"Fumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... miles round, were gathered there—for the young clergyman had been much beloved. Very near the newly-made grave was a tiny grassy mound where little Kit lay; and at Malcolm's side stood a small, shabbily-dressed man, with pale watery blue eyes and an air of extreme dejection, nervously fumbling with the crape band on his hat. Malcolm had just laid a little spray of violets and lilies of the valley on the mound, as they waited ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was the hut, in its rough kindliness, and there, the smoke told him, was a fire. Jerry had been up that morning, because Charlotte must have known he'd come there the first thing. Still smoothing the road to Old Crow! He had been fumbling with one hand for the key, the while he kept the other on her arm. She was so terrified a creature now that he did not trust her not to break blindly away and run. He unlocked the door, pushed her in, closed and locked it. Then ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... hired performers in the ceremony. She was very successful in her efforts, as the number of coins, soon visible within the tambourine, showed. Not without blushing and some hesitation did the May Queen approach Dick Taverner. The 'prentice made a pretence of fumbling in his pouch in order to prolong the interview, which chance had thus procured him; and after uttering all the complimentary phrases he could muster, and looking a great deal more than he said, he wound up his speech by declaring he would bestow a mark (and that was ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... down the stairway and fingers fumbling at the key of the door. His attackers were gathering for a rush, and he wondered whether the rescue was to be too late. They came together, the opening door and the forward pour of huddled figures. He stepped back ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... the others, who sprang from the table and clustered about him, fierce birds of prey about a helpless quarry. The lad cried for help, hopelessly enough. Strong, dirty fingers were tearing open his jerkin and fumbling for the concealed letter, when suddenly it seemed to the astonished swordsmen that an earthquake and a whirlwind had combined for their undoing. AEsop rolled to one end of the room, Staupitz to another; Cocardasse and Passepoil, Saldagno, Pepe, Pinto, ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... difficulty, as though from inward depths clumsily fumbling for words, he always arrived at the same goal. The thought was at last as clear and lucid as a birch leaf ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... upon us. Being strangers we were looked upon as enemies. Having occasion for a supply of lead and a few other necessary articles, we used to go over to the emigrant camps to obtain them. After some hesitation, some dubious glances, and fumbling of the hands in the pockets, the terms would be agreed upon, the price tendered, and the emigrant would go off to bring the article in question. After waiting until our patience gave out, we would go in search ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... heed to him. He was fumbling with the pocket of the skirt as he ran. Not until he had withdrawn a revolver from its folds—whereupon he at once threw away the garment—did the maddening remembrance come to him that he unloaded the weapon ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... short stories, has been enormous. Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner both praised him as a writer who brought a new tremor of feeling, a new sense of introspectiveness to the American short story. As Faulkner put it, Anderson's "was the fumbling for exactitude, the exact word and phrase within the limited scope of a vocabulary controlled and even repressed by what was in him almost a fetish of simplicity ... to seek always to penetrate to thought's uttermost end." And in many ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... sleep," someone who was fumbling in his pack remarked in a sleepy voice. "I'm not wantin' no rum and cawfee. Last night almost choked in the bell-tent, the night before sea-sick, and now wakened up for rum and ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... difficulty than had the outer dial. Maitland had it open in a twinkling. Then, brazenly lifting out the inner framework, bodily, he thrust a fumbling hand into the aperture thus disclosed and pressed the spring, releasing the panel at the back. It disappeared as though by witchcraft, and the splash of light from the bull's-eye discovered a canvas bag squatting humbly in the secret compartment: a fat little canvas bag, considerably soiled ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... wind-pipes from the law; 340 For one rencounter at the bar Was worse than all th' had 'scap'd in war; And therefore met in consultation To cant and quack upon the nation; Not for the sickly patient's sake, 345 For what to give, but what to take; To feel the pulses of their fees, More wise than fumbling arteries: Prolong the snuff of life in pain, And from the grave recover — ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the like; a kind of remote atavistic reciprocity in us stretching out towards that particular element. It is by means of instinct that we are able to sink into that mysterious sub-conscious world which underlies the conscious levels of every soul-monad. Under the groping and fumbling guidance of this strange power we seem to come into touch with the profoundest reservoirs ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... some one fumbling at my door and making a clinking noise," he explained. "I called out. Nobody answered. Almost immediately I heard a noise across the hall. I opened my door. A man was fussing at the keyhole of the room ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... we'll see about it," said David Hautville. He began fumbling with clumsy fingers, all unused to women's gear, at the string of this daughter's cloak; but she pulled herself away from him suddenly, and the old hard lines came into her face. "We'll say no more about it," said she. She lit a candle quickly at the hearth fire, and was out of the ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... MAY. [Fumbling in her shawl.] There, Harry—'tis comed back to my mind now. [She takes out part of a loaf of bread.] Take you this bread. And to-night, when you eats of it, think on me, and as how I be to home with Steve a-holding of my hand and little Dorry ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... groping all the way, into his daughters' chamber; and, coming to the bed where the little boys lay, and who were all fast asleep, except Little Thumb, who was terribly afraid when he found the Ogre fumbling about his head, as he had done about his brothers', he felt ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... touched Miss Patty's soft dimpled chin. Then there was her beautiful neck, so white, and with such blue veins! he had an irresistible desire to stroke it for its very smoothness - as one loves to feel the polish of marble, or the glaze of wedding cards - instead of employing his hands in fumbling at the brown ribands, whose knots became more complicated than ever. Then there was her happy rosy face, so close to which his own was brought; and her bright, laughing, hazel eyes, in which, as he timidly looked up, he saw little daguerreotypes of himself. ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... when he called the following Saturday and stood at her door awkwardly fumbling his hat, trying to ask her to spend the afternoon and evening at Coney Island with him. There was no mistaking the manner in ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... got a fancy yarn to hand you," he went on, fumbling in his pockets. "I jest got my papers, here, as I got 'em from the law fellers. You best take 'em, an' after we done get a look into 'em." He passed them across. "Now these are the fac's of how I bo't, why I bo't, an' who I bo't from. The place ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... said Lew thickly, fumbling with his tiny drummer's sword. The drink was working on his brain as ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... I replied; "where is your dish-cloth? "—a natural question, as any woman will agree, but what a consternation it evoked! A just perceptible delay, a fumbling among pots and pans, and he came toward me with a most apologetic air, and with the sorriest-looking rag I had ever seen—its narrow circumference encircling a ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... longer was the clutch on his throat maintained. Both hands left it quickly, one shifting to his head to turn and press it roughly cheek to floor. Simultaneously he was aware of the other hand fumbling about his neck, and then of a touch of metal and the sting of a needle driven into the flesh ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Mr. Holmes was slipping into his beaver overcoat that had been hanging in the hall. Then he began fumbling in the pockets, first one and then another. He tried the outside, then threw it open and thrust his hand into those within the broad lapels, a look of bewilderment ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... her eyes fixed on him, and under their unwavering stare he seemed to be uneasy, his own inflamed eyes wandering ceaselessly over her, one hand fumbling at the curved hilt of a knife stuck in his belt, and at last he grew exasperated, hitching himself forward once more and beckoning her to come nearer to him. She hesitated, and as she paused uncertainly, there was a flutter of draperies behind her, and the Arab woman from the inner ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... side was the entrance proper, and, as he said so, he stepped up into the press and closed the doors. They could hear him fumbling within, then the sound of wood sliding, and finally a muffled voice calling to them. Marjorie flung the doors open, and, save for the dresses, it was empty. She stared in for a moment, still hearing the movements of someone beyond, and at last the sound of a snap; and as she withdrew her ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... on his knapsack, and shortly after all were asleep. It was long after this when I was suddenly awakened by footsteps and fumbling about the house outside. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... times a day; so at last he went by the name of 'Old Duty.' I think I see him now, walking up and down with his spy-glass under his left arm, and the hand of the other pushed into his breast, as if he were fumbling for a flea. His hat was always split and worn in the front, from constantly taking it off, instead of touching it, when he came on the quarter-deck; and, as soon as it was too far gone in front to raise the purchase off his head, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... curious little test of character and discipline. For to us as we halted at one charming bit of stony hillside, cedar grown, came one of the amazing persistent buzzards carrying his whole stock in trade, a box of chocolate bars. We were hungry, and some men bought; even David began fumbling in his pocket as the man came near. But he looked at Knudsen, and the Swede frowned, so when the fellow offered his wares David waved him away. Having shown weakness, he did not attempt to influence Pickle; but that worthy, ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... shore was reached, however, Robinette discovered that the passage across the river in a leaky little boat, rowed by a painfully inexperienced servant, was almost too much for her. To see him fumbling with the oars, made her tingle to take them herself; she could not abide the irritation of a return journey with such a boatman. This determination was hastened when she saw that instead of the three-decker steamer of her ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... extremest ends Of parallels, as like Vulcan and his wife; Yet god Achilles still cries 'Excellent! 'Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus, Arming to answer in a night alarm.' And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget, Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport Sir Valour dies; cries 'O, enough, Patroclus; Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all In pleasure of my spleen.' And in this fashion All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes, Severals and generals ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... style of their masters. But in all their work there is nothing felt, nothing thought out, nothing expressed, nothing imagined. It is a vast vacuity of meaningless and worthless brush-play, a wilderness of hollow trickery and futile fumbling with conventional forms. The Mannerists, as they were called, covered acres of palace and church walls with allegories, histories, and legends, carelessly designed, rapidly executed, but pleasing ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... this, he held up the bag in his left hand,—at the same time plunging his right into its dark interior. For some seconds he appeared, to grope about, as if he had some difficulty in finding the button. While fumbling in this fashion he let go the mouth of the wallet, which he had been holding in his left hand,—adroitly transferring his hold to its bottom. This was done apparently for the purpose of getting the button into a corner,—in order that ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... possessed it! Ah, was it true then that she no longer held a claim? He had closed the door hesitatingly and with sharp pain in her face, but now the bare recollection of the little brown hands fumbling upon it thrilled him with a blissful sense that perhaps, after all, his life was not to be the utter sacrifice that he had supposed. Perhaps this peerless creature by some magical process of development might yet meet and satisfy his intellectual ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... when he noticed that one of the little children was following behind. This was the future scout of the British Army, and the young gentleman, according to his wont, was just scrambling into a chair when Thackeray, fumbling in his pocket, produced a new shilling, and said in his caressing voice, "There, little one, you shall have this shilling if you are good and run away." Ste quietly looked up at his mother, and not until she told him that he might ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... she stopped and leaned wearily on his arm for a moment. She did not speak, but he understood that his new house made her sad; that she, too, had come to the place where she must turn out of the old path. He longed to whisper to her and beg her not to marry his brother. He lingered and hesitated, fumbling in the dark. She had his own cursed kind of sensibility; she would expect too much from life and be disappointed. He was reluctant to lead her out into the chilly evening without some word of entreaty. He would willingly have prolonged their ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... smooth trip, Corbett," Connel said. "And thanks for letting me take her in. I know it's unusual to have the senior officer take over the ship, but once in a while I get the urge to put my hands on those controls and—well—" Connel paused, fumbling for words. ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... is sitting in a sort of improvised chaise longue and his legs are evidently strapped in place under the blanket; he is fumbling with ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... dark, as I have said, and I did not recognize the young people,—at least their figures were not familiar to me; but when, in another instant, I heard the click of a night-key, and saw them, after a rather tedious fumbling at the lock, disappear from the stoop, I took it for granted that the gentleman was Mr. Van Burnam's eldest son Franklin, and the lady some relative of the family; though why this, its most punctilious member, should ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... all along. Why drag it in now? Night after night you've danced with me; I've been at your beck and call; you used me to rescue you from Gray that time. What are you? What are you made of? Unsophisticated! You!" He wasn't angry. He was fumbling at reasons in order to try and get at her point of view. "You know well enough that a man doesn't put himself out to that extent for nothing. What becomes of give and take? Do you conceive that you are going to sail through life taking everything ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... to their feet as one of the stones, thrown at random, shivered the car window into bits and struck the kind old face, full between the eyes. A quick, startled cry—a pitiful fumbling of kind old hands before shattered spectacles and eyes suddenly blinded—and the moving picture seemed to fade away. The twins were left with the sickening fear that perhaps little Jim's grandmother might never see ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... a pig? Where are your licences?" said the policeman. They had nearly run against him round a corner. Pigling Bland pulled out his paper; Alexander, after fumbling, handed over ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... (Smiling nervously and fumbling in her glove where she has concealed the money to have it conveniently ready.) Put one down for me, too; will you? (She smiles hysterically.) Dear me, I wonder what my husband would say ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... was fumbling in her mind for the response the Moss girl evidently awaited, one of the children whose acquaintance the latter had made came running up to her and shyly took her hand and kissed it. Again putting the umbrella into the other girl's hands, Elsie Moss impulsively caught ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... tell Peggy to get the water canteen ready. Her busy little, fingers were fumbling with it. As they touched the ground she leaped nimbly from the chassis and sped over the burning desert floor to the side of the recumbent wayfarer. A second later Roy and Jess joined her. Very tenderly they turned the insensible man upon his back and dashed the water ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... know how to thank you," mumbled the other. He seemed to be fumbling in his pocket. "I'll give you my card," he went on. "If you ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... the table. The boy played there, fumbling with the yellow forms. Tolliver glanced at the top one. He called out ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... even Tessie, who had confessed ignorance of boats and oars, knew that Ballou was fumbling clumsily. He stooped to adjust the oars to the oarlocks. His hat was off. His hair looked very gray in the cruel spring sunshine. He straightened and smiled up ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... of reach of the psychic, and at my request the drummer kept time to my whistling. After some minutes of this foolery "the force" left the piano abruptly, as if with a leap, and dropped to the middle of the table. A light, fumbling noise followed, and I called out: "Is every hand ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... knew that, so handicapped, she could never reach them, and with shaking, fumbling fingers she set herself to unfasten the straps that bound the skis. It took her a long, long time—all the longer for her fevered haste. And still that awful, flail-like sound went on and on, though all sound of ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... hard to say who is more nervous that night, Hotlips or a certain piano player with my name. Frankie is smirking like always, and Stella Starlight is sitting and looking beautiful while she waits for her cue. Hotlips is fumbling with his trumpet like maybe he never sees one before. And I—even I am not exactly calm ...
— The Flying Cuspidors • V. R. Francis
... period of hard work, and it was followed by a football disaster. Yale met Washington and Jefferson, and while part of the Bulldog's poor form might be ascribed to a muddy field, it was not all that. There was fumbling and ragged playing, and Yale had not been able to score. Nor was it any consolation that the other team had not either. Several times their players had menaced Yale's goal line, and only by supreme efforts was a touchdown avoided. As it stood it was practically a defeat for Yale, ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... Perry," exclaimed uncle George, fumbling for his whisker, "she'll be sure to blame us, aye, she will so, b'gad ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... I was yet fumbling in the holster pocket when the lieutenant rose from his seat without, knocked the ashes from his pipe, yawned sleepily, standing directly between me and the fire, and then, turning sharply, walked slowly ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... of course knew nothing of the magic key, was already fumbling at the lock with a hairpin, and after poking at it for several minutes it ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... and proud. He awed me. I stood before him fumbling my hat. Said I to myself: "The personage before me is more than a snag-boat captain. This is none other than the gentleman who invented the Missouri River. No doubt even now he carries the patent ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... chamber beneath the altar room. Here she turned into one of the several corridors leading from it. In the darkness Tarzan could not see which one. For ten minutes they groped slowly along a winding passage, until at length they came to a closed door. Here he heard her fumbling with a key, and presently came the sound of a metal bolt grating against metal. The door swung in on scraping hinges, ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his words. She flung away from him in tempestuous anger and turned as if to leave the room. But before she reached the door some other impulse apparently overtook her. She stopped abruptly with her back to Phil, and stood for what seemed to him interminable seconds, fumbling with her handkerchief. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... happened in far less time than it takes to tell. The onlookers had not yet recovered from their first consternation; in fact they were still fumbling and tugging at whatever weapons they carried when Sebastian came toward them, brandishing the blade on high. Pedro Miron, the advocate, was the third to fall. He tried to scramble out of the negro's path, but, being an old man, his limbs ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... for the first time at the Junction, when he stood before her, slim and uncouth under the huge burden of "Ugo," fumbling ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... man. Harold stood motionless, his gun half raised and ready for instant action. Hugh and Bob looked on, fascinated. When about thirty yards distant the man stooped and appeared to be fumbling with something at his feet. Only for a moment, however, for he soon straightened up again and proceeded on ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... friend of mine," returned the doctor, fumbling in a drawer of his desk. "But I think I have one of his cards here which he gave me when we were introduced some time ago at Mr. Haswell's. I should think it would be worth while to see him. Although he has no use for me because I have neither ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... a command to me," answered Zachur, who was already fumbling in the sack, but for some ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... suggested Wastei, pulling out a match-box, and fumbling in his unfamiliar pockets for ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... the dazed child's icy little hand in his, and, fumbling the business rather awkwardly, he finally contrived to snap a strap-watch over the delicate wrist. It was the one ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... his rifle against the trestles and stood there, groping in his pocket. A dirty handkerchief, dragged up by his fumbling, hung out by its corner. All along the sharp crease there was a slender smear of blood. He looked down at it and pushed it back out ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... that it is not brooding reason that climbs and conquers the steps of perfection, but moral will. Like a flash of lightning she recognised one day the demoniacal element in this impulse, an impulse she had been accustomed to ascribe to his everlasting fidgeting, fumbling, and grumbling. She shuddered at the hitherto unsuspected distress of the man, and took pity on him: he was burying himself in darkness in order to give the world ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... doorstep and put on his shoes, tying them with trembling, fumbling fingers. He expected every minute to hear his ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Monday.—Last night my maid heard footsteps and the sound of hands fumbling on her door; this she told us when she came in ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... "company-room," or parlor, was faintly indicated by the light that streamed beneath it. She stood still for a moment hesitatingly, when suddenly a hand grasped her own, and half led, half dragged her, into the sitting-room opposite. It was dark. There was a momentary fumbling for the tinder-box and flint, a muttered oath over one or two impeding articles of furniture, and Thankful laughed. And then the light was lit; and her father, a gray wrinkled man of sixty, still holding her ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... fullback stepped through the doorway and pushed the door shut after him, nervously. He came over toward the man who had been forced into the unenviable role of trying to fill Coach Brown's great shoes, and stood—fumbling with his cap. There was an awkward moment, broken finally by ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... into Bob's chin, and at the same time reached for the young man's gullet with both hands. Bob tore his head out of reach in the nick of time. As they closed again Roaring Dick's right hand was free. Bob felt the riverman's thumb fumbling ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... pure adventure. Would you accept it? Not you. You would flush with embarrassment; you would sheepishly drop the roll and continue down Broadway, fumbling feebly for the missing button. This you would do unless you are one of the blessed few in whom the pure spirit of adventure ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... forward abstractedly, and fumbling through one drawer of his desk after another succeeded in bringing out a photograph of Tom, taken at seventeen or eighteen. Then by a little extra search he found his wife in her presentation dress at a foreign court. There ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... He was fumbling at his scarf and trying to look at it by pulling it out to its full length and squinting down his ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... not touch the trigger until I found I was holding well forward and rather low. I could scarcely hear the crack of the rifle, such was the noise of hoofs, but I saw the bull switch his tail and push on as though unhurt, in spite of the trickle of red which sprung on his flank. As I followed on, fumbling for a pistol at my holster, the bull suddenly turned, head down and tail stiffly erect, his mane bristling. My horse sprang aside, and the herd passed on. The old bull, his head lowered, presently stopped, deliberately eying us, and a moment later he deliberately lay ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... expletives about the mines. Sheer bad luck they swear; bad luck that would not happen once in a hundred tries. They had knocked out the Forts, they claim, and one, three-word order, "Full steam ahead," would have cut the Gordian Knot the diplomats have been fumbling at for over a hundred years by slicing their old Turkey in two. Then came the big delay owing to ships changing stations during which mines set loose from up above had time to float down the current, when, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... a voice, fumbling among its unused tones for forgotten notes, "art thou ready? Surely that is ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... first thought that he was joking with them, but he very quickly showed that he was in earnest, and suddenly clapping a pistol to Cobb's head, he told him that if he did not instantly pay the sum he would be a dead man. Cobb's countenance fell; but fumbling in his pocket, he produced the four sovereigns which had been demanded, while the pirate captain allowed the other men to pass by paying the usual sum. As the money was collected he turned it into bags, which he handed to ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... they both got out of bed and performed their toilette; but after Pao-y had gone to the drawing rooms, and at a moment least expected by any one, Tai-y walked into his apartment. Noticing that Pao-y was not in, she was fumbling with the books on the table and examining them, when, as luck would have it, she turned up the Chuang Tzu of the previous day. Upon perusing the passage tagged on by Pao-y, she could not help feeling both incensed and amused. Nor could ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... from an old press in her bedroom, all kinds of wonderful things which would be useful to Jenny some day in her house: terrible little ornaments,—very sacred, though,—sad quaintnesses of the spirit of beauty pathetically fumbling about in country brains; wool mats worked in the primary colours; and such wool wonders as a wool basket of flowers, in which real wool flowers grew out of a wool basket which you held by an over-arching wool handle, the whole ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... Mrs. Pottinger briefly. "In fact, as my physician advises the inhalation of tobacco smoke for my asthmatic difficulties, I will join you." After a moment's fumbling in a beaded bag that hung from her waist, she produced a small black clay pipe, filled it from the same receptacle, and ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... had both fists rammed deep into his pockets and had not the courtesy to remove his hat. With a slight sense of uneasiness, Betty thought of closing the door. The unexpected visitor kept edging closer toward her and was apparently fumbling for something ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... sprang to his feet, and as his thin lips parted into a forced, uncomprehending smile, Harry struck him with his fist, full in the face. Before Harry could draw back Shuter had seized him by the throat, and was fumbling in his pocket for an old sailor's knife which he was always known to carry; but before he could draw it he was swung violently off his feet and brought down with a thud on the table. He was little better than a child in Joe's grasp. The next instant the place was in an uproar, and a dozen ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... unbearably long time. Then there was the faintest of clankings. It repeated. Then, abruptly, there were noises in the airlock. They continued. They were fumbling noises. ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... through the chink and then shut in again with all the safety and comfort and joy, her husband taking down the fiddle and playing lightly with his head inclined, playing while she sang, while she sang for her life to an Indian Devil. Then she knew he was fumbling for and finding some shining fragment and scoring it down the yellowing hair, and unconsciously her voice forsook the wild war-tunes and drifted into the half-gay, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... added, as her nephew, fumbling with a box of matches, opened it upside down and let them all fall with a rattle ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... The peasant, fumbling in his bosom with a trembling hand, produced a small box, bearing some Hebrew characters on the lid, which was, with most of the audience, a sure proof that the devil had stood apothecary. Beaumanoir, after crossing himself, took the box into his hand, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I can't go fumbling at the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... it," he said after a pause, during which he stood with downcast eyes, fumbling nervously with the buttons of his morning coat. "Our position would be equally wretched wherever we were. Fate is stronger than we are. I do not see how we are to escape it. Wherever we went, we should have to hide the truth, and surround ourselves with a tissue of lies, and ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Own that was a little gratuitous. But, no, no, you didn't mean; it any way, I can make allowances. Ah, did you but know it, how much pleasanter to puff at this philanthropic pipe, than still to keep fumbling at that misanthropic rifle. As for your worldling, glutton, and coquette, though, doubtless, being such, they may have their little foibles—as who has not?—yet not one of the three can be reproached with that awful sin of shunning society; awful I call it, for ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... to take the semblance of those familiar towers and rocks which he sometimes felt as though he should never see again. Griffeth paused in the midst of something he was saying, and looked round with a start. It seemed to both brothers as though a hand was fumbling at the latch. Wendot rose and opened the door, and a tall, gaunt figure staggered rather than walked into the room, and sank down as if perfectly exhausted ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... use of it that it was as nimble as the hands of a juggler who can keep several objects tossing in the air at the same time. We men were clumsy thinkers, and one thing at a time was all we could handle without fumbling it. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... with fumbling fingers opened Quain's 'Dictionary of Medicine.' He had never had much curiosity, and had always hated what he disbelieved, but none the less he had heard occasionally of absurd and questionable ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... replied the Antiquary. "Why, thou hast never come to Monkbarns since thy perils by rock and floodhere's something for thee to buy snuff,"and, fumbling for his purse, he pulled out at the same time the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Growler fumbling with several bottles at the dresser, and as I passed my nose over the tumbler which his wife placed near me, a certain rank odour arose from it which I did not like. How to avoid drinking it I was puzzled, as I did not wish to show the suspicion I felt that it was drugged. ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... for Prevost's, but every few yards his carriage was held up by others, or by people crossing the street, loathsome obstacles each of which he would gladly have crushed beneath his wheels, were it not that a policeman fumbling with a note-book would delay him even longer than the actual passage of the pedestrian. He counted the minutes feverishly, adding a few seconds to each so as to be quite certain that he had not given himself short measure, and so, possibly, exaggerated whatever chance ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Worm, or Caterpillar of the Turnip-moth, to serve as food for her grubs. For other varieties of the Ammophila, cf. "Insect Life": chapter 15.—Translator's Note.) is searching for the Grey Worm, it is with her antennae, those tiny fingers continually fumbling at the soil, that she seems to recognize the presence of the underground prey. Could not those inquisitive filaments, which seem to guide the insect when hunting, also guide it when travelling? This remained to be ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... while he, with unsteady hands, unlocked and opened his bag, fumbling among its contents for the flask, she lay still, without a quiver of the eyelids. She did not even seem to breathe. But perhaps girls were like that when they fainted! Max didn't know. He wanted to listen for the beating of her heart, but dared not. He would try ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... put, I should first have to gain the ear of the Press—and you want a golden key to do that, nowadays. The Press is very reluctant to run down successful writers. 'Hawks won't pick out Awkses heyes,' as BURNS remarks. (By this time you are probably fumbling for your purse, which, as usual, is at the bottom of your work-basket.) No, they will find me out some day—after I'm dead and gone, most likely! In the meantime I envy nobody. I have the consciousness of Genius, and—I'm sure your generosity is overwhelming, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... her head, her left hand grasped the mane of the pony and she pulled herself to his head. Fumbling in her pocket, she drew forth a piece of candy and felt rather than, saw the bronco's lips ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... his way back from despatching the telegram, stood in the general entrance hall, fumbling with the latch-key at the door of his own flat, a tall young man in an ulster dashed up the wide stone stairs, rapidly read the names on the various brass plates, and arrived at Aubrey's just as his door had yielded to persuasion and was admitting ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... aunts were witches, and for the first time the girl agreed. In the other room, brilliantly lighted, Caroline and Sophia were bending somewhat greedily over a mass of silks and satins and laces, their cheeks flushed round the dabs of rouge, their fingers active yet inept, fumbling in what might have been a brew for the working of spells; and here, straight as a tree, Aunt Rose looked into the fire as though she could see the future in its red heart, but her voice, very clear, had ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... her and stood fumbling with his great hands. "I didn't know that any one else had given him three months," he replied. "I based my estimate merely on my recollection of how he looked the last time I saw him. I am willing to allow him all the time he wants and far more than Nature ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... country was in the throes of the silver campaign, the newspapers told the story of an old laborer who went to the sub-treasury and demanded to see the "boss." He undid the strings of an old leathern purse with fumbling fingers, and counted out more than two hundred dollars in gold eagles, the hoard of a lifetime of toil and self-denial. They were for the government, he said. He had not the head to understand all the talk ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... Westmoreland people (for at the lakes it was we knew him) expounded his condition to us by saying that he was 'maffled;' which word means 'perplexed in the extreme.' His wrath did not pass into lunacy; it produced simple distraction; an uneasy fumbling with the idea; like that of an old superannuated dog who longs to worry, but cannot for want of teeth. In this condition you will judge that he was rather tedious. And in this condition Coleridge took him up. Andrew's other idea, because ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... saw," said the aged man, closing his eyes, as if to shut out the vision which was forced back upon his imagination; and fumbling nervously with his beads, while his pale blue lips trembled with ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to make—she would have objected to nothing at that moment. In the same dreamy way, presently she found herself kneeling at the altar, and a clergyman was saying something that conveyed absolutely nothing to her intelligence. Presently somebody was fumbling unsteadily at her left hand, whereon somebody a great deal more nervous than she was trying to fix a plain gold ring. Someone at the back of the church was ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... Hoxton Street is a tremendous purple. It springs upon you, as you turn from Old Street, and envelops you. There are high, black tenement houses. There are low cottages and fumbling passages. There are mellow fried-fish shops at every few yards. There are dirty beer-houses and a few public-houses. There are numerous cast-off clothing salons. And there are screeching Cockney ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... papa; but he was so wet and pale and wild-looking just then, that it was not easy to judge what he was like. His voice was pleasant, and she did not feel at all afraid of him. The tea seemed to revive him a little, for, after lying quiet a while with his eyes closed, he sat up, and, fumbling with his left hand in an inner pocket, produced a flat parcel tied in stout paper, with a direction written upon it; and, beckoning Eyebright ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... your reverence.' Father Oliver laid his letter aside, and then hid it in the blotter, regretting his haste and his fumbling hands, which perhaps had put the thought into O'Grady's mind that the letter was to Nora. And so he came forward faintly embarrassed to meet a small pale man, whom he judged to be seventy or thereabouts, coming forward nimbly, bent ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... suddenly and closed over her head. But at last, with a quivering, long-drawn breath, she moved stumblingly across towards the window. The room appeared to her stiflingly hot. Her face burned, and her temples throbbed as though a couple of relentless hammers were beating inside her head. With fumbling, nerveless fingers she unfastened the catch of the window and threw it open, letting in the cool autumnal breeze. She leaned out thankfully, drawing in deep breaths of the clean, salt-laden air. It seemed to lave her face, washing away the hated touch ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... about, and crossed the room to where something which looked like a large bench stood against the wall, covered with gold-colored velvet. I saw her fling back the covering and kneel beside it, fumbling with the lid. I heard the clicking of what seemed a series of locks. At last she turned her head and spoke, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... morning, he sighed a little, heavy with a lonely feeling which perplexed and frightened him. So absent-minded was he that he could not remember which window-catches he had inspected, and through the darkness, fumbling at unseen perilous chairs, he crept back to try them all over again. His feet were loud on the steps as he clumped upstairs at the end of this great and treacherous day of ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Just a sickness wherein one could no longer guard a prisoner. They were a powerful alkaloid, she knew; and a dozen of them would likely mean hours and hours of deep, dreamless sleep,—a sleep in which one could take no reckoning of hands fumbling at a cartridge belt! Half a handful would, in all probability, fail to strike the life from such a powerful frame as Ben's, but would certainly act upon him like a powerful opiate and leave ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... {Old Man} (Fumbling in his skin pouch for the doth.) In the many moons aforetime, Hundred moons and many hundred, When the old man was the young man, When the young man was the youngling, Dragging branches for the ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London
... his screw hammer and went to the handle. He was annoyed. "That's my business, I suppose," he said, fumbling with the screw. The unusual exertion had made ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... appearance and demeanour during all this conversation seemed to diminish even his strength and stature; so that he appeared to wither into the shadow of himself, now advancing one foot, now the other, now stooping and wriggling his shoulders, now fumbling with the buttons of his waistcoat, now clasping his hands together; in short, he was the picture of a mean-spirited, shuffling rascal in the very agonies of detection. To these appearances Bertram was totally inattentive, being dragged on as it were by the current of his own associations. Indeed, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... do. Could we get the door open? Snap was already fumbling at it. "Accursed thing! It ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... What shall I do? here is no Witness near: And to be rid of him I'll promise him; he'll have forgot it in his sober Passion. [Aside. Hold, I do swear I will— [He fumbling to undo his Breeches. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... strange to himself, as though he were examining a life from the outside rather than from the inside, and fumbling ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... country cobblers in Hampshire coming into my yard and meddling with the tools as is in my charge. Here, that's not the way, swaddy," he continued, joining the two soldiers, who, each still holding his musket in his hand, were fumbling awkwardly with the long ladder in ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn |
