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More "Forefinger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is!" he cried, softly smoothing the golden petals with his little bony forefinger. ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... Puffington's country. To a good 'tip' he vouchsafed as much cap as he gave to a lord; to a middling 'tip' he gave a sort of move that might either pass for a touch of the cap or a more comfortable adjustment of it to his head; a very small 'tip' had a forefinger to the peak; while he who gave nothing at all got a good stare or a good morning! or something of that sort. A man watching the arrival of the field could see who gave the fives, who the fours, who the threes, who the twos, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... It was supplied with bureaus, cabinets, and bookcases. "This," said he, "is your room and mine; but we must enter it and leave it together. I mean to act not as your master but your friend. My maimed hand" (so saying, he showed me his right hand, the forefinger of which was wanting) "will not allow me to write accurately or copiously. For this reason I have required your aid, in a work of some moment. Much haste will not be requisite, and, as to the hours and duration of employment, these ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... had wasted away, being evidently smaller than the lower part of the left arm, to which the hand was very firmly united, and which presented no symptoms of decay further than the two bones of the forefinger loose. Even the nails remained entire, of which we saw no appearance in the cloth containing the remains of the right hand.... The clavicle of the right shoulder was firmly united to the scapula, nor did there appear any contusion or indentation that evinced symptoms of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... did that deed was no other than the hand of the Venetian girl, Paolina Foscarelli," said the lawyer, with deliberate and impressive slowness, emphasizing his words with extended forefinger as he ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... words. Demosthenes and Cicero were indefatigable in their study of language. Shakespeare, "infinite in faculty," took infinite pains to embody his thought in words of crystal clearness. Coleridge once said of him that one might as well try to dislodge a brick from a building with one's forefinger as to omit a single word from ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... eh! W-wait a minute!" he stammered. "Whut dis? B'lieve I done foun' it! I sho is! Heah she am! Heah's dis nigger-stopper, jes lak I tol' you!" Tump marked a sentence in the guaranty of the deed with a rusty forefinger and looked up at Peter in ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... said the gentleman, striking his nose with the knuckle of his forefinger as a chastening for his forgetfulness. 'Demmit, I remember what you come for. Step this way, Nickleby; my dear, will you follow me? Ha! ha! They all follow me, Nickleby; always did, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... it?" she said. "Now, my papa's name is Baker, and my name's Florence Baker. You ought to be Ben Rankin—but you aren't." She stroked a diminutive nose with a fairy forefinger. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. Now, it was not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did NOT propose to invest your small capital in ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the dining room. Now, even his warmest admirers would give in that he had a streak of stubbornness in him a mile wide and six miles deep. Henry took the three-dimensional monstrosity off the wall, holding it hard by thumb and forefinger on its luminex frame, and prepared to say good-by to the picture ...
— Spacemen Never Die! • Morris Hershman
... protuberance is a little cup, also of copper, filled with quicksilver. At the instant when the orchestral conductor, desiring to mark any particular beat of a bar, presses the copper key with the forefinger of his left hand (his right being occupied in holding, as usual, the conducting-stick) this key is lowered, the protuberance passes into the cup filled with quicksilver, a slight electric spark is emitted, and the stick placed at ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... whistle, but the red youth held on his course for a full two miles, and his comrades followed without a word. When the cliffs about them rose to a height of two or three hundred feet, he stopped, and, pointing with a long forefinger, said he ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... up one of his delicate hands and transferring a costly ring from his slender white forefinger to her own dirty ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... single-headed bandage, lay the outside of the end near to the part to be bandaged, and hold the roll between the little, ring and middle fingers, and the palm of the left hand, using the thumb and forefinger of the same hand to guide it, and the right hand to keep it firm, and pass the bandage partly round the leg towards the left hand. It is sometimes necessary to reverse this order, and therefore it is well to be ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... with her forefinger, for Rob's glance to follow: "Instances of longevity are chiefly ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the table poking gingerly with the tip of his forefinger at the centre stone in the setting, revolving it gently to and fro in the light—a very large stone, whose weight would hardly be less than fifteen carats. Jimmie Dale lowered his head for a closer examination—and ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... in here? Why——" Gabriel Chestermarke had come to a halt in the middle of the floor, and he was standing very still. His face was paler than ever, and his eyes burned in their deep-set sockets like live coals. And suddenly he lifted a forefinger and pointed ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... Englishman's furious leap, thrust a hand inside his jacket, and before Frobisher could get to grips with him, he found himself confronted with the muzzle of a heavy revolver, pointing straight at him, the Governor's forefinger already crooked round and ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... the purport of the action, which a scholar with all his learning cannot divine." The gesture to signify love, employed by the Ancients and modern Neapolitans, was joining the tips of the thumb and forefinger of the left hand; an imputation or asseveration by holding forth the right hand; a denial by raising the same hand, extending the fingers. In mediaeval works of art, a particular attitude of the fingers is adopted to exhibit ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... her real self, made short work of the little devils who covered the earth and filled the air. Seizing one after another, she bit its life out, or swallowed it as if it had been a shrimp. The old man represented the action most vividly: pressing his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger into a cone, he brought them quickly to his mouth, while he snapped his jaws together like a dog seizing a morsel, an action that pictured the story better than ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... to this; his family believing it to be a symptom of hydrophobia, with which he had been afflicted from the cradle. Suddenly a dark-eyed stranger entered the house, took the patient's neck between his thumb and forefinger, threw the body across his shoulder, winked respectfully to the bereaved widow, and withdrew by way of the kitchen cellar. Farewell, pure ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... that as examples, and carried them through no'theasters off Hatteras and typhoons in the Indian Ocean. The room, in spite of the open window, grew thick with pipe smoke, and the argument was punctuated by thumps on the desk and chair arms, and illustrated by diagrams drawn by the captain's forefinger on the side of the dresser. The effects of oil on breaking rollers, the use of a "sea-anchor" over the side to "hold her to it," whether or not a man was justified in abandoning his ship under certain given circumstances, these were debated pro and con. Always Pearson's "Uncle Jim" was held ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... looking out of a wicket in a lattice of brass and never saw my eyes a fairer than she, and in fine my tongue faileth to describe her beauty. When she caught sight of me looking at her, she put her forefinger into her mouth, then joined her middle finger and her witness finger[FN483] and laid them on her bosom, between her breasts; after which she drew in her head and closed the wicket shutter and went her ways. There upon fire broke out in and was ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the girls, "what have you to say about Thanksgiving? Won't you give us a sermon in advance, to sober us down?" The sage nodded smilingly, look'd a moment at the blaze of the great wood fire, ran his forefinger right and left through the heavy white mustache that might have otherwise impeded his voice, and began: "Thanksgiving goes probably far deeper than you folks suppose. I am not sure but it is the source of the highest poetry—as ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... legs nearly a yard asunder—face and throat outstretched, and covered with a plentiful white lather—right arm brandishing aloft one of Paget's best razors, and left thumb and forefinger grasping my nose. In front of me stood my faithful Hindoo valet, Verasawmy by name, with a soap-box in one hand, while his other held up to his master's gaze a small looking-glass, over the top of which his black face, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... the two others got away, not, however, before Mr. Wentworth had shot away the forefinger of the leader. We found it after they had gone, lying on the path beside the cattle-yard. He was a terrible fellow, the leader of that bushranging crew. He went by the name of Wolfgang. He may be alive now, I don't know. I have not heard of any depredations committed by him for two or ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... who had just ascended the iron ladder, approached, touching his cap with a deferential forefinger. "A letter addressed to you, sir. Found it in the corridor outside your stateroom. Must ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... had been a rich man he would have instantly sent for his clerk to remind him; if he had been a wise one he would have applied his forefinger to his forehead, and endeavoured to recollect whether, in the multiplicity of his engagements, he had undertaken this one or not; but as he was neither rich nor wise (in this sense, at all events) he turned red ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... heart really lies," said his stern critic, "even if he does drivel about his little flower with bones and a voice! Probably by now he's wishing the voice had been left out of his little flower." Impressively she planted a rigid forefinger on the print of ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... haycock all the afternoon with an old atlas on our knees, and Fred "supposed" till my brain whirled to think of all that was coming on us. "Suppose we get on board a vessel bound for Singapore, and hide behind some old casks—" he would say, coasting strange continents with his stumpy little forefinger, as recklessly as the captain himself; on which of course I asked, "What is Singapore like?" which enabled Fred to close the atlas and lie back among the hay and say whatever he could think of and ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... the station at Brockenhurst—in the New Forest—didn't we Maude," said Mrs. Slifer, "and it must have been—now let me see—" poor Mrs. Slifer collected her wits, a bent forefinger at her lips. "To-day's Thursday and we got to Mullion yesterday—and we stopped at Winchester for a day and night on our way to the New Forest, it was on Saturday last of course. We'd been having ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... upon them, caught them, letting them set their tail weapons in his fingers, and lifting them thus, imbedded, high above the floor. Then again he put them down, breathed upon each one, drew a circle round each with his forefinger. His face had suddenly become intense, hypnotic. The scorpions, as if mesmerised, remained utterly still, each in its place within its imaginary circle, that had become a cage; and their master bowed to the fetish of the tomtoms, leaped, grinned, and bowed again, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... it were a ball, or holding it between the thumb-nail and the second joint of the first finger and shooting it with the thumb from there; but these ways are wrong. The correct way is to hold it between the tip of the forefinger and the first joint of the thumb. Marbles are divided into "taws," or well-made strong marbles with which you shoot, and "clays," or the ordinary cheap colored marbles at which you aim and with ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Mrs. Batholommey he pointed a whitened forefinger at her and broke into a truly frightful roar. The good lady jumped at least six ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... little peace and less safety all around. When she came playing among the lumber where we were working, as she naturally would, danger dogged my steps. I carry a scar on the shin-bone made with an adze I should have been minding when I was looking after her. The forefinger on my left hand has a stiff joint. I cut that off with an axe when she was dancing on a beam close by. Though it was put on again by a clever surgeon and kept on, I have never had the use of it since. But what did a finger matter, or ten, when she was only there! Once I fell off the roof when ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... others represented Napoleon's battles and Nelson's sea fights; and in the midst of these would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand,—which might have been mistaken for the Hand of Destiny, though, in truth, it was only the showman's,—pointing its forefinger to various scenes of the conflict, while its owner gave historical illustrations. When, with much merriment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the exhibition was concluded, the German bade little Joe put his head into the ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... his forefinger in the pocket of my army-shirt, led me to one side, and breathed in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... over, scudding along with her lee rails within hand's touch of the water. It had suddenly turned very cold—so cold that the mate stamped up and down the poop, and his four seamen shivered together under the shelter of the bulwarks. And then in a moment one of them was up, thrusting with his forefinger into the air and screaming, while a huge white wall sprang out of the darkness at the very end of the bowsprit, and the ship struck with a force which snapped her two masts like dried reeds in a wind, ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sat down and surveyed the cabin in a leisurely and autocratic manner; but suddenly his eyes became stony with amazement and indignation; he pointed a fat and trembling forefinger. ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... See Saw—Margery Daw. (Arms sideward raise, sway body to left and right.) 2. Jack shall have a new master. (Partners join hands—skip forward four steps.) 3. But he shall have a penny a day. (Step left, point right toe forward, shaking right forefinger at partner and left hand on hip.) 4. Because he won't work any faster. (Join both hands with partner, skip around ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... done, eh?" exclaimed Flint, warmly, sitting down on the desk-top and levelling a big-jointed forefinger at his partner. "That's what every new idea has had to meet. It's no argument! People scoffed at the idea of gas lighting when it was new. Called it 'burning smoke,' and made merry over it. That was as recently as 1832. But ten years later, gas-illumination ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... were breakfasting in Robin's sitting room, Hobbs brought in the morning newspapers. He laid one of them before the Prince, and jabbed his forefinger upon a glaring headline. ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... together,—she plying him with questions and he, restored to good humor, replying or parrying with an unembarrassed exuberance,—a man who stood just within the curtained doorway and flicked a small graying moustache with the point of his forefinger took in the scene with a studious regard. Every small educational community has its scholar manque—its haunter of academic shades or its intermittent dabbler in their charms; and Basil Randolph held that role in Churchton. No alumnus himself, he viewed, year after year, the passing ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... singing, she seldom acquires either style or science. The men are much more agreeable dilettanti, for they at least give one the diversion of a comical farce. That a man should advance to the piano with far greater confidence than a David, strike with his forefinger the note which he thinks his song should begin with, and then entonner like a thunder-clap (generally a tone or two lower than the pitch), and sing through a long aria without an accompaniment of any kind, except the most wonderful distortions of face, is a thing one must ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... what the racket was about and seizing them by the back of their necks she shook them apart, boxing their ears. When the cause of the argument was made known to her she settled it in an emphatic manner by pointing with a fat forefinger ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... of a wounded gladiator was in the hands of the audience. If in response to his appeal for mercy, which was made by outstretching the forefinger, the spectators reached out their hands with thumbs turned down, that indicated that his prayer had been heard and that the sword was to be sheathed; but if they extended their hands with thumbs turned up, that was the signal for the victor ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... woman was hobbling back. Hugh was standing in thought, with head bent, and the nail of his forefinger on ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... the glittering folder and placed his big forefinger on a spot about the size of Rhode Island somewhere this side of ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... a hard struggle, managed to insert his forefinger between the lacing and my back. He brought his foot to bear upon me, with the weight of his body added to his foot, and pulled, but failed to get any fraction ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... nothing but the lamp Or something not far from it on the table. By straightening out and lifting a forefinger, He pointed with his hand from where it lay Like a white crumpled spider on his knee: "That leaf there in your open book! It moved Just then, I thought. It's stood erect like that, There on the table, ever since I came, Trying to turn itself backward or forward, I've had ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... forefinger, and made them understand that that finger meant the length of their journey to Iala. Then with his other hand he touched his forefinger under the second joint to show how far they had travelled on their journey—not a third ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... big men and clever men, but one so active, so healthy, so beautiful I had never before seen. And every time that a buxom wife or a well-looking maid brought him his ale to the door of the change-house, he would set a forefinger underneath her chin and pat her cheek, asking banteringly after the children or when the wedding was coming off. And though they did not know him or he them, no one took his words or acts amiss. Such was the way he had ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... that Jackson would not linger a second, when a messenger of importance came, and he went into the library where the minister and the general stood talking. General Jackson held in one hand a large leather-covered volume, and with the forefinger of the other hand he was pointing to a paragraph in it. The minister was saying something that Harry did not catch, but he believed that they were arguing some disputed ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... half afraid of his contempt, and half afraid of Tarlton's ridicule, stood doubtful, and again had recourse to his battledore, which he balanced most curiously upon his forefinger. "Look at him!—now do look at him!" cried Tarlton; "did you ever in your life see anybody look so silly?—Hardy has him quite under his thumb; he's so mortally afraid of Parson Prig, that he dare not, for ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... Yakimas and their allies. I did not believe this, however, and to test the truth of their statement formed them all in line with their muskets in hand. Going up to the first man on the right I accused him of having engaged in the massacre, but was met by a vigorous denial. Putting my forefinger into the muzzle of his gun, I found unmistakable signs of its having been recently discharged. My finger was black with the stains of burnt powder, and holding it up to the Indian, he had nothing more to say in the face of such positive evidence of his guilt. A further examination proved ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... Uhlans, sabres shining in the dim light from the window behind me; I laid my forefinger flat on the blade of my sabre and shortened my arm for a thrust—then there came a blinding flash, a roar, and I was down, trying to rise, until a clinched fist struck me in the face and I fell flat on ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... said Barber, in thrilling tones, as he placed his forefinger on the other's arm, "I refuse to believe her story. Green, here, denies of it too, and sez 'e saw her at the gate and asked her to go for ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... astonishment was unspeakable. He expected an outburst of wrath unappeasable, a summons for an executioner; instead, Mahommed's eyes became humid, and resting his elbow on the table, and his face on the thumb and forefinger, he said, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... patch is removed by taking hold of the lug with the forefinger and thumb, first raising it a little, and without twisting; a pull readily removes it. The patch is passed to the Gun Captain, as an evidence that the priming has been exposed; the patches to be preserved and accounted for at ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... it slapped a tentacle squarely down over the hose nozzle. The flame was extinguished as the flame of a candle is pinched out between thumb and forefinger. I retreated. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... as she rode in a carriage behind the royal vehicle, with a lady companion by her side, to whom she was talking very earnestly, accompanying her words with the most energetic and emphatic gesticulation of the right forefinger. The more we heard of this woman, the less we could respect her; and yet we were told by intelligent natives that she is to-day very popular in Madrid, much more so than in other parts of the country. If this is true, it is only a reflection upon the moral instincts ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... with his forefinger upon the table. Upon his lips was a genial and tolerant smile. He had the air of a preceptor devoting special pains upon the most backward member of his ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... out to you, with your permission," he began, "just where you stand in this matter. In the confusion and haste of a busy time you may not have cast up your accounts. First," he checked off the point on his long, slender forefinger, "in injuring Mr. Baker in this ill-advised fashion you are injuring your old-time employer and friend, Mr. Welton, and this in two ways: you are jeopardizing his whole business, and you are rendering practically certain his conviction on a criminal charge. Mr. Welton is an old man, a ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... faultlessly careful toilet only threw into relief the frigid rancor in his eyes and the mottled tones of his refined complexion. He stood before Newman a moment, breathing quickly and softly, and shaking his forefinger curtly as his host ...
— The American • Henry James
... had gathered itself for a final rush, and, when it had actually started to charge, he dropped to the ground like a flash. In a fraction of a second his powerful right arm went out, and he gripped the nostrils of the bull, pressing his thumb and forefinger home as far as he could. Then he twisted, ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... engendered puffed away the light dust, leaving only the heavier pieces to fall on the canvas. Among these the urchins searched eagerly and carefully, their heads close together. Every moment or so one of them would wet a forefinger to pick up carefully a speck of something which he would then transfer ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... selfish or ungenerous? The Lord forbid it! No matter how I am compromised, no matter how I am misjudged,—I am still willing to take you as my lawful wife Froeken Thelma,—but," and here he shook his forefinger at her with a pretended playfulness, "I will permit no more converse with Sir Philip Errington; no, no! I cannot allow it! . . ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Brian's fingers played idly with the coins, but he was not thinking about them; his dreamy eyes revealed that his thoughts were very far away. Padre Cristoforo was biting his forefinger and knitting his brows—two signs of unusual perturbation of mind with him. Presently, however, his brow cleared; he smoothed his gown over his knees two or three times, coughed once or twice, and then addressed himself to Brian with ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... feeling might enable me to detect. I determined to make the experiment and passed my finger very carefully over the side which first presented itself. Nothing, however, was perceptible, and I turned the paper, adjusting it on the book. I now again carried my forefinger cautiously along, when I was aware of an exceedingly slight, but still discernable glow, which followed as it proceeded. This, I knew, must arise from some very minute remaining particles of the phosphorus with which I had covered the paper in my previous attempt. The other, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... dropped to the floor. Between Rutton's thumb and forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold. He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as if in recognition of the stone and, turning, with ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... past his shoulders, and presently locked easily behind his head. A terrible chance, for Landis had come within a breath of shooting. So great was the impulse that, as he checked the pressure of his forefinger, he stumbled a whole pace forward. ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... undisguised admiration with which he regarded her put her in excellent humor. It confirmed the verdict of her mirror that the care with which she had arrayed herself for this expedition had not been wasted. She smiled as she answered him, tapping her chin with her well-gloved forefinger. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... and looks in. Then he moves a step across the threshold, leans forward peeringly, and then turns about, lifts his ill-kept forefinger, and murmurs while he fixes his ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Peggy's arm as she spoke, and the two girls went off on a tour through the house to select the most suitable articles for their decoration of the "harem." There was no lack of choice, for the long suite of reception-rooms was full of treasures, and Peggy stopped every few minutes to point with a small forefinger and say, "That screen, please! That table! That stool!" to the servants who had been summoned in attendance. The smaller things, such as ornaments, table-cloths, and lamps she carried herself, while Rosalind murmured sweetly, "Oh, don't twouble! You mustn't, weally! Let me help you!" ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... that man down to his very grave," said I, solemnly, shaking my forefinger at her as she rested one hand on the foot of the bed and looked at me with breathless interest. "Miss Tescheron shall know all that I learn. If she should ever happen to call here to see you, be sure to tell her that, if you please; but you need not say I told you to tell her. Only, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... began to lighten, and Henry stopped short in surprise. Paul was walking in such automatic fashion that he almost ran against him before he stopped. Henry pointed with a long forefinger to a red spot ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a slim panetela and pinched it daintily between the nails of his thumb and forefinger. His host watched the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the girl, striking a note on the piano with her forefinger. "She thought she might as well go home for a week or two before taking another place. She has heard of ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... the stairs painfully to his bedroom, undressed in part, and lay down—but not to sleep. For a while he lay without extinguishing the candle—his last candle. He had measured it carefully, and it reached almost to an inch beyond the knuckle of his forefinger. It would last him a good two hours at ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... well-to-do, when he, Simmons, was the butt of the room, Some day, perhaps, he would show those who laughed at the "Simmons, ye so-oor" joke, that he was as good as the rest, and held a man's life in the crook of his forefinger. When Losson snored, Simmons hated him more bitterly than ever. Why should Losson be able to sleep when Simmons had to stay awake hour after hour, tossing and turning on the tapes, with the dull liver ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... I am right in this contention, then this large part of the population is being unjustly discriminated against. I believe in doing a reasonable amount for the aid and comfort of the young things that are just beginning to turn their hair up under, or who rub a stealthy forefinger over their upper lips to feel the pleasant rasp, but I don't believe in their monopolizing everything. I don't think it 's fair. All the books printed—except, of course, those containing valuable information; we don't buy those books, but go to the public library for them—all the books ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... had listened. They shook their heads, when, glancing up at Scipio, the questioner repeated, "Do you know?" and not waiting for a reply, "That's snakeroot; smell it!" He plucked a portion of the herb, rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger and thrust the bruised substance first under his own nose and then beneath the reluctant nostrils of the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... thus for the better part of an hour, motionless except for one forefinger that was, quite unconsciously, tapping out a popular and cheap little air that she had been strumming at the piano the evening before, having bought it downtown that same afternoon. It had struck Orville's fancy, and she ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... no Indian woman," he said slowly, with a wagging forefinger that beat off his words like the minute hand of Fate. "This is—this is—why, this ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... cut for my dinner. My three fellow-lodgers squatted alongside, going through their apologetic ablutions as if naught were happening. Their dirty face-rags were wrung and rewrung; they got to work with that universal tooth-brush (the forefinger!), and that the dead body of a bullock was being dissected two feet from the table at which they ate their steaming rice was a detail of not the slightest ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... wrist, but large and plump, feeling soft as silk, the rosy palm marked with a few, but distinct and not intricate lines; the elevations in it should be not too great, the space between thumb and forefinger brightly colored and without wrinkles, the fingers long, delicate, and scarcely at all thinner towards the tips, with nails clear, even, not too long nor to square, and cut so as to show a white margin about the breadth of a ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... said he, with a smile. Then he opened his book, took his pencil in his hand, and slipped in a careful forefinger to ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... instructed his pupils in the making of U. "It be no good fur yer chile to be ther', Hark Darby, learnin' ye don' know what! Yes, lads, I say it be an evil day, and ye'll find no good cum from it! I warn ye, I warn ye!" shaking her skinny forefinger and solemnly nodding her head. Noll's face flushed at these words, and he half resolved to go home, and leave these Culm ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... note-book, and now I should say, quite calmly: "Oh, you must be Mr. Dane? I believe you teach psychology." But I stood and stared. I believe I looked at my hands for a while and wished I hadn't got ink on my forefinger—and he had to say: "I'm the psychology man. Charlie Ned and I were college friends. He wrote me about you." But though I didn't look at him that first time, I thought he had the kindest voice that ever was—except mother's—and perhaps that was why I selected psychology for my specialty. ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... came over her shoulder and took hold of the book. It opened at once, and showed the whole page. And then the forefinger of the hand began to point to line after line, and as it moved the words became plain, and Katy could read them easily. She looked up. There, stooping over her, was a great beautiful Face. The eyes met hers. ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... taught Mary to make superior pastry, so flaky and tender as to fairly melt in one's mouth; but Mary never could learn from her the knack of making a dainty, crimped edge to her pies with thumb and forefinger, although it looked so very simple when she watched "Frau Schmidt" deftly roll over a tiny edge as a finish ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... please; there's a good man! And mind," (shaking her forefinger at him,) "dinner at half past twelve: Larkin ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... the fire. Then he threw on a fresh armful of dry sticks and from a pocket of his coat drew forth something small and red and frozen, which was the carcass of a bird about the size of a robin. DeBar held it up between his forefinger and thumb, and looking at Philip, the flash of a smile passed for an instant over ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... 'most out a'ready. Jist you row across nigh to the other side o' the river, drop yer anchor on the flat right opposite thet little sort o' bay yonder, and then put down yer net to good business. D'ye understand whar I mean, lads?" and the Captain pointed with his long, water-shrivelled forefinger, adding, "It seems purty far to go, but it'll pay when you git thar—it'll pay;" and leaning forward, Sam gave the Sarah a shove that sent her clear of the shore, out into the centre of the cove which served as the harbor for all the fishing-boats ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... beauty. It reminded him forcibly of those pale, sweet-faced saints of Fra Angelico, with whom the frail flesh seems ever on the point of yielding to the ardent aspirations of the spirit. And still, even in this moment he could not prevent his eyes from observing that one side of her forefinger was rough from sewing, and that the whiteness of her arm, which the loose sleeves displayed, contrasted strongly with the browned and sun-burned complexion of ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the yellow. Dead in the center. And the river was there—fascinating—deadly—like a snake. Ough! A door opened, a white-haired secretarial head, but wearing a compassionate expression, appeared, and a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. Its light was dim, and a heavy writing-desk squatted in the middle. From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness in a frock-coat. The great man himself. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... drawer and continued to fumble among the clothing it contained. All at once he called out and raised his hand. On the forefinger a ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... his breath and opened his mouth. Major Grover stepped in front of him and leveled a forefinger straight ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Uncle Hannibal asked us to tell him more about those Egyptian bees, of which he had never heard before; and after the meal he went out to see the colonies in the garden. He walked up to a hive and boldly caught one of the bees between his thumb and forefinger. Holding it fast, he picked up a pea pod for it to sting, so that he could see how long a stinger ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... name, it is called the nameless finger. And how comes it to have no name? Why, because it is of all the fingers the least useful. When we clutch at or grasp things, we do so by the strength of the thumb and little finger. If a man scratches his head, he does it with the forefinger; if he wishes to test the heat of the wine[95] in the kettle, he uses the little finger. Thus, although each finger has its uses and duties, the nameless finger alone is of no use: it is not in our way if we have it, and we do not miss it if we lose it. Of the whole ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... everything in the feeling with which one approaches an animal. If one comes timidly, doubtfully, the animal knows it; and if one comes swift, silent, resolute, with his power gripped tight, and the hammer back, and a forefinger resting lightly on the trigger guard, the animal knows it too, you may depend. Anyway, they always act as if they knew, and you may safely follow the rule that, whatever your feeling is, whether fear or doubt or confidence, the large and dangerous animals will sense it instantly and ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... to be married at Shrovetide," the man answered, tracing a pattern upon the table with his horny forefinger. "I'll ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the window pretty plainly, and she caught sight of a gentleman walking alongside of Job, evidently in earnest conversation with him, and looking keen and penetrating enough to be a lawyer. Job was laying down something to be attended to she could see, by his uplifted forefinger, and his whole gesture; then he pointed and nodded across the street to his own house, as if inducing his companion to come in. Mary dreaded lest he should, and she be subjected to a closer cross-examination than she had hitherto undergone, as to why she was so ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... terrible, harassing suspicions ... and who knows, I should, perhaps, have been greatly disconcerted if they had not been fulfilled. 'Such is the heart of man!' some middle-aged Russian teacher would exclaim at this point in an expressive voice, while he raises a fat forefinger, adorned with a cornelian ring. But what have we to do with the opinion of a Russian teacher, with an expressive voice and ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... me and beckoned with her little forefinger. Greatly concerned, I sprang toward her. Was she preparing to swoon? What in heaven's name was I to do if she took it into her pretty head to do such a thing as that? Involuntarily I shot a quick look at ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... reunion of the scattered pair. The little gentleman, standing immovable, as he had been told to do, was blinking impatiently through his reading-glasses at the surging throng. When Blount came up, the professor stabbed him with a sharp forefinger. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... handle is complicated by the fact that some cutters rest the tool on the forefinger and some on the middle finger in tapping, and that a handle the sections of which are calculated for the one will not do equally well for ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... had all the chilly discomfort of the farmhouse parlour, unused, save on state occasions—a funereal gloom which no sunlight could pierce, a mustiness which savoured almost of the grave. One by one they obeyed the stern forefinger of Gideon Strong, and took their seats on comfortless chairs and the horse-hair sofa. First came John Magee, factor and agent to the Earl of Cumberland, a great man in the district, deacon of the chapel, slow and ponderous in his movements. A man of few words ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... do!" Ditton exploded, turning scarlet. With a cocked eye and a jaunty movement of the head Mr. Titherage shot out his right shirt cuff, and pointed a stout forefinger at certain hieroglyphics ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... leeches." "You think so?" he asked—"how many?" "Oh, half-a-dozen—to begin with." In my sweating hurry I forgot (if I had ever known) that the bottle contained but three. "No," said I, "we'll start with a couple and work up by degrees." He took them on his palm and turned them over with a stubby forefinger. "Funny little beasts!" said he and marched out of the shop into the sunshine. To this day when recounting his Peninsular exploits he omits his ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... leaning forward and pointing a forefinger at me by way of emphasis, "there are castles on the mountains near Zeitoon that have never been explored since the Turks—may God destroy them! —overran the land! Castles hidden among trees where only bears dwell! Castles built by ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... book on his forefinger, lowered his arm and looked completely mystified. "Why are you thinking of the Chinamen, Mr. ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... bedroom, where she stood before the mirror, with her short gray hair, which usually lay in soft curls around her brow, brushed erect and standing stiffly. "Look here, my dear," she said; "now I am exactly like my father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, when he was going to preach," and she held up her forefinger warningly. It was easy to see that the spirit of the old preacher was revived in her veins, and the afternoon would show something of his power. An hour later, when I sat with her in the anteroom waiting for the moment ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... rising, and swinging the key of his chambers upon his forefinger, 'see what you can do with her. I shan't send any notification to the Committee before nine o'clock, old chap. You can trust me for that. You go off at once, old fellow, and see what you can do ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... done, those Lives should be theirs to possess; so men took comfort from their toil and labour and the grinding and cutting of their griefs. But as their Lives began to shine with experience of many things, the thumb and forefinger of Yahn would suddenly close upon a Life, and the man became a shadow. But away beyond the ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... to this form of torture. A forefinger extended with a threatening waggle was sufficient to rob her of every vestige of self-control, while the play of her brother's fingers over her ribs reduced her instantly to grovelling submission. ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... straight lines running up and down; all the probate courts know that token,—"Old Age, his mark." Put your forefinger on the inner end of one eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my sign-manual; that's the way you used to look before I left ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... passed the night, and the next morning crossed the mountains by the passes of Clarendon and Shrewsbury. The clouds were clinging to the summits, and we travelled under a curtain of mist, upheld on each side by mountain-walls. A young woman of uncommon beauty, whose forefinger on the right hand was dotted all over with punctures of the needle, and who was probably a mantua-maker, took a seat in the coach for a short distance. We made some inquiries about the country, but received very brief, though good-natured answers, for the young lady was a confirmed stammerer. I ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... took the pulpy sheet between his thumb and forefinger. It was a full-page picture of a big gas-range, and slowly, as he scanned it for some hidden charm or value, it split in two and fell soggily back to its mates. Once again for sheer nervous relief he ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... held out her hand; the bird flew into the air, lit on her forefinger and balanced itself, sinking its head between its shoulders, and uttering the sound which formed its entire vocabulary and one means of vocal expression—a sound from which it had derived ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... feel the very air of the room surcharged with excitement. Craig drew on a pair of gloves and carefully opened the casket. With his thumb and forefinger he lifted out a glass tube and held it gingerly at arm's length. My eyes were riveted on it, for the bottom of the tube glowed with a dazzling point ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... reading Voltaire beside a briskly burning fire. Closing his book on his forefinger, he waved me to a chair ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... lay a pocket lamp, facing sternward, the light pouring upon what looked to be a map; and over it were bent three faces, one of which was Cunningham's. A forefinger was ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... on one bush!" The proprietor of the game was incredulous. "Boys, he aims to leave me cleaner than a snow-bird." Seizing the walnut-shell between his thumb and forefinger, he turned it over, but instead of exposing the elusive pellet he managed, by an almost imperceptible forward movement, to roll it out from under its hiding-place and to conceal it between his third and fourth fingers. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... place—most bazaar storytellers in India make their villain hail from there; but when the agony and intrigue are piled highest and the tale halts till the very last breathless sprinkle of cowries has ceased to fall on his mat, why then, with wagging head and hooked forefinger, ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... through some books—and we found this." Holding the envelope gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, she handed it to ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... ye knoo? Thuh big, flehmin poomple oop there." She indicated the locality, by flattening the rude tip of her own nose with her broad forefinger. ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... dog. I'm that. You're the big mastiff that guards the house, while I run and yip." She was turned toward him, smiling. Her hand was beside him. He touched the back of it with his forefinger, as though he was ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... for students of education. The pity of it is that we take no account of such matters as phases or factors of education. We keep saying that experience is the best teacher, and then ignore this eloquent forefinger. I call that criminal neglect arising from crass ignorance. Why, these scars that adorn many parts of my body are the foot-prints of evolution, if, indeed, evolution makes tracks. The scars on the faces of those students at Heidelberg are accounted badges of honor, but they cannot ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... peril to every woman upon whom they—they chance to set their fickle fancy. At one time—yes, I owe it to you to be candid—at one time I feared"—he stopped again, and drummed upon the windowsill with his forefinger—"I feared he was paying Lady Wolfer too much attention. Even now I am not sure that my fears were groundless. He came to the house frequently, and was at my wife's side ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... white chin on her forefinger, slowly. The young cat looked round with a supremely forbearing air, avoided seeing anything, withdrew his chin, and began to wash his face with his paw. Hermione ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... "well there, I s'pose they ain't quite 'xactly the thing, but they look pretty nice on paper. See that fellow, now, Polly, a-flyin' through that ring. Beats all how they do it. Makes my head spin to look at him. See there!" and Mr. Atkins pointed a stubby forefinger, shaking with excitement, to the big poster hanging by ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... his head-waiter, stuck his tongue in his cheek, and pulled down the lower lid of an eye with his forefinger. He meant to say he had been lying for the ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... long months from the short ones. He learned it from a little girl when he was travelling in Oregon, and I think a good many little readers of YOUNG PEOPLE might be pleased with it. This is the way: close your hand, and point out the knuckle of the forefinger for January, and the depression between that and the middle knuckle for February. The middle knuckle designates March, and the next depression April; and so on to the small knuckle, which stands for July. Then go back to the forefinger for August, and proceed as before ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... midwife heard the grandmother storm and rave, while hunting for her crutch, she ran first to the honey jar, dipped her forefinger in it and put some drops of honey on the baby's tongue. Then she passed it out the window to some women friends, who were waiting outside. She knew the law, that if a child tasted food, it must be allowed ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... conversing quietly with its inmates, I have known them betray the greatest confusion at the sudden announcement of a kannakipper's being in sight. To be reported by one of these officials as a "Tootai Owree" (in general, signifying a bad person or disbeliever in Christianity), is as much dreaded as the forefinger of Titus Gates was, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... . . "If any shareholder has any question to put, I shall be glad to answer it." A soft thump. Old Jolyon had let the report and accounts fall, and stood twisting his tortoise-shell glasses between thumb and forefinger. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Rosie, "once the wedding ring, studded with precious stones, was worn on the forefinger; Christianity moved it to the third finger. Its use was originated in this way: the priest first put it on the thumb, saying 'In the name of the Father'; on the forefinger, adding, 'in the name of the Son;' ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... that her eyes deceived her. She stole across the room and touched the key timidly with her forefinger to make sure. Then she lifted the lid a little way and let it fall again, looking over her shoulder as if fearing to hear a sharp voice from the stairs. Next, grown bolder, she opened the lid wide. There lay the red shawl, just as she remembered it, the coral beads in their lidless box, the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the wonderful art and mastery and technical perfection of the whole. There was the exquisitely modulated voice, sinking lower, yet becoming more distinct, whenever any specially moving topic was touched; the restrained, yet emphatic action—I can see that uplifted forefinger still—and the touch of personal reminiscence at the close, so managed as to give the sense that we were listening to an elder brother who, thirty years before, had passed through the same experiences, so awfully intermingled of hope and tragedy, which now lay before us on the threshold ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... if despairing of success, he ceased his labor. Then he pointed to the vine, and made several slashes across it with his forefinger, after which he pointed to the knife Mark was holding out, and ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship? Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all directions flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... a sofa, that seemed to hide itself in the darkest corner of the low, gloomy room; and Morton followed her. With one hand she removed the shawl that she had thrown over the child, and placing the forefinger of the other upon her lips-lips that smiled then—she whispered,—"We will not wake him, he is so tired. But I would not put him to bed ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... his interest returned. It had been mailed in a far distant city in the United States, and the fine, clear handwriting was obviously feminine. He didn't have to rub the paper between his thumb and forefinger to mark its rich, heavy quality and its beauty,—the stationery of an aristocrat. The ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... word here and there, but Garfield was too much absorbed to notice him, and so pushed on steadily, warming up as he proceeded. Unfortunately for his scheme, however, before he had gone far he made a touching reference to his mother, when Uncle Jacob, gesticulating energetically, and with his forefinger leveled at the speaker, cried: "Just a word—just one word right there," and so persisted until Garfield was compelled either to yield or be absolutely discourteous. The General, therefore, got in his word; nay, ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... he began to recite it, very slowly, marking the rhythm with an extended forefinger. It was possibly a very fine poem, but at that moment a young woman came in. She had scarlet lips, and it was plain that the vivid colour of her cheeks was not due to the vulgarity of nature; she ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... finally whole Ironsides broadsides, with the result above named. The words of my antagonist, during this encounter, rang through my brain with awful distinctness. For a day or two I had been communicating partly with the pencil, and partly by clairaudience, eked out by writing in the air with my forefinger. But this demon, or demon pro tem., needed not to write his words: his 'trumpet gave no ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... restless, fault-finding fellow there," and he indicated Rick with a movement of his forefinger, "it would need a faultless abode like yours to satisfy him," and he signed to the silent White Advocate at his side. "Take him, he is yours," said ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... near the lamp, he heard voices; and, walking close under it, found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, on the wall of which was painted a long hand in faded flesh-colour, pointing with a lean forefinger, to this inscription:- ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... men unsatisfying after this," the Maluka said in farewell, and a mere man coming in from the north-west before sundown, greeted the Maluka with: "Thought you married a towny," as he pointed with eloquent forefinger at our ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... know." Lanyard dropped for the moment his tone of raillery and bent forward, emphasizing his points by tapping the table with a forefinger. "Through some oversight of mine or cleverness of yours—I can't say which—perhaps both—you have succeeded in penetrating my secret. What then? You become envious of my success. In short, I stand in your light: I'm always getting away with something you might have lifted if ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... be perfect, but perfection is not a little thing. Possessing this quality, a trifle "no bigger than an agate-stone on the forefinger of an alderman" shall outlast the Pyramids. The world will have forgotten all the great masterpieces of literature when it forgets Lovelace's three verses to Lucasta on his going to the wars. More durable than marble or bronze are the words, "I could not love thee, ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Mr. Gradgrind, squarely 5 pointing with his square forefinger. "I don't know that girl. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... not speak, and when Jeanne looked up at her, she saw by the light of the fire that she was smiling. Jeanne held up her forefinger. ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... knit his brows with a burlesque, melodramatic air, and strode up and down, with his forefinger to ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... one was the victim of the vile Sharkey and the other was his avenger. One could see that it was a pleasure to the big American to lend his arm to the invalid, and at night he would stand with all respect behind his chair in the cabin and lay his great stub-nailed forefinger upon the card which he should play. Between them there was little in the pockets either of Captain Scarrow or of Morgan, the first mate, by the time they sighted ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... knuckle of one forefinger resting against her chin in an almost childish attitude of ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... astonishment and joy, Little Mystery put out a hand and placed the tip of her tiny forefinger on the girl's face. Then she ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... his sharp nose with the end of his forefinger, "the experiment begins well, and if I had not prudently closed the supply-tap, I know ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... Trumble, Tappingham Marsh, and Jefferson Bareaud. Thus, on the afternoon following Miss Betty's introduction to Rouen's favorite sons and daughters, Mr. Carewe, driving down Main Street, held up one forefinger to Madrillon as he saw the young man turning in at the club. Eugene nodded gravely, and, as he went in, discovering Marsh, the General, and others, listening to Mr. Gray's explanation of his return from the river with no fish, stealthily ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... to the poet. But, alas for the poet there is not a peasant nor a wretched operative of them all who will not shake his head and tap his forehead with his forefinger when the poor poet chap passes by. The peasant has the same opinion of him that the physician, the trainer, and the money-lender had ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... from his mouth, looked at it and crowded down the tobacco with a forefinger. "He seen me ride away from the ranch, this morning," he said. "He was coming down the Whisper trail as I was taking the fork over to Sugar Spring, Frank and me. What did he say he wanted to see ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... a stranger in these parts," Renwick went on, "and no mischief maker. This story interests me. I should like to know——" He paused again as the old man leaned forward toward him, and laid his skinny forefinger along ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... the thing, but they look pretty nice on paper. See that fellow, now, Polly, a-flyin' through that ring. Beats all how they do it. Makes my head spin to look at him. See there!" and Mr. Atkins pointed a stubby forefinger, shaking with excitement, to the big ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... had taught him on such occasions to remain as a guard outside the stockade which contained her treasures. After reading him a severe lecture on this flagrant abandonment of his trust, enforced with great seriousness and an admonitory forefinger, she was concerned to see that the animal appeared less agitated by her reproof than by some other disturbance. He ran ahead of her, instead of at her heels, as was his usual custom, and barked—a thing he ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... cities," something else was needed, when confronted by an examination on the history of Belgium. His method of teaching was his own but effective, though many alumni will appreciate his remark to a young instructor, as he poised his right forefinger in midair and cleared his throat, "I wonder if you have any mannerisms that would make you conspicuous before a class?" Professor Hudson not only gave his library to the University but also left a legacy of $75,000 for the establishment of a Professorship in History. Another popular figure ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... maintains as what England put in a challenge in the paper and kept it in for six months, offering to fight any country on the face of the earth, and I argues as she never put it in a American paper or she would a' been snapped up like that," demonstrating his remark by snapping his forefinger and thumb. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... you here?" said Meg, exalting the harsh and rough tones of her hollow voice; "why do you not follow?—Must your hour call you twice?—Do you remember your oath? —were it at kirk or market, wedding or burial,"—and she held high her skinny forefinger in a menacing attitude. ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... We shall see." Blanchard's red, shiny forefinger clawed down the column of names, halting at the numeral forty-four. The space was blank. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Pickwick proceeded slowly along the gallery until he encountered the 'portrait of a gentleman,' above described, upon whose countenance he tapped, with the knuckle of his forefinger—gently at first, and then audibly. After repeating this process several times without effect, he ventured to open ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... 'wag her hands displayed sidelings in manner of a fish tail'; she who wanted milk would 'draw her left little finger in manner of milking'; for mustard one would 'hold her nose in the upper part of her right fist and rub it'; another for salt would 'fillip with her right thumb and forefinger over the left thumb'; another desirous of wine would 'move her forefinger up and down the end of her thumb afore her eye'; and the guilty sacristan, struck by the thought that she had not provided incense for the Mass, would ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... he touching her pretty chin with his forefinger,—"what are you thinking of? folks may be good folks and yet have tea at ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... far forward. Take a good hold with your knees. And that's not the way to hold your reins. Look here, one rein—no, no, not the curb—the snaffle—that's it now—one rein outside your little finger and one in, and the rest of the rein through your hand, between your forefinger and thumb. Good. Now pick up the curb rein off your horse's neck and let it ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... man sat up, quivering with a sensation that rippled at his hair-roots and sent the blood singing to finger and toe-tips. And Dolores, with one forefinger at her scarlet lips to enjoin silence, glided toward him with her inimitable grace, and knelt before him shaking her head and starting him on the way to intoxication with the touch of ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the same moment with my other hand a bit of paper-covered wire. On the end of the wire was a bunch of short yellow threads, which were touched lightly with my glue-smeared finger, the wire being held between the thumb and forefinger. With the free left hand, I caught up a fluttering corolla, touching its perforated center with glue; then I "slipped up" the wire about an inch, took up another corolla in the same way, and then drew the ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... "anybody'd think I was a ghost. I'll stand for being called lots of things, but a phantom—Ouch! Now what's the idea?" For Grace's thumb and forefinger had come together in the ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... three gestures, without saying a word: first she pointed to herself, then she shook her forefinger, and lastly she jerked her thumb back in the direction of the door that led to the Senator's apartments. The weak-minded body was not Pina, but her master, since he had brought that handsome singer ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... was alone, rubbing his fist first in one eye and then in the other, twisting the big bony knuckle of his forefinger round so as to squeeze ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... reaching his arm down into it as far as he could, his arm-pit tight down on the rim. After some straining he held up his hand, all dripping with dregs, and, between his thumb and forefinger, exhibited an unmistakable gold coin. How many there were in that jar we never knew; there were too many to count. We turned the jar over on its side, with some labor, and made sure that there were enough gold coins in it to weigh more than either I ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... was aware of a sensation of cool moistness. On withdrawing my hand I glanced at the forefinger, the one I had immersed, but it had disappeared. I moved and knew from the alternate tension and relaxation of the muscles that I moved it, but it defied my sense of sight. To all appearances I had been shorn of a finger; nor could I get any visual impression ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... olive-skinned young fellow at the wheel, with a forefinger and thumb searching a waistcoat pocket as the car ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... at last the source of it, a warning forefinger close to the pane that seemed to urge for silence. Rising, she moved slowly to the window, uneasy, doubtful, yet with hope beginning to stir at her heart. She formed a cup for her eyes with her palms so as ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... ambled around the gray broncho in a clumsy circle. The gray broncho showed her appreciation of the attention by nipping viciously at the flank of his horse. By Weldon's left side, Kruger Bobs halted and pointed an accusing forefinger ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... with A, B, and C. The officer was tall, handsome, and deeply sunburned. In his uniform of a chasseur d'Afrique he was a splendid figure. On his chest were the medals of the campaigns in Morocco and Algiers, and the crimson ribbon of the Legion of Honor. The officer placed his forefinger on a card covered ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... happy ones. One day early in June I took a wood-frog in my hand. The mosquitoes swarmed about. In a few seconds 30 were on my hand digging away; 10 were on my forefinger, 8 on my thumb; between these was the frog, a creature with many resemblances to man—red blood, a smooth, naked, soft skin, etc.—and yet not a mosquito attacked it. Scores had bled my hand before one alighted ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... smile of pity for the man who thus misappreciated his foresight, he again produced his pocket-book, and extracted from its innermost recesses a fragment of a German newspaper, reputed oracular in matters theatrical. This he handed to me, tapping a particular paragraph significantly with his forefinger. The paragraph ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... all, a creature like a bat was plainly visible, perched upon his forefinger, and waving up and down its filmy wings. He looked at it for a moment, bent his head to it, seemed to whisper, and ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... token of distress is made by placing the right hand on the right side of the face, with the points of the fingers upward, shoving the hand upward until the ear is snug between the thumb and forefinger. I here pause, ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... of the Express, opened it, and pointed a plump, pinkish forefinger at the beginning of an article on ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... up for it, my dear," the young man answered, giving her chin—a very charming, rotund, little chin—a friendly whisk with his forefinger. ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Loveit, half afraid of his contempt, and half afraid of Tarlton's ridicule, stood doubtful, and again had recourse to his battledore, which he balanced most curiously upon his forefinger. "Look at him!—now do look at him!" cried Tarlton; "did you ever in your life see anybody look so silly?—Hardy has him quite under his thumb; he's so mortally afraid of Parson Prig, that he dare not, for the soul of him, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... zealous and intelligent Calvinist, with brows bent just as much as to indicate profound attention; lips slightly compressed; eyes fixed on the minister with an expression of decent pride, as if sharing the triumph of his argument; the forefinger of the right hand touching successively those of the left, as the preacher, from argument to argument, ascended towards his conclusion. Another, with fiercer and sterner look, intimated at once his contempt of all who doubted the creed of his pastor, and his ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... France That divinely shook the dead From living man; that stretched ahead Her resolute forefinger straight And marched toward the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... clasped before his face, he took the paten and gathered from the corporal the sacred particles of the host that had fallen, and dropped them into the chalice. One particle which had adhered to his thumb he removed with his forefinger. And, crossing himself, chalice in hand, with the paten once again below his chin, he drank all the precious blood in three draughts, never taking his lips from the cup's rim, but imbibing the divine ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the centre of the cage, as part of the decorations, a stump of a tree, which was hollow, and contained a navy revolver and a bowie-knife. When he gave the command to Brutus to leap forward against the spears, Brinton stood alongside of the stump with one hand inside of it, his forefinger playing with the trigger of the revolver. The apprehension of a recurrence of the critical scene which has been narrated was however groundless. Brutus dutifully leaped forward and smashed the brittle spears, without hesitation, and calmly suffered himself to be ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... musette (Sweet Englishwoman, No. 3), the rest of the musette being one prolonged cropper, which I take daily for the benefit of my health. All my other works (of which there are many) are either arranged (by R. L. Stevenson) for the manly and melodious forefinger, or else prolonged and melancholy croppers. . . . I find one can get a notion of music very nicely. I have been pickling deeply in the Magic Flute; and have arranged LA DOVE PRENDE, almost to the end, for two melodious forefingers. ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his relative as "Mr. Cabot" so astonishing, that the latter was obliged to stop even in the full tide of his enjoyment of the joke. He turned, to find Galusha leaning forward, one hand upon the center table, and the other extending a forefinger in his direction. The finger shook a little, but its owner's countenance was set like a rock. And now it ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... pots, filled to about an inch of the top with pure coarse sand, firmly packed. Place the cuttings, the buds up, about an inch apart, all over the surface of the pot; press down firmly with thumb and forefinger until the bud is even with the surface; sift on sand enough to cover the upper point of the bud about a quarter of an inch deep; press down evenly, using the bottom of another pot for the purpose, and apply water enough to moisten the whole contents of ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... the benumbed fingers of his right hand, then gripped the rifle once more. His forefinger was on the trigger. He had arrived at a crisis. He was half starved and freezing. For three days now he had wandered over the vast expanse of ice-pans that covered the waters of Bering Straits. During that three days he had secured only two small birds, dovekies they were, ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... those horns! — to sacred rage, I rose, forefinger high in air, When Harry cried (SOME war to wage), "Papa, is hard ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... up on the bed and tucked her feet under her, and the thoughtful forefinger began to slowly trace the pattern on the bedspread, while Jane Rowland ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... bundle covered with a green shawl, and with a white balbriggan stocking trailing from an opening in it. She paused at the library door, surveyed the inmates, caught my unlucky eye and beckoned to me with a relentless forefinger. ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Allen, settling herself back among the cushions, and resting the forefinger of her right hand impressively on the palm of the left, "this is the proper line of policy for us to pursue. I hope in all these strange changes I am still mistress of my own family. You certainly don't think that I expect to stay in this miserable hovel all ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... says Cray, balancing his styler on one forefinger, "so obvious none of us has bothered to mention it, that accepting the normal limitations of Mass-Time, the idea of interfering in Incognita was doomed before it began. No conventional ship would have much hope of arriving before ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could I do better for my object than to let thee live,—than to give thee medicines against all harm and peril of life,—so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?" As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester's breast, as if it had been red-hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. "Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women,—in the eyes of him whom thou didst call ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... princes! How much coarse-grained wood a little gypsum covers! a little carmine quite beautifies! Wet your forefinger with your spittle; stick a broken gold-leaf on the sinciput; clip off a beggar's beard to make it tresses, kiss it; fall down before it; worship it. Are you not irradiated by the light of its countenance? Princes! princes! Italian ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the chilly discomfort of the farmhouse parlour, unused, save on state occasions—a funereal gloom which no sunlight could pierce, a mustiness which savoured almost of the grave. One by one they obeyed the stern forefinger of Gideon Strong, and took their seats on comfortless chairs and the horse-hair sofa. First came John Magee, factor and agent to the Earl of Cumberland, a great man in the district, deacon of the chapel, ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... quietly, "a Zermatt you are too young to know," and then Chayne's forefinger dropped upon the figure of ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... hereaway methinks," replied Coppin bending over the map and tracing the coast line with a horny forefinger. "Is it yon? Nay, I am no scholar and steer not by a chart I cannot make out. I know the place when I see it, and I'll find it again if I'm ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... the signal to begin. Till that day—I confess it with shame—I had never heard of the "Verlorenes Paradies." It came upon me like a revelation. I sung my best, substituting do, re, mi, etc., for the German words. Once or twice, as Herr von Francius's forefinger beat time, I thought I saw his head turn a little in our direction, but I scarcely heeded it. When the first chorus was ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... perceive but one picture. The two have run together and become blended in a third, which shows us everything we see in each. But, in order that they should so run together, both the eye and the brain must be in a natural state. Push one eye a little inward with the forefinger, and the image is doubled, or at least confused. Only certain parts of the two retinae work harmoniously together, and you have disturbed their natural relations. Again, take two or three glasses more than temperance permits, and you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... 1776, and that rules out all the yarns about Hornigold, Teach, Bat Roberts, and suchlike pirates, the last of whom must have been hanged a good fifty years before: though here's evidence"—Captain Branscome laid a forefinger on the chart— "that these gentry had dealings with the island in their day. 'Gow's Gulf,' 'Cape Fea'—Gow was a pirate and a hard nut at that; and Fea, if I remember, his lieutenant or something of the sort; but they had gone their ways before ever this was printed, and ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a capacity for instant decision. With stubby forefinger rigid, he shoved his plate a little ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... party or even having seen his face, one is aware that he will always be found with his pale eyes wide open when the light is flicked on at One Bell. He has been sometime in tramp-steamers, who carry no oilers, for there is a hard callous on the knuckle of his right forefinger where the oil-feeder handle has been chafing. Whether he would be a tower of strength in a smash-up is not so easily divined. Next to him a young gentleman is sitting sideways smoking, a pair of handsome cuff-buttons of Indian design flashing ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... sitting with its back to the window, staring down at the floor. His clothes hung loosely upon him, and his thin hair was colorless. He slowly raised a wasted face as he looked toward the door. Pelle had already recognized him from his maimed right hand, which had only the thumb and one joint of the forefinger. He no longer hid it away, but let it lie ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... is, my boy," he accused, with lifted forefinger. "You like to pose—that's what is the matter with you! You like to act stolid, matter-of-fact, correct; you want to sit in your ambulance and smoke cigarettes indifferently and raise your eyebrows superciliously when shrapnel ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... against him more than I thought he ought to be kicked clean off the face of the earth!" said Mr. Shrimplin, rolling his drooping flaxen mustache fiercely between his stubby thumb and its neighboring forefinger. ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... Then mysteriously—lifting his forefinger and lowering his voice, 'Now your friend wants "talent," eh? Real, genuine "talent"! I could put him ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... true.," said Lord Ulswater, glancing towards the opposite glass, and smoothing his right eyebrow with his forefinger, "it is true, but I could not help it. I had a great deal of business to do with my troop: I have put them into a new manoeuvre. Do you know, my lord [turning to the marquis], I think it very likely the soldiers may have some work on the —— of ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a shrill, neighing laugh, and was about to begin his offensively affectionate tactics—he lifted his open, tawny hand, and aimed his forefinger with a black border on a thick yellow finger-nail towards a place where he might jab, pinch, or tickle the barefoot, bare-armed girl. But Zinaida, smiling and frowning at the same time, edged ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... Hilda held up her forefinger unhesitatingly. She was used to such requests; and, indeed, Sebastian had acquired by long experience the faculty of pinching the finger-tip so hard, and pressing the point of a needle so dexterously into a minor vessel, that he could draw at once ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... these strips was held closely against the ear, and a loud sound proceeded from it whenever the other slip was touched with the other hand. The strips of brass were next held one in each hand. The induced currents occasioned a muscular tremor in the fingers. Upon placing my forefinger to my ear a loud crackling noise was audible, seemingly proceeding from the finger itself. A friend who was present placed my finger to his ear, but heard nothing. I requested him to hold the strips himself. He was then distinctly conscious ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... he suggested. "The sun is gone, and your dress is thin. Let me send Henry after the chairs," and his eyes dropped to her hands again. They were nearly hidden by the green wool, but the long needle quivered like a leaf in the wind; she could not pass it between the thread and her white forefinger. He hesitated a moment, glanced at her face, smiled inscrutably, and ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... vaguely outlined in the darkness. It might have been a creeping man. It turned towards the hiding place. The girl found herself looking into a pair of glaring eyes. She thrust out the pistol, with her forefinger pointing along the barrel. The darkness was too deep for her to aim by ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... negroes. I commanded Company I, Ninth Louisiana. We went into the fight with thirty-three men. I had sixteen killed, eleven badly wounded, and four slightly. I was wounded slightly on the head, near the right eye, with a bayonet, and had a bayonet run through my right hand, near the forefinger; that will account for this miserable style ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... familiarize oneself with the peculiar action of the instrument, it will be well to get a large sheet of paper on a drawing board or a large blotting pad, and holding the instrument vertical to the paper, grasp the tracing leg very lightly indeed between the forefinger and thumb of the right hand, with the hatchet toward the left hand, as shown in Fig. 1. Then by moving the tracing point round and round an imaginary figure and allowing the hatchet to go where it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... at rather a late hour in the evening. In passing through the halls he came upon the gnarled and leathery old woman who possessed the music box. She was grinning in the dim light that drifted through dust-stained panes. She beckoned to him with a smudged forefinger. ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... Jack was no fool, and somehow or another, the discipline he had received from his father had given him some intimation of what was to come. All this put together induced Jack to condescend to answer, with his forefinger between his ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... the editor laid his forefinger upon a small separate clipping at the bottom of the larger one. A short time after Redmond disappeared, and when the excitement of all was intense, this was received and published. Although it bore no ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... interesting to the maternal heart. Hilda listened to the whole account with unfeigned attention, and begged leave to be allowed to dance Dot in her own strong arms, and tickled her fat cheek with her slender forefinger, and laughed with genuine delight when the baby smiled again at her and turned her face to be tickled a second time. Gradually Hilda brought the conversation round to Ernest's journalistic experiences, and at last she said very quietly, 'I'm sorry to learn from Mr. Berkeley, dear, that ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... the situation. Her finely arched eyebrows were raised, her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkling. She rose slowly to her feet, and, child though she was, the dignity of her demeanour was such that Lady Delahaye with her accusing forefinger seemed to ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and looked at him as he had requested. Then, without saying a word, she pointed to a ring he was wearing on his forefinger. Only the ring was visible; but the setting, which was turned toward the palm of his hand, consisted of a magnificent ruby. Arsene Lupin blushed. The ring belonged to Georges Devanne. He smiled bitterly, ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... said he; "for your sake I'll peril my carcass; I have done that for many a one that was not worth your forefinger. It is no such mighty risk either. I'll but step into the skirts of the forest here. It is odds but they drive a hare or a fawn within reach ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... pointed to where the House of Commons overlooked the river, 'that'll turn pale when good Lord George gets up this afternoon, and with reason too! Ay, ay. Let his lordship alone. Let him alone. HE knows!' And so, with much mumbling and chuckling and shaking of his forefinger, he rose, with the assistance of his stick, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... mother, I'll write to him at once for you." Then she turned her smiling face upon the old lady and shook a forefinger at her. "You're an arch-plotter, lady mother. Look at Alice's face. That's not sunburn, ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... response. "Sit down, Victor Favraud, and eat your dinner Christian-like, without remarks! You have never got over the spoiling you, received when you lay wounded under this roof. I shall indulge you no longer." Shaking her long forefinger at him. "Your familiarity needs to be checked." Her manner of grave and kindly irony removed all impression of rebuke from this speech, which Major Favraud received very coolly, spoiled child that he really was, rubbing his hands as he took the foot of the table. At the sight ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... translated by one hand tapping on the other; the word 'vegetable' by scratching the left forefinger; sleep is feigned by leaning the head upon the fist; drink by raising a closed hand to the lips. And for more spiritual expressions they employ a like method. Confession is translated by a finger kissed and laid upon the heart; holy water by five fingers ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... to detect. I determined to make the experiment and passed my finger very carefully over the side which first presented itself. Nothing, however, was perceptible, and I turned the paper, adjusting it on the book. I now again carried my forefinger cautiously along, when I was aware of an exceedingly slight, but still discernable glow, which followed as it proceeded. This, I knew, must arise from some very minute remaining particles of the phosphorus with which I had covered the paper ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... uneasily, whether by way of approbation or not, this truthful chronicle ventures no opinion. Denison looked at the flushed face and glittering eyes of the Doctor, moved uneasily in his chair, and said: "What's up, Doctor? I never knew you to drink. Getting off?" tapping his os frontis with his forefinger significantly. ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... disobedience, and a world of trouble it got him into. Remember that, Master Bertie: your grandpapa would be obeyed, and your papa is his own son in that respect. So take care, my dear, take care!" and the old lady shook her forefinger warningly. "But everything's forgot and forgave now," she added, more cheerfully; "and right glad I am Miss Agnes is ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... ever to her a vulgar slur on her beloved pipe. In truth, the mere idea of Mrs. Ben Wah smoking a cigar rouses in me impatient resentment. Without her pipe she was not herself. I see her yet, stuffing it with approving forefinger, on the Christmas day when I had found her with tobacco pouch empty, and pocket to boot, and nodding the quaint comment from her corner, "It's no disgrace to be poor, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... mint and watermelon crops, a few long-shot winners at the New Orleans race-track, and the brilliant banquets given by the Indiana and Kansas citizens who compose the North Carolina Society have made the South rather a "fad" in Manhattan. Your manicure will lisp softly that your left forefinger reminds her so much of a gentleman's in Richmond, Va. Oh, certainly; but many a lady has to work ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... backed Gusset into the hall, for he was following into the drawing-room, making him open his thick lips in fish like fashion once again as if to speak; but a prod in the ribs given by the sergeant's forefinger forced obedience, and he went ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... that a capital substitute for a very rude sextant is afforded by the outstretched hand and arm. The span between the middle finger and the thumb subtends an angle of about 15 degrees, and that between the forefinger and the thumb an angle of 11 1/4 degrees, or one point of the compass. Just as a person may learn to walk yards accurately, so may he learn to span out these angular distances accurately; and the horizon, however broken it may be, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... such deep meditation as to be oblivious, for the moment, of her surroundings, and of what she was doing; for her doll, a new and much prized Christmas-gift from uncle Rutherford, and a beauty, hung disregarded, head downwards, in the hand which had sunk unconsciously by her side, while, with the forefinger of the other pressed upon her rosy little lips, she seemed to ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... cried the kind Doctor, taking one of the tiny alabaster fingers of the babe in his red, rough hand. "Sma' need o' a dochter in her case. An' wha's this woman?" touching Hannah's shoulder with his forefinger. ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... was stroking his bare chin with a crookt forefinger. "I suppose if I were the story-book villain, I'd say 'yes, you must teach 'em to be honest'; but I don't. Fact is, Mr. Missionary, if you go into the ethics of things, you're stumped the first bat: ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... went to sleep, but I was kept awake for a while, wondering and observing. After half an hour of stillness I felt a thumb press on my head, and a sense of cold. I kept watching; the forefinger, the middle finger, and the rest of the hand were next laid on, the little finger nearly reaching my forehead. The hand was like that of a boy of ten, to guess by the size, and so cold that it was extremely unpleasant. Meantime ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... tall, and so noble-looking; and he will some day come back again to, to—see me." She squirmed very gently, and poised upon one dainty foot, till her pretty hip curved outward; and she pecked at her little forefinger with her rosy mouth as she made this pretty speech: "I think I like the chief so much mademoiselle; I know he is brave, and I do not think that he ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... hand as she spoke, and stood staring as if struck dumb, for there on her forefinger shone a ring she had ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... him! There—he's got his thumb on the bump on the near corner of his forehead, and his forefinger on the off one. His think-works is just a-grinding now, you bet ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her and looks in. Then he moves a step across the threshold, leans forward peeringly, and then turns about, lifts his ill-kept forefinger, and murmurs while he fixes his little ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... steadily. His face was utterly impassive, his forefinger was tapping lightly upon the table-cloth. It was a look which ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and went back to the dining room. Now, even his warmest admirers would give in that he had a streak of stubbornness in him a mile wide and six miles deep. Henry took the three-dimensional monstrosity off the wall, holding it hard by thumb and forefinger on its luminex frame, and prepared to say good-by to the ...
— Spacemen Never Die! • Morris Hershman
... centre of the lounge at the Ritz Hotel and with a delicately-poised forefinger counted her guests. There was the great French actress who had every charm but youth, chatting vivaciously with a tall, pale-faced man whose French seemed to be as perfect as his attitude was correct. The popular wife of a ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pointing a long yellow forefinger at the rest of the saints, "the rest of them will be coming to see you presently—the tam teives—to see wha' ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... his eyes again. And yet the rigid forefinger remained raised, and the faint smile touched at the corners of his mouth. Buck Daniels sat lunging forward in his chair, his knees supporting his elbows, and scowled up at the window with a ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... the arm and whisked me inside the theatre—the first time I'd ever been in a theatre in my life. I shall never forget it. He took me around to his dressing-room, stuck me in a corner, and prodded me with his forefinger. 'Look here,' he said, 'I guess I'll hire you to speculate for me.' And that's how I came to get twenty-five dollars a month and my living from a great American actor. When I got back to America—with him—I had two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... climbed the stairs painfully to his bedroom, undressed in part, and lay down—but not to sleep. For a while he lay without extinguishing the candle—his last candle. He had measured it carefully, and it reached almost to an inch beyond the knuckle of his forefinger. It would last him a good two hours ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a great place—most bazaar storytellers in India make their villain hail from there; but when the agony and intrigue are piled highest and the tale halts till the very last breathless sprinkle of cowries has ceased to fall on his mat, why then, with wagging head and hooked forefinger, the storyteller goes on: ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... Brunger, immensely relishing the word. "We detectives do not like to speak with certainty until we have clapped our hands upon our men; we leave that for the amateurs, the bunglers— the quacks of our profession." The famous confidential inquiry agent tapped the table with his forefinger and proceeded impressively. "But I will say this much. Not only a gang, but a desperate gang, ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... defied the skilfullest fingers to disentangle them. And yet, by the very difficulty that there was in it, Pandora was the more tempted to examine the knot, and just see how it was made. Two or three times, already, she had stooped over the box, and taken the knot between her thumb and forefinger, but without positively trying ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... her room to collect milk, a dish and fire together, so that the starving little creature might have some nourishment. As she sat on her stool, and the little one eagerly sipped the milk, while his tiny little hand tightly clasped his grandmother's forefinger like a life-preserver, she said, ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... jaw edged with a roll of black whisker, a jaw that protruded like a bulldog's. With the familiarity of the long-time lieutenant, he pecked with thumb and forefinger at the end of a cigar protruding from his chief's waistcoat-pocket. He wrenched off the tip between snaggy teeth. He spat the ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... the opposite door and pointing two thumb-and-forefinger guns at his head exploded them. The adjutant groaned understandingly. Even the ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... Triton's lady, placing her forefinger significantly on her lips; "you peril your life by talking thus without guard. Go to the door; look out, that you may see if there be any listeners, then I will tell something ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... with tight-braided brown hair. She had worn on that historic occasion a plain blue gingham with a white collar. To the ordinary eye she seemed just an every-day freckled sort of child, but to Dulcie she had been a little dancing devil, as she had stuck out her forefinger and ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... of fact, when Mary undertook to bestow upon her husband the caress known as "holding hands" she invariably took his wrist between her thumb and forefinger and absent-mindedly counted ten or twelve before realising ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... no reply; he draws with the forefinger of his right hand a circle about his throat, and looks significantly at the young woman. She understands this mysterious sign; her face all at once expresses both sorrow and distress; she rises suddenly, runs to the mulatto, falls on her knees before him and ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... caution, he succeeded in getting so near that he could almost touch him. With one cat-like bound, Little Tim was on the Indian's back, and had him in his arms, while his broad horny hand covered his mouth, and his powerful forefinger and thumb grasped him ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... right to be sleek and contented and well-to-do, when he, Simmons, was the butt of the room, Some day, perhaps, he would show those who laughed at the "Simmons, ye so-oor" joke, that he was as good as the rest, and held a man's life in the crook of his forefinger. When Losson snored, Simmons hated him more bitterly than ever. Why should Losson be able to sleep when Simmons had to stay awake hour after hour, tossing and turning on the tapes, with the dull liver pain gnawing ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... cried Robin, "be merry! nay, never count over your farthings, for by this and by that I will pay this shot myself, e'en though it cost two hundred pounds. So let no man draw up his lip, nor thrust his forefinger into his purse, for I swear that neither butcher nor Sheriff shall pay ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... fain it would delay me! My dear babe, Who, capable of no articulate sound, Mars all things with his imitative lisp, How he would place his hand beside his ear, His little hand, the small forefinger up, And bid us listen! and I deem it wise To make ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... writing job. His hands were trembling and his face twitched. Despair underlay his words, but he kept it under. Hunger made his body jerked and his eyes shine with an unmannerly eagerness. But his words remained suave. He removed a pair of cracked nose-glasses and held them between his thumb and forefinger and gestured politely with them. Hungry, dirty, hopeless, his linen gone, his shoes torn, something inside his beaten frame remained still intact. There was no future. But he had a past to live ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... she held out her hand; the bird flew into the air, lit on her forefinger and balanced itself, sinking its head between its shoulders, and uttering the sound which formed its entire vocabulary and one means of vocal expression—a sound from which it ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... removed the nice white kid glove from her right hand, and extending one small taper forefinger, rubbed it over the surface of the black-walnut tree; then she pointed meaningly at the piece of furniture, which plainly, even in the half-light, disclosed an unhousewifely streak. She also showed the dusty forefinger to the other lady, and they ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... look half cajoling, half flippant, "but as a teacher in the Young Woman's Auxiliary Guild to the rector of St. Mark's. You see I no longer lead a foolish, futile life. Here is the evidence in the case," holding up a slender pink forefinger. "See how it is pricked! For three Saturday afternoons I have shown little girls that smelled of fried potatoes how to sew. I shall really learn something myself about the feminine art of needlework if I continue in my ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... at him, and, still with the same look of stereotyped horror on her thin, white face, whispered, in a hoarse voice, as she pointed to the boarded-up shop-door with a shaking forefinger: ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... his wrists suddenly; a long arm swept about him; the thumb and forefinger of a hand like a steel-vice pressed ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... had lowered his right forefinger from behind his right ear, the villagers talked to him of their crops—barley, dhurrah, millet, onions, and the like. The Governor stood in his stirrups. North he looked up a strip of green cultivation a few ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... doctor was lost behind a screen of glass, talking with the coachman who had come to meet them. Freya, before disappearing, turned to give him a faint smile and then raised her gloved hand with a stiff forefinger, threatening him just as though he were a mischievous and ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... profit very efficiently by getting that hotel for a few shillings in the pound. [More and more sternly] Besides those efficient operations, you will foreclose your mortgages most efficiently [his rebuking forefinger goes up in spite of himself]; you will drive Haffigan to America very efficiently; you will find a use for Barney Doran's foul mouth and bullying temper by employing him to slave-drive your laborers very ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... noiseless dance about the room. "Jinks! Don't I wish I had a big studio and a little reputation! Wouldn't I have my swell friends come to see me, and wouldn't I entertain 'em!" He adopted a descriptive manner, and with his forefinger indicated various spaces of the wall. "Here is a little thing I did in Brittany. Peasant woman in sabots. This brown spot here is the peasant woman, and those two white things are the sabots. Peasant woman in sabots, don't you see? Women in Brittany, of course, all wear sabots, you ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... conduct used to be a few blows with a switch on the front of the leg, or a slight burn with the moxa on the forefinger—still a common punishment in households; but I understood the teacher to say that detention in the school-house is the only punishment now resorted to, and he expressed great disapprobation of our plan of imposing an added task. When twelve o'clock came the children marched in orderly ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... but are at their best served as follows;—Select a pair of plump birds; clean them, cut off the legs, and remove the heads without breaking or tearing the neck skin; insert the forefinger in it, and separate the skin over the breast from the flesh; fill this with a nicely-seasoned bread stuffing, and fasten the loose end of the neck to the back. Place a thin wide slice of bacon over the breast, and fasten the ends with ...
— Breakfast Dainties • Thomas J. Murrey
... forward, and without a word twice tapped with his forefinger the broad breast of Prisoner Murray and, never looking at him, turned again to ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... a profound obeisance, proffering the tart at the same time between his thumb and forefinger, "will you so far honour an entire stranger? I can answer for the quality of the pastry, having eaten two dozen and three of them myself since ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the leg, and received a bad wound in the right hand. The spear entered at the side of the hand, rather on the back part of it, came out in the palm, entered again under the ball of the thumb, and came out on the back of the hand, near the tendon of the forefinger. The very little inflammation that attended these painful ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... to keep above water, but it was impossible; I was drawn down with the ship until she reached the bottom. As soon as she grounded, the water boiled and bubbled a great deal, and then I found that I could swim, and began to rise to the surface. A man tried to grapple me as I went up; his forefinger caught in my shoe, between the shoe and my foot. I succeeded in kicking off my shoe, and thus got rid of him, and then I rose to the surface ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Then gently he moved his right arm from her waist and placed it over her shoulder. She moved slightly, but it was only to nestle more closely against him. His dangling fingers moved little by little towards the opening of her corsage, they descended, and with his thumb and forefinger he gripped the paper. Madame did not move her body nor, to Rust, did she seem to suspect his intentions. But her right arm lifted slowly up, she gently grasped his hand in hers, pressed it kindly ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... magistrate fully comprehended his danger, but he could now neither offer remonstrance nor entreaty. What was passing in his breast seemed known to Mistress Nutter; for she motioned the double to stay, and, touching the brow of Nowell with the point of her forefinger, instantly restored ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the dark began to lighten, and Henry stopped short in surprise. Paul was walking in such automatic fashion that he almost ran against him before he stopped. Henry pointed with a long forefinger to a red ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... don't want to arouse the house. See, she turns and raises her forefinger warningly. Do you mean to say you don't remember ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... and sea-things, and he did so willingly—told us what kind of clay there was round Korholmerne—went into his room and fetched a sample of weed from the White Sea. He was constantly lifting up his right forefinger and shifting his thick gold spectacles back and forward on his nose. Herr Mack was ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... Joe, shaking his forefinger close into the face of little Sloper. "When a retired tailor degrades the honour of a seaman's flag by a shooting at it and a riddling of it, the law 'as made and purwided sets forth this: that the insulted sailor shall collect his crew and in the presence of all hands pass ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... to it with her soft little voice—for no one could have a softer or prettier voice than Hoodie when she chose—always in the same tone, till the bird learnt to recognize it and to come at her summons. And oh the delight of the first time this happened! Hoodie was holding out her hand, the forefinger outstretched to the open door of the cage, half-cooing, half-whistling, in the pretty way Magdalen had taught her, when birdie, its head cocked on one side as if half in timidity, half in coquetry, at last mustered up courage ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... the voice of one speaking with but one remaining breath, "ye have rewarded me as the law demands; see that she" and a bloody forefinger pointed at Fabia, "who led me to this deed, is not unpunished. She is the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... single instant hangs, And ready the demon's eager fangs To penetrate that sylphic breast! Nipping the wing-tips gently I Flirt him from danger suddenly; Strike with my cap a rapid blow, Dashing the enemy down below Thro' grass crushed safely into dust. There shivering on my stretched forefinger A little while his terrors linger, Doubting if yet his wings to trust, Ere, with a bolder flap or two, He flutters ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
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