"Loafing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Custom House Ferry Boat First Impressions Hospitality American Hotels Bar and Barbers Bridal Chamber Paddy Waiter Feeding System Streets and Buildings Portrait Hatter Advertisements Loafing ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... certainly requires explanation. Kalisch seems to think that Cain went about his work, after the interview with God, in a better frame of mind; but while he toiled hard "in the field" he became incensed at the sight of Abel loafing under a fine umbrageous tree and calmly watching his flock. Forgetting the divine admonitions, and listening only to the voice of passion, he madly killed his only brother, and made himself the first murderer. The Talmud gives several legends ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... approximate facts—in order that they may then become adapted to them. And even its noblest exponents press its soporific and comforting powers so strongly to the fore, that all lovers of sleep and of loafing must think that their aim and the aim of philosophy are one. For my part, the most important question philosophy has to decide seems to be, how far things have acquired an unalterable stamp and form, and, once this question has been answered, I think ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... a passion for martyrdom, from a craving for remorse, through moral sensuality. It was a laceration of the nerves... Defiance of common sense was too tempting. Stavrogin and a wretched, half-witted, crippled beggar! When you bit the governor's ear did you feel sensual pleasure? Did you? You idle, loafing, little snob. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a vessel by which I can return to the Eastern Gulf squadron, father," said Christy one morning, with more earnestness than usual. "I begin to feel guilty of neglect of duty while I am loafing about home." ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... were loafing in the portico, threw stones at the reciting Eumolpus and he, taking note of this tribute to his genius, covered his head and bolted out of the temple. Fearing they might take me for a poet, too, I followed after him in his flight ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... red clay drain pipes cut in two and so laid that they overlap each other. The residences are usually built around a narrow court, and their floors are of marble, tile or stone. This court often contains plants and flowers, and it forms the loafing place of the family in ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... staying in the pub. Talks and dresses like a War profiteer. Seems to be doing nothing but loafing about ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... price what it may; also for paying what's called, I think, premeums for putting Pore Boys or Pore Gals as aprentisses to warious trades, so as to lern and laber truly to get a good living when they growd up, insted of loafing about in dirt and hignorence; likewise for allowing little pensions to poor old women as is a striving all their mite and main to keep themselves out of the hated Workhouse; and there are seweral other similar good purposes as the good Citizens of old left their money for, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... Johnny to the Thunder Bird, "they think they're about the only real flyers in the air this morning. What? Can't you show 'em an Arizona sample of flying? What you loafing for? Think you're heading a funeral? Well, now, this is just about the proudest moment you've spent for quite some time. This man Schwab—-he craves excitement. Can't you hear him holler for thrills? And don't you reckon that ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... a girl than into a tough from loafing on the streets, Pat," said the General heartily, as he rose from his chair. "I'll tell Mrs. ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... student again, loafing along the arcades after dinner, eager for novelty, careless of draughts. Little by little he lost himself in dim reveries. His cigar never left his lips. The ash grew longer and longer yet, a lovely white ash, ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... practical for once in my life. Amongst much that is delightfully vague and dreamy, one thing stands out very clear in my own mind at present. I must do something. My loafing days are over. The profession of a gentleman at large, with which you twit me, I hereby renounce. She will back me up in any honest work—she says so. I've confessed the way I wasted the last three years. She said she is glad she did ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... down-town he telegraphed the joyous news to Jack Starlett, in Washington, to prepare for an old-fashioned loafing bee. ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... hemlock sticks for pipes. At seventeen he had charge of an engine, with his father for fireman. He could neither read nor write, but the engine was his teacher, and he a faithful student. While the other hands were playing games or loafing in liquor shops during the holidays, George was taking his machine to pieces, cleaning it, studying it, and making experiments in engines. When he had become famous as a great inventor of improvements in engines, those who had loafed and played ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... man who wrote about 'gilded subalterns loafing luxuriously in cushioned cars in a giddy round of useless and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... to stand by 'er! Gawd! If I was a man—If was a man she wouldn't have to ask me twice, but before I went marching off I'd take time off to help the street cleaning department wipe up a few streets with the slackers I found loafing around under a government they were afraid to fight for. I'd show 'em. I'd show 'em if a government is good enough to live under it's good enough to fight ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... do them myself," the latter explained. "But I'm loafing this summer. I'm in town only because there's talk that St. Mark's ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... discuss with me. In short, I endeavored to treat my flock exactly as though they were my own family, and to be perfectly at home in their homes. I managed to visit every family at least once in each year and as much oftener as circumstances required. As I had no "loafing" places, I easily got through my congregation, which, in Brooklyn, ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... owner had remained silent. She shook her head in emphatic negation. "And do you understand why? It's simply because every girl knows that the manager of her department would think he could get along without her, if he were to see her sitting down ——loafing, you know! So, she would be discharged. All it amounts to is that, after being on her feet for nine hours, the girl usually walks home, in order to save carfare. Yes, she walks, whether sick or well. Anyhow, you are generally ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... a sudden glibness, "but I don't feel like doing much. Only loafing around—and my ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... was for the sea. He said he knew a yacht, just the very thing—one that we could manage by ourselves; no skulking lot of lubbers loafing about, adding to the expense and taking away from the romance. Give him a handy boy, he would sail it himself. We knew that yacht, and we told him so; we had been on it with Harris before. It smells of bilge-water and greens to the ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... there at eight," he said, reassuringly. "And by the same token, I ought to be dressing! But Alice and I have been loafing along here comfortably, and I'd give about seven dollars to stay at home with ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... twentieth century. Every man to the age he lives in—it must be so. The old phrase, "Drunk as a sailor," meant, in most men's minds, drunk as a man-o'-war's man. I was born and brought up in a great seaport—Boston—and my earliest memories are of loafing days along the harbor front and the husky-voiced, roaring fellows coming ashore in the pulling boats from the men-o'-war; fine, rolling-gaited fellows, in from long cruises and flamingly eager to make the most of their short liberty. Great-hearted men, who gave truth to the phrase—"and ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... Three rows of tents, and aligned with each on the reverse flank a line of horses picketed—small, almost ponies, thin in the flank, wiry, but extremely rough. There had been no pains taken in grooming them evidently. As for the men loafing or swaggering about, those who were fully dressed were so stuck all over with arms—pistols, swords, daggers—that one wondered if they were suddenly attacked what weapon they would have recourse to first, and if they would make up their minds ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... All the same—I think not," he said slowly; then made a clumsy attempt to modify the blank refusal. "You see, though I've taken this extra leave, I don't mean to spend it in loafing. We've had our fill of that. As soon as I get to town, I shall start reading ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... one of the lords-in-waiting loafing about the hall that Mrs. Cooke was out on the golf links, chaperoning some of the Asquith young women whose mothers had not seen fit to ostracize Mohair. Mr. Cooke's ten friends were with them. But ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... preaching that Sermon on the Mount—or Napoleon apostrophizing the pyramids in a plug! Before finding fault with the fashions of the ladies just imagine Apollo in the make-up of a modern society swell, loafing into court on High Olympus! Why Jove would hit him with a thunderbolt so hard there'd be nothing left of him but a wilted chrysanthemum and a ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... poverty and squalor of the slum type is practically unknown. The communistic idea of homes in common, which has received so much attention of late years, was not adopted by the founders of this city, who, however, took excellent precautions to stamp out loafing, begging and other accompaniments of what may be described as ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... course of the day at the manufacture of their rude fishing tackle, constructed chiefly of their clothing, the hooks being nothing more than a rough sort of pin bent to the right shape. This done, they spent the rest of the day in loafing and lolling about, although Paul took a half hour for the thorough exploration of the island, which presented no unusual features beyond those that he had already seen. After that he came back to the little cove and luxuriated, as the others were doing. It was the keenest sort of ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the trail in silence for about six miles. They then saw, not far from them, upon a meadow on the banks of a small stream, a very picturesque group of wigwams, with all the accompaniments of loafing warriors, busy women, sporting children, and wolfish dogs, usually to be found in an Indian village. At the distance of about a mile and a half, upon a gentle eminence, there was another village of ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... and horses came pouring around the house, and I let her hand loose—it was hard to do it, too—and then she was gone, and we rode on to the ford. We stopped when we got to the stream to let the horses have their turn at drinking, and as I sat loafing in the saddle, with my mind pretty full of what had just passed, my eyes were all over. Every cavalry officer, and especially an aide-de-camp, gets to be a sort of hawk in active service—nothing can ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... ground. "This is from Ricker," he said, opening the other. "If you'll excuse me," and he began to read it. "Well, that is all right," he said, when he had run it through. "He can manage without me a little while longer; but a few more days like this will put an end to my loafing. I begin to feel like work, for the first time since I ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... what a place for men to think of loafing!" he cried at four o'clock, in a voice, however, which showed signs of sleepiness; "among us! now! in Russia where every separate individual has a duty resting upon him, a solemn responsibility to God, to the people, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... afternoon when the landing was reached. Half a score of men were loafing about the woodyard on shore. Mr. Cavendish made fast to a blasted tree, then he climbed the bank; the men regarding him ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... was loafing on the steps of the bank as if he were one of the stockholders, and began to ask him questions about the town, feeding him dimes at intervals. By and by the young lady came out, looking royally unconscious of the young man with ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Hall gave some amusing illustrations of his experience at Hastings, where, for several weeks, he had been preaching on the beach to large congregations. He was idling there, he said, for health's sake, and one evening, seeing a number of men loafing about, he proposed to one of them that he should give them an address. This gentleman declined the address, but added, characteristically enough, "If ye'll gie me some beer I'll drink it." Two others, being asked if they would listen, "didn't know as they would." Under these ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... "Yes—to you! You've been loafing on your job, old man, and it won't do—it won't do at all. You should have put a stop to these things. What right have these girls to interfere in a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... much obliged," he said. "I was just loafing around and a little curious, that's all. Thanks. Hope I haven't kept you ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... interrogated Rickart. "I thought it was funny you were loafing along so leisurely. Didn't you know to-day was the day ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... changing the subject, "talking about nerves reminds me that when the holidays are over you and I are going away on a honeymoon. After this we are to have one a year. We'll drop everything and indulge in the heaven-given luxury of loafing. You need it. Your eyes are too big and your face too pale. I don't see what has ailed me not to notice before. But right after Christmas, dear, I'm going to run away with you.... What are you ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... Grendel, three fellows, tall as trees, were also loafing round. They were the three Kings: Top had turned his big jacket and blackened his face; Grendel wore a white sheet over his back and blew the horn; and Wulf had a mitre on and carried a great star with a lantern on a stick. ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... answered them pleasantly; so that they got on very well together, and everybody was satisfied—especially Jim, who was benefiting by Aunt Victoria's bequest to the extent of being able to keep up with the best of his bar-loafing acquaintances. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... least an hour in contented, satisfying, meaningless loafing that nobody can describe but that everybody likes to remember afterward. From time to time Joe looked ashore, when the weight in his pocket reminded ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... the man who owns it," said he, "a genteel dilettante with a bank account and an easy conscience, a steam-yacht ain't in it with a camera. You see a man doing nothing but loafing around making snap-shots, and you know right away he reads up well in 'Bradstreet.' You notice these old millionaire boys—soon as they get through taking everything else in sight they go to taking photographs. ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... up a bit by whipping a few to Larkins at first, while Copley was buckling on the body protector and adjusting the mask. Oakdale had put her second baseman, Jack Nelson, at the head of the batting order, and Jack did not delay the game by loafing on his way into the ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... ones well again, Maurice recovering nicely, I tired from having watched so much and from watching yet, for he has to drink and wash out his mouth during the night, and I am the only one in the house who has the faculty of keeping awake. But I am not ill, and I work a little now and then while loafing about. As soon as I can leave, I shall go to Paris. If you are still there, it will be A PIECE OF GOOD LUCK, but I do not dare to wish you to prolong your slavery there, for I can see that you are still ill and that you are ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... have either to do so or starve; and when we do work we only just earn enough to keep body and soul together. Under the present system everybody who can possibly manage to do so avoids doing any work, the only difference being that some people do their loafing better than others. The aristocracy are too lazy to work, but they seem to get on all right; they have their tenants to work for them. Rushton is too lazy to work, so he has arranged that we and Nimrod shall ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... it must have been done in a moment of abstraction, and then I hailed the "cab runner" who was loafing down the road; and, what with him and a messenger boy in a hurry, we got the basket down and lifted it into a big square hall and laid it almost at the foot of the staircase, up which we should ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... ordered camp pitched forty-five minutes from our camp, and started across to see Akeley. The latter had also started across to see the colonel, and they met on the way. And during all this time the native runner with the message to Colonel Roosevelt was loafing the morning away in our camp. What the message might be, of course, we didn't know, but we hoped that it was nothing of importance. It was only when the colonel and his party reached our camp that the message was delivered. As we stood talking and congratulating everybody ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... talk! I've heard of sea-lawyers, and I suppose you're a canal specimen. Carriage was paid at the other end, and you know it. I catch you here loafing, and I'm going to dispute the bill— which means that you'll get the sack, my friend, whether I recover the money or no. Pounds out of pocket I am by this, not to speak of reputation. Where are they? Where have ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... be suffering from ophthalmia, which is aggravated by crouching over the densely smoking tezek; and one miserable-looking old character is groaning and writhing with the pain of a severe stomach- ache. By loafing lazily about the tent all day, and chewing these flinty dried peaches, this hopeful old joker has well-nigh brought himself to the unhappy condition of the Yosemite valley mule, who broke into the tent and consumed half a bushel of dried peaches; when the hunters returned to camp ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... first thing: 'I say, Captain Mitchell, is that fellow' (meaning Nostromo) 'still the Capataz of your Cargadores or not?' 'What's the matter?' says I. 'Because, if he is, then I don't mind; I send and receive a good lot of cargo by your ships; but I have observed him several days loafing about the wharf, and just now he stopped me as cool as you please, with a request for a cigar. Now, you know, my cigars are rather special, and I can't get them so easily as all that.' 'I hope you stretched a point,' I said, very gently. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... more quietly pointed out some dozen or fifteen of the most glaring faults displayed and read a new line-up. With the exception of Clint, Hall, Carmine and Tyler every fellow was new. "And now," said Mr. Detweiler, "let's see what you can do this half. Do something, anyway! Stop loafing! If you can't play football, wave your ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the size of the change which has come about, and her instant perception of the right and only right way to take advantage of it. With her is no sitting down and starving out; no dilly-dallying and fooling around; no lazying, loafing, and going to sleep; no, it is storm! storm! storm! and still storm! storm! storm! and forever storm! storm! storm! hunt the enemy to his hole, then turn her French hurricanes loose and carry him by storm! And that is my sort! ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... me. I intend to visit my camps. I should have gone before, as no doubt the men are loafing. I am going to surprise them. They'll never expect to see me at this season of the year. The men'll want to take three days off, and I can't allow it. They always come back unfitted for work after their celebrations. ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... I'm dummed if he didn't start up with an umbrella and a lantern! But no matter; he made a mighty good sailor before the voyage was done, and we had to hunt up something else to laugh at. Years afterwards, when I had forgot all about him, I comes into Boston, mate of a ship, and was loafing around town with the second mate, and it so happened that we stepped into the Revere House, thinking maybe we would chance the salt-horse in that big diningroom for a flyer, as the boys say. Some fellows were talking ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the wind, pelted down with the violence of a thunderstorm, dashing up from the stones and hissing through the air, and soon a perfect torrent of water coursed along the kennels and accumulated in pools over the choked-up drains. The few stray passengers who had been loafing rather than walking about the street had scuttered away, like frightened rabbits, to some invisible places of refuge, and though Salisbury whistled loud and long for a hansom, no hansom appeared. He looked about him, as if to discover how far he might be from the haven of Oxford ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... the red-headed Cloherty was crosser than any of them, and what the devil was it to him what Larry's politics or his matrimonial intentions were? Confound Cloherty, anyway! He was a sufficiently common object of the Cluhir scene—and infernally common at that. Hardly a day that you didn't meet him loafing about the town. Larry hadn't the smallest wish to talk to Cloherty. When, some brief time before the Day of Judgment, they reached the covert, it was drawn blank, and Bill Kirby took quite a month to get the hounds out. Hunting rabbits, of ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... while his plump feet mechanically felt for his slippers. He looked regretfully at the blanket—forever a suggestion to him of freedom and heroism. He had bought it for a camping trip which had never come off. It symbolized gorgeous loafing, gorgeous cursing, virile ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... her eyes and swore. The horrid smoke that always came from that rattletrap of a stove! And that wretched old fool of a husband was not man enough to fix it! Oh, no, he wasn't handy enough for that; he went at every blessed thing as if his fingers were all thumbs. And where could he be loafing tonight? Not home yet! Serve him right if she locked the house and allowed him to stay in the sheepcotes, or wherever it was he was dawdling. There now, those infernal brats were at the spinning wheel. Groa jumped up, darted into the passage, and ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... That was not all they did. But while resting and eating and loafing and sleeping and enjoying each other's company, both watched Operation Moon closely enough to be completely informed as to ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... say something to him. I inquired where he came from? he answered readily, and we began to talk; others approached. He was from Smolensk, and had come to seek employment that he might earn his bread and taxes. "There is no work," said he: "the soldiers have taken it all away. So now I am loafing about; as true as I believe in God, I have had nothing to eat for two days." He spoke modestly, with an effort at a smile. A sbiten{4}-seller, an old soldier, stood near by. I called him up. He poured out his sbiten. The peasant took a boiling-hot glassful in his hands, and as he tried ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... ago, one of these men returned, and has spent most of the time since his arrival in loafing about the different barrooms upon the river. He is said to have been constantly intoxicated. As soon as the losers of the gold heard of his return, they bethought themselves of the coyote-hole, and placed about ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... shut his teeth and spurred his rebellious limbs into swifter action. There was no longer any opportunity of riding the sled, even where the trail was hard, for some of the Police dogs were limping and loafing in their collars. This was indeed a race, a Marathon, a twenty-three-mile test of courage and endurance, and victory would go to him who could call into fullest response his last uttermost ounce of ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... horses back, reaching the ranch long after sundown. Ralston was still unconvinced that it was not a case of mistaken identity, and, hoping against hope, he asked some one loafing about while he and Bear Chief unsaddled if McArthur ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... neighbor a "scab"; (2) breaking down a fence; (3) flipping cars; (4) picking up coal from railroad tracks; (5) carrying a concealed "dagger," and stabbing a playmate with it; (6) throwing stones at a railroad employee. The next three were called vagrancy: (1) Loafing on the docks; (2) "sleeping out" nights; (3) getting "wandering spells." One, designated petty larceny, was cutting telephone wires under the sidewalk and selling them; another, called burglary, was taking locks off from basement doors; and the last one bore the dignified title of "resisting ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... and gladly announced the fact over and through the partitions. Three bells tingled all day long, and the only thing that saved Thomas from the "sickbay" was the fact that the bar closed at eleven. And a rough passage added to his labors. No Henley this voyage, no comfy loafing about the main-deck in the sunshine. A busy, miserable, dejected young man, who cursed his folly and yet clung to it with that tenacity which makes prejudice ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... while sight-seeing. The militia men are little better than ornamental. The guards do a good deal of changing, to the annoyance of workers who want to get into the lines, but they rarely stop any one. The soldiers do a vast deal of loafing. A photographer who had his camera ready to take a view among the ruins was arrested to-day and made to work for an hour by General Hastings' order. When his stint was done he did not linger, but ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... night, the door of the camp was thrown wide open, and from it a long sheet of light spread out across the trodden and chip-littered snow. Around the doorway crowded the rough-shirted woodsmen, loafing and smoking after their prodigious dinner of boiled pork, boiled beans, and steaming-hot molasses cake. The big box-stove behind them, which heated the camp, was wearing itself to a dull red glow; ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... "when your best hat is spoiled by rain, to know the reason why. Your average," he continued, addressing Sylvia, "was ninety in the semi-annuals, and I haven't a doubt that the finals will maintain your record for the year." "Don't be too sure," she replied. "I have been loafing awfully, and had to engage a 'grind' as a coach." After dinner they went to the play, where they saw a presentation of Society at the Close of the Twentieth Century, which Sylvia and Ayrault enjoyed immensely. A few days after the Delmonico dinner, while Bearwarden, Cortlandt, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... Carley to catch up. "He's loafing on you, Carley. You ought to have on a spur. Break off a switch and beat him some." Then she whipped the mustang across the flank with her bridle rein, which punishment caused Spillbeans meekly to trot ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... are not idle words. He is an admitted expert at loafing, but all the same he has brought wounded in under fire and saved their lives. Without any brag, he ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... I'm not up to that kind of thing," Geof answered; "you know I don't pretend to paint. My business is with bricks and mortar. It's only when I'm loafing that ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... almost indispensable to me," he continued with his quick little laugh, "and that Frank has never been. Oh, yes, Frank's all right in his way, but he's crazy on things which cut no ice with me. Too fond of sports, too fond of loafing," he growled. ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... replied. "You've given them something fresh to think about. They may even decide not to vote to-day at all. Miller has some strong supporters. He appeals tremendously to a certain class of labour—and that class exists, you know, Dartrey—which loves the excitement and the loafing of a strike, which feels somehow or other that benefits got in any other way than by force are less than ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... scorn for my scanty belongings was well bestowed. The sofa, which appeared to affect her aesthetic sense most keenly, was certainly a dilapidated article. Having but three legs, it leaned in a loafing way against the wall, and its rags of horsehair and protruding springs gave it a most trampish and disreputable appearance. The chairs were solid, for the smith had bound them in iron clamps. And the carpet?—Well, I pitied it. It was threadbare and transparent. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... only don't keep me loafing on full time. I'm an expensive man. I'll be packed and ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... conversations, with deep, comfortable chairs and many ashtrays. Fawzi's warehouse and brokerage business, and the airline agency, and the government, such as it was, of Litchfield, combined, made few demands on his time and did not prevent the office from being a favored loafing center for the town's elders. The lights were bright only over the big table that served, among other things, as a desk, and the walls were almost ...
— Graveyard of Dreams • Henry Beam Piper
... quiet at Spindrift. Rick and Scotty swam in the light surf below Pirate's Field, sun-bathed for a while, and then walked back to the house. Hartson Brant was loafing for the day, too, and Rick had an opportunity to talk with him for the ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... Loafing under ledge and tree, Leaping over boulders, Sitting on the pasture bars, Hail-fellow with storm or stars— Three of us alive and ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... to town, it would be difficult to say whether Henry was happy or unhappy. On the one hand, to realize that Alice was so near and yet so inaccessible was a constant source of misery; yet, on the other, he could not but admit that he was having the very dickens of a time, loafing round the ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... the doorway, and before I had time to say I preferred my beef without any boot-blacking, I fell head-first against an immense sirloin on the parlour table. Mrs. MOSER called all the men who were loafing around, and all the boys and girls, and they carved away at the sirloin for five hours without being able to get my head out. At last an old gentleman, who was having his dinner there, said he couldn't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... ten o'clock at night, and they were loafing indoors. Above the high tops of the pines the sky was still bright, but it was night in the cabin. They were lighted by the fire and by a stable lamp on the table. They had gradually fallen into the habit of lying abed late, and consequently ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... going to make a poet or a musician or an artist. [That's so; all abominable scamps take to some artistic pursuit as an excuse for loafing.] His fancies take hold of him very strongly. [They do—they do; "shee wheels go wound," for instance.] He has not Budgie's sublime earnestness, but he doesn't need it; the irresistible force with ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... Store at the other (containing the post office), and a church, shops for automobile supplies, two garages, a drug store, and a candy store; eight or ten cottages filled the interstices. Men were working in the fields, but those in Huntersville proper seemed to be exhausted with loafing. Campers going in and out of the woods needing shelter for a night, and people demanding meals between trains, kept the dismal looking hotel ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and I couldn't make you reply to my calls I ran off to get help and a rope. I intended to ride your mare back to camp, but when I got to where the mare had been tethered I found her gone and this bay loafing around in her place. I got on the bay, but, instead of riding to camp, the animal ran away with me and brought me here. These fellows were mighty rough on me, and that man was going to split my head open when you came along in ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... after a long voyage. His ordinary life seemed to him so uninteresting, so dull, that he tried to give color and charm to it by taking as many holidays as possible, and making his work more agreeable with gambling and drinking, and going for loafing excursions about the neighborhood. Visits to wine and beer-houses and dancing-rooms were endlessly multiplied, and everything had the golden foundation which the proverb of an age of simplicity hardly attributed to honorable handicraft. Profits were squandered ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... at the same speed at which he had galloped to the police station, overhauled one of the mounted troopers whom he himself had sent in search of Ranjoor Singh, rated him soundly in Punjabi for loafing on the way, and galloped on with the troop-horse laboring in his wake. He reined in abreast of the second trooper, who had halted by a cross-street and was trying to appear to enjoy ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... was a character, and well known all over Polynesia as an inveterate old loafer and beachcomber. He was a deserter from the navy, and for over forty years had wandered about the South Pacific, sometimes working honestly for a living, sometimes dishonestly, but usually loafing upon some native community, until they tired of him and made him seek fresh pastures. In his old age he had come to Samoa, and my friend, taking pity on the penniless old wreck, gave him employment ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... doing a great work for the elevation of the colored people. In a silent, unobtrusive way, these schools are leavening the thought and life of the race. The status and progress of the Negro are too commonly gauged by the deeds of the loafing and criminal element. The honest, law-abiding Negro who has a home, is getting a little property, has a small bank account, and is educating his children to useful citizenship, attracts little or no attention. But a ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... already in hog-paradise, lying grunting on a bench in the bar, and the Kaffir had gone to the kraals with the Cape boys. The English officer looked at the rowdy landlord and the loafing men about the tavern, and made up his mind. No hands other than his own should prepare a last ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... absolutely nothing more to do with the house and domestic affairs; he turns the care for them over to his wife, who is obliged to procure provisions as well as she can and cook them. The husband devotes himself to drinking, eating, smoking, loafing, and sleeping, and takes no more concern about the affairs of his family than if he had none at all. If he goes out to fish or hunt, it is rather to amuse himself than to help his wife and children.... Even the care of his cattle the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... to Whitson that night over his new acquaintance. Whitson listened with his usual impassiveness, and then asked Langley how it was that "an old loafing nigger," as he expressed it, had impressed him so remarkably. Langley replied that he did not quite know, but he thought the effect was largely due to the man's teeth. But all the same he was "a very entertaining ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... the hours away. After all, however, our Governor represented our King, and I was personally horrified, intending to correct Israel's position with a round turn, and show him that we are especially enjoined to obey "Governors and Rulers"—as better also than the sacrifice of loafing. But the Governor forbade it, quietly unpacked, put his things away, and stayed aboard. Israel subsequently cultivated the habit of remaining in bed on Sundays—thereby escaping being led into temptation, as even ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... through, and battling with the flood was in the nature of a picnic to him, accustomed to rubbing up against hard knocks as he was. And it felt pretty nice to be looked on as a "comrade" by these fellows whom he had always fought tooth and nail in the past; much nicer than loafing with that old crowd once led by Ted Shatter but now under the guidance ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... out from the crowd; but the High Sheriff, who left the room with me, shrugged his shoulders and said: "If they had half of the courage of that Scot they would not be loafing around here, applauding James Rodolph. I am tired of it; I am going to resign and go to the front." He was as good as his word, for that very day he resigned the office of High Sheriff of the county of Cecil, ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... Tartar population in Chengtu, and the Manchu quarter is one of the most picturesque parts of the city, with the charm of a dilapidated village set in untidy gardens and groves of fine trees. Loafing in the streets and doorways are tall, well-built men and women, but they had a rather down-at-heel air, for their fortunes were at a low ebb when I was in Chengtu. The military service they once rendered had been ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... been loafing on the job the last six months," she laughed. "I've been at the school at Davis and hobnobbing with some of the university men at Berkeley. They're doing some great work there. Doc, I'll want to talk to you about it. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... On the Gym. steps, loafing a few moments before jogging out to Bannister Field for a strenuous scrimmage under the personal supervision of Slave-Driver Corridan, the Gold and Green football squad had gathered. It was from these stalwart ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Why, you unconscionable'—burst forth Arthur; 'loafing about here for these three hours, and never to produce them!' But Nim had made off among the trees, grinning in every ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... the business that lively speculator thought of establishing there. He was more punctual than either his employer or the merchandise, and met with the usual reward of punctuality in being forced to waste his time in waiting for the tardy ones. He seemed to the New Salem people to be "loafing"; several of them have given that description of him. He did one day's work acting as clerk of a local election, a lettered loafer being pretty sure of employment on such an occasion. [Footnote: Mrs. Lizzie H. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... the last time we were here? You lectured me for loafing, and shooting woodpeckers. There were other things, but you couldn't recall them at the moment. I've been doing some right stiff ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... through work. Prayer gives you strength to "work"—the answer comes from your Larger Self—which is the Spirit of God "brooding" over all and pouring strength into all. But do not fly in the face of DEITY by expecting it to "do the work" for you while you go about loafing after offering your prayer. Nonsense. That man prays who works constantly, silently, patiently, ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... "play" schools in this country and in England, all show more continuous application of the children to whatever they happen to have in hand, longer periods of intense activity, and no sign whatever of loafing or shirking. The activities selected by the children themselves involve just as much "discipline" as anything that ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... said. "But he has earned the right to hold the valley's flower entirely—whoever she may he. It's a pity, Mr. Weston, you have not been doing so, too, instead of loafing around ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... slipped back for an instant to the life that in so unusual a fashion seemed to have floated a little aloof. Fortunately he had not discussed these inward symptoms with his wife. How surprised Sheila would be to see him loafing in this old, crooked churchyard. How she would lift her dark eyebrows, with that handsome, indifferent tolerance. He smiled, but a little confusedly; yet the thought gave even a spice of adventure to ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... united; not merely united for the organized theft of political spoils, not united to disgrace religion with whoremongers and ward-heelers; not united merely to protest and pass resolutions, but united to stop the ravages of consumption among the Negro people, united to keep black boys from loafing, gambling and crime; united to guard the purity of black women and to reduce the vast army of black prostitutes that is today marching to hell; and united in serious organizations, to determine by careful conference and thoughtful interchange of opinion the broad lines of policy and action ...
— The Conservation of Races • W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
... "There isn't going to be any loafing at Killykinick for me. I'm for boating and fishing and clamming and digging up those garden beds. I don't know what those others are paying," said Dan, who had fallen behind with Captain Jeb; "but I've got no money, and am ready to earn ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... dress parades, five or six hours a day were consumed in company, regimental and brigade drills. The men were worked hard, and, by this time it was generally understood that learning to be a soldier was no loafing business. ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... done what he could for their comfort and paid them the highest price justifiable, but gradually he found that his influence was being undermined and that the good-natured lagging which Peter had at first tried to tolerate had turned to loafing on the job, and finally to overt acts of rebellion. More men had been sent away and others with even less conscience had taken their places. Some of them had enunciated Bolshevist doctrines as wild as any of Flynn's or Jacobi's. Jonathan K. McGuire stood as ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... as soldiers think, he spent long hours loafing with the genuine article. He watched them at work and at play and at prayer from the points of view of all his confidants—the combatant officer, the doctor, the chaplain, the drill sergeant, and the private himself. With the ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... Kinney, he made an excursion afoot to Tahoe, a trip described in one of the best chapters of "Roughing It." They staked out a timber claim and pretended to fence it and to build a house, but their chief employment was loafing in the quiet luxury of the great woods or drifting in a boat on the transparent water. They did not sleep in the house. ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... censure. Thus once, when harassed by an Admiralty order purposely issued to annoy him, he wrote back: "The biggest fool can see that to obey would defeat all my plans. I shall not do it. It may suit folk who love loafing about shore, but to an honest man such talk is disgusting, let alone that the thing can't be done." He was at that time twenty-six years old, and in charge of the whole North Sea fleet. No wonder ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... spent loafing on the porch of the Briggs domicile, within which Mrs. Briggs, a fat, good-natured person of forty, toiled at her cooking for the "boarders," and kept a brood of five tumultuous youngsters in order—the combined tasks leaving ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... he hadn't a moment to himself. It was the football half, when you've not got much time to spare all day. And in the evenings he had poenas and things. When he got with two or three of the others, one of us would just be loafing about, and call out 'Hallo, what's up?' He never had any time to go wrong, and then he got to find out it ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant |
