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More "Fingering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The clock lets you go to any place on the 7-day wire and record a message. The buttons give you variable speed in going there, so you don't waste too much time making a setting. There's a knack in fingering them efficiently, but ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... but worst of all was the evil expression of their countenances." {164b} He soon discovered that their faces were an accurate index to their hearts, which were capable of every species of villainy. The gypsies clustered round him, fingering his hands, face and clothes, as if he were ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... accomplished professors), but I do not consider that they play with so much feeling and expression as I have often found even with female performers in my own country, and which affords me a much higher gratification, as fingering is after all but mechanical, which may astonish, but will never enchant. On the violin they have produced some very fine players, as also upon other instruments, and the bands at their operas can hardly be too highly praised. But their music which has afforded me the most delight has been the performances ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... night, even for Mixxx Seven. Now and then, a tired breeze struggled down from the hills and limped across the lowlands to the Galactic University buildings. It crept into the Galactic Historian's study via the open door and out again via the open windows, fingering the manuscript each time it passed but doing nothing whatsoever about ...
— Collector's Item • Robert F. Young
... letters while they were passing through the post, Jerrold sarcastically dedicated to the heckled baronet. He did this on the ground that Sir James, having the whole run of the Post Office and the fingering of all the letters, must therefore possess "a most refined, most exquisite taste for the graces of epistolary composition," and could thoroughly appreciate them. This was another version of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... fingering her handkerchief, which she now pressed to her eyes. Conward laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "There, there," he said. "You must control yourself. Tell me. It will relieve you, and perhaps ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... decidedly dull. But in some parts of the city, our sovereign lord and master, the Mob, has been graciously pleased to afford us a little interesting excitement by bullying the landlords into giving receipts for their rents, without the usual preliminary ceremony of fingering the cash. 'Base is the slave that pays his rent' is now the motto of the mob, and his mobship chalks it up along with 'liberty, equality, fraternity!' To show, however, that he is really a good fellow at heart, the said mob no sooner swindles ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for John Bunyan to draw Madame Bubble's portrait: "This woman is a witch. 'I am mistress of the world,' she says, 'and men are made happy by me.' She wears a great purse at her side; and her hand is often in her purse fingering her money. Yea, she has bought off many a man from a pilgrim's life after he had fairly begun it. She is a bold and impudent slut also, for she will talk to any man. If there be one cunning to ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... account in The Times[18], "was returning officer, and was assisted in the count by thirty miners—a body of utterly untrained men whose hands, accustomed by daily usage to the contact of pickaxe and shovel, were new and strange to the somewhat delicate task of fingering and separating flimsy ballot papers. They had received no instructions before they were assembled in the room as to the duties they would be required to transact, and the expedition, good-humour, and correctness with which they got through the several stages of the count justly earned for them the ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... turned into the archway of his house. In the patio littered with straw, a practicante, one of Dr. Monygham's native assistants, sat on the ground with his back against the rim of the fountain, fingering a guitar discreetly, while two girls of the lower class, standing up before him, shuffled their feet a little and waved their arms, humming ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the pieces, fingering it delicately and inspecting with a critical eye the flat base on which it stood, and reflected for ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... With trembling fingers he turned over a black tailcoat, a white waistcoat, and a pair of light check trousers. A white shirt, a collar, and tie kept them company, and, greatest outrage of all, a tall silk hat stood on its own band-box beside the chair. Mr. Jobson, fingering his bristly chin, stood: regarding the collection ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... Abi, fingering the hilt of his sword as he spoke, "you would both of you retire for ever who know all the secret of my heart, and with a whisper could bring doom ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... drum!' he said joyfully, as he beat it with two sticks, and carrying his 'drum' into the parlour, he placed it on a chair, propped the music up in front of him, and practised the fingering diligently and noiselessly for an hour or more, till he felt quite ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Road. Over the way, in the shadow of Trinity Church, was an old bookshop, well known to me: the gas-jet shining upon the stall with its rows of volumes drew me across. I began turning over pages, and—invariable consequence—fingering what money I had in my pocket. A certain book overcame me; I stepped into the little shop to pay ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Hypodorian octave. Add one note to the lower end of this universal Greek scale, as it was called, and we see that the whole tonal system was included within two octaves. To each of the notes comprising it was given a name partly derived from its position in the tetrachords, and partly from the fingering employed in lyre playing, as shown in ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... he said, as they all went out one by one at the door, he himself holding it ajar and regarding them with a critical face as they passed, like a shepherd counting out his sheep. "You two counter- boys, keep your ears open to Michael's fingering, and don't ye go straying into the treble part along o' Dick and his set, as ye did last year; and mind this especially when we be in 'Arise, and hail.' Billy Chimlen, don't you sing quite so raving mad as you fain would; and, all o' ye, whatever ye ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... manner towards me, which instead of being as formerly haughty and condescending was now frank and friendly. On entering the drawing room I found that Sir Hugh had not yet made his appearance, and that it would still be a few minutes before we went to dinner. I was conscious that the fingering which Betsy had kept up during the whole time I was dressing had again raised a flame in me which I had not had time to quench, and I turned into the music room to take advantage of the few minutes to ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... stared into the fire, fingering his moustache the while. From the far side of the bivouac the voice of Corbet-Nolan, senior subaltern of B company, uplifted itself in an ancient and much appreciated song of sentiment, the men ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... time, a Planeteer captain came in. He breathed the heavy air appreciatively, fingering the oxygen mask he had to wear outside. He saluted Commander O'Brine and reported, "This is all, sir. We filled the order exactly as Terra sent it. Is there anything ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? Think on these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers,—not for their resemblance to the ape tribe, (which is something,) but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking, fingering, etc." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... looked at me for a moment steadily. "On the contrary, Bill, I dislike going to bed—here. And Mabel goes so early." She said it lightly enough, fingering the disorder upon my dressing table in such a stupid way that I saw her mind was working in another direction altogether. She looked up suddenly with a kind of nervousness from the ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... which it pleased him to set playing—and later carefully examining the ferns and other pot-plants in search of green-fly, scale, or blight. But to-day the innocent routine of his life was rudely broken up. He had no heart for his accustomed tidy potterings, but lingered aimlessly, fingering the gold watch-chain strained across the convex surface of his waistcoat, sand looking pitifully enough between the lace curtains ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... look like other girls?" asked Rona, fingering the enamelled locket that had been given her that morning by Mr. and ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... and stood back, while Cartwright, stumbling to his feet, stood wavering, breathing harshly and fingering ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... green land stretching to the evening star, Fair rivers, skirted by primeval trees And flowers hummed over by the desert bees, Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of greenness show Fantastic outcrops of the rock below; The slow result of patient Nature's pains, And plastic fingering of her sun and rains; Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely windowed hall, And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall, Huger than those which, from steep hills of vine, Stare through their loopholes on the travelled Rhine; Suggesting vaguely to the gazer's mind A fancy, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of the inner room came the sound of men's rapid voices. Hilda could distinguish Mr. Cannon's and Arthur Dayson's; there was a third, unfamiliar to her. Having nothing to do, she began to make work, rearranging the contents of her table, fingering with a factitious hurry the thick bundles of proofs of correspondence from the villages (so energetically organized by the great Dayson), and the now useless 'copy,' and the innumerable letters, that Dayson was always disturbing, and the samples of encaustic tiles brought in by an inventor ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... strands of her yellow hair shone with unusual lustre; her step was so buoyant she scarcely seemed to touch the ground at all; she was all shy smiles; and as she came, with her slender white right hand she played with the new ring she wore on her left, fingering it nervously. But anyone more ecstatically happy than she seemed it is impossible to imagine. Menteith could not take his eyes off her. He seemed to gloat over every item ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... until one or the other was killed, and set-to like a young fury. "Hurrah in the bow!'' said the men, cheering him on. "Never say die, while there's a shot in the locker!'' Nat tried to close with him, knowing his advantage, but the mate stopped that, saying there should be fair play, and no fingering. Nat then came up to the mark, but looked white about the mouth, and his blows were not given with half the spirit of his first. Something was the matter. I was not sure whether he was cowed, or, being good-natured, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... room was Morelos. He had remained, seated at a table, biting a pen, fingering some papers, gazing abstractedly at the vacant bench. The whoop of a barefooted, black-faced urchin in the corridor roused him. With a scowl and a shrug he slowly resumed his hat and went to his home by a ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... white as milk, Made all his suit. Threads of silver in the silk Trailed like moonlight through it. Silver cap and white feather, Stepping proud and high, In his shoon of white leather, Came Geoffrey Barron to die. Then the Roundhead general said, Fingering his sword— Art thou coming to be ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... want the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear— Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair, Felt the brute's proboscis fingering my terror-stiffened hair. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... just now. Anything would be better than that the servants should know that there was a quarrel. But every servant in the house had known all about it for the last three hours. When the door was closed and he was alone, he sat fingering the note, thinking deeply how he should answer it, or whether he would answer it at all. No; he would not answer it;—not in writing. He would give his wife no written record of his humiliation. He had not acted wrongly. He ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... And this was what happened. It was the evening of the opening day. The train wagons might be expected any moment. The electric lights were blazing. All the clerks stood expectant, the porters were by the door, the trim, uniformed bell-boys were all in waiting line, the register clerk stood fingering the leaves of the register with a gracious air. A noise is heard outside, the big door opens, there is a rush forward, and four people flock in a man in a linen duster, a stout woman, a lad of ten, a smartly dressed young lady, and a dog. Movement, welcome, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... couldn't keep away. The Doctor was there too. There wasn't so much of a change in Jack as I expected, only he had the gaol white in his face already. He stood fingering the rail, as if it was the edge of a table on a platform and he was a tired and bored and sleepy chairman waiting to propose a ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... good black and white bromide. Not only that, defects in the bromide which may lie latent while the print is untoned come to light in the sulphide bath. This applies to uneven fixation (due to omission to keep prints moving in the hypo bath) and fingering of the surface; while, as regards the original development of the print, making the best of a wrong exposure will not do when sulphide toning is in view. A print that is forced by long development ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... aristocracy of Paris, and among those great banking operations by which fortunes are made at a stroke. Instead of that, here I am established afresh in a magnificent situation, my wardrobe renewed, and my savings, which I spent a whole day in fingering over, intrusted to the kind care of the governor, who has undertaken to invest them for me advantageously. I think that is a manoeuvre which he is the very man to execute successfully. And no need for the least anxiety. Every fear vanishes before the word which is in vogue just now at all the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... For she was trying out something more than Flint's temper, something greater than a mechanical adjustment of human relationships—she was trying out herself. She sat for some moments, thinking hard, one hand fingering the slender base of the wine-filled glass in front of her, the other dropped in pensive limpness at her side. Flint had cleared the space in front of him of everything but his two wine-glasses. He had slipped down in his ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... photo of the stones at any rate," said Hereward, fingering his camera. "Hurry up and finish, you girls, or the light ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... man in the velour hat observed, fingering the elk-tooth on his heavy watch-chain, "I'd like to know where they get this stuff about clothes coming down. Now, you take this suit I got on." He pinched his trousers-leg. "Four years ago I paid forty-two fifty for it, and it was real sure-'nough value. Well, here the other day ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... discouraged he reminded them how hard he had always been compelled to work, and assured them that equal industry would lead them to success. He gave the thumb its proper place on the keyboard, and materially improved fingering. Tranquillity and poetic beauty being prime essentials of his playing, he preferred to the more brilliant harpsichord, or spinet, the clavichord, whose thrilling, tremulous tone, owing to its construction, was exceedingly sensitive to the player's touch. The early hammer-clavier, ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... flood of rain into the cabin through the open door, and water twinkled in puddles here and there on the floor's puncheons. They sat down side by side, Father Beret fingering the ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... He was idly fingering his cylinder; his gaze roved me as I sat docile on my bunk. "Did you think George Prince was a leader of this? A mere boy. I engaged him a year ago—his knowledge ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... in the machine and started to look inside. Unani Assu stepped forward, tapped him on the shoulder, and, fingering significantly the dissecting knife which ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... O'RAMMIS," I said, "I don't like to stop you; but isn't it just a trifle rash—I mean," I added hastily, for I saw him fingering his bayonet, "is it quite as wise as it might be to use up all your materials at once? Besides, I seem to have met that little Orf'cer bhoy and the Colonel's wife's sister before. I merely mention ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... fell out—a rough-hewing that was shaped to a different end. The discomfiture of his enemies was not such as he had designed: it was brought about by no previous plot, but through a discovery. At the same time his deliverance was not effected by the fingering of the packet, but by the attack of the pirate: even the re-writing of the commission did nothing towards his deliverance, resulted only in the punishment of his traitorous companions. In revising the Quarto, the Poet sees that the passage ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... said he cheerfully, fingering the inner pocket of his coat. "She writes to me right along. Here's a picture-card that followed me here, mailed from the home that the man who gave his tough old hide to mend her found for her when she was well. She lives in Oklahoma now, and her ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... in making a gift one's self, without being hampered by this "all-together" notion, isn't there?—especially if the gift be a handsome one, and is going where it is very much needed. So as Joy sat fingering the pile of elegant worsteds, twining the brilliant, soft folds of orange, and crimson, and royal purple, and soft, wood-browns about her hands, it cost her a bit of a struggle to say this. It seems rather a small thing to write about? Ah, they are these bits of ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... shook, as one made his way over them—was strewn with suffering people. Just at the entrance sat a boy, totally blind, both eyes having been torn out by a minnie-ball, and the entire bridge of the nose shot away. He crouched against the gable, in darkness and agony, tremulously fingering his knees. Near at hand, sat another, who had been shot through the middle of the forehead, but singular to relate, he still lived, though lunatic, and evidently beyond hope. Death had drawn blue and ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... evening a few weeks later, Leonora, half attired for the gala night of the operatic performance, was again delicately fingering her hair in that large bedroom whose mirrors daily reflected the leisured process of her toilette. Her black skirt trimmed with yellow made a sudden sharp contrast with the pale tints of her corset and her long bare arms. The bodice lay like a trifling fragment on the blue-green eiderdown ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... though stifled, that imperceptible molecule of which we have just remarked upon in the constitution of poets; a precious ingredient, by the way, a ballast of reality and humanity, without which they would not touch the earth. Gringoire enjoyed seeing, feeling, fingering, so to speak an entire assembly (of knaves, it is true, but what matters that?) stupefied, petrified, and as though asphyxiated in the presence of the incommensurable tirades which welled up every instant from all parts of his bridal song. I affirm that he shared the general ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... under drifting mists of rain; the eternal monotony of the earth lay open to the sombre low sky without a single adornment, without a single variation from its melancholy flatness. Near at hand the wires between the telegraph poles vibrated with a faint humming under the multitudinous fingering of the myriad of falling drops, striking among them and dripping off steadily from one to another. The poles themselves were dark and swollen and glistening with wet, while the little cones of glass on the transverse bars reflected the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... this subject, usually the never-ceasing topic at the Manse, Helen was for once profoundly silent. Even when her father had dropped asleep, as in his feebleness of age he frequently did in the very midst of conversation, she sat restlessly fingering her wedding-ring, and another which she wore as a sort of guard to it, the only jewel she possessed. It was a very large diamond, set in a plain hoop of gold. The earl had given it to her a few months after she came back ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... step he had with him! and the delicate hand on a horse, fingering the reins as St. Cicely ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... and I'll see that you have them." He opened the door slowly, then quietly closed it. "And about our leaving here. I have always expected to go sometime, but I hoped it wouldn't be necessary for a while yet." He paused, fingering the knob absently. "I'm ready, though, whenever you and ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... down and found a hollow in it—was this the first step of the stair? I wondered; it seemed very high. I touched it cautiously—suddenly I came in contact with something soft and clammy to the touch like moss or wet velvet. Fingering this with a kind of repulsion, I soon traced out the oblong shape of a coffin Curiously enough, I was not affected much by the discovery. I found myself monotonously counting the bits of raised metal which served, as I judged, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Ewing's invitation was a tribute to himself. To fit me for church on Sunday and other functions of civilisation he took Ewing (as counsellor) and myself to a tailor's and plunged enthusiastically into the details of my outfit. I can see him now, shaggy and shabby, fingering stuffs with the anxious solicitude of a ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... in the morning, she made up for it in the evening when she came home from the store, and was often late for supper. In the meantime, while Lise was in the bedroom adding these last touches, Edward would contemptibly continue the conversation, fingering the Evening Banner as it lay in his lap, while Mr. Wiley helped himself boldly to another doughnut, taking—as Janet observed—elaborate precautions to spill none of the crumbs on a brown suit, supposed to be the last creation in male attire. Behind a plate glass window in Faber ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... serve you rightly, for your hungry love of pelf; For your gross and greedy rapine, gormandizing by yourself— You that, ere the figs are gathered, pilfer with a privy twitch Fat delinquents and defaulters, pulpy, luscious, plump, and rich; Pinching, fingering, and pulling—tempering, selecting, culling; With a nice survey discerning which are green and which are turning, Which are ripe for accusation, forfeiture, and confiscation. Him, besides, the wealthy man, retired upon an easy rent, Hating and avoiding party, noble-minded, indolent, Fearful of official ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... done the Government from that auspicious moment," concluded the lady, craning her long neck with an air of pardonable pride, and fingering the massive chain that depended from it with a caressing fondness, "I need not speak. Indeed, it speaks for itself. But I may say that the country which he served has not proved ungrateful, but has shown its ability to reward true merit in a substantial ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... Spider sidled across to the reception-room and sat nervously fingering the arm of his chair. Nurses passed and repassed the doorway, going quietly through the hall. From somewhere came the faint animal-like wail of a newly born babe. The Spider had gripped the arm of his chair. A well-gowned woman ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... hastily resumed Cazaban, "my boarders want me." And thereupon he rushed away, his hands still greasy through fingering the comb. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... into the room; the headmistress followed to inquire into the cause of the disturbance. Of course the master had the first word, and he was base enough to say I had become so violent on account of his correcting my fingering. When asked for my explanation, I answered that I would not contradict a liar—it was beneath ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... replied Moylan, complainingly, and trying vainly to put a hand on the spot. "Felt like a streak o' fire." The Sergeant reached across, fingering the torn shirt curiously. ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... he went on, "everything going against me." He spoke moodily and his huge frame lost in the bulk of his big storm coat overran almost pathetically the slender chair in which he tried to sit. His spirit seemed broken. "I reckon," he added, taking his hat from the table and fingering it slowly, "you'd better ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... It is a well known fact that the exercise of the members of our body results in a great facility of movement being attained. The pianist can, after long practice, execute rapid and complex performances of fingering, which in the early stages of education were absolutely impossible. It is because the nerve centres controlling the muscles employed have been brought to such a high state of activity that they operate almost independently ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... slowly reached out for his hat; I had never seen him so disturbed. "I am sorry," he began and stopped, fingering his hat-brim nervously. Suddenly he laid his hat back, and drew up his form into as near a semblance of dignity as ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... on the edge of his cot, gripping the square butt of the automatic in his hand and tentatively fingering the trigger, the origin of the shadow moved slowly, ever so slowly, into the range of his ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... a great change from this place," the girl said, fingering something on the mantelpiece. "Mary says Sydney is a ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... thou? One, all eyes, Philosopher! a fingering slave, One that would peep and botanize Upon his ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... matter?" asked I, with a glance at the monk, who had drawn back a pace and stood, still silent, fingering ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... There enter'd Hector, Jove-beloved, a spear Its length eleven cubits in his hand, Its glittering head bound with a ring of gold. 390 He found within his chamber whom he sought, Polishing with exactest care his arms Resplendent, shield and hauberk fingering o'er With curious touch, and tampering with his bow.[24] Helen of Argos with her female train 395 Sat occupied, the while, to each in turn Some splendid task assigning. Hector fix'd His eyes on Paris, and him stern rebuked. Thy sullen humors, Paris, are ill-timed. The ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... asked Ben, fingering the bill with a nervous thrill all through his wiry limbs, just as he used to feel it when his father caught him up ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... room, found it necessary to speak twice before she aroused the attention of her room-mate, who was seated on her couch, idly fingering the geometry book she was supposed to be studying, and looking into space. Lily could not remember when she had seen her look so dejected. But she had a piece of news that she thought would bring a smile to ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... and down there, playing long and low. Oh, music, how he loved it; it seemed to set everything straight all at once in his head. With bow in hand and violin at rest, he surpassed himself that evening in ingenuity of fingering. He trembled to think of his own cleverness and skill. What a miracle of device! What a triumph of cunning! Not an element was overlooked. It was safe as houses. He could go to bed now, and drop off like a child; having arranged before he went ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... of the Sea-goddess Benten and of Kwannon-Sama, seated on summits of mountains forming the upper part of miniature landscapes made of some unfamiliar composition, and beautifully coloured; the whole being protected from careless fingering by strong wire nettings stretched across the front of the little shrines containing the panorama. Benten has eight arms: two of her hands are joined in prayer; the others, extended above her, hold different objects -a sword, a wheel, a bow, an arrow, a key, and a magical ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... the natural welling back of the river, little by little, to its natural bed? After all I never wilfully hurt or defied anybody before—that I can remember. But what are "grace" and "nature" more than words? There is a Life,—which our life perpetually touches and guesses at—like a child fingering a closed room in the dark. What else ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to avenge the insult. But his manifold shortcomings were no hindrance to his success. Wherever he went, between London and York, he stopped coaches and levied his tax. A threatening voice, an arched eyebrow, an arrogant method of fingering an unloaded pistol, conspired with the craven, indolent habit of the time to make his every journey a procession of triumph. He was capable of performing all such feats as the age required of him. But you miss the spirit, the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... one window only, which now was hung with red curtains. By the fireplace, where a brisk wood fire was crackling, lean'd the young gentlewoman I had met at Hungerford, who, as she now turn'd her eyes upon me, ceas'd fingering the guitar or mandoline that she held against her waist, and raised her pretty head not ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... lying resting after a tiresome march that one of the apes rose suddenly and sniffed the breeze. In a low guttural he cautioned the others to silence and a moment later was swinging quietly up wind into the jungle. La and the priests gathered silently together, the hideous little men fingering their knives and bludgeons, and awaited the return of the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nodded the words home. "You—little cur, you—you little misbegotten bottle of bile! What are you and your hypocrisies to me? You don't know me, you don't know me." He laughed, and Garrison felt repulsion fingering his heart. Then the former trainer shot out a clawing, ravenous hand. "I want that money—want it quick!" he spat, taking a step forward. "You want hatred, eh? Well, hatred you'll have, boy. Hatred that I've always given you, you miserable, puling, ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... the family, summoning up the courage that comes with the light of day, resolved that, "ghost, if ghost it were," they should at all risks have a peep at it, and cautiously descended to the door of the apartment, which was slightly ajar. The musician was fingering the instrument with the greatest industry and energy, and apparently at his own entire satisfaction. Well, after much demurring, in they peeped; and most assuredly, through the dim dusk of the morning, a gray figure was seen exerting itself most strenuously. They looked ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... art thou, one all eyes; Philosopher, a fingering slave, One that would peep and botanize Upon his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... expressed thoughts corresponding to their views of life, imagining that these effects and these thoughts constitute the essence of what is called art. These men acted as blind men would act who endeavored to find diamonds by touch among a heap of stones they were fingering. As the blind man would for a long time strenuously handle the stones and in the end would come to no other conclusion than that all stones are precious and especially so the smoothest, so also these esthetic critics, without ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... made without the slightest thought or suggestion of anything but delighted admiration and parental affection. Nevertheless, Ruth, to whom it was made, started slightly, and, turning, regarded the pair at the piano. Maud was fingering the pages of a book of college songs and looking smilingly up into the face of Charles Phillips, who was looking down into hers. There was, apparently, nothing in the picture—a pretty one, by the way— to ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... down the Dale; while the snow fell relentlessly; softly fingering the windows, blocking the doors, and piling deep against the walls. Inside the house there was a strange quiet; no sound save for hushed voices, and upstairs ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Here one had to depend entirely upon sentiment, or rather sentimentality, to be pleased. The cooking was truly Mexican for it included the usual Mexican disregard for dirt. Chattering monkeys and parrots were hanging around the kitchen, peering into pots and fingering viands, and they served to attract attention from myriads of cockroaches that swarmed about the walls. One could go to this place just on the theory that one is willing to try anything once, but ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... all, at his request, in notes of small amounts. I did not know what this unusually large sum in cash was for, but I did know that the packets of notes were in his locked desk in the library, or had been earlier in the day, when I had seen him fingering them as ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... court stays for your worship. I e'en rejoice, sir, at your worship's happiness, And that it fell into so learned hands, That understand the fingering— ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... Francis Aerssens, States' resident at the French court. That diplomatist, as we know, had been secretly commissioned by Henry to feel the public pulse in regard to the sovereignty, so far as that could be done by very private and delicate fingering. Although only two or three personages had been dealt with—the suggestions being made as the private views of the ambassadors only—there had been much gossip on the subject, not only in the Netherlands, but at the English and Spanish courts. Throughout the commonwealth ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... enough of lying and cheating also, both practised with subtle and half-conscious humour. Inside a booth for the sale of sugar in loaf and sack a man sat fingering a rosary and mumbling prayers for penance. "God forgive me," he muttered, "God forgive me, God forgive me," and at every repetition he passed a bead. A customer approached, touched a sugar loaf and asked, "How much?" ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... face, and on the backs of his hands. Yet another start, and he came very near; so near that he gazed into the blue of Ichabod's eyes. They seemed to him now devil's eyes, and he halted, looking at them, fingering the weapon in his hand, his courage oozing at ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... in their white robes and hoods, with the fiery-cross emblem on their breasts, were bunched together, most of them with their right hands inside their bosoms, while a similar group of Radical-Conservative storm troopers, with their black sombreros and little black masks, stood watching them and fingering the white-handled pistols they wore in pairs on their belts. Between the two groups were four city ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... a little; we must be wiser this time.' Arina Vlasyevna agreed with her husband, but that was small compensation since she saw her son only at meals, and was now absolutely afraid to address him. 'Enyushenka,' she would say sometimes—and before he had time to look round, she was nervously fingering the tassels of her reticule and faltering, 'Never mind, never mind, I only——' and afterwards she would go to Vassily Ivanovitch and, her cheek in her hand, would consult him: 'If you could only find out, darling, which Enyusha would like for dinner to-day—cabbage-broth ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... back-rush of recent passion. "And we know Mead did it!" another one yelled. Murmurs of "Lynch him! Lynch him!" quickly followed. Tuttle and Ellhorn were white with suppressed rage, and their eyes were wide and blazing. Tuttle was nervously fingering his trigger guard. "Then bring your evidence into a court of law and let unprejudiced men judge its value," Judge Harlin roared back. "Accusers who have the right on their side are not ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... at his suspicion, and we passed on. The orchestra was tuning up. There were two violins, a concertina, and the 'cello. Billy Breen was lovingly fingering his instrument, now and then indulging himself in a little snatch of some air that came to him out of his happier past. He looked perfectly delighted, and as I paused to listen he gave me a proud glance out of his deep, little, blue eyes, ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... priest is very careful in the selection of the rice, and picks out of it all dirty grains. Cooked rice given in offering is smoothed down, and, after the deity has concluded his mystic collation is examined for traces of his fingering. ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Othello, inasmuch as in each case the poet, by a supreme felicity of invention, has succeeded in doing a given thing in absolutely the most dramatic method conceivable. Here we recognize in a consummate degree what has been called the "fingering of the dramatist"; and I know not how better to express the common quality of the two incidents than in saying that each is touched with extraordinary crispness, so as to give to what in both cases has for some time been expected and ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... wailed the clerk, still in a low key, but fingering madly among the chains upon the tray. "Oh, ma'am! it will cost me ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... written in my face; for, as I turned again to Smith, who, having struggled upright, was still fingering his injured throat ruefully—"God only knows, Petrie!" he said; "no human arm could have ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... Look at this cotton!" he ejaculated. His father approached. The cotton lay in silken handfuls, clean and shimmering, with threads full two inches long. The idlers, black and white, clustered round, gazing at it, and fingering it with ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... said, fingering the golden serpent thoughtfully. "But that could not be unless I put out the lamp. Sometimes I get tired of this world,—it has changed since ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... I was rude, for questions in these times do not sit well on such folk, and I told them more roughly than ever to go quickly away, or else we would hurt them. Perhaps we would even hurt them badly I insinuated, fingering my revolver, for we had a duty to do. We were going to inspect the entire Palace and see that all was well. And before these men had recovered from their surprise we had pushed right into the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... from one side to another with an air of constraint, searching for phrases and fingering everything on the table before him as though at a loss what to say. Finally, he informed me that Madame Pierson was ill and that she had sent word to me by him that she would not be able to see ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... In l. 14, 'fingering' and 'tongue' correspond to 'playing' and 'singing.' The first is to be a 'Fancy' for viols, 'a very excellent good-conceited thing'; the second is the 'wonderful sweet air,' Hark! ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... stood open on the mild sunlight of the court, and hall and court were empty. The library door was open, too, and after listening in vain for any sound of voices within, she quickly crossed the threshold, and found her husband alone, vaguely fingering ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... in his investigations for nearly an hour and a half, shifting and fingering all the knick-knacks, but taking care to put everything back exactly where he found it. At nine o'clock, however, the two detectives who had followed Daubrecq burst ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... was to ask me what it means," said Captain Abernethy, who had taken the book and was fingering it, "I'd say it means young Jones here has fell into bad company. That don't explain how he sneaked into the hold of the Jasper B., nor what for. But he orter have ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... I cannot." So say we; but some novel instruction on the subject may not be unacceptable to our piping friends. We recommend to them "The Elements of Flute-playing, according to the most approved principles of Fingering," by Thomas Lindsay, as containing more practical and preceptive information than is usually to be met with in such works. The advantage in the present treatise arises out of one of the many recent improvements in the art of printing, viz., the adoption of movable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... description of the said wood should follow; but I am the most incompetent person in the world to write it. And, indeed, the whole scene was so novel to me, that I had no time to analyse; I could only enjoy. I recollect lying on my face and fingering over the delicately cut leaves of the weeds, and wondering whether the people who lived in the country thought them as wonderful and beautiful as I did;—and then I recollected the thousands whom I had left behind, who, like me, had never seen the green face of God's earth; and the answer ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Nelson, fingering a square jaw upon which sprouted a thick growth of reddish bristles. "There was a deputation of priests to see Altorius yesterday. They were clamoring for the return of Altara—the Sacred Virgin—and looked pretty mad ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... a sow of Edmund Bishop, the husband of the prisoner, and was to pay the price agreed upon to another person. This prisoner, being angry that she was thus hindered from fingering the money, quarrelled with me; soon after which the sow was taken with strange fits, jumping, leaping and knocking her head against the fence. She seemed blind and deaf and could not eat, whereupon my neighbor John Louder said he believed the creature ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... lovely..." Yes; she was lovely. He had often seen her photograph in the papers—seen her represented in every conceivable attitude of the mundane game: fondling her prize bull-dog, taking a fence on her thoroughbred, dancing a gavotte, all patches and plumes, or fingering a guitar, all tulle and lilies; and once he had caught a glimpse of her at the theatre. Hearing that Ronald was going to a fashionable first-night with the Bankshires, Mr. Grew had for once overcome his repugnance to following his son's ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... from the carving of a tart with wonderfully constructed towering walls. Behind a second turreted marvel of pastry, Mistress Lettice and Mr. Frederick Jones sighed and ogled with antique grace. Sir Charles Carew, fingering his cherries, told a piquant little court anecdote to Mistress Betty Carrington, and was lazily amused at the blush and veiled eyelids with which the young lady received it. Young Mr. Peyton, on her ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... keepin' company with her this mornin'," said Dr. Spearmint, in a voice softer than a woman's. "I jest stopped to sing a little with 'em on the way. I look dreadful," he added, rather ostentatiously fingering ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... very first boat we can catch," said the parson. He had turned, still holding the bills in his hand, and was now fingering over the pile of money that yet lay tumbled out upon the coat. "I wonder, Tom," said he, "if you could spare me a score or so of ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... need to say more. His officer's chin dropped on to his breast. "We are dead men," he muttered. "Why has he come hither? We have no gold, no treasure-ships. He will burn the place over our heads." The man continued muttering to himself and fingering the buckle of ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... for a man as swore he had no revolver," and Raften pointed to Caleb's weapon. "I seen you with that ten years ago. An' sure I'm not scairt of you an' yer revolver," said Raften, seeing Caleb fingering his white pet; "an' I tell ye this. I won't have ye and yer Sheep-killing cur ramatacking through my woods an' making fires ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... nearly twenty now. I am satisfied with you. You ought to have an allowance, if only to teach you how to lay it out, and to gain some acquaintance with everyday business. Henceforward I shall let you have a hundred francs each month. Here is your first quarter's income for this year,' he added, fingering a pile of gold, as if to make sure that the amount was correct. 'Do what you ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... be pretty much of a crowd, is n't there?" The druggist was fishing in his pocket for money. Fairchild, dallying with his drink now, glanced sharply toward the door and went back to his refreshment. She was standing directly in the entrance, fingering the five ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... there might be some hint as to the motives of the robbery," said Craig. He was fingering one of those desk-calendars which have separate leaves for each day with ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... give me a chance to offer my sister's discovery to the world, and I shall be satisfied!" He touched the package of leaflets. "These are not written as clearly as they should be; but if I cannot hold them back, then these"—fingering the papers—"these go to the friends down below!" He moved closer to the window, but his eyes were ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... his hand had been once more in his pocket, fingering the bank-notes. He now drew them forth very much in the way in which a man entrapped into a den of robbers might draw a pocket-pistol, and smoothed them ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... that the Count was annoyed. He was standing in the middle of the salon, fingering his sword-hilt in a manner which expressed the most absurd irritation. So I said immediately that I was awfully sorry, but it seemed so difficult to get anything to eat in Rome at that time of year, that the head-waiter was really responsible, ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the wall in his vestments. Having freed his short plump hands from beneath his chasuble he had folded them over his fat body and protruding stomach, and fingering the cords of his vestments was smilingly saying something to a military man in the uniform of a general of the Imperial suite, with its insignia and shoulder-knots which Father Sergius's experienced eye at once recognized. This ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy
... captivating their audiences than Henri Wieniawski, whose impetuous Slavonic temperament, with its warm and tender feeling, gave a colour to his playing, which placed his hearers entirely under his control, went straight to their hearts, and enlisted their sympathy from the very first note. Both fingering and bowing were examples of the highest degree of excellence in violin technique, and difficulties did not exist for him. At times his fiery temperament may have led him to exaggeration, and to a step beyond the bounds of good taste, but this ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... man sometimes paused in his work, fingering the pen unconsciously, as men do who hold it all day long, and thinking of Gloria with an expression of horror and suffering in his eyes. But he, the real Paul Griggs, never thought of her. The link was broken, the thread ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... tried to shout the insult so that all might hear, but his parched throat refused him service, his trembling hand sought the scattered cards upon the table, he collected them together, quickly, nervously, fingering them with feverish energy, then he hurled them at the man opposite, whilst with a final effort he still contrived to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... second of the present time, and the same robust proportion was observed in his other strings. The Violoncello upon which he played was by Forster, and would bear much heavier stringing than an Italian instrument; and, again, he was a most forcible player, and his power of fingering quite exceptional. Dragonetti, the famous Double-Bass player, and coadjutor of Lindley, possessed similar powers, and used similar strings as regards size. Their system of stringing was adopted indiscriminately. Instruments whether weakly or strongly built received uniform treatment, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... just body-sleepiness: the kind you get after a long walk or a long play day. It was mind-sleepiness—Dickie had gone through so much in the last thirty-six hours that his poor little brain felt quite worn out. He fell asleep among the straw, fingering the clasp-knife in his pocket, and thinking how smartly he would cut the string ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... leaning back in his chair, fingering the stem of his wine-glass, watching the play of sunlight through the ruddy amber of the wine, and considering the extraordinarily odd position of a man sitting at table, by the merest chance, almost, with a father who was not aware that he had begotten him. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... similar number of human beings; but worst of all was the evil expression of their countenances." {164b} He soon discovered that their faces were an accurate index to their hearts, which were capable of every species of villainy. The gypsies clustered round him, fingering his hands, face and clothes, as if ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... book. She looked at her little watch which she usually wore, the "wedding" gift of Colonel Gresham, and was surprised to find it to be after five. She did not put it directly back in its pocket, but held it in her hand, fingering it lovingly, thinking of David's uncle, and then of the "stormy midnight" and the "sunshiny morning" which ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... he happens to be an Alpinist?"—she shrugged, still breathing fast and irregularly, picking up the torn edge of her wool skirt and fingering ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... while it retained its health he was at a loss when it developed ailments; and to these it was prone, being a machine of temperament and airs, inclined to lose spirit, to sulk, even irritably to refuse all response to Dave's fingering of the keyboard. Dave was sincerely startled when his son one day skillfully restored tone to the thing after it had disconcertingly rebelled. Sam Pickering, on the point of wiring for the mechanic who had installed his treasure, looked upon the boy with awe as his sure ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... still fingering her empty chain. "I feel lost without my eye," she said to Mike, who had answered her persistent gaze. "You bought it for me after that long, long day we spent together in the desert behind Karnak. Do you remember that Coptic convent"—she made a face of disgust—"and ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... new worlds a-rolling, come And say, "I will betake Me to the earth That I did make": and having found it vile, Be sorry. Why should man be free, you wise, And not the Master?' Then they answer, 'Fool! A man shall cast a stone into the air For pastime, or for lack of heed,—but He! Will He come fingering of His ended work, Fright it with His approaching face, or snatch One day the rolling wonder from its ring, And hold it quivering, as a wanton child Might take a nestling from its downy bed, And having satisfied ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... monotony of the earth lay open to the sombre low sky without a single adornment, without a single variation from its melancholy flatness. Near at hand the wires between the telegraph poles vibrated with a faint humming under the multitudinous fingering of the myriad of falling drops, striking among them and dripping off steadily from one to another. The poles themselves were dark and swollen and glistening with wet, while the little cones of glass on the transverse bars reflected the dull grey ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... screamed and gesticulated with excitement. And Frank Drayton leaned back in his office chair and looked at them, and burst out laughing, because, he said, they made such funny faces. When they got to fingering their knives, he tilted back his chair and rocked with laughter. His sudden, incredible mirth frightened them and stopped the mutiny. She could see him, she could see his face jerked crooked ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... Edmund Bishop, the husband of the prisoner, and was to pay the price agreed upon to another person. This prisoner, being angry that she was thus hindered from fingering the money, quarrelled with me; soon after which the sow was taken with strange fits, jumping, leaping and knocking her head against the fence. She seemed blind and deaf and could not eat, whereupon my neighbor ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... coat and hat and was already fingering the keys of the typewriter, trying their touch. I saw at once she knew her business, and I turned to the work at ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... up; but the waistbands of the next arrival being turned down, Mr Toots turned his down. The differences in point of waistcoat-buttoning, not only at the bottom, but at the top too, became so numerous and complicated as the arrivals thickened, that Mr Toots was continually fingering that article of dress, as if he were performing on some instrument; and appeared to find the incessant execution it demanded, quite bewildering. All the young gentlemen, tightly cravatted, curled, and pumped, and with their best hats in their hands, having been at different times announced ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... week. The clock lets you go to any place on the 7-day wire and record a message. The buttons give you variable speed in going there, so you don't waste too much time making a setting. There's a knack in fingering them ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... wonderfully well made," said Johnson, talking to me, and still fingering the button. "They are manufactured, he says, at Osuna, and he tells me that they make them better there ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... handling the heads of children; when, softly approaching a group from behind, he would, with his bright, quiet smile, lay slender, bony fingers upon a close-cropped little poll; with the result that the children, not relishing such fingering, would take alarm at the same, and, bolting to a discreet distance, thence abuse the idiot, put out their tongues at him, and drawl in a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? Think of these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers, not for their resemblance to the ape tribe (which is something), but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking fingering, etc. No one that is so framed, I maintain it, but ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... asked the Very Young Man; he had wandered over to the table and was fingering one of the ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Betty was fingering the Safety Button in Sure Pop's lapel. "What are you doing, Betty?" asked the Safety ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... deputation; not any more; and I gathered subsequently that much more had passed. The protection gained was welcome. It had been the most annoying and not the least alarming feature of the day before, that our house was periodically filled with tipsy natives, twenty or thirty at a time, begging drink, fingering our goods, hard to be dislodged, awkward to quarrel with. Queen Victoria's friend (who was soon promoted to be her son) was free from these intrusions. Not only my house, but my neighbourhood as well, was left in peace; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... images of the Sea-goddess Benten and of Kwannon-Sama, seated on summits of mountains forming the upper part of miniature landscapes made of some unfamiliar composition, and beautifully coloured; the whole being protected from careless fingering by strong wire nettings stretched across the front of the little shrines containing the panorama. Benten has eight arms: two of her hands are joined in prayer; the others, extended above her, hold different objects -a sword, a wheel, a bow, an arrow, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... day, after a reception of officers high in military command, his revolver, inlaid with gold and ivory, which had lain on a table by his side, disappeared, and the empress missed two watches, which had gone astray under the dexterous fingering of her maids-of-honor. General Lopez, who was then commandant of the palace, wishing to give the emperor a proof of the accomplishments of his subjects in matters of this kind, offered to steal off his writing-table, within two hours, and without being noticed, any object agreed upon. He ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Girls—and that he was going to be—well, Terry was popular among women even when there were other men around, and it's not to be wondered at that he had pleasant dreams of what might happen. I could see it in his eyes as he lay there, looking at the long blue rollers slipping by, and fingering ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... the girls. When Maryanka joined the group he raised his cap with a firm deliberate movement, moved out of her way and then stepped in front of her with one foot a little forward and with his thumbs in his belt, fingering his dagger. Maryanka answered his greeting with a leisurely bow of her head, settled down on the earth-bank, and took some seeds out of the bosom of her smock. Lukashka, keeping his eyes fixed on Maryanka, slowly cracked seeds and spat out the shells. All were quiet ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... disposed to deny the occasional injurious effect of the materializing influences to which the physician is subjected. A spiritual guild is absolutely necessary to keep him, to keep us all, from becoming the "fingering slaves" that Wordsworth treats with such shrivelling scorn. But it is well that the two callings have been separated, and it is fitting that they remain apart. In settling the affairs of the late concern, I am afraid our good friends remain a little in our debt. We lent them our physician Michael ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and smiled, and then 'e pushed the door open gently and came in, and stood there fingering 'is beard as though 'e didn't ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... quite suitable for the piano. Everything Spohr has written for the piano is very difficult, indeed, sometimes it is impossible to find any fingering ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... gazed at the metal I had been fingering with all a miser's avidity, when my attention was taken by an object upon a rock close by where we had worked during the night—a toil that I had been ready to declare a dream, time after time, but for the solid reality ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... brought it, and said he would see her mistress just now. Anything would be better than that the servants should know that there was a quarrel. But every servant in the house had known all about it for the last three hours. When the door was closed and he was alone, he sat fingering the note, thinking deeply how he should answer it, or whether he would answer it at all. No; he would not answer it;—not in writing. He would give his wife no written record of his humiliation. He had not acted wrongly. He had said nothing more than now, upon mature consideration, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... and Miss Winwood, he had fixed his departure, he set forth on the plea of private business, and returned with a heavier pocket and a heavier heart. He had been so proud, poor boy, of the gold insignia across his stomach. He had had a habit of fingering it lovingly. Now it was gone. He felt naked—in a curious way dishonoured. There only remained his cornelian talisman. He got back in time for tea and kept his jacket closely buttoned. But in the evening he had perforce to appear stark and ungirt—in those days Fashion had not yet decreed, ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... scores of the C minor and Pastoral Symphonies of Beethoven.] Only it is essential that I should correct the last proof, so that the edition may be absolutely correct. I also wish to add the fingering to several passages, to make them easier for amateurs. Be so good, therefore, as to send me, through the Embassy (or by any other opportunity which is not too expensive), two proofs to Rome, where I shall be in about twelve ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... with her until five o'clock this morning," said the girl, fingering the corner of her apron. ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... sit in here, to be away from the music?" said the back-drawing-room. But Laetitia wanted to see Mr. Bradshaw's fingering of that passage. We are more interested ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... studio, she heard the sound of their voices on the floor below. Jacqueline was lingering in the fencing-room where Marien was in the habit of counteracting by athletic exercises the effects of a too sedentary life. She was amusing herself by fingering the dumb-bells and the foils; she lingered long before some precious suits of armor. Then she was taken up into a small room, communicating with the atelier, where there was a fine collection of drawings by the old masters. "My only ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... Why then thou canst not break her to the Lute? Hor. Why no, for she hath broke the Lute to me: I did but tell her she mistooke her frets, And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering, When (with a most impatient diuellish spirit) Frets call you these? (quoth she) Ile fume with them: And with that word she stroke me on the head, And through the instrument my pate made way, And there ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... morning, she made up for it in the evening when she came home from the store, and was often late for supper. In the meantime, while Lise was in the bedroom adding these last touches, Edward would contemptibly continue the conversation, fingering the Evening Banner as it lay in his lap, while Mr. Wiley helped himself boldly to another doughnut, taking—as Janet observed—elaborate precautions to spill none of the crumbs on a brown suit, supposed to be the last creation in male attire. Behind a plate glass window ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sitting up and fingering the tempting gift. She selected a large ripe berry and put it into her mouth, giving an involuntary exclamation of pleasure at the fine, rich flavor of the fruit. This, she reflected, was the reward ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... "Why—" the mechanic hesitated, fingering the roll of bills that stuffed his pocket. "Why," repeated he, "I imagine we could fix things up with the boss and stick round until whatever you wanted ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... the subordinate clause: "Says Husband Too Absorbed In Business To Make Home Happy." For weeks afterward, wherever he went, he felt that blush upon his forehead. For the first time in his life the coarse fingering of public curiosity had touched the secret places of his soul, and nothing that had gone before seemed as humiliating as this trivial comment on his tragedy. The paragraph continued on its way through the press, and whenever he took up a newspaper he seemed to come upon it, ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... I was fingering the thing grimly when Gavin's eye fell on something else in the desk. It was an ungainly clasp-knife, as rusty as if it had spent a winter ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... up and down there, playing long and low. Oh, music, how he loved it; it seemed to set everything straight all at once in his head. With bow in hand and violin at rest, he surpassed himself that evening in ingenuity of fingering. He trembled to think of his own cleverness and skill. What a miracle of device! What a triumph of cunning! Not an element was overlooked. It was safe as houses. He could go to bed now, and drop off like a child; having arranged before he went to make Guy Waring his cat's paw, and turn this sad ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... who proposed a dozen hands of piquet, to which he agreed. As he played he observed in Madame de Rouville an excitement over her game which surprised him. Never before had the old Baroness manifested so ardent a desire to win, or so keen a joy in fingering the old gentleman's gold pieces. During the evening evil suspicions troubled Hippolyte's happiness, and filled him with distrust. Could it be that Madame de Rouville lived by gambling? Was she playing at this moment to pay off some ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... their obvious places upon the shelves and with a broom she battled with the dust upon the floor and drove it out the open door. Then she swept up the hearth, singing as she swept, and tidied the arrangement of books, bait and tobacco upon the mantel, fingering them with shy curiosity. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Marshal!" He was shocked. The way he'd heard it, Kellogg had hidden a penknife, and he was prepared to be severe with Fane about it. But a thing like this! He found himself fingering the toothed track of his own jacket zipper. "I don't believe you can be at all censured for not anticipating a thing like that. It isn't ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... of a crowd, is n't there?" The druggist was fishing in his pocket for money. Fairchild, dallying with his drink now, glanced sharply toward the door and went back to his refreshment. She was standing directly in the entrance, fingering the five ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... into the bare sitting room and sat down, while Mrs. Ducharme leaned against the door-post, fingering her apron ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Nereids, in the mountain the Oread, the Dryad in the wood; and everywhere, in groves and marshes, on the pastures or the rocky heights, floating in the current of the streams or traversing untrodden snows, in the day at the chase and as evening closes in solitude fingering his flute, seen and heard by shepherds, alone or with his dancing train, is to be met the horned and ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... sure this is right?" Lord Henry demanded, scrutinising his image without a trace of recognition, in the long wardrobe mirror of his room, and lightly fingering a tie that ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... dumfounded. Then, to conceal his disappointment, he was profuse in apologies and proffers of service, all of which Emma declined; then she remained a few moments fingering in the pocket of her apron the two five-franc pieces that he had given her in change. She promised herself she would economise in order to pay back later on. "Pshaw!" she thought, "he won't think about ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... lying across his immovable cot fingering the boards low down in the right rear corner when he felt something give beneath his thumb. A flash of hope almost stifled him, and he lay quiet for a moment to regain command of himself. Then he put his thumb again in the niche and ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the red men was already fingering his hatchet, whilst he muttered some hostile words which boded no good to our hero, but the elder, who appeared to be a man of some importance, silenced his companion with a gesture, and then, crossing his arms, said, ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... and a closed volume. It is remarkable that in none of the many woodcuts in which he has been handed down to us do we see him reading; he is always meditating on something he has just read. Occasionally, he is fingering a portfolio of engravings, or leaning aside to examine severely a globe of the world. That is the nearest he ever gets to physical activity. In him we see the static embodiment of perfect wisdom and perfect righteousness. We take him at his own valuation, humbly. Yet we have a queer instinct ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... trussed behind him. On her other hand were gathered the rest of the Portuguese, very sullen and with dark looks whenever she turned from them to Saint Aubyn and from their language to the English. He, I could see, was perplexed, and stood fingering his beard: but his face brightened as he came a step ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the island, sat cross-legged on the turf. One had taken over a drum from a local musician. The other two had instruments fashioned of dried gourds with fingering pieces of bamboo and strings of gut—barbaric cousins to the mandolin. So, on this one night in history, the music of another tribe had come to Taai. It just escaped being an authentic "tune." How it escaped was indefinable. The sophisticated ear would almost have it, and abruptly ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last," said Prince Vasili one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre's elbow, speaking as if he were saying something which had long since been agreed upon and could not now be altered. "We start tomorrow and I'm giving you a place in my carriage. I am very glad. All our important business here is now settled, and I ought to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... not being so brave as some men; and hoping, in some foolish way, to cover my heart with my elbows. I heard the breath of all around, as if my skull were a sounding-board; and knew even how the different men were fingering their triggers. And a cold sweat broke all over me, as the Colonel, prolonging his enjoyment, began slowly to ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Sally Larkin who, I'd have you understand, Played accordions as well as any lady in the land; And I've often heard it stated that her fingering was such That Professor Schweinenhauer was enchanted with her touch; And that beasts were so affected when her apparatus rang That they dropped upon their haunches and deliriously sang. This I know from testimony, ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... glad you relieved me of the necessity of making some such suggestion. I think that is all—for the present." She stood up, and, fingering her glove, glanced down at the table for a moment. "May I pay, say, two hundred dollars now, ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... it was a crucial moment in the exercise of his partially recovered authority; twenty pair of eyes were looking at him, curiously intent, one pair benevolently anxious. The Prime Minister was fingering his brief, ready to go on with the interrupted disquisition; he even looked surreptitiously at his watch to indicate that ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... respect to his playing with you, when he has acquired the proper mode of fingering and plays in time and plays the notes with tolerable correctness, only then direct his attention to the matter of interpretation; and when he has gotten this far do not stop him for little mistakes, but point them out at the end of the piece. Although I have myself given very little ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... once Ephraim rose from his chair, walked to the old bureau which stood near the door, opened it, and took from it a bulky volume, which he laid upon the table in front of him. But he did not seem at all bent upon reading. He began fingering the pages, until he came upon a bundle of bank-notes, and these he proceeded to count, with a whispering movement of his lips. He had but three or four more notes still to count, when his sharp ear detected the sound of stealthy footsteps, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... iron sphere in one hand, the learned professor began fingering it with the other, like Columbus illustrating the rotundity of the globe before the Royal Commission of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... thus, pondering over and fingering some perfectly familiar object, people used to say, "Now Bjerregrav's questioning fit is coming on!" For Bjerregrav was an inquirer; he would ask questions about the wind and the weather, and even the food that he ate. He would ask questions about the most laughable ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... octave. Add one note to the lower end of this universal Greek scale, as it was called, and we see that the whole tonal system was included within two octaves. To each of the notes comprising it was given a name partly derived from its position in the tetrachords, and partly from the fingering employed in lyre playing, as shown in ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... was fingering and arranging dials and levers on the side of the contrivance. Suddenly an engine in the box began to throb with a steady rhythm. This gradually increased in tempo until the vibration of ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... other hand over Carol's, which was restlessly fingering the crease in his sleeve. He did not speak. Her girlish, impulsive words touched him ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... young man; but several of the harp-strings at once snapped in consequence of his fierce fingering, and he broke down amidst howls of guttural disapprobation. So far as competition was concerned, he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... right arm, and fingering the trigger of his revolver as a panther lashes his tail before springing, Levake stepped back and to one side. As he did so, with the fearless surgeon still facing him, a man stepped from behind the screen door of the deserted restaurant. ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... run over to Maidstone on my bike," said the new Lamb airily, fingering the little black mustache. "I can lunch at The Crown—and perhaps I'll have a pull on the river; but I can't take you all on the machine—now, can I? Run along ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... midst of his round and his liveliest reveille the moment it reached his ear. Loath as he might be to give over, that sense of good manners which was supreme in every highlander of the old time, interdicted the fingering of a note after the marquis's gun had ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... know him, eh?" chuckled Lieutenant Wingate. Hippy drew his own weapon from its holster, fingering it absently while frowningly ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... this was what happened. It was the evening of the opening day. The train wagons might be expected any moment. The electric lights were blazing. All the clerks stood expectant, the porters were by the door, the trim, uniformed bell-boys were all in waiting line, the register clerk stood fingering the leaves of the register with a gracious air. A noise is heard outside, the big door opens, there is a rush forward, and four people flock in a man in a linen duster, a stout woman, a lad of ten, a smartly dressed young lady, and a dog. Movement, welcome, ringing of bells, tramping ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... foremost, self-consciousness, an intense consciousness in the upper self of the lower self. This is the first disaster. Then you get the upper body exploiting the lower body. You get the hands exploiting the sensual body, in feeling, fingering, and in masturbation. You get a pornographic longing with regard to the self. You get the obscene post cards which most youths possess. You get the absolute lust for dirty stories, which so many men have. And you get various mild sex ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... shelves had to be re-papered, a strenuous week devoted to the garret. Less exhaustively, but with much of the old exultation in her house, this was done for the last time, and then there was the bringing out of her own clothes, and the spreading of them upon the bed and the pleased fingering of them, and the consultations about which should be left behind. Ah, beautiful dream! I clung to it every morning; I would not look when my sister shook her head at it, but long before each day was done ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... if only to teach you how to lay it out, and to gain some acquaintance with everyday business. Henceforward I shall let you have a hundred francs each month. Here is your first quarter's income for this year,' he added, fingering a pile of gold, as if to make sure that the amount was correct. 'Do what ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... by Marsham, who was sitting a little apart from the others, restlessly fingering ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... man? Escape must lie some way. Then he laughed softly and bitterly to himself. Yes, there was escape—escape through the small blue hole in the forehead, which more than once he had pictured to himself lately with horrid reality when fingering his revolver—escape in the arms of the sea which he still loved, for in his day he had been a mighty swimmer. There were no other means save such as these. Long ago he had wearied of asking himself what manner of woman this was, whose lips he had never touched, yet ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... or at least red-tongued, Brandish the javelin which by others thrown Clove Sambo's heart to quiver in your own! Confess no more that when his blood was shed, And you so sympathetically bled, The bow that spanned the mutual cascade Was but the promise of a roaring trade In offices. Your fingering now the trigger Shows that you knew your Negro was a nigger! Ad hominem this argumentum runs: Peace!—let us fire another ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers, not for their resemblance to the ape tribe (which is something) but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking, fingering, &c. No one that is so framed, I maintain ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... fidgeted in his saddle, fingering his beard uneasily, his eyes wandering past Diana's and looking at the broken trees. "No man rests here, Mademoiselle. It is the place of devils. The curse of Allah is upon it," he muttered, touching his horse with his heel, and making it sidle restlessly—an ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... unusual lustre; her step was so buoyant she scarcely seemed to touch the ground at all; she was all shy smiles; and as she came, with her slender white right hand she played with the new ring she wore on her left, fingering it nervously. But anyone more ecstatically happy than she seemed it is impossible to imagine. Menteith could not take his eyes off her. He seemed to gloat over every ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the table with a dust covered bottle which he handled with the care of a collector fingering a peachblow vase. The precious fluid had been poured into that gentleman's glass and its contents were now within an inch ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... cultivated the sense of time, and taught the division of the bars. I have helped the pupils to invent little cadences with the dominant and sub-dominant and even little exercises, to their great delight and advantage; and I have, of course, at the same time insisted on the use of the correct fingering. You see that, in order to become practical, I begin with the theory. So, for instance, I teach the pupil to find the triad and the dominant chord of the seventh, with their transpositions in every key, and to practise them diligently; and to make use of these chords in all sorts of new ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... culled from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest converse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of the balustrade, he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea, broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's favourite and carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of Rome's Prefect, widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... grind herrings and broth; first of all, all the dishes full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor was quite covered. Then the man twisted and twirled at the quern to get it to stop, but for all his twisting and fingering the quern went on grinding, and in a little while the broth rose so high that the man was like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the parlour, but it wasn't long before the quern had ground the parlour full too, and it was only at the risk ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... wanted to do for at least another fifty years or so; and it seemed to him as he stood there in the starlight, gingerly fingering this flimsy linen thing, that if he were to suspend his hundred and eighty pounds of bone and sinew at the end of it over the black gulf outside the balcony he would look alive for about five seconds, and after that goodness only knew ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... listened attentively, fingering her manuscript as though literature were a tactile substance; then, with a confidential twist of his revolving chair, he emitted the verdict: "We ought to have had this ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... marshal had taken official notice that citizens were gathering about the bank doors, and overflowing from the sidewalk halfway across Main Street, to the interruption of traffic. Women and girls, with bank-books in their hands or nervously fingering checks, conferred in low tones about the security of their deposits. The Citizens' National and the State Trust Company were also receiving attention from their depositors. As three o'clock approached, the Montgomery Bank filled, and the receiving-teller began ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... persisted Nelson, fingering a square jaw upon which sprouted a thick growth of reddish bristles. "There was a deputation of priests to see Altorius yesterday. They were clamoring for the return of Altara—the Sacred Virgin—and looked pretty mad when ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... Blanchminster's dinner was spoilt for him. He sat distraught, fingering his bread between the courses which he scarcely tasted, and giving answers at random, after pauses, to the Bishop's small-talk. He was wounded. He had lived for years a life as happy as any that can fall to the lot of an indolent, unambitious man, who loves his fellows and takes a delight in ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... child!" the officer was saying, fingering his diminutive mustache and viewing the scene with a somewhat contemptuous smile. "You said if I would bring you in for a moment you wouldn't ask ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... the room was Morelos. He had remained, seated at a table, biting a pen, fingering some papers, gazing abstractedly at the vacant bench. The whoop of a barefooted, black-faced urchin in the corridor roused him. With a scowl and a shrug he slowly resumed his hat and went to his home by ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... old man swayed back and forward in his seat as if moved by some inward emotion, still fingering his hat. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... at the corners. There was Christmas in the very air and Christmas in the storekeeper's till. It had been a very busy day. He thought of it with a satisfied nod as he stood a moment breathing the brisk air of the winter day, absently fingering the coupon the girl had paid for the shawl. A thin voice at his elbow said: "Merry Christmas, Mr. Stein! ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... youngster in grey cloth, with a mud be-spattered coat, a swollen face, and two bandaged hands. On the table were a coffee-pot, some cups, and biscuits, and a small heap of loot—gas masks and bayonets, and such stuff from German dug-outs. Most of the crowd was interestedly fingering a grey steel helmet with a heavy steel shield or visor in front of the forehead, evidently meant to be bullet-proof when the wearer looked over the parapet. The prisoner was murmuring something like ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... nervously fingering the jewel in his ear, his eyes shifting from their consideration of the seaman's coarse, weather-tanned and ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... before a machine where an operator was busy fingering a keyboard as if it were a typewriter. As he touched each key, it released a letter, and at the back of the machine Paul could see the silvery gleam as the miniature bar of metal dropped down and slipped into its place in the lengthening series of words. ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... bottom of his mind had been this: "Does Margaret, too, go with the land?" But he did not utter it even to himself: went out, fingering the crop, stalking toward the spot where he had left the man and the woman. But Margaret was then coming through the wood; Frankl had gone up to the Hall; and Hogarth crossed the bridge and ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... one of the pieces, fingering it delicately and inspecting with a critical eye the flat base on which it stood, and reflected for a ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... have tipped a rope-end down her skylight from the skylight of the Torch, every line of her exquisite body new-washed in gold and shivering under the touches of the dawn. She was awake, alive; the life that had still beaten through her dreams in the night, stirred by the drowsy fingering of the harbor tide, was throbbing and thrilling with many pulses as she shook out her streamers to the wind. And now her mainsail went slowly up, and she leapt and shuddered through all her being, passionate as though the will of the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... apple in a saucer and staring at it, the little stupid," they said, as they strutted about the room, listening to the rustle of the new dress and fingering the bright round stones ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... thought otherwise," says Olga, in an indescribable tone. "Well, there must be consolation for you in the thought that you never can be.—Mr. Ronayne," calling to Ulic lightly, "are you coming, or must I sit fingering my lyre in vain?" ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... may take you at your word,"—and just then Mr. Colbrith rose in his place, fingering his thin white beard rather nervously, Ford thought, and rapping on the table ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... thought A still voice had not whispered that she ought To leave that world of love and mirth and beauty, To share man's burden in this world of duty. (There's anticlimax for you! Most provoking, Just when you thought that I was only joking, Or idly fingering the poet's laurel, To find my story threatens to be moral! But as for morals, though in verse we scout them, In life we somehow can't get on without them; So if I don't insert a moral distich Once in a while, I can't be realistic;— And ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... into the outer room, Ussher and Feemy were not there. The dancing and drinking were going on as fast as ever; Shamuth, the piper, was in the same seat, with probably not the same tumbler of punch beside him, and was fingering away at his pipes as if the feeling of fatigue was unknown to him; and Mary, the bride, was still dancing as though her heart had not been broken all the morning with the work she had had to do. Biddy also, the Ballycloran housemaid, was in the seventh heaven of happiness—for hadn't ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... must be at such an angle when the neck is fixed, that the end of it near bridge must measure exactly thirteen-sixteenths of an inch from belly to top of ebony; by this means your bridge, as described, will be just a nice height for clean fingering of ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... was my request as he stood fingering his hat, and looking at Mary as though he had seen a vision, "and permit me to ask what the fact of your serving a priest in Ireland has to do ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... may not have heard so much of me as many others have. It is no great thing for a major like me to be engaged in this sort of business, you will think; but an honest living made by vending tin is better than a fortune gained by fingering the affairs of the nation. Indeed I have often thought a man was never so great as when he condescended to make his living honestly. As you see, I have surrendered myself to fortune, and am what some would call 'down in the world.' But I have been up, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Market, to buy fruit, and finding the animal painter uncovering a picture, which had cost him months of care, (curiously symbolic in its subject, the infidelity of St. Thomas, of the investigatory fingering of the natural historian,) "Paul, my friend," said Donatello, "thou art uncovering the picture just when thou shouldst ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... bride, without lifting her head from the table, had reached out her hand, and was fingering this stiletto. Jael Dence went and took it gently away, and put it out of reach. The bride went on fingering, as if she had ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Martin deliberated, fingering the while an engraved stone which hung upon his watch-guard. He was at a disadvantage in this conversation. Aware that Buckland regarded the circumstances of Peak's sojourn in the neighbourhood with feelings allied to contempt, he could neither adopt the tone ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... to be afraid of him, nor of his friend Mr. Jack Morris neither," says Harry, again fingering the delightful notes. "What do you play at Aunt Bernstein's? Cribbage, all-fours, brag, whist, commerce, piquet, quadrille? I'm ready at any of 'em. What o'clock is ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... county jail, off Broadway. Here one had to depend entirely upon sentiment, or rather sentimentality, to be pleased. The cooking was truly Mexican for it included the usual Mexican disregard for dirt. Chattering monkeys and parrots were hanging around the kitchen, peering into pots and fingering viands, and they served to attract attention from myriads of cockroaches that swarmed about the walls. One could go to this place just on the theory that one is willing to try anything once, but aside from its picturesque old couple, and its Dantesque appearance, it offered nothing to ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... The man stood undecided, fingering the edge of the curtain, vaguely realizing that he was merely injuring his own cause by continuing to anger her, yet far too deeply hit to remain ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... came back as he leaned over the wash basin, staring at his throat, fingering the suddenly murderous blade. But the pain wouldn't last long—a lot less than there would be under shock treatment, and less pain. He'd read enough to feel sure ...
— Dead Ringer • Lester del Rey
... the Lord Harry! I'll fill you full of lead!" came hoarsely from Hodge, who was fingering the gun in his hands as if he ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... summoning up the courage that comes with the light of day, resolved that, "ghost, if ghost it were," they should at all risks have a peep at it, and cautiously descended to the door of the apartment, which was slightly ajar. The musician was fingering the instrument with the greatest industry and energy, and apparently at his own entire satisfaction. Well, after much demurring, in they peeped; and most assuredly, through the dim dusk of the morning, a gray figure was seen exerting itself most strenuously. They looked closer, when, behold, there ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... of a mix-up, Mr. Lidgerwood," he said, fingering the cigar tenderly. "Knowin' what's what, as some of us do, you'd say them two'd never get together, unless it was to ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... with a quick indrawn breath. "I don't know," she said, "what it is. It seems as though I'd been here before. It looks so familiar to me—so good—" She went closer to where, still holding out the rain-coat, he stood on the other side of a table strewn with papers. She leaned on this, fingering a pen and looking at him with a shy eagerness. She was struggling, as so often, with an indefinable feeling which she had no words to express. "Don't you know," she went on, "every once in a while you see somebody—an old man or woman, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... were wise," said Abi, fingering the hilt of his sword as he spoke, "you would both of you retire for ever who know all the secret of my heart, and with a whisper could ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... seemed her last on earth: one, the warm touch of Hero's tongue on her clenched fingers; the other, a supernatural wail that came down from the gallery, and that even then she knew was born in the organ. Was it the weird fingering of the sacrilegious cyclone that concentrated its rage upon the venerable sanctuary? After a little while the fury of the wind spent itself, but the rain began to fall heavily, and the electricity drama continued with unabated vigour ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the Serpent. The steam was not wanted for long, the envelope flap curling up in a most obliging manner, and leaving all clear for investigation. Miss Hawkins laid the letter down to dry quite dry, before fingering it. Remember to bear this in mind in opening other people's letters this way. The slightest touch on paper moistened by steam ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... more grotesque tea-party on the terrace than in Eleanor's boudoir that afternoon. Giddy with deepest shame, resentment and horror, raging in her heart. Lady MacDonald haughty and disdainful, eyeing the homely couple as she would the beasts at the Zoo. Mrs. Grebby, speechless in admiring silence, fingering the frills of the sofa cushions, and taking in the pattern of the wall-paper, her breast swelling with pride and gratification. Mr. Grebby, his large boots on the brightly polished fender, his red face wreathed in smiles, and slowly ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... My husband, the Prince Grouski," replies the corpulent lady, turning and introducing a fair-haired gentleman, tall and straight of person, somewhat military in his movements, and extremely fond of fingering his long, Saxon moustache. Lady Swiggs, on the announcement of a princess, rises suddenly to her feet, and commences an unlimited number of courtesies. She is, indeed, most happy to meet, and have the honor of being ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... have ten thousand francs," said old Sechard, fingering the bouquets and garlands with a satirical expression. "You gave them daisies, and they give you posies in return; you ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... to tell you all about it right here. It's only fair you should know where your money is going, sir. As soon as I get my breath you shall hear," went on Darry, fingering the hundred dollar bill as though he ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... dormitories some chap was nimbly fingering "Dixie" on the mandolin. The strains came down to the youth on the campus through the giant oak trees that half obscured the facade of "old Brighton." Over on the athletic field a bunch of freshmen "rookies" of the school ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... younger for his rest at the Sanatorium. Indeed, it was difficult to reconcile this smiling, affable host of the Magnolia House with the glaring maniac of homicidal tendencies who had hung over the counter of The Colonial Hotel, fingering the potato pen-wiper and hurling bitter personalities ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... he stopped. He stopped, and Mark had now a hand on each of his shoulders and held him at arm's-length, held him with a fine idea that was not disconnected from the sight of the small neat weapon he had been fingering in the low luxurious morocco chair—it was of the finest orange colour—and then had laid beside him on the carpet; where, after he had admitted his visitor, his presence of mind coming back to it and suggesting that he couldn't pick it up without making ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... him deep; he turned away aimlessly, fingering some papers on the table beside him. Then he plunged to the heart of the matter, as though ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... fierce sincerity transmitted vague alarm. Slipping his hands within his gray sleeves, the acolyte began fingering his short rosary as he asked, "Is the—wild man now ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... Tom at supper, fingering one of Tom's pet tunes upon the table-cloth, and smiling in his face, he had never been so happy in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of the iron door and his father's constant fingering of the keys; and this was the plaything of his youth, The Wound, as he had called it. Robert bowed his head upon his hands and tried to recollect where he had thrust it last; but though he thought of a score of hiding-places where it might be, he could not remember ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... here and steer as I tell you." Whereupon, fingering a pocket compass, he called the course, after which he fastened the little instrument to the ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... philosophy, so I gave that up. On looking at it more closely, I noticed a plate, marked with the name and age of the person for whom it was intended, and on bringing my eyes near the letters, I was able, between fingering and reading, to make out the name of my old cudgel-fighting ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... the ground floor, Father Dan sat by the fire, fingering his beads and listening to every sound that came from my mother's room, which was immediately overhead. My father himself, with his heavy step that made the house tremble, was tramping to and fro, from the window to the ingle, from the ingle to the opposite wall. Sometimes Aunt Bridget came ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... of authority, even a little motor earthquake is too much. They happen along in that neighbourhood every now and then, maybe once a month, and you grow used to them, but still, they're vivid. If you got it once in your mind that Himself in the lighthouse was fingering the bowels of the earth, and Himself was doing it when the jerks came under you, and your house walls creaked and swayed, you'd give something to keep Himself amiable. There was no doubt ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... for history, after finishing Rollin I began fingering other works of that kind: there was Whiston's Josephus, too ponderous a book to be held in the hands when read out of doors; and there was Gibbon in six stately volumes. I was not yet able to appreciate the lofty artificial style, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... window only, which now was hung with red curtains. By the fireplace, where a brisk wood fire was crackling, lean'd the young gentlewoman I had met at Hungerford, who, as she now turn'd her eyes upon me, ceas'd fingering the guitar or mandoline that she held against her waist, and raised her pretty ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... begun fingering the keys already and the first strains of Marching Through Georgia began to awake the neighborhood to recognition of the fact that foreigners were present who held no especial brief for German rule. The tent-door darkened. Brown leapt to ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... great event of the day in Burnet. It was due at eleven o'clock; and everybody, consciously or unconsciously, was on the lookout for it. The gentlemen were at the office bright and early, and stood chatting with each other, and fingering the keys of their little drawers till the rattle of the shutter announced that the mail was distributed. Their wives and daughters at home, meanwhile, were equally in a state of expectation, and whatever they might ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... made his way to the examination-hall, an outside student in a borrowed cap and gown. Now, when for the first time he entered into the actual life of the college, could look up at windows of rooms that were his own, and reckon on his privilege of fingering tomes from the shelves of the huge library, the spirit of the place awed him anew. He neither analyzed nor attempted an expression of what he felt, but his first night within the walls was restless because of ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... for single things to a peasant, put the money by the side of the antiquity, and say that he must take one or the other: fingering the cash is irresistible, and ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... shriller chattering of monkey-language. He beheld his plump diminutive servitor, clad only in a waistcoat and a pair of socks, storming ineffectually at the monkey which was seated on a low branch of an apple tree, abstractedly fingering the remainder of the boy's outfit, which he had removed just out ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... obstruction—it was hard and cold—a stone wall, surely? I felt it up and down and found a hollow in it—was this the first step of the stair? I wondered; it seemed very high. I touched it cautiously—suddenly I came in contact with something soft and clammy to the touch like moss or wet velvet. Fingering this with a kind of repulsion, I soon traced out the oblong shape of a coffin Curiously enough, I was not affected much by the discovery. I found myself monotonously counting the bits of raised metal which served, as I ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... cloak from his left shoulder and tenderly and musingly fingering his long yellow moustache, rode slowly to the middle of the line and wheeled his horse to face his men. A bugle called attention, and then he addressed them in a loud and rapid speech, which did not seem to have an end. Coleman imagined that the major was paying tribute to the Greek ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... of his efforts and of his passion. Through it all the girl stood in the hall frightened nearly to death. What mad scheme had she entered upon? Had she strength enough to carry it through? The three servants were terrified also, their eyes rolling in their sockets, their hands nervously fingering their weapons. Suddenly another voice, Caesar's, broke through the turmoil, reaching even the ear of the desperate man on the other side of the heavy mahogany door. He stopped ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the room was what I might call electric. The Colonel was positively bristling; he stood with his back to the fire, fingering an unlit black cigar, his face flushed, his being obviously roused and ready for action. He hated this mystery. It was poisonous to his nature, and he longed to meet something face to face—something he could gauge and fight. Dr. Silence, I ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... "Stop fingering your rifle, Jim," ordered Reade. "Remember, nothing like fighting! If they haven't filed notice in due form on the claim, we're ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... not only as to the keys, but everything is explained as to the fingering, position, use of pedals, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
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