"Tell on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again I could feel that one or other of us was forcing conversation, as if we were not sure of ourselves. The long wait was beginning to tell on our nerves. It was apparent to me that Mr. Trelawny had suffered in that strange trance more than we suspected, or than he cared to show. True, his will and his determination were as strong as ever; but the purely physical side of him had been weakened somewhat. It was indeed only ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... beginning to tell on Penton. A strange, new, unsuspected thing was welling up in his heart, Darrie averred ... his love for his repudiated wife was reviving so strongly that now he dared not see her, it would hurt ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... incontinently, and neither spoke nor breathed again until the bottom of the rummer was brought parallel to the ceiling; then, with a deep heart-felt sigh, he set it down; and, with a calm placid smile, exclaimed, "Tell on, Jem." Whereupon that worthy launched into his full tide of narrative, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Janice Day did not want to "tell on" Arlo Junior. Arlo Junior was the child of all others in the neighborhood whom Miss Peckham carried on guerrilla warfare with. She had threatened to go to the police station and have Arlo Junior locked up the very next time he crossed her path in ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... near here, arising from decaying horses and mules, which have not been properly buried, or probably not buried at all. The camps, as a rule, are well policed and kept clean; but the country for miles around is strewn with dead animals, and the warm weather is beginning to tell on them. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... sayin'? Bettah shet yo' haid, Fus' t'ing dat you fin' out, You'll be layin' daid. Jay-bu'ds sich a tattlah, Des seem lak his trick Fu' to tell on folkses Wadin' in ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... to tell on consumption. Dealers and consumers ceased buying until their surplus stocks had become exhausted, and then bought in small lots only as they were compelled to. Meanwhile, stocks in the hands of the syndicate were accumulating rapidly with no visible ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... story which Lord Houghton used to tell on the subject was that after his father had refused the place in the Ministry pressed upon him by Mr Perceval, he sent to the friend with whom he had made the bet (whose name had never transpired) a copy ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... wuth their knowin'. An' then it goes on to Spain an' France an' Germany, whar they talk all them useless tongues, an' after a while it takes a whirl clean 'roun' Africa an' Asia, an' sees goodness knows what, an' then goes slippin' off to see islands in oceans that I ain't ever heard tell on. Jumpin' Jehoshaphat but ain't that a movin' an' stirrin' life ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... offered. He had the boy play in the band concerts in the Alster Pavillion, which are among the daily events of the city's popular life, as all know who are acquainted with Hamburg, and his shillings earned in this and similar ways, helped out the family's scanty means. But late hours began to tell on the boy's health. His father begged a friend of his, a wealthy patron of music, to take the lad to his summer home, in return for which he would play the piano at any time of day desired and give music ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... fair and witty, Who masked would to his house in couples come, To understand your matrimonial doom; To know what kind of man you were to marry, And how long time, poor things, you were to tarry; Your oracle is silent; none can tell On whom his astrologic mantle fell; For he, when sick, refused the doctor's aid, And only to his pills devotion paid, Yet it was surely a most sad disaster, The saucy pills at last ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... society is called upon to prosecute this fourfold work. It cannot abandon a single field and must not be asked to. It can do in the next five years a work for Christianity and for Congregationalism in the South and West which will tell on the coming century. As Christians, and as Congregational Christians, we must see to it that it be not obliged to pinch its workers and to turn away from promising openings in order to keep free from ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various
... to ask me and I said that I would find means to prevent it. So they noisily called me a traitor and told me that accusing them was worse than stealing plums. I said that it wasn't my intention to tell on them, but I would come and use my whip as soon as they touched the tree. So they laughed and sneered at me and said that they were neither afraid of me nor of my whip. As soon as our lessons were done at twelve o'clock, they ran to the garden ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... don't know exactly where it will be," he said, "and it doesn't tell on that sign. But it says the circus is coming day after to-morrow. You could find out from your grandpa's hired man, though, where the tents will be. I guess they will put them up in the same place they had them last year, and the hired man was here then. He's worked for your grandpa a good ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... to another, amid strange climates and customs, strange trees and flowers, beasts and birds, from the glittering snows of North America to the orchids of the Cape, from beautiful Pera to the lily-covered hills of Japan, and who in no place rose above the fret of domestic worries, and had little to tell on their return but of the universal misconduct of servants, from Irish "helps" in the colonies, to compradors and China-boys at Shanghai. But it was not so with the Captain's wife. Moreover, one becomes accustomed to one's fate, and she moved her whole establishment from the Curragh to Corfu ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the women drank also, a woman taking about one cupful to a man's three. Runi and I, however, drank the most, for we had our positions as the two principal personages there to maintain. Tongues were loosened now; for the alcohol, small as the quantity contained in this mild liquor is, had begun to tell on our brains. I had not their pottle-shaped stomach, made to hold unlimited quantities of meat and drink; but I was determined on this most important occasion not to deserve my host's contempt—to be compared, perhaps, to the small bird that delicately ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... pricked him now, he'd bleed red blood—not ewe's milk: The flick of my tongue can nettle him at last: His haunches quiver, for all his woolly coat; He'll prove a Haggard, yet. Nay—he said "husband": No Haggard I've heard tell on's been a husband: But, if your taste's for husbands, lass, you're suited, Till doomsday, as he says. He kens his mind: When barely breeched, he chose to bide with sheep; Though he might have travelled with horses: ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... Herve Riel the Croisickese. And "What mockery or malice have we here?" cries Herve Riel. "Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? 10 Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, 'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river disembogues? 15 Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Entered free and anchored ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... used to come and hunt near Petra, and brag about it afterward; after you have well discounted the lies they made their sculptors tell on huge stone monoliths when they got back home, they remain a pretty peppery line of potentates. But for imagination, self-esteem, ambition, gall, and picturesque depravity they were children—mere chickens—compared ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... why one's nose stands in the middle of his face?' says the Fool, in the First Act, by way of entertaining his master, when the poor king's want of foresight and 'prudence' begins to tell on his affairs a little. 'Canst thou tell why one's nose stands in the middle of his face?' 'No.' 'Why, to keep his eyes on either side of it, that what a man cannot smell out he ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... have been our bad day, for Georgia felt her very first bite from the strap that afternoon, and on the way home volunteered not to tell on me, if grandma did not ask. Yet grandma did, the first thing. And when Georgia reluctantly said, "Yes," grandma looked at me and shook her head despairingly; but when I announced that I had already had two strappings, and Georgia one, she burst out laughing, and said she thought ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... waiting for overseas service he was intent on recruiting all over Canada. He went over in command of the Second Contingent from Canada, but the tremendous strain of his forty years of service began to tell on his once powerful physique, and to his deep disappointment he was prevented from leading his men in the field. In recognition of his services to the Empire he received Knighthood and a Major-Generalship, which represented a long and strenuous road travelled up from the ranks. He died in England ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... terrible state of mind she's been in for months—it may have been years for aught I know, the wearing strain of incessant strife between feeling and reason going on beneath every other interest and occupation. It was little wonder, I think, that it should tell on ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... his right arm to his nose, which had got damaged in the fray, and the process of wiping his face with his cuff changed the white facings of his jacket to red. The negro cymbal-player was the only one whose damages were not to be ascertained, as a black eye would not tell on him, and his lips could not be more swollen than nature had made them. On the procession went, however; but the rival mob, the Eganites, profiting by the delay caused by the row, got ahead, and entered the town first, with their pipers and fiddlers, hurrahing ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... to tell on all three men in the clearing. Each hour now seemed a day, each sight of a Garman ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... on me;[FN462] so, an thou please, O king, I will relate to thee somewhat of that which befel olden kings of perfidy from their women and of the calamities which overtook them by reason of these deceivers."" Asked the king, "How so? Tell on;" and she answered, "Hearkening and obedience. It hath been told me, O king, that a man once related to a company the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... might be taken for an offer she thought possible. She therefore determined to harp upon the carriage as much as possible and to say as little as might be as to the doings at Rufford. Then as she was trying to arrange her countenance and her dress and her voice, so that they might tell on his feelings, Lord Rufford was announced. "Lady Augustus," said he at once, beginning the lesson which he had taught himself, "I hope I see you quite well. I have come here because you have asked me, but I really don't know that ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... begun to tell on him. A quarter of the quantity would have made a clean-living man incapably drunk, but it had only made Marsden's eyes bright. He ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... it were. Then we'll have a wedding and after the wedding we'll all be thrown out of The Dreamerie to make room for Master Don and his consort. So, it appears to me, since Mr. Daney has warned you not to tell, mother dear, that he cannot afford to tell on you himself—no, not even to save ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... exempt from this annoyance; but my digestion had been impaired in Russia by the vast quantity of tea, cucumbers, veal, cabbage-soup, and other horrible mixtures which I had been forced to consume while there, and which now began to tell on my constitution. Notwithstanding repeated doses of cognac, taken from time to time as I walked the decks, the sea began to whirl all round, the clouds overhead to swing about at random through the rigging, and the odor of the machinery to produce the strongest and ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... word—one of sincere thanks. You cannot suppose I doubted for a moment of a good-will which I have had abundant proof of. I only took the occasion your considerate letter gave me, to tell the simple truth which my forty years' silence is a sign I would only tell on compulsion. I never thought your critic had any less generous motive for alluding to the performance as he did than that which he professes: he doubtless heard the account of the matter which Macready and his intimates gave currency to at the time; and which, being confined for a while to ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... was not present, Henry took sugar from her prized and precious old English sugar-bowl, which was an heirloom in the family—and he managed to break the bowl. It was the first time I had ever had a chance to tell anything on him, and I was inexpressibly glad. I told him I was going to tell on him, but he was not disturbed. When my mother came in and saw the bowl lying on the floor in fragments, she was speechless for a minute. I allowed that silence to work; I judged it would increase the effect. I was waiting for her to ask "Who did that?"—so that I could fetch out my news. But ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... incline to surmise of late That the Christian faith may be false, I find, For our 'Essays and Reviews'*1* debate Begins to tell on the public mind, And Colenso's*2* ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... had three babies in all. They said they put them up in the ceiling, up in a loft. This old man got mad with Bob Young and burnt his gin. Mother seen him slipping around. They ask her but she wouldn't tell on him, for she didn't see him set it on fire. They measured the tracks. He got scared mother would tell on him. One night a colored man on the place come over. Her husband was gone somewhere and hadn't got home. She was cooking supper. They heard somebody but ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... help it! I'm too happy to be sensible. Let me be silly for just one day. What, is that Diddums? That ugly, lanky, old cat? You've aged terribly, Diddums, since I saw you last. Ah me, ah me, the years tell on us all! Tell me, dear—be faithful!—are you as much shocked at the change ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... are mighty smart, putting these boxes in my room!" growled Codfish to himself. "I'd just like to know who did it! If it was that Spouter Powell, I think I'll go and tell on him!" ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... seeing eye; bad blood rushes to thinking foreheads; the bonds of hell are loosed; pale gods sit trembling in their twilight. "O sons of Adam, the sun still shines, and a spell of fair weather never did no harm, as we heard tell on; but don't you think a drop of rain to-night would favour the roots? You'll excuse a ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Marm Parraday. "When we was gals women's rights and women's doin's warn't much hearn tell on. Still, Miz' Scattergood, I wasn't so meek as I know on. But mebbe, women was mostly chattels—like horses an'—an' chickens. But if that was so, that day's gone by, thanks be! An' it's gone by in Polktown a deal because of this same Janice Day. Oh, yes! I know what she's ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... wasn't intending to," Herbert responded gloomily; and the thought of each, unknown to the other, was the same, consisting of a symbolic likeness of Wallie Torbin at his worst. "I ought to tell on Florence; by rights I ought," said Herbert; "but I've decided I won't. There's no tellin' what she wouldn't do. Not that she could ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... ago. I wouldn't say this dogone prairie 'ud be the best place to start resurrectin' it. No, sir! There's too many chances for that—seein' we're on a branch line. There's the track—it might give way. You never can tell on a branch line. The locomotive might drop dead of senile decay. Maybe the train crew's got drunk, and is raisin' hell at some wayside city. You never can tell on a branch line. Then there's that cargo of liquor you're ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... going to tell on yourself.... You are going back to your regiment.... It will be your own idea, too; it has been your own idea all the while—your secret desire every ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... die, having done a good bit of sick-nursing in my time afore I married Hankey; but as to foretelling how they're going to leave their money, I can no more do it than the babe unborn; nor nobody can, as ever I heard tell on." ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... only I do hope it won't tell on you in the biggest event of the meet; the five mile run. For they're pressing us hard, and we'll need every one of those three ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... Jock did not intend to lose his ball and his game also, and the maddest thing the magistrate could do was to make that ball a cause of war. It was easy enough to go to Bulldog's class-room and lodge a complaint, but as he could not identify the culprit, and no one would tell on Jock, the Bailie departed worsted, and the address which he gave the boys was received with derision. When he turned from the boys to the master, he fared no better, for Bulldog who hated tell-tales and had no particular respect for Bailies, told the great ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... mile further on the woods came to an end, and Grom, though he feared the pace might be beginning to tell on A-ya, and though there was no refuge in sight, breathed more freely. He feared the bees more than the yellow monsters, because they were something he could not fight. The grass-land now ran clear to the river's edge, and gave firm footing; and the fugitives raced on, breathing carefully, and trusting ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... snatched up his cap when he heard Walters coming, grinned painfully, pulling his straggly red and white beard nervously. The strain was beginning to tell on his iron nerves. He removed the cap, and with a few muttered words went back to the game, but there was a dangerous gleam in his fishy blue eyes, and the grizzled tufts of red hair above his eyes lowered threateningly. A man who is getting swamped ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... made his will and left you his mining claims, all merely prospects so far. He says you know how he came to feel as he does about Brown and Fowler. However that may be, it certainly is the dirtiest story I ever heard one man tell on others and, dying though he was, I begged Curly to let me tear the paper up and let the story go into the grave with him. But he held me to my promise, so I'm sending it to you, with this apology for contaminating either of us with the dope. Poor old Curly! He was ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... was indeed good news. I thanked Nielsen. And Doyle appeared immensely relieved. The packing and carrying had begun to tell on us. Pups ingratiated himself into my affections. He found out that he could coax meat and biscuit from me. We had three axes and a hatchet; and these we did not pack in the wagon. When Doyle finally got the teams started Lee and Nielsen ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... sore with the toil of the day, and what was more depressing found ourselves once more upon the banks of the Skeena, where only an occasional bunch of bluejoint could be found. The constant strain of watching the horses and guiding them through the mud began to tell on us both. There was now no moment of ease, no hour of enjoyment. We had set ourselves grimly to the task of bringing our horses through alive. We no longer rode, we toiled in silence, leading our saddle-horses on which we had packed a part of our outfit ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... the narrative style, followed the same influence. Yet the true Ciceronianism, which rejected every phrase which could not be justified out of the great authority, did not appear till the end of the fifteenth century, when the grammatical writings of Lorenzo Valla had begun to tell on all Italy, and when the opinions of the Roman historians of literature had been sifted and compared. Then every shade of difference in the style of the ancients was studied with closer and doser attention ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... enemy near Bull-Run, we gave him battle. That is, we pitched into him and he pitched into us, the fight becoming general and extending over a great deal of ground. Then the fighting became so mixed up and confused that it was difficult to tell on which side victory was smiling. Indeed, neither general could tell how things were going. For a long time both armies kept at a respectful distance, under the evident apprehension that somebody would get injured. In short, ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... scene of hiding in the boot. At which all laughed again. The little people declined their hosts' pressing invitation to stay all night, so Huggermugger took them all back to their boat. They had enough to tell on board ship about their visit. The next day, and the day after, others of the crew were entertained in the same way at Huggermugger Hall, till all had satisfied their curiosity. The giant and his wife being alone in the island, they felt that it was ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... durned, if it don't sound good!" declared that worthy, when, at last, the tale had been completed. "But thar's lots of mighty good soundin' yarns goin' 'round camp, 'bout wonderful gold mountains an' caves of gold. Howsomever, I never heer'd tell on anybudy's really findin' any on 'em; an', I reckon, 'most on 'em is jest lies. But that thar map seems tew give y'ur yarn a look like th' truth; an', I reckon, them tew skunks must have believed th' yarn, or they wouldn't have ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... There was much to tell on both sides before we could properly discuss the grand object of my coming, and our time was a good deal taken up by a constant succession of visitors; not dogs or cats, as might have been expected, but boys and girls, men ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... the worse for a basting, and a deal more to the same tune, which almost broke through my determination to say nothing of what had caused the mischief; for, after all, Dick Cludde and Cyrus Vetch were my schoolfellows, and, in my day; for one boy to tell on another was the ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... just the same thing. I don't believe one word of ancient history. Not—one—word! They wrote it about their own nations, didn't they? All right. Then you might just as well expect them to tell what really happened, as think that I'd tell on another boy in my own school. I must say it would be as mean as dog pie of them if they did, but all the same that does not ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... about ten miles of the way; and, though age has since begun to tell on them, I shall ever remember them in their pride and strength as they galloped alongside our wagons down the long slopes of the Spanish Peaks in a ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... she replied, sympathizing with the not telling, for her loyal little heart forbade her to tell on Louis many a time when he had ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... the sun! Many more would have worked than we employed, but we used the precaution of taking the names of those engaged. The tall men became exhausted soonest, while the shorter men worked vigorously still—but a couple of days' hard work seemed to tell on the best of them. It is doubtful if any but meat-eating people can stand long-continued labour without exhaustion: the Chinese may be an exception. When French navvies were first employed they could not do a tithe of the work of our English ones; but when the French were ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... "Oh, I couldn't tell on a girl, sir," he answered, and then his smothered injury burst forth; "but she ought to be ashamed of herself," he ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... year a most efficient ally in the weather. Jupiter Pluvius had descended from on high to the rescue of the struggling commonwealth, and his decrees were omnipotent as to the course of the campaign. The seasons that year seemed all fused into one. It was difficult to tell on midsummer day whether it were midwinter, spring, or autumn. The rain came down day after day, week after week, as if the contending armies and the very country which was to be invaded and defended were to be all washed out of existence together. Friesland resolved itself into a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fire in the brownish sky. Wrapped in sheepskins and muffled to the ears in knitted scarves that might have come from New England, the territorials who had charge of the road were filling the ruts with crushed rock. Exhaustion had begun to tell on the horses; many lay dead and snowy in the frozen fields. A detachment of khaki-clad, red-fezzed colonial troops passed by, bent to the storm. The news was of the most depressing sort. The wounded could give you only the story of their part of the line, and you heard over and over again, ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... holy, so acceptable to God, that even those set apart for sanctuary service might feel called to have a hand in it. His prowess, brave as he was, was nothing; it was not his unpractised right arm, but his heart which he devoted to the service, and which would tell on the result, not merely of that special enterprise, nor of that battle only, but, by affording a powerful proof of love of country outweighing considerations of safety and life, would have the influence which a living ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... down at the time, and perhaps he had begun to drink as a way for forgetting his trouble. Perhaps, too, his foolish, slatternly wife bore part of the blame, for his home had always been comfortless, and such companionship must, in the long-run, tell on a man. Reflecting upon this, Miss Rodney had an idea, and she took no time in putting it into practice. When Mabel brought in her tea, she asked the girl whether her father ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... that I'm going to tell on him, he won't keep them long, to-morrow. He will see that I am the same milksop as I always was—all day and the next. And the day after to-morrow night there 'll be an end of him; nobody will ever guess who finished him up nor how it was ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... face, and aglow with smiles and blushes, she made her way with alacrity to her chosen class. Teachers and scholars thoroughly suited with each other; surely they could do some work during that hour that would tell on the future. Meantime, the superintendent was having his perplexities over in another corner of the room. He came to Dr. Dennis ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... surviving, and those of its offspring which inherited the variation, let it be ever so slight, would have a better chance to survive. Yearly more are bred than can survive; the smallest grain in the balance, in the long run, must tell on which death shall fall, and which shall survive{233}. Let this work of selection, on the one hand, and death on the other, go on for a thousand generations; who would pretend to affirm that it would produce no effect, when we remember what ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... rang in his ears, still held him in its thrall, calling him back into the dream from which he had just awakened. Still heavy with sleep and also somewhat light-headed—for he had been traveling for two days and the strain was beginning to tell on him, although the doctors had at last pronounced him able to make the journey home for a month's furlough—he leaned his head against the cool green plush back-rest and stared idly through half-closed eyelids down the long vista of the Pullman ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... wanted to tell on him I should have told long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who would believe me if I ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... the bank, and let them go unmolested. No: this was the coincidence of good luck, not of bold premeditation. There will be no second attempt. (Yawns.) If they don't come soon I shall fall asleep. Four nights without rest will tell on a man, unless he has some excitement to back him. (Nods.) Hallo! What was that? Oh! Jackson in the counting-room getting to bed. I'll look at that front door myself. (Takes revolver from desk and goes to door ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... purgatorial weeks that were soon to tell on Hester. They actually brought out a streak of gray through her hair, which Lottie promptly dyed and worked under into the lower part of her coiffure. For herself, Hester would have ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... heart with all the honourable and noble things you say of me and it. I was a good deal surprised at Lindley hitting on some of the remarks, but I never dreamed of you. I admired it chiefly as so well adapted to tell on the readers of the 'Gardeners' Chronicle'; but now I admired it in another spirit. Farewell, with hearty thanks...Lyell is going at man with an audacity that frightens me. It is a good joke; he used always to caution me to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... gal, ef I got low in my mind, or riled in my temper, I jest went out and grubbed in the gardin, or made hay, or walked a good piece, and it fetched me round beautiful. Never failed; so I come to see that good fresh dirt is fust rate physic for folk's spirits as it is for wounds, as they tell on." ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... and justifications of himself are equally placed to the discredit of his account. They seem to think a man could never accuse himself except he were in the wrong; therefore if ever he excuses himself, he is the more certainly in the wrong: whatever point may tell on the other side, it is ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... that demanded Dorothy's presence there. But they wuz only goin' to stop there a few days, and then goin' to start off on another long sea-voyage clear to China, stoppin' at Hawaii on the way. Warm climate! good for measles! My heart sunk as I hearn 'em tell on't. Here wuz my opportunity to have company for the long sea-voyage. But could I—could I take it? Thomas Jefferson gently approached the subject ag'in. Sez he, "Mother, mebby Tommy's life depends on it, and here is good company from your door." I murmured sunthin' ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... from Beaumetz, through shell-shattered villages, by roads twisting up and down long hills, commenced to tell on the men long before the first halt was due. Breathing became, in many cases, long and heavy; some stumbled blindly forward with heads strained down, and others impotently cursed at the Higher Command for not calling a halt. Sweat trickled ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... before the Lord, my boy that I did not tell on you. I haven't the slightest idea how the police could have found out about ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... by the same stairs which were trodden so often by Galileo in going up to make his astronomical observations; in climbing spirally around the hollow cylinder in the dark, it was easy to tell on which side of the Tower we were, from the proportionate steepness of the staircase. There is a fine view from the top, embracing the whole plain as far as Leghorn on one side, with its gardens and grain fields spread ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... the captain. "He's tryin' to be a decent man. What do you want to do? Tell on him and have him chucked overboard from one church after another until he gets discouraged ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... at me, Tim; I'm goin' to blow the whole thing," continued he, shaking his head at the crestfallen Bunker. "You was fool enough to tell on't yourself." ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... garrulous Firio, you knew! You had the great equine trio ready, and look at the miles they have done since sunset to prove it! You, P.D., favorite trooper of our household cavalry! You, Wrath of God, don't be afraid to make an inward smile, for your face will never tell on you! You, Jag Ear, beat a tattoo with the fragment of the gothic glory of burrohood, for we rest, to go on all the faster when the heat of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... bends and had taken on nearly half a load of cotton—I'd picked up, where your uncle Dan had dropped it, a small paper box of fusees—you know?—matches that you can't blow out. Childlike, guiltily, I kept them. In their quarrel, that night, Phyllis ended by imploring your uncle Dan not to tell on her. I never knew what supplication was till then. She wept on her knees, clinging to his. When she had to leave him, to put me to bed, he made her promise never again to do me the least hurt, and swore that if she did he'd sell her to ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... done without Mr. Merwyn I scarcely know. He is with him now, and has watched every night since Arthur's return. I never saw any one so changed, or else we didn't understand him. He is tireless in his strength, and womanly in his patience. His vigils are beginning to tell on him sadly, but he says that he will not give up till the crisis is past. If Arthur lives he will owe his life largely to one who, last summer, appeared too indolent to think of anything but his own pleasure. How we often misjudge people! They were boys and playmates together, and are both greatly ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... mock confusion and total innocence of the fact that her words might have meaning, "don't tell on us." ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... head by Leonardo, out of the pile of stones a Strasburg Cathedral, from the block of marble a Venus of Milo, with the vocabulary a tragedy of Hamlet, you have works which are so creative that they tell on the mind with the vivid, impressive, instructive, never-wearying delight of the works of nature. The men who wrought them were strong to do so through the vigor of their sympathy with what Plato calls the formative principle of the universe, they thereby becoming themselves creators, that is, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... told them as a final caution, "we expect to do much tramping under a hot June sun, so that every ounce you have to carry along will tell on your condition. Limit your pack to the bare necessities as we've figured them out, and if necessary the strong will assist the weak. That's about all for to-night, boys. Seven sharp on Monday morning outside the church here, unless it's stormy. The church bell will ring at six if ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... the more reason to eschew evening parties that I slept two mornings till past eight; these vigils would soon tell on my utility, as the divines call it, but this is the last day in town, and the world shall be amended. I have been trying to mediate between the unhappy R.P. G[illies] and his uncle Lord G. The latter talks like a man of sense and a good relation, and would, I think, do something for E.P.G., if ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... this were not exactly wholesome for my resolution. The stress of adversity was beginning to tell on me. At the same time, I felt a contempt for that obscure weakness of my soul. I said to myself disdainfully that it should take much more than that to affect in the ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... on as the others were about to interrupt him. "He won't say good-by to anybody. You can understand why. He's going to start for China tomorrow morning—missionary! It's the last of Pryor Gaines for us. I promised not to tell till he was gone. I've lied to him. That's all. But you'll not tell on me nor let him know. He says he's 'called.' And when a preacher gets that in his ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... court-martial and death. Sam went finally, but he sat in a hot open place and swore at the battalion and the war in general, and finally went to sleep in the broiling sun. These things began to tell on patriotism. Presently Lieutenant Clemens developed a boil, and was obliged to make himself comfortable with some hay in a horse-trough, where he lay most of the day, violently denouncing the war and the fools that invented it. Then word came that "General" ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... said he, "and finer folk live in it than I ever thought on, or ever heerd tell on except in th' storybooks. They are having their good things now, that afterwards they may ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... landscape, we could only trust to the ponies to keep the way. Marjie rode close by my side that night, and more than once my hand found hers in the darkness to assure her of protection. O'mie, bless his red head! crowded Lettie to the far side of the group, keeping Tell on the ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... think it's reasonable to suppose that when I wear out it will be for good and all, too. There isn't anything of us, as I look at it, except the potentiality of experiences. The experiences come through the passions that you can tell on the fingers of one hand: love, hate, hope, grief, and you may say greed for the thumb. When you've had them, that's the end of it; you've exhausted your capacity; you're used up, and so's your character,—that often ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... exceedingly difficult, light air—for we had already reached 12,500 feet—beginning to tell on our lungs to such an extent that my friend, who had taken turns with me in carrying my pack, was unable to do so any longer, and I adjusted it to my own shoulders for ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... to tell on the strikers. It was evidenced in the shiny suits worn by the men who met daily at the hall in town to discuss the strike. It was seen again in the worn wraps of many a mother and in the torn shoes of school-children. These were only the outer signs, the real suffering was carefully ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... know it, Larry? I've heard tell on it often enough. But they have got to prove we air spies first, ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... things I don't know in my own household. I always fancy them worse than they are. There are so many things one can imagine when one doesn't KNOW, and now I fancied everything. Such things, I think, tell on older people more than on younger ones, and at last I went to my room and kept there most of the time, reading William James's Varieties of Religious Experience. It is an excellent work in many ways. I am told it is given in sanitariums ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... kep' no sheep as ever I heard tell on. He didn't keep much barring hisself,—didn't Muster Threepaway. He had never no child, nor yet no wife, nor nothing at all, hadn't Muster Threepaway. But he was a good man as didn't go ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... gwine tell no tales on Mist' Sandy. But yer can't fool dis heah ole nigger. I mind de signs; I knows mo' 'bout de young folks in dis heah town den dey t'ink I do. Fust t'ing you know, I'm gwine tell on some ob 'em, too. I 'spect de doctor would put' near die ef he knowed dat Miss Annette was a-havin' incandescent meetin's wif ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... wine on the gross lee, that makes your Muse speak. This I know by her spirit and life; but I think She's much in the wrong to scold in her drink. Her damn'd pointed tongue pierced almost to my heart; Tell me of a cart,—tell me of a ——, I'd have you to tell on both sides her ears, If she comes to my house, that I'll kick her down stairs: Then home she shall limping go, squalling out, O my knee; You shall soon have a crutch to buy for your Melpomene. You may come as her bully, to bluster and swagger; But my ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... and sold 'em durin' slavery. Some of de white men bought 'em. They were Irishmen and they would not tell on us. Their names were Mulligan, Flanagan and Dugan. They wore good clothes and were funny mens. They ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... and practised writing and drawing, or read in some book Miss Starbrow had recommended to her. With all her time so agreeably filled she did not feel her loneliness, and the life of ease and plenty soon began to tell on her appearance. Her skin became more pure and transparent, although naturally pale; her eyes grew brighter, and could look glad as well as sorrowful; her face lost its painfully bony look, and was rounder and softer, and the straight lines and sharp angles of her girlish form changed ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... is afraid that "Edwin Drood," too, suggests the malady which Sir Walter already detected in his own "Peveril of the Peak." The intense strain on the faculties of Dickens—as author, editor, reader, and man of the world—could not but tell on him; and years must tell. "Philip" is not worthy of the author of "Esmond," nor "Daniel Deronda" of the author of "Silas Marner." At that time—the time of the Dorrits and Dombeys—Blackwood's Magazine published a "Remonstrance ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... drew near for us to go back, I began to experience a feeling of depression. While I had not noticed it before, I suppose the cumulative effect of the experiences of the last eight months was beginning to tell on me. I noticed that Bouchard appeared to be in about the same condition. He would sometimes sit for an hour or more, in our room at the Cecil, gazing into space, never uttering a word. Poor boy, while of course he could not know that this was to be ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... didn't tell on them. I didn't know what they were up to when they used me for— But I'm skidding now. I want to tell you—terribly. But I simply must not. I made an awful mistake that night at Mrs. Prothero's in ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... Danny. "I'll show you what I'm trying to do. I'll tell on you for keeping a dog that don't belong to you, and you'll ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... are the Carletons in, Patty?" She told him, and then Bob shouted up from below, "We've got the old Babcock extinguisher, dad, and we're making it tell on the fire. Can't you throw on some water up there? And tell all the people to go out on the balconies and we'll take 'em down all right. And I say, Patty, get my camera out of my room, will you? I don't want ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... through his hair again. "I noticed the deal with the drink," she said. "I guess I just wanted to hear you say it. You don't tell on me, I don't tell on you. Is ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... volunteered not to tell on him; and added generously that when he came to dinner with her she would post him concerning the company. "It's awkward for a stranger, I can understand," said she; and continued, grimly: "When people get divorces it sometimes means that they have quarrelled—and they don't always ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... glad to see it, for she had noticed that the girl was looking rather pale and haggard. This was partly due to the fact that the strain of the last few months she had spent in England was commencing to tell on her. She had borne it courageously, but a reaction had afterwards set in, and, as it happened, the Scarrowmania had plunged along bows under against fresh north-westerly gales most of the way across the Atlantic. There is ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... fellows from prison will lie." Grant that. Grant that here are twenty of the greatest liars in the State about to leave prison in course. But they have no opportunity, while there, for mutual conversation and planning a particular story to tell on leaving; nor do they even know of having an opportunity, outside, to talk with me or any particular one. They severally leave their confinement, each giving account of his experience, which I put down. On looking these carefully over, a line of substantial agreement is found running through ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... never can tell on board ship; but, if you happen to be, it seems to me that you wouldn't care for any outsider to interfere in a matter such as we are discussing. At any rate Mrs. Tremain is a married woman, and I can't see what interest you should have in her. ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... Consequently they come under the definition of Empirical Laws, equally with uniformities not known to be laws of causation. However, the latter are far more uncertain; for as, till they are resolved, we cannot tell on how many collocations, as well as laws, they may not depend, we must not rely on them beyond the exact limits in which the observations were made. Therefore, the name Empirical Laws will generally ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... his fingers, while his head turned away from her: "If you don't tell on me, and I know you won't, then you're violating your own principles, too: total information, free discussion and ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... Lincoln, "some persons work with their hands, and some with their heads, and some with their hearts. Abraham's head is always at work—he isn't like most other boys. And as far as his heart—Well, I do love that boy, and I am his step-mother, too. He's always been so good to me that I love to tell on't. His father, I'm thinkin', is rather hard on him sometimes. Abe's heart knows mine and I know his'n, and I couldn't think more on him if he was my own son. His poor mother sleeps out there under the great trees; but I mean ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the result from the expectation. Age, illness, an increasing family, no family at all, household cares, want of means, isolation, incompatible prejudices, quarrels, social difficulties, and such like, all tell on married people, and make them far other than they once promised to be." When that awakening comes there is only one solace, and women take to that supreme solace much more often than men. And that solace, as you all know, is true, if too late, religion. And ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... to tell on her, my lady, only she kept the seventh commandment better than some I know on, or I couldn't look your ladyship i' the face, and she brew'd the best ale in all Glo'ster, that is to say in her time when ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... quickly enough, for there were a thousand things to tell on both sides. The aeronaut described his accident and related how he had lived through all the dreary months that had gone. Fortunately there did not happen to be any fierce wild beasts in the cliff bordered valley, and while ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... subjects of the Bourbon dynasty. Then the condition of Poland was giving some alarm to the despotic monarchs of the Continent everywhere; for, if Poland were to rise and were allowed to assert its liberty, who could tell on what soil, sacred to despotism, other rebellious movements might not also break out. Therefore, the monarchs of the Holy Alliance were much perturbed, and came to the conclusion that, as the Congress of Vienna had not succeeded in enforcing all its edicts, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... talking with me of old friends and past times, we warmed ourselves into a wish, that all who remained of the club should meet and dine at the house which once was Horseman's, in Ivy-lane. I have undertaken to solicit you, and therefore desire you to tell on what day next week you can ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... satisfied without a more unmistakable guidance than those inward voices. There was light enough for her, if she opened her Bible, to discern the text sufficiently to know what it would say to her. She knew the physiognomy of every page, and could tell on what book she opened, sometimes on what chapter, without seeing title or number. It was a small thick Bible, worn quite round at the edges. Dinah laid it sideways on the window ledge, where the light was strongest, and then opened it with her forefinger. The first words she looked at were those ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... my piece about the good house mother had seemed to tell on my little audience. Marianne had nestled close to her mother, and laid her head on her knee; and though Jenny sat up straight as a pin, yet her ever busy knitting was dropped in her lap, and I saw the glint of a tear in her quick, sparkling ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... lettuce started in August. Sow radishes and successive crop of lettuce. Cooler weather begins to tell on late- planted crops. Give cabbage, cauliflower, etc., deeper cultivation. "Handle" celery ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... words of Scripture which carry the same thought, that he who has fellowship with God, and lives in the constant reception of the supernatural life and grace which come from Jesus Christ, possesses the secret of perpetual youth. The world ages us, time and physical changes tell on us all, and the strength which belongs to the life of nature ebbs away, but the life eternal is subject to no laws of decay and owes nothing to the external world. So we may be ever young in heart and spirit. It is possible for a man to carry the freshness, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... raise up a pensive Temper, and mortifie an impertinently gay one, with the most agreeable Skill imaginable. There are a thousand things which crowd into my Memory, which make me too much concerned to tell on about him. Hamlet holding up the Skull which the Grave-digger threw to him, with an Account that it was the Head of the King's Jester, falls into very pleasing Reflections, and cries out ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... conditions, which had obtained substantially since soon after the War of 1812, and which long disastrously affected even Great Britain, with all her proud naval traditions and maritime and colonial interests, a military service cannot thrive. Indifference and neglect tell on most individuals, and on all professions. The saving clauses were the high sense of duty and of professional integrity, which from first to last I have never known wanting in the service; while the beauty of the ships themselves, quick as ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... me, I know you will," she burst out. "Papa, don't you think it's a little mean to make me tell on myself and then punish me for what you find ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... plans had been so sadly upset that we now found ourselves without food or drink, and I alone was armed. We therefore urged our beasts to a speed that must tell on them sorely before we could hope to sight the ending of the first ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... be bitter war to the end between them. No one could tell on which side the scales of mercy ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... on the gang-plank and smell every pair of legs that crossed—5,000 pairs, 10,000 legs that day did Wully examine after his own fashion. And the next day, and the next, and all the week he kept his post, and seemed indifferent to feeding himself. Soon starvation and worry began to tell on him. He grew thin and ill-tempered. No one could touch him, and any attempt to interfere with his daily occupation of leg-smelling roused him ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... laid a hand on her shoulder, looking down at her with accusing eyes. "Hain't you known me long enough to know I couldn't tell on any one who'd been good to—" He broke off with a cough. "And what's more, do you think any one who could take our little boy's hand and lead him, as you might say, straight to heaven—would be ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... their fell repast, That sinner wip'd them on the hairs o' th' head, Which he behind had mangled, then began: "Thy will obeying, I call up afresh Sorrow past cure, which but to think of wrings My heart, or ere I tell on't. But if words, That I may utter, shall prove seed to bear Fruit of eternal infamy to him, The traitor whom I gnaw at, thou at once Shalt see me speak and weep. Who thou mayst be I know not, nor how here below art come: But Florentine ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... nothing more damaging. As the glances of the two women met, it would be difficult to tell on which face Distress ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... had fallen prone and was grovelling weakly. "Oh, I won't tell on you," he wailed imploringly. "I won't, I won't, Fong Wu; I swear ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... Mir Saheb," replied I. "The sentry of talk challenges the approaching skirmishers of sleep. The thong of narrative drives off the dogs of tedium. Tell on." And in point of fact I was now too credulous to be anything but astounded.... John ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... Howdy, Tom? It's a coon's age since we've seen you, Tom. Time you showed yourself. How are the children, Jenny—and what's Tom Scott been doing? What's this we hear about that stray young one? Nice tale that is to tell on a fellow. Fowler heard it at Brownsboro and like to have killed himself. Lord! how hot it's been! I'm ready for supper, Jenny. Sit down, Tom. As soon as I get through supper, we'll have a real old-fashioned talk. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and constant anxiety were beginning to tell on Mrs. Athelny; and sometimes her back ached in the evening so that she had to sit down and rest herself. Her ideal of happiness was to have a girl to do the rough work so that she need not herself get up before seven. Athelny ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... gave himself up. "It was I who damaged the machine the first time. But not after that. Now you will have to tell on me, Hoeflinger. Did you not know it? Why am I to ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... sight of him and stared, but said nothing to him. Yet, when Holdfast had done, Simmons was observed to look at Grotait, though he replied to the other. "If you was a Hillsbro' man, you'd know we tell on dead folk, but not on quick. I told on Ned Simmons, because he was as good as dead; but to tell ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... station, and when his train had arrived they emerged together into the cold winter twilight and turned up Madison Avenue. These walks home from the station gave them a little more time to themselves than if they had driven; and there was always so much to tell on both sides. This time the news was all good: the work at Westmore was prospering, and on Justine's side there was a more cheerful report of Mr. Langhope's health, and—best of all—his promise to give them Cicely for the summer. Amherst and Justine ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... the hardships necessarily encountered in travelling through North-western Canada in pioneer days as Miss Johnson did; and shortly after settling down in Vancouver the exposure and hardship she had endured began to tell on her, and her health completely broke down. For almost a year she has been an invalid, and as she is unable to attend to the business herself, a trust has been formed by some of the leading citizens ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... to bring back his daughters; not galloping, as an anxious parent might, but going ahead with a long, steady-going trot, which he knew would soon tell on Mrs. Trelyon's over-fed and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... autumn, when something brought on erysipelas, and she was gone almost before they took alarm. The good little daughter was beaten down then, really ill for a week; but if you can understand me, the shock seemed to tell on her chiefly bodily, and though she was half broken-hearted when her husband in a great fright brought me up to see her, and say whether her sister should be sent for, she still made fun of him, and described ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... twice when I slipped out to buy me somethin' to eat at a grocery store and to git some newspapers. At first I figgered the police would be a-comin' after me; but they didn't—there wasn't nobody at all seen the shootin', I reckin. And I was skeered Vic Magner might tell on me; but I guess she didn't want to run no risk of gittin' in trouble herself—that Captain Brennan, of the Second Precinct, he's been threatenin' to run her out of town the first good chance he got. And there wasn't none of the other girls there that ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... had been bred in him early never forsook him, and the ladies of Naapu liked him. Even good Madame Mauer, who squinted, squinted more painfully at Follet than at any one else. But his idleness was beginning to tell on him; occasionally he had moody fits, and there were times when he broke out and ran amuck among beach-combers and tipsy natives along the water-front. More than once, Ching Po sought him out and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Jane are nowhere beside her. They are good-humored, bouncing girls; but they are certainly not brilliant. I hope it is not Aunt Dora's walnut table that is broken. Was it not mean of Parson's man to tell on Armande? I think, since you have plenty of loose cash, we might venture on a set of those curtains we saw at Protheroe's, for the drawing-room. I can easily use the ones that are ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... pains in his old wounds, and though he could have risen on the spur of the moment to fight any number of Grizzlies of any size, still the continual apprehension, the knowledge that he must hold himself ready at any moment to fight this young monster, weighed on his spirits and began to tell on his general health. ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and that several skirmishes had taken place; that a big engagement was expected during the night or in the morning. We passed the last of the German outposts about two miles this side of Malines, but for fear we might tell on them, they would not tell us whether we had any more of their kind ahead of us. We shot along through the open country, between the last Germans and the edge of Malines, at a fairly good rate, and kept a lookout for the English flag, which we had been ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... of honor among the cadets of Putnam Hall that no student should tell on another. To do that would have been to put one's self down as a sneak, and none of our friends wanted ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... kind offers ye can't but agree to it, fur it's not much. Ye've found out this tale o' my life; there's none else as knows it, save mother lying dead, an' Johnnie I telled fur love's sake, an' him as lies palsied i' Yarm—God A'mighty only knows, sir, what Dan'el McGair could tell on't—but this I ask, sir,—that ye'll keep all ye knows an' say nowt. I did Dan'el a great wrong, for I smiled on him whiles for the sake o' power; not but what he did me a worse wrong, so far worse that whiles I think no woman has so sore a life as me; but I did do ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... Queen, and he hoped to be released from his captivity within the Castle. Just at this time he became very unwell; it might have been only the effect of the life of unwonted confinement which he had lately led that was beginning to tell on his health; but, after being heavy and uncomfortable for a day or two, without knowing what was the matter with him, he was one night ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Honeybird. "He lifted a big stone, an' clodded it at me, an' sez he: 'If ye tell on me I'll cut ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... a commodious porch, a washing machine, even a crude bathroom. But Bella remained unplacated. Her face was set toward the city. And slowly, surely, the effect of thirty-odd years of nagging was beginning to tell on Ben Westerveld. He was the finer metal, but she was the heavier, the coarser. She beat him and molded him as ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... no! It's simply the country town beginning to tell on him. He is curious about new guests, and Miss Carrington hadn't mentioned your coming! He suggested, in a vague sort of way, that there was something familiar about you, but he didn't attempt to particularize. It ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... and over all was bended the blue heaven. And heaven spread before him, heaven; behind him lay hell, fifteen years of it less one. And they gave him choice again betwixt the two. They even crammed a bit of moral in the offer. "It was right," they said, "to tell on those who had broken the prison regulations, mere justice to the lessees." Right! too late to talk to him of right. He glanced once at the pines, going farther away, whiffed at the pleasant odor of the grape blooms, waved his hand to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various |
