"Puffing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you're right," said Eileen Cavendish. She moved idly about the room examining photographs and puffing her cigarette. "But even the War isn't going to make me fall on the neck of a woman I don't like. But I'm talking like a cat. It's not seeing Bill ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... walked up the lawn puffing at their cigars. The others sat watching, knowing that the opportunity had come for criticism ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... said Pete, puffing meditatively on his black, stunted pipe; "according to my notion it's something ashore. Old Hunch was aboard airly this mornin', and that greaser is a sure sign of trouble. Reminds me of a croaking black raven. I'd like to wring his wry neck for him. He ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... thank me! I'd as soon send every one of 'em to jail as not; but I can't stand your puffing and sighing just as if they were all ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... curious contrast. Willis, seated on a sort of throne, crowned with a waving plume of feathers, shrouded in a fiery mantle, and surrounded by a crowd of prostrate figures, was quietly puffing ribbons of smoke from the tips of his lips. There he sat, for all the world like a crane in a duck-pond. From time to time the more daring of the worshippers slightly raised their heads to see whether Jupiter was still thundering; but when their eye caught ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... hurry to leave. On the contrary he drew out a pipe, filled it and lighted it. Then he threw himself down on the ground, puffing slowly. ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... swaggering sea roll he came striding across the wide arid space between the wharf side and the buildings, puffing at a big black cigar as he walked, and glancing about him curiously, as though he could not quite understand the utter quietude and deserted aspect of the place. Apparently, however, this was not ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... had witnessed the accident, came puffing laboriously up the hill, taking the short cut straight across from ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost oaths; 'papa, will you not come downstairs ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... toward noonday puffing out their throat, the hoarse gray frogs climb up on the coriaceous plants, while slowly from the deep of the shady and gilded ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... those old days, gone are the old people, gone are the bones of the soldiers which have bleached upon the ruins of the Old Trail. Silence reigns supremely over the once famous ranch, broken occasionally by the screams of the locomotives as they whiz by on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, puffing, screeching and rumbling up the steep ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... there some time, puffing away at his pipe, the fresher air began to have its effect; and soon I judged that he was calm enough to talk the matter over and discuss ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... lost, for we can turn the hourglass and live them all over in sweet memory," once said Gainsborough to his wife. The constant sketching had developed much skill in the artist's hand. Thicknesse had come puffing alongside, and insisted out of pure friendliness on taking the artist and wife in tow. They laughed at him behind his back, and carried on conversation over his head, and dropped jokes at his feet by looks and pantomime, and communicated in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... off some more—leaf-lard," declared the trainer with vulgarity. He lumbered into the cook-house, radiating heat waves, puffing like a traction-engine, while his companion staggered to the gymnasium, and sank into a chair. A moment later he appeared with two bottles of beer, one glued to his lips. Both were evidently ice cold, judging from ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... she snarled at the biscuits in the oven. "Don't you know ANYTHING?" Yet the biscuits in the oven were puffing up and browning beautifully, as the ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... orderly and efficient fashion, and on one day when our guns were hungry this little line carried 850 tons of ammunition to the batteries. The horses became fit and strong and were ready for the war to be carried into open country. In christening their tiny puffing locomotives the Tommy drivers showed their strong appreciation of their comrades on the sea, and the 'Iron Duke' and 'Lion' were always tuned up to haul a maximum load. But the pride of the engine yard was the 'Jerusalem Cuckoo'—some prophetic ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... been standing, with a shoulder against the tree, alternately puffing at his pipe and lowering it, scowling meanwhile at the ground. Now he suddenly raised his ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... bell was sounding for the passengers to board the train, Shiphrah rushed in, puffing for breath. I looked at the door to see if Matilda was not following her. She ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... grandmother. At a given signal, the unwieldy animal puts himself in motion; he throws out his arms, crouches up his shoulders, and, without moving a muscle of his face, kicks out his legs, to the manifest risk of the bystanders, and goes back to the place puffing and blowing like an otter, after a half-hour's burst. Is this dancing? Shades of the filial and paternal Vestris! can this be a specimen of the art which gives elasticity to the most inert confirmation, which sets the blood glowing with a warm and genial flow, and makes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... the Isle of Wight. This person was about forty-four, short, stout, strong, and bow-legged; his arms stuck out from his body, his head was set like a ball on a bull neck, his chest was broad enough to hold two pairs of lungs (and he seemed to want a double supply, for he was always puffing, blowing, and talking), he had droll roguish eyes, with a network of wrinkles under them. A noteworthy detail was an ear-ring, one only, which hung from the lobe of his left ear. What a contrast to the captain of the schooner, and how ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... Green Lake was below the scientist's heel. Before he had time to heed the boys' warning cry the professor, with a yell of amazement, slid backwards into the green pool, from which he emerged, blowing and puffing as if he had been a seal. Luckily, the water was warm and he suffered no serious consequences, but thereafter he was much ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... black cat had taken advantage of the warmth offered by the charcoal fire and was curled up, sleeping peacefully in the pan nearest the fire. The old man paid no attention to the cat, but went on rotating his ball of coffee and puffing away pensively on his cigarette. When his coffee had become blackened and burned, and blackened and burned it was, he stopped rotating the ball, opened the slide in the top, turned it over, and the hot, burned coffee rolled out, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... human, he also thought that if the airmen had found this place, that plane would not be sitting back there waiting his grave if inexpert inspection. So with his pity cooled a little with self-interest, Johnny turned the puffing Sandy upon the backward trail and followed his tracks across the apparently level stretch of barrenness to the basin where waited the plane and Tomaso's brother. Only for Sandy's tracks, Johnny knew he might have had a little trouble in finding the place again, the country ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... thereby so repulsive that the fancy refuses to pursue the horror farther and imagine it tobacco; and all the charms of the veil and the fan can scarcely reconcile the most fumacious American to the cigarrito of the Spanish fair. How strange seems Parton's picture of General Jackson puffing his long clay pipe on one side of the fireplace and Mrs. Jackson puffing hers on the other! No doubt, to the heart of the chivalrous backwoodsman those smoke-dried lips were yet the altar of early passion,—as that rather ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... course; I've seen him often before. And after breathing a while, he and Maggie Mitchell came out, and as soon as they stepped off he put on an extra spurt or two and led her by a neck all around the place, and she came in puffing and blowing, and nearly exhausted. I never took ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... country is at all passable to Port Denison. We are encamped under some splendid shady large-leafed tree in the bed of the creek, leaves about ten inches broad and twelve to fifteen inches long; some of the men found that the leaves dry were a good substitute for tobacco and were soon puffing a cloud. ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... this particular morning, came puffing into his chambers at the courthouse, looking, with his broad beam and in his costume of flappy, loose white ducks, a good deal like an old-fashioned full-rigger with all sails set, his black shadow, Jeff Poindexter, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... with the glasses took no notice of his approach but continued his writing, puffing the while on a very black briar pipe. He was apparently about thirty-five years of age, had a fierce and bristling mustache, and rushed his pencil vindictively across the copy paper as though he were writing the death ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, sir!" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, sir!" and the "You don't see your ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... puffing languidly on a cigarette and turning slowly toward the window to watch the passing throng under the lights of the avenue, "really I don't see how I can be of any assistance. You see, except for a mere passing acquaintance Miss Gilbert and I had drifted entirely apart - entirely apart - owing to ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... Jim,' said Dick, puffing like a grampus. 'If you hadn't lent a hand, those wharf-rats would have tipped ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... not swim a stroke, and was much hampered by his heavy clothes and boots. At the first plunge he was carried far beneath the surface, but quickly rose again, puffing and blowing like a grampus, and making desperate efforts to ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... agitation Mr. Jones had risen from his seat and was now stumping up and down, puffing at his empty tobacco-pipe as ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... and ironed. But whatever he did and whatever he was, the ripple of his wife's easy laughter followed him like the wave in the wake of a puffing tug; and as he listened, the weazened face of "Mistah Breckenridge" took on the expression of a small dog who hears his master's footsteps at the end of ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... or a seat in a cafe. Not only had he elbow room in Marienbad, but he felt small, positively meagre, in comparison with the prize specimens he saw painfully progressing about the shaded walks or puffing like obese engines up the sloping roads to the Ruebezahl, the Egerlaender, the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... who they are or were," the captain answered, puffing thoughtfully at his pipe, "that is by no means easy to say. Our last port was Kurrachee, in the north of India, and there we took them aboard as passengers for Glasgow. Ram Singh was the name of the younger, and it is only with ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... At the present time, any well-behaved flivver (the direct descendant of the puny little motor-driven machines of Daimler and Levassor of the eighties of the last century) can do better than these early "Puffing Billies." ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... did swallow some at first and choked a little, to the great amusement of the assembly. His pride carried him through, however; he tried again, and was successful. Then his "cheek" came back and he went on, puffing out far larger volumes than ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... the king, puffing, "has such a thing befallen my state. Next year I will certainly buy a little cannon." He looked at ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... whiss!" went the little whispers; and "Ah!" and "Ai!" and "Oh!" came puffing after them, like the ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... clur agin? Scalp me, Bill! ef we hedn't better a fit 'em on the paraira, afore we gits weak wi' hunger. Wagh! I kud eat a griskin now, an a good chunk o' a one. Ay, smoke away!" (some of the Mexicans had lighted their cigars, and were coolly puffing at them)—"smoke away, durn yur! yur yeller-skinned skunks! I'll make some o' ye smoke afore mornin, or my name ain't Rube Rawlins. Gi's a bit o' bacca, Bill; maybe it'll take the edge off o' my stummuk. Wagh! I feel as holler ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... was no casual observer; nothing escaped his keen glance and keener intuition, and it was almost with a wicked twinkle in his little hazel eyes that he said, still shaking off the snow, stamping and puffing: "Eh, but ye were not lookin' for me, teacher! The minister was sent for to go to old Elspie Breadalbane, who's dyin' the morn; and I happened by as he was startin', an' he made me promise to come i' his place; an' I picked up my friend Dalgetty here a few miles back, wi' his horse flounderin' i' ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... (which, you know, he ought to do)—yet privately adores him as the Devil; and indeed publicly too, is a great proneur of Blackwood. For, in spite of his Jacobinism, he is liberal and inevitably just to real wit. His fear is—that Blackwood may come as Nemesis, and compel him to regorge any puffing and cramming which Tiff has put into his pocket, and is earnest to have a letter addressed in an influential quarter to prevent this. I alleged to him that I am not quite sure but it is an affront to a Professor to presume that he has any connection ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... and finger went to work To move the stubborn lid, And presently a mighty jerk The mighty mischief did; For all at once, ah! woeful case. The snuff came puffing ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... afraid of thunder and lightning, but the hunger he felt was far greater than his fear. In a dozen leaps and bounds, he came to the village, tired out, puffing like a whale, and with ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... ever tell you"—she asked him chattily, and leisurely moved on,—"about the time I stood on the sidewalk to see the procession go by, in Boston, when we commemorated Bunker Hill?" And she went on with a favorite reminiscence: how she had held on to her inch of standing-room, in spite of a fat and puffing man, a ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... eating and drinking, he is an alert, joyous, and lively old soul, which makes his assumed dulness the more diverting. So you may see Jobson on such occasions, like a bit of a broken down blood-tit condemned to drag an overloaded cart, puffing, strutting, and spluttering, to get the Justice put in motion, while, though the wheels groan, creak, and revolve slowly, the great and preponderating weight of the vehicle fairly frustrates the efforts of the willing quadruped, and prevents its being brought into a state of actual ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... boys stood by, entering into the operation, which was supposed to prove wonderfully efficacious in increasing our boat's speed, with great interest, and Clump bent over the kettle, stirring the oil, and puffing at the short ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... water, swimming long distances, taking long dives, and amusing himself by sinking his enormous body to the bottom of the river, and coming up again every now and then to breathe. He made plenty of fuss over it, too, puffing and grunting ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... brick-red hair was as unkempt as if it had never known a comb, yet the attire of the great detective was as fastidiously neat as if he had dressed for an important social function. Taken altogether there was something mistrustful and uncanny about Fogerty's looks, and his habit of eternally puffing cigarettes rendered his companionship unpleasant. Yet of the man's professional ability there was no doubt; Mr. Merrick and Arthur Weldon had had occasion to employ him before, with results that justified ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... would not take up much room. Moreover these ladies knew her, and all the patients had turned their eyes upon her on hearing that the Blessed Virgin had been pleased to cure her. They had now got beyond the station, the engine was still puffing, whilst the wheels increased their speed, and Sister Hyacinthe, clapping her hands, repeated: "Come, come, my ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... slope the monster stood, puffing and hissing with impatience to show these unbelieving people how mistaken they were. It was a strange-looking machine, quite unlike any of the giants that we know. A large boiler lay full length between four ornamental iron wheels. Out of the front end of the boiler ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... one human being showed himself to the watchers on the smaller boat. This solitary individual paced the drab boat's bridge deck, puffing at a ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... crab, I remember, on one occasion, and I travelled with my back to the engine after it—a position I have never dared to assume since.) Then good-byes, tips, kisses, a last look, and—the 4.10 was puffing out of the station. And nothing, nothing had happened. I can remember thinking in the train how unfair it all was. Fifty-two weeks in the year, I said to myself, and only fifteen of them spent at home. A child snatched from his mother at nine, and never again given back to her for ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... I'm sure you don't mind. You know plenty of men who can never talk comfortably without puffing smoke in between whiles. I'm one of that sort. Don't look at me like Cleopatra deprived of Marc Antony. Be reasonable! I only want to say a few plain matter-of-fact words ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... enough, without foreign bellows to blow it ever and anon. My whole heart shudders at the thrice-wretched self-combustion into which I see all manner of poor paper-lanterns go up, the wind of "popularity" puffing at them, and nothing left erelong but ashes and sooty wreck. It is sad, most sad. I shun all such persons and circles, as much as possible; and pray the gods to make me a brick layer's hodbearer rather. O the "cabriolets, neatflies," and blue twaddlers of both sexes therein, that ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... dealt him by the gold pen of Lady Hannah, and he is ready enough to argue with the Chaplain. He gets off the bed and slips on his jacket, takes a turn or two across the narrow floor-space, then leans against the distempered wall beside the window, puffing at his jetty briar-root, his muscular arms folded on his great chest, his powerful shoulders bowed, his square, black head thrust forward, and his blue eyes coolly studying ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... luncheon together at the "Woman's Exchange," return to the post by the afternoon train, and have plenty of time for a little nap before dressing for the german. Perhaps the most interesting question now up for discussion was, who would lead with Mr. Rollins? The train went puffing into the crowded depot: the ladies hastened forth, and in a moment were on the street; cabs and carriages were passed in disdain; a brisk walk of a block carried them to the main thoroughfare and into the heart of the shopping district; a rush of hoofs ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... on this same hot evening the sergeant in charge of the little signal-party at the Picacho came strolling forth from his tent puffing at a battered brier-root pipe. Southward and a few hundred feet below his perch the Yuma road came twisting through the pass, and then disappeared in the gathering darkness across the desert plain that stretched between them and the distant ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... world is in a conspiracy not to admire them, and they would bring an action against the world if they could. But as that is impossible, they are content to rail against the world in good set terms; they are always puffing in the papers, but in a side-winded way, yet you can trace them always at work, through the daily, weekly, monthly periodicals, in desperate exertion to attract public attention. They have at their head one sublime genius, whom they swear by, and they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... thing," and Elizabeth laid down the piece of linen she was stitching and looked up at the handsome fellow who was leaning against the open window and puffing his cigar smoke out of it. She had the English girl's adoration of the eldest son, and likewise her natural submission to the masculine element. Besides which, she loved Roland with all her simple faith and affection. She loved him for his handsome self ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... situated themselves on one side of the lodge, and opposite them were seated the musicians. The medicine chief took up his position in the center of the circle, near a small fire, with his big pipe in his hands. Gravely filling it with k'neck k'nick, he lighted it at the flame, and began puffing great clouds in the faces of the aspirants, that the Great Spirit might give them strength to bear their tortures manfully. Directly under the aperture in the roof of the lodge was a curious arrangement of buffalo and human skulls, which were divided into two parcels. ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... the actor, puffing a cigarette. "Didn't I tell you I was a Futurist? I really do believe in those things if I believe in anything. Change, bustle and new things every morning. I am going to Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, Huddersfield, Glasgow, Chicago—in short, to enlightened, ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... the policeman had found Glory and her "Angel" was also the terminus of a great railway. Beyond the waiting-room were iron gates, always swinging to and fro, for the passage of countless travelers; and from the gates stretched rows of shining tracks. Puffing engines moved in and out upon these, drawing mighty carriages that rumbled after with a deafening noise. Gatemen shouted the names of the outgoing trains, whistles blew, trunk-vans rattled, and on every side excited people called to ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... dairy, the old woman took my hand and dragged me along a perfectly dark passage, Miss T. following. This passage was paved with stones, and had stone walls on either side. Half stifled with peat smoke, we arrived, puffing and panting, in the kitchen. Here in a corner was the big peat fire which filled the whole dwelling with its exhalations. All around was perfect blackness, until our eyes got accustomed to the dim hazy light, when we espied a woman in ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... months of training she had learned to keep herself calm and serviceable, and not to let her mind speculate idly. She was gazing out of the window into the dull night. Some locomotives in the railroad yards just outside were puffing lazily, breathing themselves deeply in the damp, spring air. One hoarser note than the others struck familiarly on the nurse's ear. That was the voice of the engine on the ten-thirty through express, which was waiting to take its train to the east. She knew that engine's throb, for it was the engine ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Missionary, Williams, stepping lightly, MacDonald swarthy and close-lipped, taking the climb with the ease of a mountaineer, Bat Brydges, the Senator's newspaper man, hat on the back of his head, coat and vest and collar in hand, blowing with the zest of a puffing locomotive. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... Dick shook his head, puffing at his pipe. "Not a soul I knew," he commented, "except Mathews about my job. Wish I hadn't gone; ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... stairs and spread the alarm. Major Smooth was in an alarming situation!—'most dying!—would breathe his last!—warn't no help fo'h him!—must die, sartin!! Such a ringing and dinging of bells, such a tampering up stairs, such a puffing and blowing of excited citizens as followed, never was heard or seen before. Although in a tight place, I was neither alarmed nor crest fallen. Indeed, I thought I'd enjoin the old lady on the other side to enter upon the discussion of a political question, just by way of keeping ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... jesters whom the great loved to tend to their beck, that they might ply them with mirth in hours that were mirthless. When the fantastical fellow had reached the summit he flung himself at once onto the nearest seat that one of the fallen columns afforded, and sat for a space gasping and puffing and spitting out blasphemies between every gasp and puff of ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... puffing away at his pipe, and Jess, her work—one of his socks—lying idly upon her knees, her hands clasped over it, and her eyes fixed upon the lights and shadows that played with broad fingers upon the ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... order to spill my water and go back for more. This rivalry between us was a serious matter—so serious, indeed, that I immediately took advantage of what he had imputed and raced back to the spring. And Jed Dunham, scornful of the bullets that were puffing dust all around him, stood there upright in the open and waited for me. We came in side by side, with honours even in our boys' foolhardiness. But when we delivered the water Jed had only one pailful. A bullet had gone through the other pail close ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... and think herself safe. Jocko had watched her do it, and turned it, too, on his next trip, with results satisfactory to himself. The climax came when he was discovered sitting at the open skylight, under which Mrs. Hoffman and her husband were working at their tailoring trade, calmly puffing away at Mr. Hoffman's cherished meerschaum, and leisurely picking the putty from the glass and dropping it upon the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... porpoise steak for breakfast that morning and porpoise steak for dinner, and porpoise steak for supper. Sailors call porpoises "puffing pigs," and porpoise steak tastes something like pork steak, and sailors like it. But they had it for every meal until there was only one porpoise left, and that one they had ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... of a familiar hand, the ozone of high altitudes gradually and sweetly awakened Jack. The engine was puffing on an upgrade; the car creaked and leaned in taking a curve. Raising the shade of his berth he looked out on spectral ranges that seemed marching and tumbling through dim distances. With pillows doubled ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Carolina, a rough-looking old mountaineer, who looked like he might have had experience in such raids in time of peace, said he would go with him, and they cheerfully set off. After they had been gone about an hour old man Baldwin came pulling in, puffing and blowing, and said "they put the dogs after us and shot at us. I didn't git but a handful and I dropped them as I got over the fence." Soon our cracker came in, looking like he was suffering a great bereavement, and when we laughed, he said, "I didn't think they would be ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... We'll see about that. Be careful, Freddie, don't put your head out of the window," she cautioned quickly, for the little chap had turned in his seat again, and was leaning forward to see a horse galloping about a field, kicking up its heels at the sound of the puffing engine. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... knave in the room, With a countenance grave as a horse's, and his honest eyes fixed on a pin, Queer-bent on a deeply-laid project to tunnel Joe Hawkins's skin. There were anxious young novices, drilling their spelling-books into their brain, Loud-puffing each half-whispered letter, like an engine just starting its train; There was one fiercely muscular fellow, who scowled at the sums on his slate, And leered at the innocent figures a look of unspeakable hate; And set his white teeth close together, and gave his thin lips a short ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... in the forge was out and the day was going slowly, through the open door of the shop and the narrow windows, westward to the mountains. In the advancing shadow, on the pile of broken wheels on the work-bench, on keg and barrel, they sat puffing their ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... enthusiasm for white walls, and wherever he discovered one he would sketch, with a piece of coal, processions of men, women and horses, houses puffing smoke, soldiers, vessels at sea, weaklings engaging in struggle with burly giants, and ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... The water of the Seine was clear and blue; the little boats were puffing up and down; the fishermen lined the walls and patiently and diligently cast their hooks. Judy stood on the Pont Neuf glad she was living; glad she was in Paris and had eyes to see it and ears to hear it; glad of her truancy; gladdest of all when one old fisherman actually ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... began to speak of the "Bad Place," the ultima thule of Moorish discussion with Christians, imitating the fire of perdition with their hands and mouth, wafting the air with those, and blowing and puffing with this, and then asked me how I should like "The Fire" (‮النار‬). But I returned, "Christians say all Mohammedans will go into that fire." This greatly shocked them, and they asked if I thought so likewise. I replied, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... advantageous specimen of the High Church English clergy, who, for the most part, so far from troubling their heads about persecuting people, only think of securing their tithes, eating their heavy dinners, puffing out their cheeks with importance on country justice benches, and occasionally exhibiting their conceited wives, hoyden daughters, and gawky sons at country ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... do it," Bunny said, puffing, as he pushed on the oar, with which he was trying to shove off the boat. "I ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... filled in a black cloth. This sacred tobacco is smoked only for this purpose. He then goes out into the forest, and returns just before dark, about which time the witch may be expected to put in an appearance. Lighting his pipe, he goes slowly around the house, puffing the smoke in the direction of every trail by which the witch might be able to approach, and probably repeating the same or another formula the while. He then goes into the house and awaits results. When the witch approaches under cover of the darkness, whether ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... it. In that great city of nerves, through which electric vibrations pass, there are invisible currents of fame, a latent celebrity which precedes the actuality, the vague gossip of the drawing-rooms, the nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade, which, at a given moment, bursts out in a puffing article, the blare of the trumpet which drives the name of the new idol into the thickest heads. Sometimes that trumpet-blast alienates the first and best friends of the man whose glory it proclaims. And yet they ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... genuine steam-carriage, which was finished and made its first short trip on Christmas Eve, 1801, carrying the first passengers ever known to have been conveyed by steam. Locally this contrivance was known as the "puffing devil," or as "Cap'n Dick's Puffer." The next step was to produce an engine running on rails. This was done in 1804, when Trevithick completed a machine which carried ten tons of iron, five wagons, and seventy men ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Go in, Trixie, and help your uncle off with his coat,' for there were snorting and puffing signs from the next room, as if their relative were in difficulties; but before Trixie could rise the voice was heard again, 'That's it, Ann, thanky—you're called Ann, aren't you? I thought so. Ah, how's the baker, Ann—wasn't it the baker ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... ear-splitting screech, it turned straight toward the two men, and with the black smoke rapidly puffing from the top of its head, came tearing along at a ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... she kept looking at the clock, and he walked up and down the room, puffing at his cigarette. Neither of them could think of anything further to say to the other. There is a moment at the hour of parting when the person that we love is with ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... the cards and then at Sanders, who sat puffing his cigar, and watching Schloss's proceedings with a look not unlike Jack's when anyone he did not approve of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... said Maurice, puffing into Johann's face. "When cabinet ministers play spy, small fry like you will not cavil at the occupation. And you are not in their pay?" Johann glared. "I want to know," Maurice went on, "what you know; what you know of Colonel Beauvais, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... we saw the mill it was spring, and the puffing smoke and white heaps of lumber that graced the point and met our vision as we rounded Breakheart Point will not soon be forgotten. Only one trouble had proved insurmountable. The log-hauler would not deliver the goods to the rotary saw. Later, with ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... chairs, tables, and window shelves, and soon had her hands full of the demure little songsters. Max, too, was pursuing the wrens, and Twonette, losing part of her serenity, actually caught a bird. The sport was infectious, and soon fat old Castleman was puffing like a tired porpoise, and sedate old Karl de Pitti was in the chase. Frau Katherine grabbed desperately at a bird now and then, but she was too stout to catch one and soon took her chair, laughing and out of breath. Yolanda ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... would be needed. Who and what could this man be who spent his money with so lavish a hand? His name was unknown. Birmingham was as ignorant as Tamfield as to his origin or the sources of his wealth. Robert McIntyre brooded languidly over the problem as he leaned against the gate, puffing his blue clouds of bird's-eye into the crisp, ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was closed, and there was no one in the room but the hairy eggplant shape of the Aurigean, still puffing its cigar. ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... biscuit, made my way to a spot a short distance off, where I might take my food on the solitary system, according to the custom that we Englishmen most delight in. When I had lighted the fire, and put the water on to boil, I cast myself on the ground, and complacently puffing away at my pipe, gazed at the wild but picturesque scene before me. The position of the river was marked out by a semicircle of some fifty or sixty fires, before which dark and ill-defined figures were ever ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... uncle, stamping about his study and puffing with indignation. "You should have knocked that ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... great deal of panting and puffing, George was heard to exclaim, "Now for the tug of war!" and there followed a minute's pause, and then a crash as the loosened planks were torn asunder, and a cloud of dust ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... stalwart guards with fingers at their lips, lest any sound should disturb the life that, with beneficent patience, was little by little restoring the wounded body from within. Even the little vulgar puffing market-boat that twice a day passed the windings of the old river channel—the only disturber of solitude—was kept at so great a distance by this guard of silent trees that no perception of her passing, and all the life and perplexity of which she must remind him, entered into ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... pictures than this tranquil, sunny expanse of the lagoon. As we round the point of the Bersaglio, new landscapes of island and Alp and low-lying mainland move into sight at every slow stroke of the oar. A luggage-train comes lumbering along the railway bridge, puffing white smoke into the placid blue. Then we strike down Cannaregio, and I muse upon processions of kings and generals and noble strangers, entering Venice by this water-path from Mestre, before the Austrians built ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Needham, accompanying him. Another good swimmer and diver followed them. All three remained under water so long, that those forward thought they were lost. Adair could not restrain himself, and was dashing aft, when Jack came to the surface puffing and blowing like a grampus. He had discovered the cask of biscuits, but no beef was to be found. What, however, was of great consequence, was a breaker of water which Needham found, and both were floated up to the raft forward. Two other attempts were made to get provisions, but in ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... Lydgate, because it gave precisely the sort of prestige which an incompetent and unscrupulous man would desire, and was sure to be imputed to him by the simmering dislike of the other medical men as an encouragement on his own part of ignorant puffing. But even his proud outspokenness was checked by the discernment that it was as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog; and "good fortune" ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... he replied, puffing luxuriously upon his pipe; "I've changed my mind. All I wanted was new scenes and occupations. I've decided to stay on awhile. But I've been thinking, Jude, you don't want to take Joyce into your shack. Let's build her another up on the sunny ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Graham was more a man than was Napoleon or John Howard. He that ruled his stomach was greater than he who took a city. Beranger's Roi d'Yvetot, who ate four meals a day,—the Esquimaux, with his daily twenty-pound quantum of train-oil, gravy, and tallow-candles,—the alderman puffing over callipash and callipee,—the backwoodsman hungering after fattest of pork,—such men as these were no common sinners: they were assassins who struck at the very fountain of life, and throttled a human stomach. Pancreatic meant pancreative. Gastric juice was the long-sought elixir. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... was at the throttle and Connors was firing. A few yards below Sanders's sentry-box stood an empty flat car on a siding. It threw a grateful shade over the hard cinder-covered tracks. The dog had crawled beneath its trucks and lay asleep, his stiffened leg over the switch frog. Adams's yard engine puffing by woke him with a start. There was a struggle, a yell of pain, and the dog fell over on his back, his useless leg fast in the frog. Sanders heard the cry of agony, threw down his flag, bounded over the cross-ties, ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... out the light, too, and on rainy days the roof, together with the smoke and steam of the engines, makes the bottom of the quarry a gloomy place. Everywhere there are slender ladders with men running up and down them. There are shouts of the men, clanking of chains, and puffing of locomotives. ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... satisfaction. This disturbing thought crowded out the remembrance of the unloved, unwelcome niece and nephew until a sharp curve in the road brought into view the smoke begrimed depot and, drawn up before it, the train which had just come to a puffing, throbbing standstill like a wild horse unwilling to pause in ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... of pacifying Lizzie, the "heap" had again sunk into comparative silence, and only a confused murmur was audible from its depths. Allowing no time to be lost, Dunmore said to Lizzie—who was puffing out huge mouthfuls of smoke, greatly to the astonishment of the other gins, who looked as if they expected to see her ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... dear MacGilp; but the fools of academicians would fain make us so. Are you not, and half the painters in London, panting for an opportunity to show your genius in a great "historical picture?" O blind race! Have you wings? Not a feather: and yet you must be ever puffing, sweating up to the tops of rugged hills; and, arrived there, clapping and shaking your ragged elbows, and making as if you would fly! Come down, silly Daedalus; come down to the lowly places in which Nature ordered you to walk. The sweet flowers are springing there; the fat muttons ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... martyr to the holy cause of matrimony, puffing and blowing beneath the weight of his heavy gun, as he wends his way across the fields towards a certain spot in the forest at which he finally arrives. He looks around him with searching eyes; his brow is clouded with ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... thought out his problems of life. The shadow of the church cut off the glow of sunset, and made it seem silent and dark. Ahead of him the Valley lay. Across at the right it stretched toward the Junction, and he could see the evening train just puffing in with a wee wisp of white misty smoke trailing against the mountain green. The people for the hotels would be swarming off, for it was Saturday night. The fat one would be there rolling trunks across and the station agent would presently close up. It would ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... his majesty's vicegerent, puffing from unwonted exertion, "it is my lot to fill the civic chair in these troublous times; and truly my portion is not in pleasant places; but I am loyal, sir, loyal. The king has knighted many a servant less worthy than myself; and, but that Mrs Mayor is looking forward to the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... fortified town of Buxar, or Patna, a large manufacturing and trading-place, where is held the principal opium market of India; or Monghir, a more than European town, for it is as English as Manchester or Birmingham, with its iron foundries, edgetool factories, and high chimneys puffing clouds of black ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... still in his suit of duck and pongee shirt and battered pith helmet, just as I had seen him on the mole in Manila, was pacing the bridge in the calm, commanding way that marks the man accustomed to command. He was puffing contentedly at a cigar, and there was something amusing in the manner in which he cocked his head to one side to survey the sea and then the land with a ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... Kernel Cob than with the Villain and Sweetclover, he made after him, but Kernel Cob had a good start this time and had turned another corner, and seeing an open doorway, leaped in and was well-hidden by the time the Showman came puffing by. ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... but without success because of the hum of voices that filled the room. In time, however, the gathering began to thin out, until at length there remained only this party of three, Lanyard enjoying a most delectable salad, and Roddy puffing a cigar (with such a show of enjoyment that Lanyard suspected him of the sin of smuggling) and slowly gulping down ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... in no way strange or unpleasant. They were in the habit of unburdening themselves, their hopes, their disappointments, their joys, their tragedies, to the first strangers whom they met. It seemed quite natural to them that Trenchard, puffing his rebellious pipe, should talk to them about Glebeshire, Polchester, Rafiel, Millie and ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... black woman. She felt no anger, she simply wondered what he feared. The increasing smell of tobacco smoke started her coughing. She turned. To be sure. Not only was the door to the smoker standing open, but a white passenger was in her car, sitting by the conductor and puffing heartily. As the black porter ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... flags, and the row their crews kicked up to frighten us barbarians, were speedily sunk or sent to the right-about; while the batteries on shore, having soon had enough of it, ceased firing. In a short time we saw our steamer, the Hermes, come puffing up, with the huge Burmese war-vessel, which she had captured, in tow. After this we did nothing for some time, except blockading the mouths of the river, completely putting a stop to the enemy's trade. It was thought by this that the King of Ava ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... before he answered, puffing a mouthful of smoke up at the ceiling, as he did the night he caught me. The gesture itself seemed to remind him of what had made him think in the first place he could make an actress of me. For he laughed down at me, and ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... one, and Murray's fleshy shoulders answered it. He sat back in his chair moodily puffing at his cigar. His eyes were on his desk. It was ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... puffing white as wool from the bow-chaser of the destroyer, screeched through the vultures, scattering them all ways, but made a clean ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... for a dive," he said, standing on the edge of the flat rock and looking down into the deep pool, and then he put his hands above his head and, bending forward, dived down into the water so finely that there was hardly any splash. He came up, puffing and blowing, shaking the water from his eyes and hair, and swam up and down the pool, now on his back, now on his side, and then suddenly with a shout he would curl himself up and dive and swim beneath the water, and again ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... the surface of the dish in a layer, and, puffing gently but adroitly, he winnowed it with his nicotine-ladened breath till no particle of sand remained with the gold. Then he put the dish on the scales, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... his chin, and still puffing, "it would be extremely interesting to hear his story at any rate. I was just telling Mr. Wrissell about it. Come this way, sir. I've heard some strange things in my time, but—" He stopped. "Please follow me, sir," ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... remarkably free from prejudices of any kind. I pride myself on being open-minded. My wife doesn't smoke, but that's merely because she doesn't like it. If she did, I shouldn't make the slightest objection. All the same, you oughtn't to go puffing cigarettes about the streets of Ballymoy. The Major's a bit old-fashioned in some ways, and I don't expect Doyle is accustomed to see ladies smoking. You'll have to be very careful. If you start people talking ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... around General Kershaw and Colonel Nance. Here I first learned of the repulse. The balls were still flying overhead, but some of our batteries had got in position and were giving the enemy a raking fire. Nor was the railroad battery idle, for I could see the great black, grim monster puffing out heaps of gray smoke, then the red flash, then the report, sending the engine and car back along the track with a fearful recoil. The lines were speedily reformed and again put in motion. Jones, too, was forced by overwhelming numbers to give back, but Jackson coming up gave him renewed confidence, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... to say—what to do," answered Mr. Sanders, puffing and blowing; "business will come to a stand-still—the shutters had better go up at once. But if you want particularly to be off to-day, I suppose I must manage ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... was disastrous. The great banks remained hostile, and capitalists were mistrustful. Herzog landed a few million francs. Doorkeepers and cooks brought him their savings. He covered expenses. But it was no use advertising and puffing in the newspapers, as a word had gone forth which paralyzed the speculation. Ugly rumors were afloat. Herzog's German origin was made use of by the bankers, who whispered that the aim of the Universal Credit Company was exclusively political. It was to establish branch ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... across the river, which almost continually during the day, and sometimes all night, may be heard puffing and panting, as if it uttered groans for being compelled to labor in the heat and sunshine, and when the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... "Well, first," said Hiram, puffing his cigar with evident satisfaction, "they got hold of the point that Miss Huldy drove back alone from Eastborough Centre. Abner Stiles took Lindy Putnam down to the station and she went to Boston on the same train that you did. Abner tried to catch up with Huldy, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... passed the most frequently got the dust and smell; and so the universal rule was that when you were behind you watched for a clear track, and then put on speed, and went to the front; but then just when you had struck a comfortable pace, there was a whirring and a puffing at your left, and your rival came stealing past you. If you were ugly, you put on speed yourself, and forced him to fall back, or to run the risk of trouble with vehicles coming the other way. For Oliver there seemed to be but one ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... Half-way up the hill, Philip was forced to slow down, and panting and puffing,—for he was a big man,—he turned to look for Patty. She came along, and swung past him with an easy stride, flinging back over her shoulder, "Take another sprint, and you may ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... game, cap," said the scout, puffing at his pipe. "You see, they'll keep along on the edge of the desert, so't they can have grass an' water in plenty, an' if you don't pester 'em none they won't go into the Staked Plains at all; but if you push 'em hard they'll run the ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... the handsome meerschaum pipe from his mouth, from which he had been puffing smoke slowly, and said in a cold, yet quiet voice, "How long you been ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... to the fence, and there, sure enough! Bill was sprawled out under the tree, puffing for breath, but poor Hester sat in the branches wailing because she dared not come down while the bull was making ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... this pale-looking, bareheaded tramp, the children fled. Oswald drank deeply of the refreshing water, and was moving away, when a loud voice commanded him to stop. Looking up, Oswald saw a burly citizen, just over the fence, puffing ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... service very hard. Guasco's guns are many of them dismounted; no Daun to be heard of. Guasco again and again proposes modified capitulations; answer always, "Prisoners of War on the common terms." Guasco is wearing low: OCTOBER 7th (Lefebvre sweating and puffing at his last Globe of Expression, hoping to hit the mark this last time), an accidental grenade from Tauentzien, above ground, rolled into one of Guasco's powder-vaults; blew it, and a good space of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... birth; Fire broyled Earth, & scorched Earth it choaked Both by their darings, water so provoked That roaring in it came, and with its source Soon made the Combatants abate their force; The rumbling, hissing, puffing was so great The worlds confusion, it did seem to threat Till gentle Air, Contention so abated That betwixt hot and cold, she arbitrated The others difference, being less did cease All storms now laid, and they in perfect peace That Fire should first begin, the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... engine thundered into the depot, puffing and panting like an over-driven steed, there was a rush to board the train, as if the time was limited to the shortest ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... vain hopes?—The puffing gale of morn, That of its charms divests the dewy lawn, And robs each flow'ret of its gem,—and dies; A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn, Which stings more ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... were hastening toward the near railway station. The sleighs shot forward with clinking harness, the snow under wheels squeaked complainingly, the drivers uttered brief shouts. The hats of men and women, various kinds of furs, the liveries of coachmen, the horses puffing steam, covered here and there with colored nets, formed a motley, changing line, moving forward with a rattle and an outcry along the white snow, in an atmosphere glittering ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... girls— twins, it seemed, about four years old, in little mushroom hats—took their turns, and they put their fists into their eyes and cried, and then the two mothers began to cry, and the men, dabbing their eyes and puffing vigorously at their cigars, cried good-by over and over, and so at last we moved out ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... as we could see, negroes were rolling it down to the brink of the river where they would set them afire and push the bales in to float burning down the tide. Each sent up its wreath of smoke and looked like a tiny steamer puffing away. Only I doubt that from the source to the mouth of the river there are as many boats afloat on the Mississippi. The flatboat was piled with as many bales as it could hold without sinking. Most of them were cut open, while negroes staved in the heads of barrels of alcohol, whiskey, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... noise of his slumbers culminated in a sudden, choking grunt, and abruptly ceased. His eyelids rolled slowly back, like an owl's, revealing pale blue eyes, which fixed themselves first upon the ceiling, then upon Anselme. Instantly he sat up, puffing and scowling, his hands ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... had not been of that kind which can be submitted to the austerest tests without being materially lessened, he would have suffered much in having so frank and truthful a biographer as Dr. Elder. Nobody could have been selected for the task who would have worse performed the business of puffing, or the work of recognizing and celebrating lofty traits of character and vigorous mental endowments better. He is a friendly biographer,—and well he may be; for he declares that his researches into Dr. Kane's private correspondence and papers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... ascended the western hill, from which I obtained a fine bird's-eye view of the town. The large, broad streets, at right angles to each other, looked well laid out, neat, and clean looking. What seemed strangest of all was the lazy puffing of the engines over the claims, throwing out their white jets of steam. But for the width of the streets, and the cleanness of the place, one might almost have taken Ballarat for a manufacturing town ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles |
