a decided coquette, fidgeted nervously and frequently adjusted her robe or fingered her necklace to ease her mind, for she dreaded lest, in spite of watchfulness, some mishap might have befallen her charge. Her anxiety was apparently shared by several other chaperons who stole occasional suspicious glances in the direction of certain of the young braves. It ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... why? 'Not the "yachting" brand'; and why not? As to the size, comfort, and crew of the yacht—all cheerfully ignored; so many maddening blanks. And, by the way, why in Heaven's name 'a prismatic compass'? I fingered a few magazines, played a game of fifty with a friendly old fogey, too importunate to be worth the labour of resisting, and went back to my chambers to bed, ignorant that a friendly Providence had come to my rescue; and, indeed, rather resenting ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... had evidently been coached before he came. With slender, long-fingered hands, which trembled at first, he selected certain tools with nice precision, made some rapid measurements of the weapon and of the cleared space around it, and began to adjust the parts of a queer little machine. ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... grown up,' thought I. Then my eyes: they were large; in fact, the undue proportions they assumed when I looked ill or tired formed a family joke. If size were all that one requires in eyes, mine would certainly pass muster. Moreover, they had long curly lashes. I fingered these slowly, and thought of Sandy's whiskers. At this point I nearly fell asleep, but roused myself to examine my nose. My grandmother had said that Mrs. Moss's nose was delicately curved. Now, it is certainly true that ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... flight, is visible as a very broad band that runs from the body nearly to the tip of the wing. Thus the wing from below appears to be white with broad black edges. During flight this species may be distinguished from the last by the fingered tips of its wings, by both edges of the wing being black and the body being dark instead ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... eyes fell suddenly to his empty wine glass. He fingered the stem of it for a few seconds with a curiously irresolute air. "Do you know I think I'll put it to Maud first!" he said at length, with a smile that was ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... record some transient follies which would otherwise have sunk into oblivion, and the sermons of bishop Pilkington, a warm polemic of this time, may be quoted as a kind of commentary on the proclamation. He reproves "fine-fingered rufflers, with their sables about their necks, corked slippers, trimmed buskins, and warm mittons."—"These tender Parnels," he says, "must have one gown for the day, another for the night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer. One furred through, another but ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... his interview, in which figured a certain leathern strap, called "Lochgelly" after its place of manufacture—a branch of native industry much cursed by Scottish school-children. "Lochgelly" was five-fingered, well pickled in brine, well rubbed with oil, well used on the boys, but, except by way of threat, unknown to the girls. Jo emerged tingling but triumphant. Indeed, several new ideas had occurred to him. Eden Valley Academy stood around and drank in the wondrous tale with ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... P.! She read the distress between the lines of that kindly lie that he was in trouble and had to get out of San Pasqual— and as she fingered the little roll of bills she discovered no paradox in Harley P.'s hard face and still harder reputation and the oft- repeated biblical quotation that God makes man to His own image ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... laughter was relaxed and joyful. And somehow he felt more at ease. He was growing accustomed to the mask. He stretched his legs and fingered his nether lip. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... the king desired them to be frolicsome. They sung several songs, and played on certain instruments, one of which resembled our lute, being bellied like it, but longer in the neck, and fretted like ours, but had only four gut strings. They fingered with their left hands, as is done with us, and very nimbly; but they struck the strings with a piece of ivory held in the right hand, as we are in use to play with a quill on the citern. They seemed to delight much in their music, beating ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... when returning in the evening from our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an AEolian harp; and especially why my pulse beat such a furious ratan when I looked and fingered over her little hand, to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly; and it was her favorite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied vehicle ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... majesty of crimson and gold above the classic hills that overlook Paestum to the east! Leaning at early dawn from the windows of the Cappuccini, we have watched the sky flush at the first caress of "rosy-fingered Eos" and seen the fragment of the waning moon turn to silver at the approach of the burning God of Day, still tarrying behind the lofty barrier of the capes and mountains ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... cure? Ay, there was the rub. He laid bare his heart. She aided him with her cool advice. She was very sensible. Her brother-in-law and her sister would welcome him in their household, for he was a lover of music and his intentions were honourable. Of course, he sighed, of course, and fingered his red tie. Why not, she argued, remain at Marienbad for three weeks more and complete his cure? Anyhow, he was not so stout! She looked up at him ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... over-fond of officers of the law; he detested lawsuits, and he had a horror of legal documents. Therefore he groaned at the sight, and, throwing open a window, fingered his watch-chain nervously, as one who is about ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... play this harp of magic, Cannot touch the notes of concord! Give to me this thing or beauty, Hither bring the harp of fish-bones, Let me try my skillful fingers." Lemminkainen touched the harp-strings, Carefully the strings adjusted, Turned the harp in all directions, Fingered all the strings in sequence, Played the instrument of wonder, But it did not speak in concord, Did not sing the notes of joyance. Spake the ancient Wainamoinen: "There is none among these maidens, None among these youthful heroes, None among the old magicians That can play the harp ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... run—an especially vivid splash of daubed and crimson horror—to quicken our imaginations and make us fetch out our note books. I recall a young lieutenant of Uhlans who had been wounded in the breast by fragments of a grenade, which likewise had smashed in several of his ribs. He proudly fingered his newly acquired Iron Cross while the surgeon relaced his battered torso with strips of gauze. Afterward he asked me for a cigar, providing I had one to spare, saying he had not tasted tobacco for a week ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... tears came starting from the pleading culprit's eyes, and one or two sympathetic souls about the rude tables sniffed suspiciously. "It ain't for me to talk of such things. Perhaps you won't believe me, but—" and he fingered the leaves of the blue-bound copy of the regulations that lay to the left of the judge advocate's elbow, "I—I love that woman and I want to care for her, and take good care of her. Look here," he continued, as with sudden, impulsive movement he ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... nerves, that's what it is.... Well, I've got to go through these." She fingered the papers on the dressing-table with her left hand while drying her tears with the right. "He's very wishful for proper accounts, George is. That's right enough. But—well—I think I can make a shilling go as far as ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... decanters stoppered with gilt, gave place to port. An epergne of glass and burnished ormolu, in the form of supporting oak leaves, with numerous sockets for candles, was set, filled with fruit, in the centre of the table; silver lustre plates were laid; but Jasper Penny heedlessly fingered the stem of a wine glass. He said suddenly, "I'm going ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... sir? I never saw such shells in my born days—green and white; and what a grand silver comb—that will please Biddy and no mistake—and a brooch for my daughter—well, to be sure! But I favour the shells most,' and the old man fingered the necklace made of the pearly shells, shot with green, which are to be found on the shores of the South Pacific ocean. 'And both of 'em for Biddy—and Bet a brooch like aunt's and a pin for her cap. Well,' said the old man, in whose veins the punch was circulating, and giving a comfortable ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... takes five minutes of steady chinnin' to get around to it; but he puts over such a velvety line of talk, and it's so int'restin' to watch him do it, that I let him spiel ahead until he gets to the enactin' clause in his own way. And it's nothing more or less than a brassy fingered touch for a twenty, all based on the fact that he met me at a house where his ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... report. Yet but once in their close friendship did the Queen command him to make a song for her. This had been at Dover, about vespers, in the starved and tiny garden overlooking the English Channel, upon which her apartments faced; and the priest had fingered his lute for an appreciable while before he sang, more ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... had wandered in that direction with his gun upon his shoulder looking for game, helped the fallen man to his feet and officiously fingered a bruise ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... the prince. He had helped himself to a glass of wine, and fingered the glass reflectively as he spoke. "You expect the world to move more quickly than it can. It is old and heavy, remember that. I have a fellow-feeling for it, with my two sticks. You would never make a diplomatist. I have heard of negotiations ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Rosy fingered Aurora lifted the gorgeous curtains of the east, and unlocked the golden gates of light, ushering in the young king of day. The glad earth, bathed with the dews of night, and redolent with flowers, lay blushing and ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... She was surprised and relieved at the kindly look in the steel-gray eyes. He took one of her little hands in his strong brown ones. He was ashamed that his instinct told him it was the typical hand of a thief, slim, smooth and deft-fingered. ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... done them good, what it was well worth their while to go to church for. But I did think they were too long for any individual Christian soul, to sympathise with from beginning to end, that is, to respond to, like organ-tube to the fingered key, in every touch of the utterance of the general Christian soul. For my reader must remember that it is one thing to read prayers and another to respond; and that I had had very few opportunities of being in the position of the latter ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... fingered his watch-chain. He had never had precisely this experience before—to try to push a man and have him beg that you give his good luck to somebody else. Surely this Peter Strong was an extraordinary person! Mr. Tyler could ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... his seat and nodded at Clay. The patrol car, with the disabled vehicle in tow moved forward and slanted left towards the police lane. Martin noted the mileage marker on the radiodometer and fingered the transmitter. "Chillicothe Control ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... succeeding years. Can we be blamed, if, in a strain truly lachrymal, we allude to the deductions which have annually been made from the miserable return which 1833 gave to the unfortunate proprietors of estates? What boots it to tell us that we have fingered thousands of pounds sterling, in the shape of compensation: and what consolation is it to know, that a hogshead of sugar will now bring thirty pounds, which, a short time ago, was only worth twelve. Let any unprejudiced individual look at the return now before us, and say ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... mountebank said to me; "it is a matter of exercise and habit, that is all! Of course, one requires to be a little gifted that way and not to be butter-fingered, but what is chiefly necessary is patience and daily practice for ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... the great Towle, Mrs. Bridgeman and a thickset, red-faced lady, without a waist and plainly clad in untrimmed linsey-wolsey, who was speaking authoritatively to a hysterical-looking young girl, upon whose narrow shoulder she rested a heavy, fat-fingered hand ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... secured parking space for his companion at the Union Cafe, and there he learned how a welsh rabbit may be humiliated by a woman. During the debacle he fingered the money in his pocket, then shut his eyes and ordered a bottle of champagne, just to see if it could be done. Contrary to his expectation, the waiter did not swoon; nor was he arrested. Root-beer had been Mitchell's main intoxicant heretofore, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... were when she and Aunt Victoria were all alone together—or with only the silent, swift-fingered, Pauline in attendance during the wonderful processes of dressing or undressing her mistress. These occasions seemed to please Aunt Victoria best also. She showed herself then so winning and gracious and altogether magical to the little girl that Sylvia forgot the uncomfortableness which always ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... dissatisfied onlookers were the quick-fingered spoilers and rovers who, packed as close as dried dates in a basket by the irresistible forward press of the people, found themselves suddenly occupationless, without power to move their arms, or ply their hands. Thus held in ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... and his wife had fingered over every spadeful of dirt. There might be something precious in it. "Dig carefully, carefully!" Dr. Schliemann had said to the workmen. "Nothing must be broken. Nothing must be lost. I must see everything. Perhaps a bit of a broken vase may tell ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... to yield to any force that is higher. So the tree stands, not mere lumber and cordwood, or an obstacle to be gotten rid of by fire, but an embodiment of life unexhausted for a thousand years. The fairy-fingered breeze plays through its myriad harp strings. It makes wide miles of air aromatic. Animal life feeds on the quintessence of life in its seeds. But most of all it is an object lesson that power triumphs over ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... came into Katherine's face. She examined the scarf without delay; and, as she fingered the delicate silk, she led the man on to talk of Lady Suffolk, though, indeed, he scarcely needed the stimulus of questioning. Without regard as to whether Katherine was taking any interest or not in his information, he detailed with hurried avidity the town talk that had clung to her reputation ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... own fee," grinned the Writer, as he fingered a cheque-book, artlessly placed upon the top of a desk. "Nice fat cheque, ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... non est yet the saloon in question boasted the best to be had. Every bar has its clerk at a pair of tiny scales, and he is ever kept more than busy weighing out the shining dust that the toiling miner has obtained by the sweat of his brow. And if the deft-fingered clerk cannot put six ounces of dust in his own pouch of a night, it clearly shows that he is not long ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... the watchful eyes saw the sign of fear in his face. At once the circle closed in, and this time he could see that several of the dogs were not sitting, but standing, as if ready for the final spring. He fingered a cartridge, then suddenly flung it into the topmost heap of glowing ash. The eyes of the pack followed the missile, and for a second each dog looked at the heap. As they looked there was a report, and a mass of live embers was scattered high and wide, over them, over ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... anyway!" she acknowledged with infinite relief. Triumphantly she raised both strong, stub-fingered, exaggeratedly executive hands to the level of her childish blue eyes and stood surveying the mirrored effect with ineffable satisfaction. "Why my hands are—dandy!" she gloated. "Why they're perfectly—dandy! Why they're wonderful! Why they're—." Then suddenly and fearfully she gave a shrill little ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... him Cudjoe. Perhaps him come to life again," answered Caesar, as if he fully believed such an event probable. "Or maybe him 'Tree Fingered Jack.'" ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... in Baffin's Bay; with the puma on the slope of the Pacific; and now at last he had come upon the trail of Labrador. Its sternness, its moodiness pleased him. He smiled at it the comprehending smile of the man who has fingered the nerves and the heart of men and things. As a traveller, wandering through a prison, looks upon its grim cells and dungeons with the eye of unembarrassed freedom, finding no direful significance in the clank of its iron, so Pierre travelled down with a handful of Indians ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hesitated. Then he fumbled among the levers; raised the hood again; returned to the driver's seat, and fingered at something the ladies could not see. "She can't ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... and to-day be—" The rest was whispered close, with a one-fingered tap on the painted cheek. In the gloom of the upper landing she paused to murmur, "hear this: Two things I have achieved this week worth all to-day's bad luck ten times over—you don't ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... The detective fingered his small, sandy moustache. He was an insignificant-looking little man, undersized, with thin frame and watery eyes. His mouth, however, was hard, and there were some tell-tale little ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... an air which put us at our ease and made us feel at home. Doris, the dark-haired, red-cheeked, full-contoured lass, was plainly much taken with Agathemer and he with her; I always had a weakness for red-headed girls and felt genuinely pleased that Nebris, her long-limbed, long-fingered, pale-skinned, blurred, bleached comrade seemed equally taken with me. The sofas of the tiny triclinium were soft and comfortable and, after eight days in the saddle, without a bath, we were glad to loll on them. The wine was good and, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... you to ask me that," he answered, very softly. He had a large morsel of cake before him; but he fingered it without eating it. "I sometimes think you are growing ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... was I was again restored to favour, and the women with swift, shy gestures fingered my dress and hat, my army belt, and the red silk handkerchief at the throat of my sailor collar, saying, "Mariloa, mariloa" over and over, which in their tongue means "pretty" or "good," depending ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... it, Margaret, When thou, still innocent, Here to the altar cam'st, And from the worn and fingered book Thy prayers didst prattle, Half sport of childhood, Half God within thee! Margaret! Where tends thy thought? Within thy bosom What hidden crime? Pray'st thou for mercy on thy mother's soul, That fell asleep to long, long ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... confined, and there was too little pay for me;" and so he got his discharge. "The restraining influences of military discipline," says Dr. Knapp, "gradually wore away." He went back to school even, but in vain. He was "never happier in his life" than when he "fingered all this money"— 200 pounds acquired by theft. He worked at his trade of thieving in many parts of Scotland and Ireland. As early as 1818 he was sentenced to death, but escaped, and, being recognised ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... narrow deck-space outside the cabin. Halvard was seated on a coil of rope beside the windlass and stood erect as Woolfolk approached. The sailor was smoking a short pipe, and the bowl made a crimson spark in his thick, powerful hand. John Woolfolk fingered the wood surface of the windlass bitts and found it rough and ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... at the piano. It was a poor piano, and he was a poor player who smoked his old pipe while he painstakingly fingered Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" or the score of "The Geisha." ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... grind fish and gruel. It first filled all the dishes and tubs full, and after that it covered the whole floor with fish and gruel. The man kept puttering and tinkering, and tried to get the mill to stop; but no matter how he turned it and fingered at it, the mill kept on, and before long the gruel got so deep in the room that the man was on the point of drowning. Then he opened the door to the sitting-room, but before long that room was filled too, and the man had all he could do to get hold of the door-latch down in this flood of gruel. ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... that you are intelligent and thoughtful beyond your years, and certainly have no need of anyone to protect you, for you can take care of yourself. I wish other boys would read more about these light-fingered people and they would be on their guard. Now you might be seeing something while you are waiting for your friends. We might walk about the square and they will see us when they come out of the store, for we will keep ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... Hermeias, is but a transliteration of the Sanscrit Sarameyas, under which he appears in the Vedic songs, as the son of Sarama, the Dawn. Even his character as the master thief and patron saint of the light-fingered gentry, drawn from the way the winds and breezes penetrate every crack and cranny of the house, is absolutely repeated in the Mexican hero-god Quetzalcoatl, who was also the patron of thieves. I might carry the comparison yet further, for as Sarameyas is derived from the root sar, to creep, whence ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... collie, and he has been in treaty for one ever so long. Is he not a dear old boy?" cried Dick, rapturously. But he did not tell his friends of the crisp bundle of bank-notes with which Mr. Mayne had enriched his son; only as Dick fingered them lovingly, he wondered what pretty foreign thing he could buy for Nan, and whether her mother would allow her ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... hands. After a little time it is washed off and a red dye remains on the skin. It is supposed that the similar custom which prevailed among the ancient Greeks is alluded to in the epithet of 'rosy-fingered Aurora.' The Hindus use henna dye only in the month Shrawan (July), which is a period of fasting; the auspicious kunku and mahawar are therefore perhaps not considered suitable at such a time, but as special protection is needed against evil ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... moment she had refused Hess' offer of a private car, and she now rather regretted it. She had a headache, and the great coils of red-gold hair seemed to weigh tons. It would have been a relief to have it taken down and brushed by a deft-fingered maid. But the maid also had been left behind. And that, she ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... better go and see another agent." She fingered the advertisement regretfully. "It seems a pity to waste this," she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... senior showed a careful countenance among his vine props; for he was always in his vineyard now, just as, in the old days, he had lived in his shop, day in, day out. The prospect of thirty thousand francs was even more intoxicating than sweet wine; already in imagination he fingered the coin. The less the claim to the money, the more eager he grew to pouch it. Not seldom his anxieties sent him hurrying from Marsac to Angouleme; he would climb up the rocky staircases into the old city and walk into his son's workshop to see ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... the cell-door, while they labored, and fingered gingerly around the spike, which must have been driven through the sentry's ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... to the astonishment of all, the Indians approached and made signs that they desired to enter into amicable relations with the white men. They jumped out from their boats and fingered the clothes of the colonists, their guns and their food, showing great curiosity at everything. The next day, perhaps because the Council had seen the folly of their suspicions or had realized the value of Smith's military experience and knowledge, the state ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... which feebly once Lighted the cheek of lean captivity With a pale and sickly glare, then freely shone On the pure smiles of infant playfulness. No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair Pealed through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes Of joy fingered winds and gladsome birds ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... whether I am going to make this typewriting machine go or nto: that last word was intended for n-not; but I guess I shall make some sort of a succss of it before I run it very long. I am so thick-fingered that I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... moment. The sparkle of fun had died out of her eyes, which had become dark with the steadier fires of imagination. The strands of her thick hair, falling down on each side of her oval face, gave to it a whimsically mediaeval look, suggestive of legend. Her long-fingered, delicate, but strong little hands were clasped in her lap, and did not move. It was evident ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... father's home to-day." Glancing up the road, she caught sight of Millie Higgins and another girl in the distance. She particularly did not want to meet Millie just then. She made such rude remarks, and she always fingered things so. Mona had not forgiven her either for leading her astray the day her mother went ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Certainly, at first sight, it looked very like one; but, on closer inspection, it rather seemed to be some kind of a creature that lived in the sea. For on his legs and arms there were scales, such as fishes have; he was web-footed and web-fingered, after the fashion of a duck; and his long beard, being of a greenish tinge, had more the appearance of a tuft of seaweed than of an ordinary beard. Have you never seen a stick of timber, that has been long tossed ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... under false pretenses, bigamy as a side issue, and arson as a possible backstop. The sleep-walking theory, as advanced in favor of Mrs. Plume, had been reluctantly abandoned, it appearing that, however dazed and "doped" she may have been through the treatment of that deft-fingered, unscrupulous maid, she was sufficiently wide awake to know well whither she had gone at that woman's urging, to make a last effort to recover certain letters of vital importance. At Blakely's door Clarice had "lost ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... people who are not roused but merely disconcerted by the spectacle of passion. Mr. Soper said he supposed he could "make a 'armless remark." And still thirsting for companionship he pursued Mrs. Downey to the drawing-room. As he went, he fingered his little box of bon-bons as if it had been a talisman ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... not very clear. Some say that Wat laid his hand on the king's bridle, others that he fingered his dagger threateningly. Whatever the provocation, Walworth, the mayor, at that instant pressed forward, sword in hand, and stabbed the unprotected man in the throat before he could make a movement of defence. As ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... bookworm; for his reading lay all in the nebulous regions of history. Old family records, wherever he could lay hold upon them, were his favourite dishes; old, musty books, that looked as if they knew something everybody else had forgotten, made his eyes gleam, and his white taper-fingered hand tremble with eagerness. With such a book in his grasp he saw something ever beckoning him on, a dimly precious discovery, a wonderful fact just the shape of some missing fragment in the mosaic of one of his pictures of the past. To ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Pete, and the lead swung far ahead and fell with a sullen plop into the dark blue water. The line ran out until it suddenly slackened just under the leadsman. He fingered a mark. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... to reform. He was fond of telling the story of how, when his watch was stolen, the thieves themselves compelled the rascal to come and return it, because he had been the benefactor of the "long-fingered fraternity." The last time that I saw the venerable philanthropist was just before his death (at the age of eighty-four years). He was presiding at a convention of the Young Men's Christian Association in Exeter Hall. In my speech I said: ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... to neither of them had he put into formal words what it was that troubled him. He had asked questions about vocation, about the place that circumstance occupies in it, of the value of dispositions, fears, scruples, and resistance. He had, that is, fingered his wound, half uncovered it, and then covered it up again, tormented it, glanced at it and then glanced aside; yet the one thing he had not done was to probe it—not even to allow another ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... his right to his left foot and pressed his lips together. Von Koenitz fingered the waxed ends of his moustache ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... supposing that the flying reptiles or Pterodactyls gave rise to birds, for the two groups are on different lines, and the structure of the wings is entirely different. Thus the long-fingered Pterodactyl wing was a parachute wing, while the secret of the bird's wing has its centre in the feathers. It is highly probable that birds evolved from certain Dinosaurs which had become bipeds, and it is possible that they were ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... if expecting her to open a delicate subject; but that excellent lady only fingered her palla,[80] and gave vent to a slight cough. Cornelia, whose fears had all passed away, stood beside Drusus, with one arm resting on his shoulder, glancing pertly from one man to the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... thought. He fingered his sparse beard and looked out over the sea. At last he turned to Trent. "I see no reason," he said, "why I shouldn't tell you as between ourselves, my dear fellow. I need not say that this must not be referred to, however ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... failed to sound I brake the string, And dashed the sweet lute down, a too much fingered thing, And found a wild new voice,—oh, still, why should ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... "Mac! It's three-fingered Mac Alarney, by the Lord!" Blaine started from his chair. "Why did I not think of him before! Doctor, you have rendered to me and to my client an invaluable service, which shall not be forgotten. Mac Alarney is a retired prize-fighter, in close touch with all the political ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... slowest man in the parish both in speech and action. This was hardly considered a failing, however, for it had its advantages in shopping; if he was slow himself, he was quite willing that others should be so too, and to stand in unmoved calm while Mrs Jones fingered a material to test its quality, or Mrs Wilson made up her mind between a spot and a sprig. It was therefore a splendid place for a bit of talk, for he was so long in serving, and his customers were so long in choosing, that there was an agreeable absence of pressure, and time to drink ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... Owen fingered uneasily the paper Hicks had put in his hand. He drew it out of his pocket—yes, it was a receipt in full for all that Owen owed the scoundrel. What could be Hicks's scheme? Owen turned a puzzled and worried gaze ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... past be and if it is your will, let us set our eyes upon the future. Only one promise would I ask of you, that never again will you be alone with the lord Deleroy, since one so light-fingered with a pen would, I think, steal ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... trembling-handed Laurence Ginnel, who is given long jail terms because he refuses to take his hat off in a British court, sat forward on his chair. The rich young Protestant named Robert Barton regarded the crowd through his shining eyeglasses. Keen, boyish Michael Collins, minister of finance, fingered the paper he was going to read. The last two men had recently escaped from prison and were wanted by the police—both, as they say in Ireland, ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... o'er, and arm in arm (The full heart beating 'gainst the elbow warm) We passed into the great refreshment-hall, Where the heaped cheese-cakes and the comfits small Lay, like a hive of sunbeams, brought to burn Around the margin of the negus urn; When my poor quivering hand you fingered twice, And, with inquiring accents, whispered "Ice, Water, or cream?" I could no more dissemble, But dropped upon the couch all in a tremble. A swimming faintness misted o'er my brain, The corks seemed starting from the brisk champagne, The custards fell untouched upon the ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... lately added a son to his family. He had two sons before, also two daughters. From any standpoint it seemed an unnecessary addition when the economist considers that he had no means of support except his big-fingered paws, and these, though very willing, depended on chance jobs and days' works given him by other men. In face of these facts the youngest was there as well as the oldest—scarcely seven; the second, scarcely five; and the third and fourth, aged three and a half and two—in his rented ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... himself skillfully enough to the gangway, where Errington let down the ladder and with his own hand assisted his visitor to mount, not forgetting to fasten the boat safely to the steps as he did so. Once on deck, Sigurd gazed about him perplexedly. He had brought his bunch of pansies with him, and he fingered their soft leaves thoughtfully. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... home—where she has been living with her Aunt Zilpah—I ketched her!" confessed Candage. His voice was hoarse. His fingers, bent and calloused with rope-pulling, trembled as he fingered the seam of ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... two, according as it may be spared. In an evening but a while since, came one in the manner of a Seruing man to this man and his wife, and he must needes have a Chamber for his Maister, offering so largely, as the bargaine was soone concluded betweene them. His intent was to have fingered some bootie in the house, as by the sequele it may bee likeliest gathered: but belike no fit thing lying abroad, or hee better regarded then happily be would be, his expectation that way was frustrated, yet as a resolute Conny-catcher indeed, that ...
— The Third And Last Part Of Conny-Catching. (1592) - With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking • R. G.
... his aunt's austere countenance and lovingly fingered his charm; he opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated; slowly he untied the string around his neck and laid his treasure on her lap; then without looking up, he ran into his own little room, closing the door ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... suspendeth the said purse and crieth out, saying, 'Where are ye, O sharpers of Egypt, O prigs of Al-Irak, O tricksters of Ajam-land? Behold, Zurayk the fishmonger hath hung up a purse in front of his shop, and whoso pretendeth to craft and cunning, and can take it by sleight, it is his.' So the long fingered and greedy-minded come and try to take the purse, but cannot; for, whilst he frieth his fish and tendeth the fire, he layeth at his feet scone-like circles of lead; and whenever a thief thinketh to take him unawares and maketh a snatch at the purse he casteth at him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... that the sun also is a woman. Every night she descends among the dead, who stand in double lines to greet her and let her pass. She has a lover among the dead, who has presented her with a red kangaroo skin, and in this she appears at her rising. Such is the view of rosy-fingered Dawn entertained by the blacks of Encounter Bay. In South America, among the Muyscas of Bogota, the moon, Huythaca, is the malevolent wife of the child of the sun; she was a woman before her husband banished her to the fields of space.(2) The moon is a man among the Khasias of the Himalaya, and he ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... impaletocked, or lapped up about the chin like a tufted whoop, and his breath pretty well antidoted with store of the vine-tree-syrup. With him he mumbled all his kiriels and dunsical breborions, which he so curiously thumbed and fingered, that there fell not so much as one grain to the ground. As he went from the church, they brought him, upon a dray drawn with oxen, a confused heap of paternosters and aves of St. Claude, every one of them being of the bigness of a hat-block; and thus ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... and better, being more dainty-fingered, and having more taste. It really was an artistic pleasure to deal with such beautiful hair, and such a lovely lay figure as Esther's. With all her queenly beauty and grace, the girl had that simplicity and sedateness ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The blankets of the bed (which contained two pillows) were as grubby as the sheets. The pillows beside the one on which she had slept bore the impress of somebody's head. Over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and floor, lay a thick deposit of dust and grime. Misspelt lewd words were fingered on the dirt of the window-panes. The horror of the room seemed to grip Mavis by the throat. She coughed, to sicken at a foul feeling in her mouth, which seemed to be gritty from the unclean air of the room. This atmosphere was not only as if the windows had not been ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... a long pause. Peter slightly fingered one of the sheets of his delayed report on his desk. His sister looked up. "I'm afraid I'm as bad as Lady Elfrida in keeping you from your Indians; but I had something to say to you. No matter, another time will do when ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... not know what to make of such extraordinary and unexpected questions. He blushed, tried to write, fingered his curls, and then gave himself over to despair; whereupon Mr. Bouncer was seized with an immoderate fit of laughter, which brought the farce almost to ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... too far for damages—too far! They are putting their coulter too deep!" said a farmer fresh from the field. He had still a bag of seed-grain around his neck, and now and again he thrust in his hand and fingered the kernels. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... studied attempt to insult him because of his past shortcomings. He imagined that his superior held him in contempt, and so he chafed and fumed inwardly until one evening his madness became suddenly homicidal. He fingered the butt of the revolver at his hip, his eyes narrowed and his brows contracted. At ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of this Jack could well understand, but the last part of it, making collusion to the wealth, was a little dark, as he thought, bekase, he hadn't fingered any of it at the time: still, he knew she was truth to the back-bone, and wouldn't desave him. They hadn't travelled much farther, When Jack snaps his fingers with a 'Whoo! by the powers, there it is, my darling—there it is, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... the chest lay rolls upon rolls of paper money amounting to some millions of francs—in all far surpassing what I had myself formerly enjoyed from my own revenues. I plunged my hands deep in the leathern bags; I fingered the rich materials; all this treasure was mine! I had found it in my own burial vault! I had surely the right to consider it as my property? I began to consider—how could it have been placed there without my knowledge? The answer to ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... I The rosy-fingered morn with gladsome ray Rose to her task from old Tithonus' lap When their grave host came where the warriors lay, And with him brought the shield, the rod, the map. "Arise," quoth he, "ere lately broken day, In his ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the dominant life form there until men had come. Now they were just another animal added to humanity's growing list of pets and livestock. The little Varl with their soft-furred bodies and clever six-fingered hands made excellent pets and precision workmen. The products of those clever hands, the tiny instruments, the delicate microminiaturized control circuits, the incredibly fine lacework and tapestries, formed the bulk ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... were two helicopters—dual lift, one forward and one aft. And Walt Harkness, pilot of the second class, earned immediate disbarment or a much higher rating as he coolly fingered the controls. He cut the motor on the big fan at the stern, threw the forward one on full and set the blades for maximum lift, then released the hold-down grips that ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Lockwood fingered the combination hopelessly. There were some millions of combinations and permutations that only a mathematician could calculate. Only one was any good. That one was locked in the mind of the man who now seemed to baffle ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... hydrogen?" We heard and we pitied. We let her in and housed her royally; we adorned her palace with re-agents and retorts, and made it a very charnel-house of bones, and we cried to our undergraduates, "The feast of Science is spread! Eat, drink, and be happy!" But they would not. They fingered the bones, and thought them dry. They sniffed at the hydrogen, and turned away. Yet for all that Science ceased not to cry, "More gold, more gold!" And her three fair daughters, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics (for the modern horse-leech ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... lessons began, it might almost be said it was only when a spectator was present that he was not sobbing. For Rosie, who was an awkward, ungraceful young person, proved to be the dullest and most butter-fingered pupil ever invented for the torture of teachers; at least, so Lancelot thought, but then he had never had any other pupils, and was not patient. It must be admitted, though, that Rosie giggled perpetually, ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill |
