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More "Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be quick," returned Radford shortly. "Ketch hold of your guns with the tips of one finger and one thumb and drop them. Don't hit any rocks and ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Stand erect, arms hanging loosely at the sides. Raise the arms slowly to the vertical position over the head, making the hands meet with palms outward, the thumb of the left hand over the right, rising on the toes at the same time; then let the arms fall apart slowly to their original position, while ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... I bought also a thumb-screw at this shop. The thumbs are put into this instrument through the two circular holes at the top of it. By turning a key, a bar rises up by means of a screw from C to D, and the pressure upon them becomes painful. By turning it further you may make the blood start from the ends of them. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... the energy of the great capitalists and the rational Liberal Party, the average clergyman tends towards sympathy with the Agrarians. The pastor of the small towns and villages, who is very much under the thumb of the local Junker or rich manufacturer, has as his highest ambition the hope that he and his wife may be invited to coffee at least twice a year. The pastor's wife is delighted to be condescendingly received by the great lady. Herr Pastor talks agriculture with Herr Baron, and Frau Pastor discusses ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... weather-bleached old siding. For when you haven't the luxury of a hill on your landscape, you can at least make an imitation one. Whinnie even planed the board-joints in the center of the runway and counter-sunk every nail-head—and cussed volubly when he pounded his heavily mittened thumb with the hammer. The finished structure could hardly be called a thing of beauty. We have only one of the stable-ladders to mount it from the rear, and instead of toboggans we have only Poppsy's home-made hand-sleigh and Dinkie's somewhat dilapidated ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... and drew it speculatively across his calloused old thumb, while with his mild blue eyes, which his spectacles enormously exaggerated, ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... sick of my roommate. I can tell you that," said Alicia. "If I had known when that girl walked into my room that she was Marian Seaton's cousin I should have refused to room with her. She's completely under Marian's thumb. Whatever Marian tells her to do she does. You'd think after what happened the other day that she'd be too angry ever to speak to me again. Well, she isn't. She tries to talk to me whenever we're together. She told me yesterday that I had made a terrible mistake in giving up ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... I replied; "the accepted tests of humanity being, as I understand, the habitual adoption of the erect posture in locomotion, and the relative position of the end of the thumb—" ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... completely, being most careful yet not taking any unnecessary time. When he is quite ready for the tub, grasp him firmly with the right hand, letting the buttocks rest in the palm of the hand, the fingers being outspread, and the thumb coming up almost to the pubic bone. With the left hand hold the head and shoulders. Lower him very gently into the water. Any sudden movement is most injurious, as a baby must never cry when the band is off, if it can be avoided. He will often ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... perfect. Indeed, experimentation on the brains of monkeys has been successful in mapping out motor areas so accurately that such small centers as those connected with the bending of one particular leg or the flexing of a thumb have been located. Yet each area of the cortex is so connected with every other area by the millions of association fibers that the whole brain is capable of working together as a unit, thus unifying and harmonizing our thoughts, ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... shake the branches, the consternation of both old and young was great. The stump of a limb that held the nest was about three inches thick, and at the bottom of the tunnel was excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke the thin wall, and the young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for the first time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp, as much to say, "It is time we were out of this," began to climb up toward the proper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... that one virginal thing, is an added pleasure which I could not afford to spare. Oh, for the silence of marble courts, for the shadow of great pillars, for gold, for reticulated canopies of lilies; to see the great gladiators pass, to hear them cry the famous "Ave Caesar," to hold the thumb down, to see the blood flow, to fill the languid hours with the agonies of poisoned slaves! Oh, for excess, for crime! I would give many lives to save one sonnet by Baudelaire; for the hymn, "A la tres-chere, a la tres-belle, qui remplit mon coeur ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... be getting home right away now," he said finally, clicking his knife-blade half shut and open with his thumb. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that devilish mission, the monk would have instantly suspected me of double dealing, and sooner or later I should have met with an untimely end, as, alas! so many others had done. So completely had he placed me beneath his thumb that I was compelled to act as he dictated, in order to save my own life, for, as I have already explained, the "holy" man held the lives of those who displeased him ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... assented, though I could not for the life of me remember when the last one occurred. However, dreary as the weather may be, one cannot be dull when doing one's morning round of shopping in Pettybaw or Strathdee. I have only to give you thumb-nail sketches of our favourite tradespeople to ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... she? She only bent lower still. I asked the third time; and with nothing but the parting of her hair for me to look at, she nodded, and one of her braids fell over in front, and I took the pink-ribboned live end of it timorously between thumb and finger and felt as if I had ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... during which the men, holding bow and arrow aloft, hopped up and down on one spot, the women hopping beside them and snapping thumb and forefinger on the body, still singing in the same high measured voice. But while they danced a great bonfire was laid and kindled. The gyrations lasted a few minutes longer, then the chief seized a ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... the people of Panama lived in fear under the thumb of a dictator. Today democracy is ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... air of an unwilling slave; but her eye caught the moment when he was ready for another cup; and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw her compelled to do for her father, who took her little finger and thumb in his masculine hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongs. Mr. Thornton saw her beautiful eyes lifted to her father, full of light, half-laughter and half-love, as this bit of pantomime went on between the two, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 'You are called DONKEY!' And the donkey's ears have been long ever since." This, to a child, is a credible explanation. So, perhaps, is another survival of this form of science—the Scotch explanation of the black marks on the haddock; they were impressed by St. Peter's finger and thumb when he took the piece of money for Caesar's tax ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... continued, warming to his subject and seemingly ignorant of its myths, "I once seen a man ride into San Mercial with his face that white it wouldn't 'a' showed a chalk mark! And he was holdin' up his thumb like it was pizen—which it was! And he was cuttin' for old Doc Struthers that fast his cayuse was sparkin' out of his ears. Bit by a hydrophoby skunk—yes, sirree. Got to the Doc's just in time, too! But he allus was lucky—the Doc! Money jest rolled into that party all the ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... all his amusements and employments, his inventive genius was at work in searching out expedients. To facilitate rapidity in swimming he formed two oval pallets, much resembling those used by painters, about ten inches long, and six broad. A hole was cut for the thumb and they were bound fast to the palm of the hand. Sandals of a somewhat similar construction were bound to the soles of the feet. With these appliances Franklin found that he could swim more rapidly, but his wrists soon became greatly fatigued. ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... inscription over his tomb about his wonderful talents, early development, and unparalleled precocity. Were they not a foolish couple? But there was a still more foolish couple next to them, who were beating a wretched little radish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and obstinacy and wilful stupidity, and never knew that the reason why it couldn't learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm inside it eating out all its brains. But even they are no foolisher than some hundred ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... the same specifications serve for twenty vessels. England has gone into the wholesale production; and what is true of ships in the stress of hungry war demand will be true of scores of articles for trade afterward. The old rule-of-thumb traditions that hampered expansion have gone into the discard, along with voluntary military service and the ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... state of society in which any man, for what seems to him good and sufficient reason, for anything from biting the thumb at him to jesting about his whiskers, may take the life of another, why shall we not tolerate the man who will take another's property because the taker deems the other has too much or has unjustly accumulated what ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Wherry, pulling Ambrose's sleeve, "our yard is much nearer, and the old Moor, Master Michael, is safe to know what to do for him. That sort of cattle always are leeches. He wiled the pain from my thumb when 'twas crushed in our printing-press. Mayhap if he put some salve to him, he might get home ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... old Sir Geoffrey loved brandy and mum well, And to see a beer-glass turned over the thumb well; But he fled like the wind, before Fairfax and Cromwell, Which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... Albert; as indeed most of his unjust graspings proved failures. He at one time had thoughts of the Crown of France; "Yours I solemnly declare!" said the Pope. But that came to nothing;—only to France's shifting of the Popes to Avignon, more under the thumb of France. What his ultimate success with Tell and the Forest Cantons was, we all know! A most clutching, strong-fisted, dreadfully hungry, tough and unbeautiful man. Whom his own Nephew, at last, had to assassinate, at the Ford of the Reus ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... grassy bank we camped, quite secure from mosquitoes, and surrounded by the curious natives, who showed us where to find wood and water, and brought us the most beautiful spring salmon, and potatoes so tender and fine that the skin could be rubbed from them with the thumb. They were exactly like new potatoes in the States. Out of this, it may be well understood, we had a most satisfying dinner. Summer was in full tide. Pieplant was two feet high, ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... with soft roes. Having scraped and washed them, cut off the heads, split open, take out the roes, and cleanse the fish. Hold one in the left hand, and, with thumb and finger of the right, press the backbone to loosen it, then lay flat on the board and draw out the bone; it will come out whole, leaving none behind. Dissolve a little fresh butter, pass the inner side of the fish through it, sprinkle pepper and salt ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... and started away; and when he was going out at the door he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder—so—at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate: 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the wall are to be found copies of the "Seattle Union Record," "The Butte Daily Bulletin," "The New Solidarity," "The Industrial Worker," "The Liberator," "The New Republic" and "The Nation." Always there is a shelf of thumb-worn books on history, science, economics and socialism. On the walls are lithographs or engravings of noted champions of the cause of Labor, a few photographs of local interest and the monthly Bulletins and Statements of the Union. Invariably there is a blackboard ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... here.' He gave an indicative jerk of his head and thumb in a certain direction toward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... plainly in fine health; had a good forehead, and a clear hazel eye, not overlarge or prominent, but full of light; a firm mouth, with a curious smile; a sun-burned complexion; and a habit when perplexed of pinching his upper lip between his finger and thumb, which at the present moment he was unconsciously indulging. He was the son of a small farmer—in what part of Scotland is of little consequence—and his companion for the moment was the daughter of ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... good money—! Ah! That was it. Make good money! But who was he betraying he would like to know? Well if it wasn't on the square perhaps he was betraying that same One—Aw—Rats! He wasn't under anybody's thumb and Judas lived centuries ago. He wasn't doing any harm helping a man do something he wasn't supposed to know what. Hang it all! Where was Mark Carter anyway? Somehow Cart always seemed to set a fella straight. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... for the emphasis and glamour of literature having brought in the word "mother," has yet failed to set the sluggish imagination to work, and a word so glowing with picture and vivid with sentiment is damped and dulled by the thumb-mark of besotted usage to mean no more than "cause" or "occasion." Only for the poet, perhaps, are words live winged things, flashing with colour and laden with scent; yet one poor spark of imagination ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... soldiers by his frequent comparisons of war, "fighting Indians" and the one "fighting Yankees," was found on the slope, just in front of the enemy's breastworks, leaning against a tree, resting on his left knee, his loaded rifle across the other. In his right hand, between his forefinger and thumb, in the act of being placed upon the nipple of the gun, was a percussion cap. His frame was rigid, cold, and stiff, while his glossy eyes seemed to be peering in the front as looking for a lurking foe. He was stone dead, a bullet ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Little Thumb, or Tom Thumb as he was sometimes called? Such a queer little fellow, and such adventures, you surely ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... can, use the small end of a potato masher, as this will enter the can easily. It will take from ten to a dozen large ears of corn to fill a one-quart can. When the cans are full, screw cover on with thumb and first finger; this will be tight enough, then place a cloth in the bottom of a wash boiler to prevent breakage. On this put a layer of cans in any position you prefer, over the cans put a layer of cloth, then a layer of cans. Fill the boiler in this manner, then cover the cans well with ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... occurrence of puberty, or the revolution which comes with any new emotion or influx of new knowledge. I am heterodox about sepulchres, and believe that no part of us will ever lie in a grave. I don't think much of my nail-parings—do you?—not even of the nail of my thumb when I cut off what Penini calls the 'gift-mark' on it. I believe that the body of flesh is a mere husk which drops off at death, while the spiritual body (see St. Paul) emerges in glorious resurrection at once. Swedenborg says, some persons ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... into the Imperial fish-ponds to fatten lampreys for the Bacchanalian banquets, and many were mangled to death by savage beasts, or still more savage men, to make sport for thousands of pitiless sightseers, while not a single thumb was turned to make the sign of mercy. But perhaps the most gigantic and horrible of all Christmas atrocities were those perpetrated by the tyrant Diocletian, who became Emperor A.D. 284. The early years of his reign were characterised ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... me. If I put it on the forefinger of my left hand, then I can with its help produce whatever I wish. I can in a single moment build houses or anything I desire. Finally, as long as I wear the ring on the thumb of my left hand, that hand is so strong that it can break down rocks and walls. Besides these, the ring has other secret signs which, as I said, no one can understand. No doubt it contains secrets of great importance. The ring formerly ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... even as she speaks must partly divine, for a finger and thumb go searching down between his little nape and the collar of his doublet, and in a moment they draw it forth, a bit ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... to make sure that he was awake. Very substantial flesh met his thumb and finger, and he felt ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... of a pound of butter; then beat up six eggs, leaving out half the whites, a little lemon peel finely shred, a little nutmeg grated, a quarter of a pound of sugar, a gill of cream, a little rose-water, and as much salt as you can take up between your thumb and finger; mix all well together, make a puff paste, lay it round the rim of the dish, and bake it.—Lay citron or orange cut very thin, on the top, and strew a few currants on.—Another. To make rice pudding with ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... his present humour, he shrank from facing Rufus. The American read him like a book; the American would ask irritating questions. He turned his back on the hotel, and looked at his watch. As he took it out, his finger and thumb touched something else in his waistcoat-pocket. It was the card that Regina had given to him—the card of the cottage to let. He had nothing to do, and nowhere to go. Why not look at the cottage? If it ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... have ordered me to press on the Thames. But my business is to obey orders—which I will do, by the blessing of God—so good morning to you. As to law, and justice, and all that, talk to him,' said the captain, pointing with his thumb over his left shoulder to me as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... is not prepared to tackle the new problems that will arise. For all this next century this particular body of mechanics will be picking up new recruits and eliminating the incompetent and the rule-of-thumb sage. Can it fail, as the years pass, to develop certain general characters, to become so far homogeneous as to be generally conscious of the need of a scientific education, at any rate in mechanical and chemical matters, and to possess, down to ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... these lotions. Two persons will be required in order to accomplish the operation. The surgeon must hold the muzzle of the dog with one hand, and have the root of the ear in the hollow of the other, and between the first finger and the thumb. The assistant must then pour the liquid into the ear; half a tea-spoonful will usually be sufficient. The surgeon, without quitting the dog, will then close the ear, and mould it gently until the liquid has insinuated itself as deeply ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... vulgar mode of contemptuous defiance, thrusting out the fist with the thumb between the first ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... been able to control his gestures; she had never been able to get used to them; and there were two in particular that made her wince still as she had winced in the beginning. She had contracted the habit of wincing in response to them. Whenever Jimmy jerked his thumb over his shoulder you saw her blink; and whenever he cracked his knuckles she shrank back. The blink followed the jerk, and the shrinking followed the cracking as the flash follows the snap of ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... in archery; the arrow held and the bow drawn with three fingers on the cord—the thumb and little finger doing nothing. The target was a bag of hay set at twenty feet, until the beginner could hit it every time: then by degrees it was moved away until at the standard distance of forty yards ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of drinking supernaculum, consisted in turning down the cup upon the thumb-nail of the drinker after his pledge, when, if duly quaffed off, no drop of liquor ought ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... hand. To this I said that I had not set the stone, and that it was not well set; its brilliancy was due to its own excellence; and that if I were to mount it afresh, I could make it show far better than it did. Then I put my thumb-nail to the angels of its facets, took it from the ring, cleaned it up a little, and handed it to the Viceroy. Delighted and astonished, he wrote me out a cheque [2] for the two hundred ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... called one-eye Murphy because he had only one eye—he'd lost the other in a rough-and-tumble fight; it had been gouged out by a feller's thumb. Murphy got the feller's ear, chewed it off as they was rolling over and over on the floor, so you might say ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... needing crews? Will you have clansmen for your candlesticks, or silver plate? Myrmidons at your tents, ant-born, or only a mob on the Gillies' Hill? Are you resolved that you will never have any but your inferiors to serve you, or shall Enid ever lay your trencher with tender little thumb, and Cinderella sweep your hearth, and be cherished there? It might come to that in time, and plate and hearth be the brighter; but if your servants are to be held your inferiors, at least be sure they are so, and that you are indeed wiser, and better-tempered, ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... his ground and refused to be pushed aside. The Russian reached out a thumb and finger and pulled Hal's nose. Then he staggered back, for Hal had sent his fist ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... pet!" cried Faith gayly. "Not yet," and she picked up the lively one. "See, you hold them this way;" she held the shell between her thumb and middle finger and the sharp little claws sawed the air in vain. "There, cunning," she added, looking into the turtle's bright eyes, "go see your auntie or uncle, or whoever it is," and she put it into her dress with the other one, and they ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... the door for me, and, with his palette on his thumb, and a brush in his hand, sat down ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... the extremity of the thumb to the extremity of the index finger, when outstretched; hence ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... of the cracker she found herself thinking it was very soft for paper, and then rousing herself with a start, and wondering at her own folly in speaking thus of the white silk in which she was dressed, and of which she was holding up the skirt between her finger and thumb, as if she ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Debby came racing back again, a plate in her hand with a slice of bread on it. "It's all right," she cried triumphantly, "it hasn't fell'd, I put my thumb on it so's ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... of Horrors; how they travelled on the new Underground Railway; and saw the wonders of the Crystal Palace, especially on fireworks night. They told us of their visit to the Great Eastern, what a gigantic ship it was, what a marvel, and described its every feature. They talked of General Tom Thumb, of Blondin, of Pepper's Ghost, of the Christy Minstrels. Nowadays, a father will return from London and not even mention the Tubes to his children. Why should he? They know all about them and are surprised at nothing. ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... fifty cents, and the second over five dollars. Almost all, though, that was found was like beans or small seeds or in fine dust. No one tried to weigh or measure such gold more correctly than to call a pinch between the finger and thumb a dollar's worth, while a teaspoonful was an ounce, or sixteen dollars' worth. A wineglassful meant a hundred dollars, and a tumblerful a thousand. Miners carried their "dust" in a buckskin bag, and this was put on the counter, and the storekeeper took ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... Aide-de-camp on Bellerophon. First experience of war. Anecdote of battle. His journal of the engagement. Estimate of French seamen. Appointed to Reliance. Careful record of observations. Arrival at Port Jackson. Friendship with Bass. Exploration of George's River. Voyages in Tom Thumb. Adventure with aboriginals. Voyage on Francis. Discovery of Kent Group. Biological notes. On the sooty petrel. Description of wombat. Voyage to Norfolk Island. Exploration projects. Voyage of Norfolk. Character as an author. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... 'Now, then, burn your thumb with the match—you always did, you know. That's the style. You've forgotten to cock your head to the side. Not so bad. ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... stepped beside him, so close that her full-skirted dress half encompassed him and the basin in a delicious confusion, and, leaning over his lap, with her left hand picked up a pea-cod, which, with a single movement of her charming little right thumb, she broke at the end, and stripped the green shallow of its ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... swordfish that was not visible rolling on the surface. Now a flying-fish bait makes a rather heavy bait to troll; and as it is imperative to have the reel free running and held lightly with the thumb, after a few hours such trolling becomes hard work. Hard as it was, it did not wear on me like the strain of being always ready for a strike. I doubt if any ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... which had been playfully bestowed upon him by his chums, and by which he was generally known—"we all hopes that; but I, for one, feels uncommon duberous about it. There's hardly a capful of wind as blows but what some poor unfort'nate craft leaves her bones out there,"—with a jerk of the thumb over his shoulder to seaward,—"and mostly with every wreck there's some lives lost. I say, mates, I s'pose there's somebody ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... had been! She, who had been such a docile girl, and then for many years so completely under the thumb of her splendid-looking husband, had suddenly become utterly intractable. She would listen to no reason and brook no delay. She had been willing enough to explain; she had explained repeatedly, but the trouble was he could not understand the explanation. She did not ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... the latent vulgarity of her nature broke loose, and with a contracted pff she seized her thin nose between her thumb and forefinger, to the indication that an evil odour of fish interpenetrated her atmosphere, and must at the moment be defiling the ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... of the sun on a cloudy day, hold a flat splinter or your knife blade vertically, so that it is absolutely straight up and down. Place the point of the blade on your thumb-nail, watch-case, or other glossy surface; then turn the knife or splinter around until the full shadow of the flat of blade or splinter falls on the bright surface, telling the location of ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... he was filled with a great desire to cut himself away from his past and make a new start. Secondly, when he learned that Rusty Dick had been killed by Joe, he wanted desperately to get the throttle of the latter under his thumb. If ever a man risked his life to avoid a sin, it was Donnegan jumping from the ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... duck," and Sam jerked his thumb back to show that he meant Si Lee; "sounds like a Chinese laundry. I guess that's the only thing he isn't. He can do any mortal thing but get on in life. He's been a soldier an' a undertaker an' a cook He plays a fiddle he made himself; it's a rotten bad one, but it's away ahead of his ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... all flock to the more interesting ecarte; instances have occurred, where Greek meets Greek, of their tying the two advanced feet together, and yet remaining fencing with knife and cloak for a quarter of an hour before the blow be dealt. The knife is held firmly, the thumb is pressed straight on the blade, and calculated either for the cut or thrust, to ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... to be found at his stall in the market," was written of the vacant-faced peasant. "You will first attract his attention by asking the price of something. When he is looking at you, touch your left thumb lightly with the forefinger of your right hand. Then utter in a low distinct tone the words 'The Lamp is lighted.' That is all you ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... undertaken to nail up a flag with hammer and nails, she would never have been on hand at the psychological moment to invite Stonewall Jackson to shoot her old gray head. When General Jackson passed the house she would have been in the bathroom bathing her left thumb in witch-hazel. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... wrapped them together in a warm blanket. The remaining puppy was handed over to the gardener and seen no more in that place; so it is safe to assume that this little creature's life embraced no sorrows or disillusions. The next thing Finn knew was that his gaping mouth, held open by the Master's thumb and forefinger, was being pressed against a soft surface from which warm milk trickled. "At last!" one can imagine Finn muttering, if he had been old enough to know how to talk. Immediately his little hind-legs began to work like pistons, and his fore-paws to knead and pound ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... answered Alphonse, hurriedly. He reached him the paper, and at the same time got hold of Charles's thumb. He pressed it and ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... Colin's father, however, with thumb on the brake of the reel, gave him absolutely no leeway, and the tuna was stopped within twenty feet, to be reeled in again. In the meantime, the gaffer had recovered his weapon, and as the big fish was brought to the side of the boat, he struck again, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... utmost skill. The arrangement of the hair is characteristic of the age of the Antonines, and differs but little from the coiffure of Faustina the elder. The doll was probably dressed, because in the thumb of her right hand are inserted two gold keyrings like those carried by housewives. This charming little figure, the joints of which at the hips, knees, shoulders, and elbows are still in good order, is nearly a foot high. Dolls and playthings are not peculiar to children's tombs. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... the bacon-flick, cut me a good bit; Cut, cut and low, beware of your maw; Cut, cut and round, beware of your thumb, That me and my merry men may have ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... Lamorack's ring] But amongst other of the people of the castle that passed before Sir Tristram, there came a woman, very fair to look upon, and she had been a house-slave to Sir Nabon. As this woman passed before Sir Tristram, he beheld that she wore upon her thumb a very fair and shining ring, that bare a green stone set in wrought gold. And when he looked again he saw it was that ring of carven emerald that he had given to ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... lately I knew before; all that I have thought has been but a recapitulation of old and wearisome ideas. There is no longer an horizon before my eves. Space has narrowed to the petty dimensions of my thumb. Time is the tick of a clock. Good and evil are two peas in the one pod. My wife's face is the same for ever. I want to play with the children, and yet I do not want to. Your conversation with me, brother, is like the droning of a bee in ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... this weapon. Of course it was already loaded, but, lest the night-dew might have damped the priming, he threw up the pan-cover, with his thumb-nail scraped out the powder, and then poured in a fresh supply from his horn. This he adjusted with his picker, taking care that a portion of it should pass into the touch-hole, and communicate with the charge inside. The steel was then returned to its place, and the flint duly ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... got married not long after refusing me. She married Richmond, the stone mason, who was my Methodist Sunday-school teacher in the earliest days, and he had one distinction which I envied him: at some time or other he had hit his thumb with his hammer and the result was a thumb nail which remained permanently twisted and distorted and curved and pointed, like a parrot's beak. I should not consider it an ornament now, I suppose, but it had a fascination for me then, and a vast value, because it was ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... was cocked and ready. It staggered him and he fell back, covering up. Tom pressed his advantage, showering rights and lefts everywhere he could find an opening. In desperation, his knees buckling, Roger clinched tightly, quickly brought up his open glove and gouged his thumb into Tom's eyes. Tom pulled back, instinctively pawing at his eye with his right glove. Roger, spotting the opening, took immediate advantage of it, shooting a hard looping right that landed flush on ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... been cleverly chosen; the breeches apparently buttoned closely at the knee, but in reality they were loose enough to enable a finger and thumb to be passed between them and the stocking, and in the lining of the breeches was a pocket in which the cards had been placed, being held there by two pieces of whalebone, that closed the pocket. ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... wiped the tears from her eyes on the back of her hand, a movement hampered somewhat by the fact that her handkerchief had been fashioned into a bag to hold some chocolate creams and was tied tightly to her thumb. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... see her too well because the lights were off inside the trailer. But I could tell from the way she filled up the doorway that she was big. I could make out the white blur of a cigarette in her mouth, and when she struck a match to light it—on her thumb-nail, like a man—I saw that she was fairly young and not bad-looking in a tough, sullen sort of way. The wind was blowing in my direction and it told me she'd had a drink recently, gin, by ...
— To Remember Charlie By • Roger Dee
... intermediate in character between that of the Galapagos and of Tahiti; but this will convey a definite idea to very few persons. It is a very pleasant country, but it has not the charms of Tahiti, or the grandeur of Brazil. The next day I ascended La Pouce, a mountain so called from a thumb-like projection, which rises close behind the town to a height of 2,600 feet. The centre of the island consists of a great platform, surrounded by old broken basaltic mountains, with their strata dipping seawards. The central platform, formed of comparatively recent streams of lava, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... her. He disengaged her arm and stepped briskly away. Then he whirled on them, smiling sardonically, and started to speak, but instead looked with distaste at the chattering Geiger counter he held between fingers and thumb. ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... it ain't no dispute," insisted the man. "She"—jerking his thumb toward the woman—"thinks she ain't goin to get my week's wages, and I know darn well she ain't. Where's ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... time Nicklaus was nothing loth to show his papers, which were quite in rule. He even held them, with a thumb and finger separating the folds, ready to be presented to his questioner. The hesitation came from a feeling of wounded vanity, which would gladly show that one of his local importance and known substance was to be exempt ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... With his thumb and two fingers extended in recognition of the Trinity, and at the same time showing the ring of St. Peter which he always wears, the Pope, followed by the ecclesiastic procession, passes down the nave between the files of soldiers, ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... "Thrala is not to know. Assemble the Council tonight. Meanwhile, see that he," he jerked his thumb toward Garin, "does not leave ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... to gambling, it would seem," the valet went on. "And, moreover, she is under the thumb of a third-rate actor in a suburban theatre, whom, for decency's sake, she calls her godson. She is a first-rate cook, it would seem, and wants ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... had taken off with the intention of returning it to its owner, still remained between his thumb and finger; and as he sat under the gloom of the altar, its excellent brilliancy caught his eye. He had never examined it minutely. It was pure as virtue, and possessed similar power to charm the dusky air into seven-hued beauty. A fountain of lustre continually ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... has plagued the pomologist for a great many years, and one in which we made little progress, with apples for example, until with hormone sprays the trees could be thinned very early in the year. Any thinning done after the fruit was the size of your thumb was too late. However, now that the fruit can be thinned when it is very young, real progress is being made in securing annual bearing on varieties that previously were a serious ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... St. Peter Martyr are: a pen-and-ink sketch in the Louvre showing the assassin chasing the companion of the victim; another, also in the Louvre, in which the murderer gazes at the saint lying dead; yet another at Lille, containing on one sheet thumb-nail sketches of (or from) the attendant friar, the actual massacre, and the angels in mid-air. At the British Museum is the drawing of a soldier attacking the prostrate Dominican, which gives the impression of being an adaptation or variation of that drawing by Titian for the fresco ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... Pacolet river, near the place where the late Dr. Bivings erected a factory, Col. Johnston, in a skirmish, had a personal rencontre with Patrick Moore, a Tory officer, whom he finally overpowered and captured. In the contest he received several sword cuts on his head, and on the thumb of the right hand. As he was bearing his prisoner to the Whig lines, a short distance off, he was rapidly approached by several British troopers. He then immediately attempted to discharge his loaded musket against his assailants, but unfortunately it missed fire, in consequence of blood flowing ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... out of sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery now on my mind, was thinking of all the sad business, with only a little girl in the back kitchen come in to muck up the dishes, there appeared a good knock at the garden door, and I knew it for the thumb of the Captain. I locked the young girl up, by knowing what their tongues are, and then I let your father in, and the candle-sight of him made my ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... quite unnecessary, for you must speedily have recognized the fact, but here let me boast for a line or two of my one accomplishment, which is mathematical accuracy. When I make experiments I don't note the result by rule of thumb. My answer to the ferret-faced man ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... which was otherwise clear of patients (for they were all out), there was a poor little dark-chinned, meagre man, with a perplexed brow and a pensive face, stooping low over the matting on the floor, and picking out with his thumb and forefinger the course of its fibres. The afternoon sun was slanting in at the large end-window, and there were cross patches of light and shade all down the vista, made by the unseen windows and the open doors of the little sleeping-cells on either side. In about the centre ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... that 'beautiful garden.' On the 14th he received a visit from Duke John Frederick and Count Albert of Mansfeld upon their return from the Diet. The former brought him the signet ring, which, however, was too large even for his thumb; he remarked that lead, not gold, was fitting for him. He only wished he could see his other friends also escaped from Augsburg; and although the Duke was ready to take him away with him, he preferred to ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... says the little interpreter after a snappy French salute which is recognized by a slight motion of the colonel's thumb in the general direction of his ear. "Ze sarzhont, she say, zat ze French man will please to have ze tobak, ze masheen gun ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... who spoke, as he jerked his thumb towards the Gorge. "Yes, it's got to go through to-night, or it's all up. The water's falling off fast, and if we wait till to-morrow, we'll wait till next fall. I've always said there should be ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... ballast. I did not so much desire the taste of it as the feel of it. So I summoned Lubly—he, at least, did not smile at me in that patronizing, significant way—and ordered a dinner that included nearly everything on the dinner card except Lubly's thumb. The dinner was brought to me in relays and I ate it—ate it all! This step I know now was ill-advised. It is true that for a short time I felt as I imagine a python in a zoo feels when he is full of guinea-pigs—sort ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... under the tongue of the dead; I remembered, too, that among that very nation whose language had afforded the motto, to "turn up the thumb" (pollicem vertere) was a symbol significant of death. I touched the under surface of my tongue with the tip of my thumb. The aged man was appeased. I passed on, and ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... building trades come out?" he demanded wrathfuly of the obscurity that veiled the ways of living and the world. "But no; O'Brien won't stand for a strike, and he has the Building Trades Council under his thumb. But why don't they chuck him and come out anyway? We'd win hands down all along the line. But no, O'Brien's got their goat, an' him up to his dirty neck in politics an' graft! An' damn the Federation of Labor! If all the railroad boys had come out, wouldn't the shop men have won instead ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... Cousin Bill J., in a voice meant to convey the augustness of Deity, "thou shalt kill the ram and take of his blood and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot." So you didn't have to wash all over in the blood. He agreed with Clytie, who remarked that no one could ever have found out how to do it right unless God ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... to be seen that Mr. Forbes was under the thumb of his secretary. And this was true. Lewis Fenn had held his position for a long time, and his services were invaluable to Jefferson Forbes. It was necessary that the collector should have a reliable, responsible and capable ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... learnt anything in the navy when I was a youngster, except a little rule-of-thumb mathematics. One picked up a sort of smattering of a language or two knocking about the world, but no grammatical knowledge, nothing scientific. If a boy doesn't get a method, he is beating to windward in a crank craft all his life. He hasn't ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... I refuse when I know your fame as a cook?" he said with a smile at Becky and a wink at Chris, and put his horny forefinger and thumb the distance of a thread apart. "But a crumb, Mistress Becky. A morsel. A taste. Just to pay my respects to ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... Stephen in the classic rhyme, to "p'int de gun, pull on de trigger." But since the ordinary pull is a jerk that affects the aim, some genius has invented the new method. So we are taught first to grip the small of the stock with the full hand, the thumb along the side, and with the forefinger to take up the slack of the trigger till it engages the mechanism, and then to take a little more, till presently the gun will go off. At this point, while using the sling to secure a good aim, the shooter should squeeze, that is, he should slowly and ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... of the delicately embroidered collar, a thumb and finger on either side. "I guess it ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... hand and the thumb of your left hand in your waistcoat pocket. You are polished and cool, and have an irreproachable repose of manner. There are no improper wrinkles in your cravat; your shirt-bosom does not bulge; the trowsers are accurate about your admirable boot. But you look very stiff and ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... Shakespeare, amongst whom Henry V made a very distinguishing appearance. While my eyes were fixed on that monarch a very small spirit came up to me, shook me heartily by the hand, and told me his name was THOMAS THUMB. I expressed great satisfaction in seeing him, nor could I help speaking my resentment against the historian, who had done such injustice to the stature of this great little man, which he represented to be no bigger than a span, whereas I plainly perceived at first sight ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... pretty large Mouths; their Lips thin and red, their Teeth black, yet very sound, their Hair black and straight, the colour of their Skin tawney, but inclining to a brighter yellow than some other Indians, especially the Women. They have a Custom to wear their Thumb-nails very long, especially that on their left Thumb, for they do never cut it but scrape it often. They are indued with good natural Wits, are ingenious, nimble, and active, when they are minded; but generally very lazy and thievish, and will not work except forced by Hunger. This laziness is natural ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... to the method of applying these lotions. Two persons will be required in order to accomplish the operation. The surgeon must hold the muzzle of the dog with one hand, and have the root of the ear in the hollow of the other, and between the first finger and the thumb. The assistant must then pour the liquid into the ear; half a tea-spoonful will usually be sufficient. The surgeon, without quitting the dog, will then close the ear, and mould it gently until the liquid has insinuated itself as deeply as possible into the passages ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... horrible fears lest it should slip out or be stolen, and so he must take the box to the window and let the moonlight shine upon the fleecy cotton, and find that it is still there, and cover it safely over again and creep back to bed, wishing that he might see a "thumb's bigness of burnished plumage" sheltering it with her speck of a breast. Ah! to have a little humming-bird's egg to love, and to feel that it was his very own, was something to Timothy, as it is ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... mushrooms in the omelet, mushrooms in the stewed kidneys, mushrooms in the filet. But so much the better! They are very fond of them. And the good wine! The dear child is almost intoxicated at dessert! She takes it into her head to squeeze a cherry-stone between her thumb and first finger and makes it pop-slap! into her husband's face! And the naughty creature laughs! But he will have his revenge—wait a little! He rises, and leaning over the table buries two fingers between her collar and her neck, and the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... in an hour. The sense perception was the same in both persons at first, but the reception given to the idea by one converts it into a lasting treasure. A little lamp-black, rolled up between finger and thumb, suggested to Edison his carbon points for the electric light. A piece of lamp-black would produce no such effect in most peoples minds. The difference is in the reception accorded to an idea. The meaning and importance of an idea or event depend upon the ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... sends me a nice ring for my finger, or thumb, with a big orange in it instead of a diamond, I'll tell you next about ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... the stockwhip stirred threateningly, and the hymn was almost lost in the agitation of the worshippers. Chris remained silent, and Harry, who had taken the book again, had shifted his stern eyes to the slim white thumb beside his broad brown one. A stifled sob at his side startled him, and he turned a swift glance upon the face of his companion. That one glance, the first, left his brave resolution shaken ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... gallon of water for twenty minutes, add fifty gallons of clear water, and syringe the plants about noon once or twice from the middle to the end of June. When once the grub has made a home, it should be crushed by pinching the leaf between the finger and thumb, or the injured portions of the leaves should be cut out and burned. In doing this it must always be remembered that the leaves are as much needed by the plant as the roots, and every leaf removed tends to diminish the vigour of the plant. Our illustration shows the Celery Fly ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... his knees. "But you have not told her!" he said, recovering his natural voice, although still anxious, and jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "Consider, my child, that I am old and shall doubtless perish on the way. What would become of my soul in such a case? For now you have told her everything, and it ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... huge quarter-master, whose real name or nickname (I forget which) was Billy Magnus, appeared over the gangway hammocks, holding the missing urchin in his immense paw, where it squealed and twisted itself about, like Gulliver between the finger and thumb of the Brobdingnag farmer. The mother had just strength enough left to snatch her offspring from Billy, when she sank down flat on the deck, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... shreds of what might have been articles of clothing; and amongst them was a long strip of print, which had a familiar look. He picked it up and examined it closely. Then the truth flashed upon him. It was one of the strings of Marian's sun-bonnet! Holding it loosely between his finger and thumb, he gazed upon the foul green waters of the pond. Did they cover the body of his child? He had no further thought of searching the wood. With a shudder he turned away, and ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... "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
... eyes, replied with an ominous chuckle, as one who enjoys bad news: "Eh, well enough, M. Paul; but I don't like that." And, lifting an unshaven chin, he pointed over his shoulder with a long, grimy thumb to ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... Iron, four fingers wide, and a thumb thick, just like a quoit, but with a snap to it for to snap round the slave's neck. They used to do a big trade in slave-rings at the Forge here, and ship them to all parts of Old England, packed in oak sawdust. But, as I was saying, there was a farmer out of the Weald who ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder—so—at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate: 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... like a general, his eyes suddenly lighting up with the fire of inflexible will. Then he was seized with a trembling fit, and sank back in his chair. He rubbed his hands over his gray face; he clenched his fingers, and the knuckle of his thumb went to his eye and got wet in doing it. And it was all so awkward, and so boyish, and so funny, this movement of his fist and the tear-drop on his thumb, that Miss Eastman would have laughed if ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... hesitated in his answer, he was considered a boy of slow parts, and of a soul that would not aspire to honour. The answer was likewise to have a reason assigned for it, and proof conceived in few words. He whose account of the matter was wrong, by way of punishment had his thumb bit by the Iren. The old men and magistrates often attended these little trials, to see whether the Iren exercised his authority in a rational and proper manner. He was permitted, indeed, to inflict the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... eyed him suspiciously for a long while. At last he dropped the rifle in the hollow of his arm, keeping a ready thumb on ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... it out in a little wee false voice, as small as this"; the maestro held up his thumb and finger, with a pinch ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... then there's no accountin' for tastes, as Dr. Colles said, when he saw me bite Cusack Rooney's thumb off." ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... thee, if Sir Osmund catch thee carrying so much as a thumb-nail of Sir William's carcase, he 'll wring thy neck as wry as the chapel weathercock. My lady goes nigh crazed with his ill humours. I warrant thee, Sir William's ghost gaily snuffs up the sport. I have watched him up and down the old stairs, and once i' ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... flint, steel, and tinder. Beginning with the pipe, he filled it, and then proceeded to strike a light. Of course he found this much more difficult than he had expected. It seemed so easy in the Indian's hands—it was so very difficult in his! After skinning his knuckles, however, chipping his thumb-nail, and knocking the flint out of his hand several times, he succeeded in making the right stroke, and a shower ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... the birds roosting on the topmost branches of the highest trees, as he stood up, without being at the trouble to climb. And if he had at any time taken a fancy to one of the same trees for a walking stick, he would have had no more to do than to pluck it up with his thumb and finger and strip down the leaves and twigs with the palm of ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Sevres and Dresden porcelain, and a large marble statue of a Roman goddess, are of doubtful appropriateness. Ranged on a table at the back of the altar are seven images of Buddha in pure gold, the right hand of each pointed upward. On the thumb and fingers of each hand glitters a king's ransom in rings of sapphires, emeralds and rubies, while from the center of each palm flashes a rosette of diamonds. High up toward the rafters, at the apex of the golden pyramid, in a sort of recess toward ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... away any too easily, Sam. Things are in a fearful snarl. But I telephoned to Mr. Powell, the lawyer, to look after matters during my absence. I think we've got those brokers under our thumb—at least I hope so. But if we haven't, we stand to lose a ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... is only a water-bug," he observed, rescuing the insect upon his thumb-nail. "You need not have been frightened, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... also boasts in his History of the Devil. Alas, of the table we must admit eppur si muove; it moves, or is believed by foreign savants to move, for a peasant medium, Eusapia Paladino. Mr. Lecky declares (1865) that Church miracles have followed Hop o' my Thumb; they are lost, with no track of white pebbles, in the forest of Rationalism. {26a} And then Lourdes comes to contradict his expectation, and Church miracles are as common as blackberries. Enfin, mankind, in the whole course of its history, has never got quit of experiences which, ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... they will pluck out the heart not of Hamlet's but of Shakespeare's mystery by the means of a metrical test; and this test is to be applied by a purely arithmetical process. It is useless to pretend or to protest that they work by any rule but the rule of thumb and finger: that they have no ear to work by, whatever outward show they may make of unmistakable ears, the very nature of their project gives full and damning proof. Properly understood, this that they call the metrical test ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... he thought, "or I should hear him crashing through the reeds and bushes. No, it must be one of those loathsome great efts, the scaly slimy brutes, crawling softly;" and at the very thought of it he pressed thumb and finger upon cock and trigger of his piece twice over so as to prepare for action without the premonitory click that accompanied ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... mosquitoes, and surrounded by the curious natives, who showed us where to find wood and water, and brought us the most beautiful spring salmon, and potatoes so tender and fine that the skin could be rubbed from them with the thumb. They were exactly like new potatoes in the States. Out of this, it may be well understood, we had a most satisfying dinner. Summer was in full tide. Pieplant was two feet high, and strawberries ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... much sympathy from the police, Brisley," he declared. "That one's almost as bad as him," jerking his thumb in the direction ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... children in dirty frocks darted, screaming, out of the asylum thus offered to me. I mentioned my name, as soon as I could make myself heard. The maid appeared to be terrified at the length of it. I gave her my card. The maid took it between a dirty finger and thumb—looked at it as if it was some extraordinary natural curiosity—turned it round, exhibiting correct black impressions in various parts of it of her finger and thumb—gave up understanding it in despair, and left the room. She was stopped ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... that the rhymed heroics, in which the Maydes Metamorphosis is mainly written, bear strong traces of Day's style; and as Mr. Gosse, who is at once a poet and a critic, judges by his ear and not by his thumb, his opinion carries weight. Day's capital work, the Parliament of Bees, is incomparably more workmanlike than the Maydes Metamorphosis; but the latter, it should be remembered, is beyond all doubt a very juvenile performance. Turning over some old numbers of a magazine, I found ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... Moses, twitching his left ear with his thumb in a Hebraic manner and shooting his shining cuffs; "mother's on the trail. Doves for a bishop and the little mangel-wurzel for the labouring man. Clever mother! She'll take care it's suitable. Is it a haggis, mother, hovering over the ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... first of it my uncle called for his dram, he would never fail to catch the bar-maid's hand, squeeze it under the table, with his left eyelid falling and his displaced jaw solemnly ajar, informing her the while, behind his thumb and forefinger, the rest of that hand being gone, that I was a devil of a teetotaler: by which (as I thought, and, I'll be bound, he knew well I would think) my years were excused and I was admitted to the company of whiskered skippers upon a footing of equality. ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... stepped forward, stooped down suddenly over Pegg, his right hand resting upon the fold of the sarong which covered the hilt of his kris, and with his left thumb he roughly raised the young private's eyelids one ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... sneak Merry," Spellman answered. "He thinks that he may be ordered off in the boat, and is shamming sick to escape, as if such a hop-o'-my-thumb as he is could be of ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... as he broke a sucker into short pieces between his thumb and finger, "yer's got ter hab de sile; but ther's a heap mo' jes ez good terbacker lan' ez dis, ef people only hed the patience ter wuk ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... proceeded to remove his vest. Again the telephone rang. Jimmie Dale took off his curious, pocketed leather belt—as the telephone repeated its summons. He picked out the little drill he had used a short while before, and inspected it critically—feeling its point with his thumb, as one might feel a razor's blade. Again the telephone rang insistently. He reached languidly for the receiver, took it off its hook, and held it to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... cabin that my last husband, in his grave 'most six months now, left me." She wiped the tears from her eyes on the back of her hand, a movement hampered somewhat by the fact that her handkerchief had been fashioned into a bag to hold some chocolate creams and was tied tightly to her thumb. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... on the very day after I wrote my last letter to you, as I was whetting my scythe for the last swath of the season, my hat half fell off, and suddenly raising my hand to catch it, I thrust it against the scythe and cut my thumb just upon the joint. It has healed, but I shall never find it quite as agile as formerly. I could not use the hand—my right hand—for more than a fortnight. It was like losing a sense to lose its use. After a week of inaction in Concord, I went to Rhode Island and remained three weeks, and am now ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... small spherical nut, not unlike a nutmeg, and somewhat hard and tough. Having picked some leaves, he took one of them, and produced from his pocket a small piece of lime about the size of a pea. This he mixed with some of the nut, and enclosed in the leaf. He then took the roll between his thumb and forefinger, and rubbed it violently against the front of his gums, his teeth being closed and his lips open. After this, he began to chew it for some time, and then held it between his lips and teeth, a portion ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... grandmother uttering a half suppressed shriek at the report. When the smoke cleared away, the professor was holding the ring between his thumb and finger, quite uninjured. ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... each, you will find them useful in all sorts of places. When you buy them, see that they are elastic and firm, that they come naturally and easily to a good point, without any scraggy hairs. Test them by moistening them, and then pressing the point on the thumb-nail. They should bend evenly through the whole length of the hair. Reject any which seem "weak in the back." If it lays flat toward the point and bends all in one place near the ferrule, it ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... the prisoner whilst the long piece of iron was heated red hot, so that the letter denoting 'Malefactor' could be impressed. The brander, after doing his fiery task, examined the hand, and on a good impression being made on the brawny part running from the thumb, would turn to the judge and exclaim—'A fair ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... rubber tube flat in the bottom of a pan of water, so that the tube will be filled with water. Let one end stay under water, but pinch the other end tightly shut with your thumb and finger and lift it out of the pan. Lower this closed end into a sink or empty pan that is lower than the pan of water. Now stop pinching the tube shut. This device is called ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... his right hand. His little finger held the standing end of the rope, the third and middle finders supported the coil, and the noose dangled from his first finger, while his thumb steadied the whole rope and held it from slipping. The coils were not more than a foot or a foot and a half in diameter. The noose was ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... but a son, no matter if he were no bigger than my goodman's thumb," said the poor woman, "we should ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... the ramrod having at its other extremity a sheep-skin mop, larger than the bore of the piece, and called "a sponge." This instrument, before loading, is invariably used, whilst the touch-hole or "vent" is covered by the thumb of the gunner especially numbered off for this important duty; and the air being thus excluded, the fire, which often remains within the bore, attached to either portions of cartridge-case or wadding, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... will. Middleton, who had as yet no English title, was created Earl of Monmouth. Perth, who had stood high in the favour of his late master, both as an apostate from the Protestant religion, and as the author of the last improvements on the thumb screw, took the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... correspondent, "seems to have survived in popular belief in the Eastern and Middle States of the United States. In police-courts in New York, for example, it has been unsuccessfully pleaded that a man is entitled to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. In Pennsylvania actual acquittals ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... horoscope, destiny is to chance. The black star Erlik rushed through interstellar darkness unseen; those born under its violent augury squalled in their cradles, or, thumb in mouth, slumbered the dreamless slumber ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... these matters. But among them was a Gaster who was calmer than the swearer, and more prudent and conciliating than those he swore against. Hearing this objurgation, he went blandly up to the sacred porker, and, lifting the flap of his right ear between forefinger and thumb with all delicacy and gentleness, thus whispered into it: "You do not in your heart believe that any of us are such fools as to sell our gods, at least while we have such a reserve ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... his bed, he tried to enumerate on his fingers the young men who remained unpledged. Starting with his thumb he got as far as the third finger of his left hand and then, being sleepy and the effort a trying one, he lost track of those already counted and had to begin all over again, with the maddening result that he could ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... one of them took a purse out of his bosom and showed it to Sancho, by which he comprehended they were asking for money, and putting his thumb to his throat and spreading his hand upwards he gave them to understand that he had not the sign of a coin about him, and urging Dapple forward he broke through them. But as he was passing, one of them who had been examining him very closely ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... had all lent an ear and listened, Lin Tai-y was the first to smile and make a remark. "It's your nurse having a row with Hsi Jen!" she said. "Hsi Jen treats her well enough, but that nurse of yours would also like to keep her well under her thumb; she's indeed an old dotard;" and Pao-y was anxious to go over at once, but Pao-ch'ai laid hold of him and kept him back, suggesting: "It's as well that you shouldn't wrangle with your nurse, for she's quite stupid from old age; and it's but fair, on the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... mechanic who is not prepared to tackle the new problems that will arise. For all this next century this particular body of mechanics will be picking up new recruits and eliminating the incompetent and the rule-of-thumb sage. Can it fail, as the years pass, to develop certain general characters, to become so far homogeneous as to be generally conscious of the need of a scientific education, at any rate in mechanical and chemical matters, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... September was the chief item on the bulletin yesterday. We're short on things to read. Scraps of newspapers are devoured, even to the advertisements. In our cabin we have a "Saturday Evening Post" of September 26th which is thumb-marked and torn, but it is still treasured. We were not allowed to bring anything besides our kit on board on ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... to myself that I was young. I turned to speak to my hostess, but she was gone on business of her own. So there I stood for half an hour, biting my thumb. I had as yet seen nothing of the mysterious Ellen, although many a score of eyes, in license of the carnival, had flashed through their masks at me, and many others as their owners passed by in the dance or promenade near where ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... for Mistress May'ress; She's little as the Queen of Fairies: Her little Body like my Thumb, Is thicker far than other some; Her Conscience yet would stretch so wide; } Either on this, or t'other Side, } That none could tell when ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... count the stitches frequently, that you may have them even, allowing 3 for the ribs and 7 plain, whenever you begin the fan, so that there will be 3 fans on each needle. When you have 4 or 5 rounds of fans, begin the thumb by bringing the silk forward, and knitting a stitch, which increases 1; then knit a plain stitch, and increase the same as before. This do every other row, till you have as many as you think enough—say ...
— Exercises in Knitting • Cornelia Mee
... I dassn't use 'em. Ain't learned de thumb twist yit, an' dey sho' means trouble is ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... back—that's him there, talkin' to the guy with the fur on his jaw," informed the barkeeper, making a gesture with his thumb. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... their piety, their piety; weel, let's luke at it; hing it up by the nape o' the neck, and turn it round atween our finger and thumb on ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the books, this piece of knowledge was not thought of as learning; it had merely been acted upon during some centuries. But such knowledge exists, boundless, in whatever direction one follows it: the knowledge of fitting means to ends: excellent rule-of-thumb knowledge, as good as the chemist uses for analyzing water. When the peculiar values of a plot of land have been established—as, for instance, that it is a clay 'too strong' for bricks—then further forms of localized knowledge are brought to supplement this, until at last ...
— Progress and History • Various
... which it is impossible to render in English. "Les toilettes terminees, le dejeuner fini, pris sur le pouce—et sur le pouce de ces demoiselles vous pensez ce qu'il peut tenir," etc., that is to say: "the breakfast at an end, taken upon the thumb—and you can imagine how much the thumbs of those young ladies would hold." To eat sur le pouce (eat upon the thumb) means to eat hastily, without taking time ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... after a while, "yes, Tertius, I certainly see distinct thumb and finger-marks round the upper part of this glass. Oh, yes—no ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... think there's some imp inside of my head trying to push my right eye out with his thumb. Anyway ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... into bones and leather waiting for them with his own Hard Cash, and with theirs; for, creeping awestruck round that mummified figure seated dead on his pool of sovereigns, they soon noticed in his left hand a paper: it was discoloured by the vapour, and part hid by the dead thumb; but thus much shone out clear and amazing, that it was a banker's receipt to David Dodd, Esq., for L. 14,010, drawn at Barkington, and signed for Richard Hardie by Noah Skinner. Julia had drawn back, and was hiding her face; but soon curiosity struggled ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... tray and flicked the fair head admonishingly, with his thumb, still frowning. "Come! ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... principles? if so, a profession of political faith would certainly be useless and premature. As to the advice not to lose or allow to be stolen the money in my possession, do you not think that that is making me rather juvenile? I feel an inclination to suck my thumb and cry for a rattle. However, I shall let myself go with the current that is bearing me along, and, notwithstanding the news of your coming arrival, after paying a visit to the Brothers Mongenod, I shall valiantly start, imagining the stupefaction of ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... people owe their homely mouths to infantile habits. Sucking the thumb, and these horrible "pacificators" or "baby comforters" are responsible for some ill-shaped mouths. A large mouth, if not malformed, is not ugly unless filled with bad teeth or set in a disagreeable expression. Thus, in a way, we mould this feature ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... deck beneath us, grasps one of these loaves and begins to finger it with a view to purchase; we cannot see the owner of the hand, but we can see his fingers feeling cautiously all around that loaf; he nips it between finger and thumb, he prods it, kneads it, rubs it, and finally, when no inch of it has been untouched, he hands over reluctantly a small coin ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... his hands, the thumb-knuckles to his lips again. There sounded two deep, long-drawn, half-roaring, thrilling notes, for all the world like steam in the cup ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... Arthur's hand, and pressed hard with his powerful thumb and forefinger upon the edges of ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... seen in the prejudice against sitting down thirteen to dinner, spilling the salt, and not throwing a little of it over the left shoulder. Ferdinand I., the King of Naples, in passing through the streets, perpetually put one hand into his pockets to cross the thumb over the finger in order to avert the influence ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... it to him. He took it, turned it over, looked at the policeman half frightened, and pointed with his fat thumb at Mackaye. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Why did I let such a handful as Mrs. Jiro slip through my fingers the other day? Clue! Why, it was a perfect bale of cotton. If I had only followed her instead of that little rat, her husband, we would now know where the third man lives, and have the murderer of Sir Alan under our thumb. It is all my fault, though sometimes I feel inclined to blame the police system—a system that won't even give us telephones between one station and another. Never mind. Wait till I tackle the next job for the Yard. I'll show 'em a trick ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... then was silent for a minute, and his better nature overcoming his angry feelings, he produced a snuff-box and offered it to me. The snuff-box is the olive-branch of the Portuguese, and he who wishes to be on good terms with them must never refuse to dip his finger and thumb into it when offered. I took therefore a huge pinch, though I detest the dust, and we were soon on the best possible terms. He was eager to obtain news, especially from Lisbon and Spain. I told him that the officers of the troops at Lisbon had, the day before I left that ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... cane cultivated, but that grown in the valley of Pampanga is thought to be the best. It is a small, red variety, from four to five feet high, and not thicker than the thumb. The manufacture of the sugar is rudely conducted; and the whole business, I was told, was in the hands of a few capitalists, who, by making advances, secure the whole crop from those who are employed to bring it ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... in lip, and plugged that bubbling hole with his thumb. Shawnee was dying, but he was still on his feet, and he could be headed away from the carnage in that water. Drew, his face sick and white, turned the horse toward the ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... I had not got the match to light. As I opened the box again to get another, I did not insert finger and thumb till they got a good rub on my jacket to free them from the dampness caused by holding on to the wet stones. Now, as I struck, there was a sharp crackling noise, and the light flashed out, caught on, and the match burned bravely, giving me light enough to look for the tin ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... on, folded the papers, and held them out between finger and thumb. 'The—handwriting...' she remarked ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... a sweltering day, the air breathless, the glare intense—one loses sight of the fact that the temperature is low [-22 deg.], one's mind seeks comparison in hot sunlit streets and scorching pavements, yet six hours ago my thumb was frost-bitten. All the inconveniences of frozen footwear and damp clothes and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... not content with sober, sad, deliberate falsehood; he resorted to ridicule. He pulled comical and ugly faces; put out his tongue; put his thumb to his nose; threw orange peel at me; and said and did other things which it is not lawful for ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... not turn round, but pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at the house he had just left. "That ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... dress torn to shreds, a scratch on her arm, and a bruise on her forehead, but delighted that she had given such a gay supper and flattered with the idea of its being the talk the next day."—This is the result of a craving for amusement. Under its pressure, as under the sculptor's thumb, the face of the century becomes transformed and insensibly loses its seriousness; the formal expression of the courtier at first becomes the cheerful physiognomy of the worldling, and then, on these smiling lips, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... turned her head, regarded her fixedly a moment, and then pressing her hand between her thumb and forefinger she rejoined with as little ceremony as though they had met the day before: "Moufflard does very poorly indeed, my dear. He died two months ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... then the all in two pockets, knife, purse, match-box—surely this trail was an improvement on Tom Thumb's' bread crumbs. One foot was out of the stirrup. I wrapped the reins around the pommel and clung on. There is a gopher hole—that means a broken leg for him, a clavicle and a few ribs for me. No; ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... be outdone. His apartments were only a few feet above the ground. He opened the window accordingly, leaped out into the court, and arrived thus at the entrance-door before the Rhingrave, who thought the devil must have carried him there. The Duc de Coislin, however, had managed to put his thumb out of joint by this leap. He called in Felix, chief surgeon of the King, who soon put the thumb to rights. Soon afterwards Felix made a call upon M. de Coislin to see how he was, and found that the cure was perfect. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... next two yielded projectile-type handguns for ten men, with ammunition, and standard Planeteer space knives. The space knives had hidden blades, which were driven forth violently when the operator pushed a thumb lever, releasing the gas in a cartridge contained in the handle. The blades snapped forth with enough force to break a bubble or to cut through a space suit. They were designed for the sole ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... of triumph, my father caught away his hand, dipped it swiftly into the pan of water beside him, and held the bullet aloft between thumb and forefinger. The Corsicans broke into quick guttural cries, as men hailing a miracle. As Nat's head fell back limp against my shoulder I saw the Princess turn and walk away alone. Her followers dispersed by degrees, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... stout and short, the muzzle sharper than that of the beaver, and the whiskers very long and stiff. There are, as in the beaver, two incisor teeth, and eight molar, above and below—twenty teeth in all. The limbs are short. The fore feet have each five fingers not webbed, the thumb being very small: the hind feet have the same number of toes; the great toe and three next toes being joined by a web which extends to their ends, and the little toe being free, but edged with a membrane ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... probably see that Nature has been very kind to you in the matter of good looks; nor are you by any means deficient in brains. Your cousin George is very fond of a pretty woman, and, to be plain, what I want you to do is to make use of your advantages to get him under your thumb and persuade him into selling ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... bag, and the woman took twelve of 'em fur her kittle, and ye can't make three taters look act'ally crowded in two gallons of soup, can ye, Bill?" And the old man punched that personage in the ribs with the thumb of the hand that was free from service, while he kept the ladle ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... upon the ground, Harming none, and sucked his thumb, Gazing with a look profound Upon Glooskap ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... whirl on the top, and at the other end were brought to a point like a large sail needle. They had no eyelets to receive a thread. The top of one of these needles was handsomely scalloped; a hand-piece made of deer-skin, with a hole through it for the thumb, and designed probably to protect the hand in the use of the needle, the same as thimbles are now used; two whistles about eight inches long made of cane, with a joint about one third the length; over the joint is an opening extending to each side of the tube of the ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... our gentlemen had practised on their arms, is very expeditiously managed by passing a needle and thread (the latter covered with lamp-black and oil) under the epidermis, according to a pattern previously marked out upon the skin. Several stitches being thus taken at once, the thumb is pressed upon the part while the thread is drawn through, by which means the colouring matter is retained, and a permanent dye of a blue tinge imparted to the skin. A woman expert at this business ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... of Solander. The stem of this remarkable seaweed, though but the thickness of a man's thumb, is often over one hundred and thirty yards in length, perhaps the longest of any known plant. It grows on every rock in Fuegian waters, from low-water mark to a depth of fifty or sixty fathoms, and among the most violent breakers. Often loose stones are raised ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... down at his fingers, which shone green and purple in the vivid light thrown by the tuned-in pin-set, and counted ships. The thumb for the Andromeda, lost with crew and passengers, the index finger and the middle finger for Release Ships 43 and 56, found with their pin-sets burned out and every man, woman, and child on board dead or insane. The ring finger, the little finger, and the thumb ...
— The Game of Rat and Dragon • Cordwainer Smith
... doorbell!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "I know him! He lives just around the corner from me. Bless my very thumb prints!" ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... round little stomach in a gray sack-suit; round dumplings of feet in congress shoes that were never quite fresh-blacked or quite dusty. A harassed, honorable, studious, ignorant, humorless, joke-popping, genuinely conscientious thumb of a man. His ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... were sweet songlets to him now? It being a mild autumn day, Phil sat at the open window, from which he had many a time seen the old Doctor jogging past in his chaise, and sometimes the tall Almira picking her maidenly way along the walk with her green parasol daintily held aloft with thumb and two fingers, while from the lesser fingers dangled a little embroidered bag which was the wonder of all the school-girls. Other times, too, from this eyrie of his, he had seen Adele tripping past, with Reuben beside her, and had wondered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... and again she would pinch her eyelids softly with her thumb and ring-finger, as one who is deep in thought. But when Marian paused for breath, she turned to her, and ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... twenty thousand dollars, with coupons attached," he said, running his thumb around the edge of the four bonds. "Better get an expert to peel them off for you. Mister Morin was all right. I'm going out to get ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... a large business. Establishments are made at several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places of deposit are strongly built, and well supplied with iron thumb-screws and gags, and ornamented with catskins and other ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... large cow-fish which came sweeping by on our quarter, its snout and shining body rising just above the surface, when I heard a loud cry from Tom, and I saw him with one hand in the turtle's hammock dancing up and down, and crying lustily, 'Quick, quick! if you don't, he will have my thumb off.' ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... which the carpenters had just nailed up, freshly painted and newly repaired. This poet was stretched upon his back, eating, in that convenient posture, his dinner out of an earthen pot, plucking the viand from it, whatever it was, with his thumb and fore-finger, and dropping it piecemeal into his mouth. When the passer asked him "Where are you from?" he held a morsel in air long enough to answer "Da Lucca, signore," and then let it fall into his throat, and sank deeper into a reverie in which that crude accent even must have sounded ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... turned faint, so faint indeed that he did not dare to keep his feet, but sank into a sitting posture, resting his back against the stone of the idol's thumb. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... volumes lent to him, was careful about the cleanliness of his own books. Boswell found him one day with big gloves on his hands beating the dust out of his library, as was his custom. There is nothing so hideous as a dirty thumb-mark on a white page. These marks are commonly made, not because the reader has unwashed hands, but because the dust which settles on the top edge of books falls in, and is smudged when they are opened. Gilt-top edges should be smoothed with ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... ruminating aloud, stripping with his thumb nail the bark from a small branch which he ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... the other gentlemen, to examine the papers and other articles taken from the assassin. The pistol with which he had done the deed was lying upon the floor; a naked poniard, which he would probably have used also, had his thumb not been blown off by the discharge of the pistol, was found in his trunk hose. In his pockets were an Agnus Dei, a taper of green wax, two bits of hareskin, two dried toads—which were supposed to be sorcerer's charms—a, crucifix, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... any one, either present or absent. The name of the lady or gentleman to whom reference is made should be repeated if necessary, but under no circumstances should the words "she" or "he," accompanied by a nod or jerk of the thumb, in the direction of the person spoken of, be employed. Never talk of any one with whom you may have held intercourse as "that party," or "a party" of ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... the sense of being moved or used. The commentator adds that the sacred thread also should be wound round the thumb, as ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... man rolled it slowly round between his thumb and forefinger, and then laid it down. "It is a No. 32 ball, usually sold with the small pistol made by ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... letters asking about sucking the thumb, as introduced by dainty Miss Vanity Vaux in Draw it mild, Daisy. Only the tip of the thumb should be sucked; those of you who put the whole thumb into your mouths must not complain if you see smiles exchanged round you. Where the eyes are large and widely opened and the right cast of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... Icy Mountains," which he played very sweetly on the accordion. Captain Kettle might be very keen after business, but at the same time it could never be laid to his charge that he was ever forgetful of the duty he owed to the souls of these heathen who came under his masterful thumb. ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... many a frisk Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy. Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught But now and then with pressure of his thumb To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud Streams far behind him, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... my valise an' my heart goin' like a farrier's forge on a Saturday morning? 'Twas "Good day to ye, Miss Dinah," an' "Good day t'you, corp'ril," for a week or two, and divil a bit further could I get bekaze av the respect I had to that girl that I cud ha' broken betune finger an' thumb.' ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... I do. Susy's given me five lessons. You have to sit up as straight as a pin, and count your fingers, one, two, three, four. X is your thumb." ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... rowdy, and gives it to him back, and then they get at it. Your nephew, who is a stout colt, buffets him well for a time, but Forrester, who is a mighty, powerful built fellow, he gets the better in the long run, and both come down together in the road. Then Forrester, being uppermost, sticks his thumb into Master Colleton's eye—the left eye, I think, it was—yes, the left eye it was—and the next moment it would have been out, when your nephew, not liking it, whipped out his dirk, and, 'fore Forrester could say Jack Robinson, it was playing about in his ribs; and, then comes the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... getting a strike from a swordfish that was not visible rolling on the surface. Now a flying-fish bait makes a rather heavy bait to troll; and as it is imperative to have the reel free running and held lightly with the thumb, after a few hours such trolling becomes hard work. Hard as it was, it did not wear on me like the strain of being always ready for a strike. I doubt if any ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... looks again upon Angelique, assuring himself that the slight breath had not ceased, struggling against all human emotion, as he saw how thin she was, with the beauty of an archangel, already immaterial. His voice retained the authority of a divine disinterestedness, and his thumb did not tremble when he dipped it into the sacred oils as he commenced the unctions on the five parts of the body where dwell the senses: the five windows by which evil enters into ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... the embrasure of a window, deeply engaged in examining his features in a small hand-glass which he held daintily before him. The survey seemed to please monsieur, for he showed his teeth in a simper of satisfaction, and began to curl his black moustache between the forefinger and thumb of his disengaged hand. So engrossed was he that he never observed me coming up to him, and it was not until I was at his elbow that he suddenly ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... drosera and one ounce of nux vomica; using in each case his left hand. Returning to his former position he drew with the forefinger of his left hand, on the ground, the outline of a club-foot; a hand with the fingers clenched and a long pointed thumb standing upright; and a bat. At his request Kelson and Curtis carefully imitated the devices, each in the ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... said Mrs. Petty soothingly, placing a thermometer in his mouth. "Smoke that a minute, sir. Oh! look at what this dog's brought in! Fie!" And taking the bone between thumb and finger she cast it out of the window; while Blink, aware that she was considered in the wrong, and convinced that she was in the right, spread out her left paw, laid her head on her right paw, and pressed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... understanding than Dante's, "make the angels weep." (Dante, by the way, has introduced in his heaven no such angels as those; though he has plenty that scorn and denounce.) Lope de Vega, though a poet, was an officer of the Inquisition, and joined the famous Armada that was coming to thumb-screw and roast us into his views of Christian meekness. Whether the author of the story of Paulo and Francesca could have carried the Dominican theories into practice, had he been the banisher instead of the banished, is a point that may happily be doubted; but at all events he revenged ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... put up his hand and stopped him. 'I'm not going to stand this kind of thing,' he said. The old Marquis of Auld Reekie was close at hand, the father of Lord Nidderdale, and therefore the proposed father-in-law of Melmotte's daughter, and he poked his thumb heavily into Lord Alfred's ribs. 'It is generally understood, I believe,' continued Melmotte, 'that the Emperor is to do me the honour of dining at my poor house on Monday. He don't dine there unless I'm made acquainted with him before he comes. I mean what I say. I ain't going to ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... year the majority of the trees were as dead as smelts, and the balance never had vigor enough afterward to produce a decent crop. Once before," said he, "we had a similar experience in Illinois. Put your thumb down at this place and watch for results. Do not say anything about this in your Wayside Blusterings, at least as coming from me," and of course I don't. But I wanted the readers of THE PRAIRIE FARMER to help me watch with ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... with his thumb to the woman standing by his side. She was twenty-seven perhaps, plump, and in a coarse fashion pretty. She wore a white dress and a large white hat. Her fat calves in white cotton stockings bulged over the tops of long white boots in glace ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... finance scheme of Canning contains A new Easter-offering tax; And he means to devote all the gains To a bounty on thumb-screws and racks. Your living, so neat and compact— Pray, don't let the news give you pain!— Is promised, I know for a fact, To an olive-faced Padre ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... so Kate Fox. She tried, by silently bringing together her thumb and forefinger; whether she could obtain a response. Yes! It could see, then, as well as hear. She called her mother. 'Only look, mother,' she said, bringing together again her finger and thumb, as before. And as often as she repeated the noiseless motion, ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... or otherwise undesirable taste or aroma. Texture registers more accurately the physical nature of the ripening. The cheese should not be curdy and harsh, but should yield quite readily to pressure under the thumb, becoming on manipulation waxy and plastic instead of crumbly or mealy. Body refers to the openness or closeness of the curd particles, a close, compact mass being most desirable. The color of cheese should be even, ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... already risen and with a touch of his thumb snapping out his crush hat, he opened the door of the box, saying to Sabine ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... indeed most of his unjust graspings proved failures. He at one time had thoughts of the Crown of France; "Yours I solemnly declare!" said the Pope. But that came to nothing;—only to France's shifting of the Popes to Avignon, more under the thumb of France. What his ultimate success with Tell and the Forest Cantons was, we all know! A most clutching, strong-fisted, dreadfully hungry, tough and unbeautiful man. Whom his own Nephew, at last, had to assassinate, at the Ford of the Reus (near Windisch Village, meeting of the Reus and ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... Cutter had me by the throat, there was no chance for me at all. I got hold of his thumb and bent it back, until he let go with a yell. In a bound, I was on my feet, and easily sent him sprawling to the floor. Then I made a dive for the open window, struck the wire screen, knocked it out, and tumbled ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... the embryo bunches, a number of men enter the vineyard with switches and knock off the tender ends of the runners, which in a gentler method of cultivation would be picked off with the finger and thumb-nail. Sometimes goats are turned in to nibble off the shoots in order to save labour, and at the same time to feed the animals; they of course damage the vines, but the Cypriote thinks the system pays. The young vines are never staked and tied as in Europe, but are allowed to take their chance, ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Mansfield. Her countenance expressed a dignified inquiry combined, perhaps, with a certain amount of very natural surprise at so unseemly an interruption of her strictly private interview with Claude Heath and Masterman. Her left thumb mechanically sought the shelter of her mouth, and it was obvious that she was "sizing up" Mrs. Mansfield with all the caution, if not suspicion, of the ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... two eyes in my head when I chose you, Babet, and the soft place was in my heart!" replied Jean, heartily. The compliment was taken with a smile, as it deserved to be. "Look you, Babet, I would not give this pinch of snuff," said Jean, raising his thumb and two fingers holding a good dose of the pungent dust,—"I would not give this pinch of snuff for any young fellow who could be indifferent to the charms of such a pretty lass as Angelique ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... too, taken on at the same time, a short round-looking man, with plump cheeks, and small eyes which were often mere slits in his face. He had a little soft nose, too, that looked like a plump thumb, and moved up and down and to right and left when he was intent upon his work. He was the best-tempered man in the works, and seemed to me as if he was always laughing and showing his two rows of firm ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... rubbing his thumb over the certification which blurred at the touch. "He's no painter! Why, that's a ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... reason from types or rule of thumb measurements, however suggestive, leads to indefinite conclusions. For example, the width of the type page of the S. G. issue of the first part is exactly that of the English issue of the second part, but the former has 33 tines to the page and the latter ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... the congregation are hard put to find him out when he is grimacing and gesticulating before the altar, and need all their christian faith and hope to believe him actually corporeally present; and such a hop-o'-my-thumb, such a ghostly ne'er-to-be-seen, would take the tone of a Goliah here. With thy leave, thou most invisible man of godliness, one might cut out of my nose alone as stout a pillar of the faith as thou art; and I won't reckon in the brace of humps which my ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... drawing-room, I saw long seaweeds and gigantic fuci and varech, of which the open polar sea contains so many specimens, with their sharp polished filaments; they measured about 300 yards in length—real cables, thicker than one's thumb; and, having great tenacity, they are often used as ropes for vessels. Another weed known as velp, with leaves four feet long, buried in the coral concretions, hung at the bottom. It served as nest and food for myriads of crustacea and molluscs, crabs, and cuttlefish. There seals and ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... comes on the table in a small, round pewter platter. It lies in the center of this platter, in a bordering bed of grease-soaked potatoes; it is the size, shape, and thickness of a man's hand with the thumb and fingers cut off. It is a little overdone, is rather dry, it tastes pretty insipidly, it rouses ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Satan, disapproving of the rapid conversion of the inhabitants of Antioch to Christianity, laid an egg, and hatched out a dragon, which he sent to destroy the inhabitants. But a Pagan whose Christian daughter was devoted to the dragon by lot, stole the thumb from a relic (the hand of John the Baptist), as he pretended to kiss it, and cast it into the mouth of the dragon, and blew ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... files.—Put one quart of cleared consomme to boil. Mix one egg, one dessertspoonful of flour, one tablespoonful of milk, a pinch between forefinger and thumb of salt, and a dust of pepper, into a batter, rub a nutmeg once back and forth over the grater, and stir. When the soup boils, pass this batter through a fine strainer into it. It ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... blew a long cloud and stared at the fire; at the smoke mounting and the grey ash dropping; at David Faed dealing the cards and licking his thumb between each. Long Ede shifted from one cramped elbow to another and pushed his Bible nearer the blaze, murmuring, "Take us the foxes, the little ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... far a Logician is entitled to assume that the terms he uses are understood, and that the identities involved in their meanings will be recognised. And to this question, for the sake of consistency, one of two answers is required; failing which, there remains the rule of thumb. First, it may be held that no terms are understood except those that are defined in expounding the science, such as 'genus' and 'species,' 'connotation' and 'denotation.' But very few Logicians observe this limitation; ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... your pardon—at your cost! His right hand lacks the thumb and arrow-finger, And though he vows it was a falling tree That crushed them, you may trust your Sheriff, sir, It was the law that clipped them when he last Hunted ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... will work at that pitch, and the Department has powers. There are stages of unpleasantness in the work—stoppage of food—and a man or woman who has refused to work once is known by a thumb-marking system in the Department's offices all over the world. Besides, who can leave the city poor? To go to Paris costs two Lions. And for insubordination there are the prisons—dark and miserable—out of sight below. There are prisons now ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... ashes of the old poets by perverting their sense.... At another table were seated a parcel of young, raw, second-rate beaus and wits, who were conceited if they had but the honour to dip a finger and thumb into Mr. Dryden's ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... "howlers," although they are of the same tribe as the "howling monkeys." They belong to the genus Ateles, so called because they want the thumb, and are therefore imperfect or unfinished as regards the hands. But what the ateles want in hands is supplied by another member—the tail, and this they have to all perfection. It is to them a fifth hand, and apparently more useful than ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... his leave!" the Norman retorted, indicating the Count with his thumb. "Or 'twill be up ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... settling the tobacco in his pipe with his thumb, "you can continue to—er demand, until all's blue, and I shall continue to lie here, and smoke, and gaze up at the smiling serenity ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... once more ascended the steps of his own home, he was so confident that his labors were now ended that he almost forgot about envelope No. 20, which he had been directed to read in the vestibule before entering the house. With his thumb on the bell button he recollected, and with a sigh broke open ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... catacombs, selling different-sized candles. The very poor peasants, who came barefooted, could only afford the very thin tapers, while the rich villagers, with heavy, well-made boots and much embroidery on their clothes, bought candles as thick as a man's thumb, and sometimes two or three at a time, which they held ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... lady lend me a plain gold ring?" asked the magician. One was handed to him by Placolett. He held it up between his finger and thumb. "Presto, fly!" he exclaimed, and threw it into the centre of the room. Everybody tried to catch it, but could not. It had vanished. Placolett hunted about, and at last found it under a cushion at the furthest corner ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... meeting the Board, which was often a cause of great anxiety and pain to him; for it was difficult to satisfy men of all tempers, and some of these not of the most generous sort. On such occasions he might be seen with his right-hand thumb thrust through the topmost button-hole of his coat-breast, vehemently hitching his right shoulder, as was his habit when labouring under any considerable excitement. Occasionally he would take an early ride before breakfast, to inspect the progress ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... intellectual slavery has not altogether passed, but on the higher hills already flame the harbingers of Reason's glorious morn. Gone is the Inquisition with its sacred infamies—the Christian rack is broken and the thumb-screw rusted in twain. The persuasive wheel no longer whisks the non-conformist into full communion, the Iron Virgin has ceased to press the writhing heretic to her orthodox heart. The faggot has fallen from ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... pulling out a sovereign, and with a twitch of the thumb, he sent it high in the air. "Heads, you win. Tails, I win." Then catching it as it fell: "By Jove, you have it. Present my compliments to Mistress Jean," he cried, with a grandiloquent bow, "and tell her how near she came to being Mrs. Dick ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... wanted you for the dances. We have had the Lancers twice and three round dances; and I danced the second Lancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games to amuse the children, you know," he added loftily with the adult gesture of pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the extension room. "Lottie's going to play, too, so will you and Daniel, won't you, uncle? Oh, here comes Lottie now! This is my brother, Miss Pilgrim; let me introduce him to you. I'm sure you'll like him. There's nothing he ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... started for the airport," Coburn explained, "I bent a pin around the band of a ring I wear. I could let it lie flat when I shook hands. Or I could make it stand out like a spur. I set it with my thumb. I saw Pangalos' eyes, so I had it stand out, and I made a tear in his plastic skin when I shook hands with him. He didn't feel it, of course." He paused. "Did anybody go to the ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... such an encounter for the querulous old reformer. "Mike! blast you, you booby, you've broken my drill!" And Mike, (putting his thumb deliberately in the armlet of his waistcoat,) "Meester Tull, it's not the loikes o' me'll be leestening to insoolting worrds. I'll take me money, if ye plase." And with what a fury "Meester" Tull would have slashed away, after this, at "Equivocus," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... turned the queen of hearts; and as there was only one card could beat him, the game was all as one as his own. The baron takes up the pack, and begins to deal, 'Wait,' says my master, leaning over the table, and talking in a whisper; 'wait,' says he, 'what are ye doin' there wid your thumb?' for sure enough he had his thumb dug hard into ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... 'bo," whispered McCorquodale, pointing to Stiles' victor with his thumb, "'n'en I helps Swedie, see. You grabs Jimmy on your back an' beats it fer the canoes. The girl's away already an' Swedie an' me'll join you in a jiff an' the whole bunch of us ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the dingy gold number over the burning door with the number in print on the newspaper slip held between my thumb and forefinger. Decidedly this is not one of my lucky days. The numbers correspond. But there are other addresses and I collect a series of replies. The employer in a box factory on the West Side takes my address and promises to let me know if he has a vacancy ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... knew concerning the farm and the land and the crops, and taught me not by rule of thumb, but showed me the why and wherefore of things, and opened the eyes of my understanding to notice the little things of nature as well as the great, which many people, I have found, pass all through their lives without ever ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... the oval cheeks and dewy lips that, falling half open, revealed the little glistening white teeth within. While one jeweled hand supported her beautiful head the other drooped over her reclining form, holding negligently, almost unconsciously, between thumb and ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... complexion and mumbling speech. His comrades called him "Sott" for brevity, or "Nine Eyes," not because he had nine eyes, as he had only one, but because he boasted he had "gouged" nine enemies—that is, dug out their organs of sight with thumb ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... come low," Cogswell growled unhappily. He spun on Lieutenant Colonel Warren again. "When were they invented?" He jerked his thumb upward. ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... from nowhere. He stood beside them, a living statue of Vigilant Authority. One thumb rested easily on his broad belt. The fingers of the other hand caressed lightly a moustache that had caused more heart-burnings among the gentler sex than any other two moustaches in the C-division. The eyes above the moustache were ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... only with his teeth and nails, he bit the gentleman's thumb, and wrestled with him so stoutly that they both fell down ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... and, seeing me out in the yard most ingloriously tousled, asked my good mother: "Is that your child?" Poor mother! I have often wondered how much travail of spirit it must have cost her to acknowledge me as her very own. One thumb, one great toe, and an ankle were decorated with greasy rags, and I was far from being ornamental. I had been hulling walnuts, too, and my stained hands served to accentuate the ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... clutched the sill, with the other he reached up and shifting the safety-catch on with his thumb, let his revolver ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... and admiration I recall the few beautiful and noble mothers-in-law I have known! I can count them on the fingers of one hand without including the thumb. I ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... scarcely be discerned at all, but the moment she was aroused, the delicate network of veins stood out round and full, forming what seemed to be a tiny hand without the thumb. It showed a little now in the firelight, and Mrs. Worthington shuddered as she glanced at what brought so vividly before her the remembrance of other and wretched days. Adaline observed the shudder and hastened to change the conversation from herself to Hugh, saying by way of making ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... shown at A on the sampler opposite, where it is used for line work. It is worked as follows:—Having made a start in the usual way, keep your thread downwards under your left thumb and below your needle—that is, to the right; then take up with the needle, say 1/8th of an inch of the stuff, and bring it out through the hole made in starting the stitch, taking care not to pierce the thread. This gives the first half stitch. If you proceed in the ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... they would infallibly have come to the conclusion that he was afflicted with gout. Over his shoulders he slung a powder-horn and shot-pouch, the latter tastefully embroidered with dyed quill-work, A pair of deer-skin mittens, having a little bag for the thumb, and a large bag for the fingers, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... thing one saw upon entering; it was a round-faced timepiece perversely set in one corner of an immense red plush palette; the palette itself was tilted to one side, and was upheld by an easel of twisted brass wire. Out of the thumb-hole stuck half a dozen brushes wired together in a round bunch and covered with gilt paint. The clock never was wound. It went so fast that it was useless as a timepiece. Over it, however, hung a large and striking picture, a ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... An effect of a good deal of nose glasses. Black, heavy rims. A wide, black tape. Head perpendicular, drawn back against the neck. Grave, scholarly face, chiselled with much refinement of technique; foil to the studious complexion, a dark, silken moustache. Holding our thumb-nail sketch up to the light, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... any one else, we could have put our thumb on him right now," said one. "Still, I don't quite figure it would work with Larry. There are too many folks who would stand in ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... you may think fit to cast into it as preparatory to the introduction into the union of the miserable residue. No man can contradict me when I say, that if you have this power, you may squeeze down a new-born sovereign State to the size of a pigmy, and then taking it between finger and thumb, stick it into some niche of the Union, and still continue by way of mockery to call it a State in the sense of the Constitution. You may waste it to a shadow, and then introduce it into the society of flesh and blood an object of scorn and derision. You may sweat and reduce it to a thing ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... I dunno what he is, I dunno what you are, lady, but I figure that you and Caroline Smith and everybody else in this house is under the thumb of the gent ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... Secretary, slightly laughing. 'Well, I'll tell you what—this won't do at all;' and he took the unfortunate manuscript between his thumb and forefinger. 'You had better go home and endeavour to write something a little better than this. Mind, if it is not very much better it won't do. And look here; take care that you do it yourself. If you bring me the writing of any one else, I shall be sure to detect you. I have not any more ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... battle waged with a fury seldom seen on any gridiron. Brill, from almost certain defeat, commenced to scent a victory, and went into the play regardless of physical consequences. Tom had his thumb wrenched and Dick had his ankle skinned, but neither gave heed to the hurts. Indeed, they never noticed them until the game was ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... observed Kenny—"ha, ha, ha!—there'll be lots o' swearin'—Why the whole parish is to switch the primer; many a thumb and coat-cuff will be kissed in spite of priest or magistrate. I remimber once, when I was swearin' an alibi for long Paddy Murray, that suffered for the M'Gees, I kissed my thumb, I thought, so smoothly, that no one would notice it; but I had a keen one to dale with, so says ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... "I seed a coffin floatin' in de air in dat room—" she shivered, "and I heard a heap o' knockings. I dunno what it bees—but de sounds come in de house. I runs ev'y squeech owl away what comes close, too." Nancy clasped her hands, right thumb over left thumb, "does dat—and it goes on away—dey quits hollerin', you chokin' 'em ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... look Jack assented and pointing with his thumb toward the newcomer's direction nodded his head once or twice. Securing a length of small line Jack made Rowdy fast to a ring bolt in the pilot house floor and then went into the ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... relieved to be able to put off my defensive measures till the morrow, because I was a wee bit puzzled as to what to do. In fact, the more I thought, the more puzzled I grew. The only "measures of defence" I could recall for the moment were, how to tie "a thumb or overhand knot," and how long it takes to cut down an apple tree of six inches' diameter. Unluckily neither of these useful facts seemed quite to apply. Now, if they had given me a job like fighting the battle of Waterloo, or Sedan, or Bull Run, I knew all about that, as I had ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... Dr. Willett's letter," he remarked, taking the missive from her and balancing it between his finger and thumb. Just then Oscar came ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... was silence. He certainly never broke it. I bought the trick - must I confess it? for twenty dollars. How transparent most things are when - seen through! When the dog smelt at the right card, the conjuror, who saw all four hands, and had his own in his pocket, clicked his thumb-nail against a finger-nail. The dog alone could hear it, and played ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... cooked on a slow fire of wood ashes. They are then held in one hand by the hind legs, and a dexterous pinch with the finger and thumb of the other at once removes the lower portion of the intestines. The remainder of the animal is then taken at a mouthful and fairly eaten from the head to ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... asleep. Presently his hand dropped over, and I looked at it,—a mass of broad, brawny vitality, great pipes of veins, great crescents of nails, great furrows at the joints, and you might cut a fine sirloin of beef off the ball of the thumb; and this is a hand! I call it an ox. A woman's hand, by hard labor, spreads and cracks, and sprouts bunches at the joints, and becomes tuberous at the ends of the fingers, but you can see that it is a deformity and not nature. It tells a sad story of neglect, of labor, perhaps of heartlessness, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... time of day with me she took no notice of my presence. Then, the cart empty, she fumbled for matches and lighted a short clay pipe, pressing down the burning surface of the tobacco with a calloused and apparently nerveless thumb. The hands were noteworthy. They were large- knuckled, sinewy and malformed by labour, rimed with callouses, the nails blunt and broken, and with here and there cuts and bruises, healed and healing, such as are ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... you come to help!" said Miss Broadus, with a thoughtful face and a piece between her finger and thumb. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... then,' said Dick. 'We're a mile to the south. And a mile on the heath is an inch on the map. Now, my thumb-nail is just half an inch—I've measured it; so twice my thumb-nail to the south of Woody Knap brings us to ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... (elongated).—A small, cushion-like kind, with the stems in tufts, owing to their producing offsets freely from the base, the tallest of them being about as high and as thick as a man's thumb. The tubercles are short, crowded, and hidden under the star-clusters of reddish-yellow spines. There are no central spines in this kind. The flowers are produced in the axils of the tubercles from all parts ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... alarmed, gave up making experiments, but one day, at dinner, thumps were struck on the table. M. Benezet was called in, and heard the noises with awe. He went away, but the knocks sounded under the chair of Mme. L., she threw some holy water under the chair, when her thumb was bitten, and marks of teeth were left on it. Presently her shoulder was bitten, whether on a place which she could reach with her teeth or not, we are not informed. Raps went on, the L.'s fled to M. Benezet's house, which was instantly disturbed in the same fashion. Objects were spirited ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... informed him in answer to that mute question; and as the fellow moistened his thumb to turn back the pages, Mr. Caryll saved him the trouble. "It says, I think, that the man should be on your right hand and the woman on your left. Ye seem to have reversed matters, Mr. Jenkins. But perhaps ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... be able to give you almost anything you would like," said the cook. "Zog is a wonderful magician and can procure anything that exists with no more effort than a wiggle of his thumb. But some eatables, you know, are hard to serve under water, because they get so damp that they ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... said Miss Fortune, who was energetically twitching off Ellen's shoes and stockings with her fore finger and thumb "I suppose not; you were staring up at the ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... disagreeable that I was glad to march; they were Waiyau, and very impudent, demanding gun or game medicine to enable them to shoot well: they came into the hut uninvited, and would take no denial. It is probable that the Arabs drive a trade in gun medicine: it is inserted in cuts made above the thumb, and on the forearm. Their superciliousness shows that they feel themselves to be the dominant race. The Manganja trust to their old bows and arrows; they are much more civil than ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... in wait for poor unfortunate automobilists who may have slipped down a sloping bit of clear roadway at a speed of twenty and one-tenth miles per hour (instead of nineteen and nine-tenths), all figured out by rule of thumb and with the aid of a ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... the rootlets. Then, brought out from the shadow, the sunlight shone and glistened on the particles of sand that adhered to it. Particles adhered to my skin—thousands of years between finger and thumb, these atoms of quartz, and sunlight shining all that time, and flowers blooming and life glowing in all, myriads of living things, from the cold still limpet on the rock to the burning, throbbing heart of man. Sometimes ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... of beef-cutting upon the block, or of men falling over like the rattle of fire-irons in the fender and the grunt of a pole-axed ox, or of a hot encounter between two combatants wherein one of them after feeling for his opponent's eyes finds it necessary to wipe his thumb on his trousers, or of gun wheels greasy from contact with a late gunner—when Mr Kipling writes like this, we admit that his pages are disagreeable. But let us be clear as to the reason. These things are disagreeable, not because ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... me, and do as you like because you had me under your thumb in other days. You're a very good fellow, Thorne, but I ain't sure that you are the best doctor ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... it on the way home, and I made up my mind that I could try. Gordon thinks he holds the whole state of Mississippi under his thumb, but he hasn't got ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... both the upper and the lower world, and leaving us isolated on the slippery roof ridge of Europe. At the same time the wind increased its violence, and the cold became more penetrating. I pulled my fingers out of the digits of my woollen gloves, and gripped my iron-shod baton between thumb and knuckles. We now had our bearings, thanks to the momentary glance, and it behooved us not to lose them, for the storm was every instant growing worse. At times it was not the simplest thing in the world to keep ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... at a venture with a bayonet, and a helmetless soldier fired over Dick's shoulder: the flying grains of powder stung his cheek. It was to Torpenhow that Dick turned by instinct. The representative of the Central Southern Syndicate had shaken himself clear of his enemy, and rose, wiping his thumb on his trousers. The Arab, both hands to his forehead, screamed aloud, then snatched up his spear and rushed at Torpenhow, who was panting under shelter of Dick's revolver. Dick fired twice, and the man ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... the whole house. The space between the rafters is filled up with what they call ribs—viz. the wood of the bread-fruit tree, split up into small pieces, and joined together so as to form a long rod the thickness of the thumb, running from the ridge pole down to the eaves. All are kept in their places, an inch and a half apart, by cross pieces, made fast with cinnet. The whole of this upper cagelike work looks compact and tidy, ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... slumber, and then only in the gentlest manner possible. It is bad manners to point at all, but, if it is absolutely necessary to do so, the forefinger is never employed, but the person or object is indicated, in a sort of shamefaced way, with the thumb. It is impolite to bare a weapon in public, and Europeans often show their ignorance of native etiquette by asking a Malay visitor to let them examine the blade of the kris he is wearing. It is not considered polite ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... over with noiseless dry sobs; but he was fuming and fretting too much to notice her distress. He bit his thumb with rage at the mere idea. ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... squatted again in the dimness outside of the firelight. Gale slid the case from the long blade and held it in his palm, letting the firelight flicker on it. He balanced it and tested the feel of its handle against his palm, then tried the edge of it with his thumb-nail, and found it honed like ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... the democracy of attainments and abilities. If I live a thousand years, I do not believe I shall ever do a more virtuous deed than I did long ago in staying at home for the sake of a quarter of a dollar when the rest of the school went to see Tom Thumb, the late bewritten bridegroom. I call it virtuous, because I had the quarter and could have gone, and could not explain the reason why I did not go. And though a senior class in Harvard College ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Durgan, when the ex-manager had gone into Kent's room to rummage for the smoke offering. "And they give us the major in the place of such a man as that!" with a jerk of his thumb toward the door ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Bucholz, musingly, and making a circle of his thumb and forefinger, he held it up before the detective; "I should think it was ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... afraid of our peppery little Captain!" cried Billington. "Some day thou 'lt see me take him between thumb and finger and crack him like a flea if he ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... go on fancying, when we have nothing better to do. I gave the pistols to the servant, to clean and load. He was playing with the maid, and trying to frighten her, when the pistol went off—God knows how!—the ramrod was in the barrel; and it went straight through her right hand, and shattered the thumb. I had to endure all the lamentation, and to pay the surgeon's bill; so, since that time, I have kept all my weapons unloaded. But, my dear friend, what is the use of prudence? We can never be ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... Shoot-the-Chutes lake, were required to accommodate Heinrich Schnitt's party. First, there was Heinrich himself, white as wax and stoop-shouldered and extremely clean. At the other end of the table sat Mama Schnitt, who bulged, and always had butter on her thumb. To the right of Heinrich sat Grossmutter Schnitt, in a black sateen dress, with her back bowed like a new moon and her little old face withered like ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... which they make while gnawing their mulberry-leaves. As they approach maturity, the creatures need almost constant attention. At brief intervals some expert visits each tray to inspect progress, picks up the plumpest feeders, and decides, by gently rolling them between forefinger and thumb, which are ready to spin. These are dropped into covered boxes, where they soon swathe themselves out of sight in white floss. A few only of the best are suffered to emerge from their silky sleep,—the selected breeders. They have beautiful ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... ill to rise. Then everything became hazy. He had moments of consciousness when he sensed Storch's figure moving in a sort of mist, flashing a green smile through the gloom. He saw other figures, too—-Helen Starratt, swathed in clinging black; Hilmer, displaying his mangled thumb; Monet with eyes of gentle reproach; and Ginger, very vague and very wistful. There were times when the room seemed crowded with strange people who came and went and gesticulated, people gathering close to the dim lamp which Storch ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... l) Prout's Brown (capitalized color terms after Ridgway, Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, Washington, D. C., 1912), and more golden on underparts; ears pale brownish and flight-membranes only slightly darker; thumb small (7.5 mm. including wrist); tragus slender but deeply notched. Longitudinal, dorsal profile of skull relatively straight but frontal region elevated from rostrum and lambdoidal region elevated from posterior part ...
— A New Bat (Myotis) From Mexico • E. Raymond Hall
... The Unknown Master of the Highgate Slope! All the little, soft feminine hands, the nervous ugly males, the hands of the flops, and the hands of the snatchers! And Grundy's loose, lean, knuckly affair—Grundy the terror!—the little wrinkles and the thumb! Only it ought to hold all the others together—in a slightly disturbing squeeze....Like Rodin's great Hand—you know ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... and wandered about in the great house, being frightened at a strange loud noise outside: and how they found in the morning that this house was the mitten of a giant, infinitely greater than themselves; and that what they had taken for a separate chamber in the great house was the thumb of his mitten; and that the strange noise was the snoring of this giant Skrymir, who was asleep close by, after having pulled ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... sure shows all the symptoms of being licked right at present." Ford moved a thumb joint gently to see whether it was really dislocated ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... he is responsible for the genuineness of every one. He has persons in his own employment who pay and receive all monies, and who examine and test every separate coin with the most marvellous rapidity. They take a whole handful of dollars at a time, and toss them up separately with the finger and thumb: this enables them to determine whether each "rings" properly, and on the coin falling into their hand again, reversed, they examine the second side with a glance. A few hours are sufficient to pass several thousand dollars in review; and this minute inspection is very necessary, on account ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... for that's the charge I generally make for reading letters; though, as you behaved so genteelly to me, I should have charged you nothing. Well, if you can read, why don't you open the letter, instead of keeping it hanging between your finger and thumb?" "I am in no hurry to open it," said I, with a sigh. The old woman looked at me for a moment—"Well, young man," said she, "there are some—especially those who can read—who don't like to open their letters when anybody ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... that painfully precise hair, which are always associated with widowhood in low life. It is only in higher circles that women can lose their husbands and yet remain bewitching. The late Mr. Drabdump had scratched the base of his thumb with a rusty nail, and Mrs. Drabdump's foreboding that he would die of lockjaw had not prevented her wrestling day and night with the shadow of Death, as she had wrestled with it vainly twice before, when Katie died of diphtheria ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... travelled on the new Underground Railway; and saw the wonders of the Crystal Palace, especially on fireworks night. They told us of their visit to the Great Eastern, what a gigantic ship it was, what a marvel, and described its every feature. They talked of General Tom Thumb, of Blondin, of Pepper's Ghost, of the Christy Minstrels. Nowadays, a father will return from London and not even mention the Tubes to his children. Why should he? They know all about them and are surprised at nothing. The picture books and the cinemas have familiarised them ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... questions asked in club-foot rhyme Of Earth the tongueless, and the deaf-mute Time! Here babbling 'Insight' shouts in Nature's ears His last conundrum on the orbs and spheres; There Self-inspection sucks its little thumb, With 'Whence am I?' and ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... wouldn't be so very powerful surprised if he was to turn out to be the smarty that I just mentioned," observed the skipper, jerking his thumb toward where Cunningham stood gazing abstractedly over the taffrail, with his feet wide apart and his hands locked behind him, balancing himself to the violent movements ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... to places other than the bridge of a ship in the Indian Ocean, when he was speedily brought back to the present by a vigorous poke in his ribs. He turned hurriedly; and the officer of the watch with perfect clearness conveyed to him by a jerk of his thumb, and a quizzical expression, that the flagship was making a general signal. Mac shoved up the answering pennant, roused the other drowsy signaller, and elicited the information that the New Zealand ships would anchor 1 1/2 miles S.S.E. of ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... children. She scowled upon the street cars rumbling by with their frowsy loads. Occasionally she varied the monotony by drawing out her chewing gum to wondrous lengths, holding one end between a thumb and finger and ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... present chapter is concerned are usually performed on the animal in a standing position. A bull should always be held by a staff attached to the ring in his nose. To secure the cow in a standing position, grasp the nose, the finger and thumb being introduced into the nostrils, and press against the cartilage which makes a division between them. If she has horns, grasp one of them with the disengaged hand. If this is insufficient the animal should be secured to a post, along the side of a fence, or put into a stanchion. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... him with a smile, as if she thought him "the greatest wight on ground." There was a little curly-headed child standing by, quietly taking in all that was going on. I laid my hand upon her head; and asked her what her name was. She popped her thumb into her mouth, and looked shyly about from one to another, but never a word could I get her to say. "That's Lizzy," said the woman; "she is a little visitor belongin' to one o' the neighbours. They are ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... has two hands; one must work here, the other a great many miles from here. If I could but cut myself in two, all would be well; but I can't; I must be one hand, you the other. I work thus: Post-office here is under my thumb. I stop all letters from him to her. Presently comes a letter from Australia telling among pork, grains, etc., how George Fielding has made his fortune and married a girl ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... straight down into the blackness. His thumb compressed the button on the side of the case and the camera started, the infrared light turning on. A narrow cone of water extending out about twenty feet was illuminated, but the illumination was visible only through the special glasses he ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... vengeance. "Gentlemen! said the intruder, discovering himself, "I am Don Perez Goneti, the lawgiver! Fear not, for I come to cheer you. This king, you must know, is a great knave, and so under the thumb of the priests that an honest man like myself is not safe a day in his office. Having long meditated his overthrow, I come to offer you the hand of friendship in your distress, and to say that if you will join me in carrying out my design (I have a strong party at ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... was made the next morning by Mr. Leonard W. Volk. While the sculptor was making the cast of his left hand, Lincoln called his attention to a scar on his thumb. "You have heard me called the 'rail-splitter' haven't you?" he said, "Well, I used to split rails when I was a young man, and one day, while sharpening a wedge on a log, the axe glanced and nearly took off ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... these two communities dwell side by side, with different traditions, different languages, different ideals, without sympathy or comprehension. The French in Canada are entirely devoted to— some say under the thumb of—the Roman Catholic Church. They seem like a piece of the Middle Ages, dumped after a trans-secular journey into a quite uncompromising example of our commercial time. Some of their leaders are ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... had already risen and with a touch of his thumb snapping out his crush hat, he opened the door of the box, saying to Sabine ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... 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;' on the second finger, repeating, 'in the name of the Holy Ghost;' and on the third finger, ending with 'Amen,' and ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... seated himself, and was holding little Ned on his knee, his arm at the same time encircling shy, sensitive Johnnie, who was fairly trembling with excited expectancy. Ned, with his thumb in his mouth, regarded his new relative in a nonchalant manner; but to the little girl the home-world was the world, and the arrival in its midst of the beautiful lady never seen before was as wonderful as any fairy tale. Indeed, that such a June-like creature should come to them that wintry ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... his brush into his mouth and held it between his teeth as a poodle carries a stick, while he used his thumb on the canvas. The modern painter paints with everything, not excepting his fingers. He glanced at his model and then at his work, and got his effect ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... YOU! I know the hole in your pinafore! You ARE Jane, aren't you? And you're the Panther; I can see your dirty handkerchief that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb! Crikey! The wish has come off, after all. I say, am I as handsome as ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... 'Och, Shorsha! I haven't heart enough,' said Murtagh. 'Thank you for your tale, but it makes me weep; it brings to my mind Dungarvon times of old—I mean the times we were at school together.' 'Cheer up, man,' said I, 'and let's have the story, and let it be about Ma-Coul and the salmon and his thumb.' 'Well, you know Ma- Coul was an exposed child, and came floating over the salt sea in a chest which was cast ashore at Veintry Bay. In the corner of that bay was a castle, where dwelt a giant and his wife, very respectable and dacent people, and this giant, taking ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... quieted Charlie, and made Emily rise from the grass. But nothing that he could say, after hearing the whole story, could restore them to good humor. Charlie bit his thumb, and scowled; while Emily, pushing Jessie from her side, kept rolling her pocket-handkerchief into a ball, pouted, and refused to say a word, either to her ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... came once or twice into the room where we were upon some trifling excuse or other; but, in reality, I've no doubt to have a peep at your humble servant, whom the rogue instantly recognised; and when no one was looking, he tipped me a sly wink of the eye, at the same time pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, and directing his eyes towards the ceiling, thereby indicating, as I thought, that those I wished the most to see had already ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Dore, as the French call him—gilded John," said Mr Temple. "A delicacy, but not a handsome fish. Look at the thumb and finger marks upon ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... of his boot with a vigor which betrayed to me some secret mirth. He looked up at me from under his straw hat with the grin of a malicious Puck, glanced toward the group, and made a curious gesture with his thumb. There were several empty pint bottles ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... me, and I continued my ascent; but the chips now disappeared, and, like Tom Thumb, I lost my way. I attempted to retreat, but in vain; I was no longer amongst forest trees, but in a maze of young mountain ash, from which I could not extricate myself: so I stood still to think what I should do. I recollected that the usual course of proceeding on such occasions, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... lay a wide green bowl held in the hands of the clustered hills; shallow, circular, as though, while plastic still, the thumb of God had run round its rim, shaping it. Around it the peaks crowded, craning their lofty heads to ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... moved his hand towards Puddock, he saw his scalp dangling between that gentleman's finger and thumb, and became suddenly mute. He clapped his hand upon his bare skull, and made an agitated pluck at that article, but missed, and disappeared, with an imprecation in Irish, behind the ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... said Lamb meditatively, cracking a walnut between his finger and thumb, and slowly skinning it—"I don't know; Gilks might have done us a worse ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... his contorted face, with the missing eye covered by a black patch, worked demoniacally in the gathering darkness with each leaping flame of the ignited torches. The hand that clutched the knife was a thing of horror; two fingers and half the thumb remained from some drunken brawl to serve the Spaniard in future play for work or debauch; and the man, crouching low over his stone, made a picture of incarnate hate that had ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... would prepare for the much less congenial engagement of meeting the Board, which was often a cause of great anxiety and pain to him; for it was difficult to satisfy men of all tempers, and some of these not of the most generous sort. On such occasions he might be seen with his right-hand thumb thrust through the topmost button-hole of his coat-breast, vehemently hitching his right shoulder, as was his habit when labouring under any considerable excitement. Occasionally he would take an early ride before ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... said the boy, picking up the sick little oyster; "it is no bigger than my thumb, and it is ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... cut into his mental plannings; and he bade us heap such a fire as could be seen by Indians for a hundred miles. "If once I can find the Indians," meditated he moodily, "I'll drive out a whole regiment of scoundrels with one snap o' my thumb!" ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... simple operation most of the glass-blower's skill is required. The tube must be grasped between the first finger and thumb of both hands, and held so that the part to be operated on lies evenly between the two hands. The distance between the operator's thumbs may conveniently vary from 2.5 to 4 inches. Releasing the grip of the left hand, let the operator assure himself of his ability to easily rotate the tube ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... how she would feel when Charlotte told about her cousin Tam Gallaberry and all that I had done for them—though, indeed, it was mostly by accident. Only I could trust Charlotte to keep her thumb ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... tissue or bone, but in course of time (from six weeks onwards) sensation returns and the formation of elastic tissue beneath renders the skin pliant and movable so that it can be pinched up between the finger and thumb. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Well ... you've no further proof. If you can't plant your thumb on the earth and your little finger on the pole star you know nothing of distances. We must do ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... the Schwaben is built is like a great thumb laid down beside the Ancre River. There is a little valley on its eastern side exactly like the space between a great thumb and a great forefinger. It is called Crucifix Valley, from an iron Calvary ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield
... the room and the rest clap hands and then dodge, and he fires his revolver at the point the sound seems to come from, and the object is not to get shot. You may have noticed Sasha Basmanoff has no left thumb? He lost it last year on just ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... camps of glory is the worter millon patch Like a great big nest of goodies thet is jest a-gone to hatch; En ye take yer thumb en finger in an ecstasy so drunk Thet ye hardly hear the music of theyr dreamy plunky-plunk! En the griefs air gone ferever, en the sorrers lose control Ez ye feed the angel in ye on the honeys of a soul, En ye smack yer lips with ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... is the author of it, but I've got a kind of hand-made religion that suits me. It's cheap, and portable, and durable, and stands our severe northern climate first rate. It ain't the protuberant kind. It don't protrude into other people's way like a sore thumb. All-wool religion don't go around with a chip on it's shoulder looking for ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... very day after I wrote my last letter to you, as I was whetting my scythe for the last swath of the season, my hat half fell off, and suddenly raising my hand to catch it, I thrust it against the scythe and cut my thumb just upon the joint. It has healed, but I shall never find it quite as agile as formerly. I could not use the hand—my right hand—for more than a fortnight. It was like losing a sense to lose its use. After a week of inaction in Concord, ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... they are written with broad pen," interrupted Muller, showing him the writing on the package; "here is the same hand, but it is written with a fine hard pencil, and you can see distinctly that this is a woman's handwriting. And besides, the skin on a man's thumb does not show the fine markings that you can see here on these bits of bread that have been used ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... upward. The superficial appearance of the palm of the hand is described in the article on PALMISTRY; with regard to anatomical landmarks the superficial palmar arterial arch is situated in the line of the abducted thumb, while the deep arch is an inch nearer the wrist. The digital nerves correspond to lines drawn from the clefts of the fingers toward the wrist. On the back of the forearm the olecranon process of the ulna is quite subcutaneous, and during extension of the elbow is in a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... never dare to sell it when Martha wasn't here. As it is, I daresay she'll raise a fuss. Martha's the boss of this establishment I can tell you. I'm getting awful tired of living under another woman's thumb. But come in, come in. You must be real tired and hungry. I'll do the best I can for you in the way of tea but I warn you not to expect anything but bread and butter and some cowcumbers. Martha locked up all the cake and cheese and preserves afore she ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... had revived, and while counsel called the quality of the undelivered goods in question, and laid stress on the fact of no money having passed, he turned the pages of a thick red book with a moistened thumb. Having found what he sought, he pushed up his spectacles, opened his mouth, and, his eyes bent meditatively on the speaker, picked a back tooth with the nail of his ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... their flesh is so tender; under jaw's the only place where a hook will hold to lift 'em by. See his red lips, and that black streak down each side. And look at these two black spots, big as silver dollars, on his shoulders; that's where they say the devil got him between his thumb and forefinger, but ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... he set her on his arm, and then he took Ting-a-ling from her hair, and placed him on the tip of his thumb. Thus they proceeded to the Tower ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... wrappings held the strap-iron head, wetted as they now were with blood. The sighing surgeon caught the base of the arrowhead in thumb and finger. There was no stanching of the blood. She wrenched it free at last, and the blood gushed from a jagged hole which would have meant death in any other air or in any patient but ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... authorities to "put the rogue to it." As more and more evidence came out showing how deeply involved Payne was in the Montgomery Plot, the Scottish Privy Council finally was prevailed upon to put Payne to the torture. On Dec. 10, 1690, he bore the pain of two hours under thumb and leg screws with such fortitude that some of the Councilors were "brangled" and believed that his denials must be the words of an honest man. The Earl of Crawford, one of the witnesses to this, the last occasion in Britain in which a political prisoner was tortured, was so moved ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... to them," put in the cowboy who appeared to know him, and suiting act to word he placed his thumb to his nose and twiddled his finger. "Do that, Pan. That'll shore ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... young man to whom I owe small thanks, and with whom I have an account to settle. He is son of the custodian, and thinks he has us both under his thumb, Heinrich drinks as if he were a fish or a Baron, but I shall cure him of that habit before ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... has an average of seven hours' duration, her night of six. It was perhaps the last hour of daylight when the three metal and fabric-clad figures lying outsprawled on the little thumb-shaped piece of soil had landed. Now quickly the huge sweeping rim of Jupiter plunged down, and night ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... dark, cool church, where in the crypt under the high altar lay the thumb of St. Bartholomew, which old Abbot Turketul used to carry about, that he might cross himself with it in times of danger, tempest, and lightning; and some of the hair of St. Mary, Queen of Heaven, in a box of gold; and a bone of St. Leodegar of Aquitaine; and some few remains, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Pardon sir, error: He is not quantitie enough for that Worthies thumb, hee is not so big as the end ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... interests, as to aid in poisoning her mind against me, by pouring into her ears the most silly twaddle, all of which amounts to nothing and less than nothing—such as the regret that I was a showman, exhibiter of Tom Thumb, etc., etc. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... course!" Constance hastened to say. And she thought: "It isn't yet three months that we've been together, and she's trying already to get me under her thumb." ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... funeral," said the girl softly. "Then you came to Prescott, and you had lost your thumb in the meantime; and I was ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... you, Fairlegh? how are you? That stupid fool has made 'em too tight for anybody but Tom Thumb, and be hanged to him. Ever read fairy tales, Fairlegh? I did when I was a little shaver, and wore cock-tailed petticoats—all bare legs and bustle—'a Highland lad my love was born'; that style of thing, rather, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Bald-faced Kid drew out the leather-backed volume which was his constant companion, and began to thumb the leaves rapidly. "You're always heaving your friend Solomon at me. I'll give you a quotation I got out of the Fourth Reader at school—something about judging the future by the past. Look here: 'Jeremiah bled and was pulled up.' 'Jeremiah bled badly.' Why, everybody around ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... said Richards. "Come and sit on my knee here, as you always have done since you were a weary wee hop-of-my-thumb." ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... been agreed upon for her services, and in a moment of pique she sent word that she was unable to appear on account of indisposition. De Beriot also declared himself to be suffering from a sprained thumb. ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... among the first to shoot and be shot at. He was wounded no less than seven times. The first wound was received by him two minutes after he had fired his first shot, the bullet going through his neck. The second hit him in the left thumb. The third struck near his right hip, passing entirely through the body. The fourth bullet (which was apparently from a Remington and not from a Mauser) went into his neck and lodged against the ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... recognised as shrapnel shells, or "Archibalds," that had been fired at us by the Germans. They were well below. I looked round at the Captain. He was smiling through his goggles, and humorously jerked his thumb in the direction ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... janitor who had gone into the coal house for the wherewithal to replenish the fires, came back with the shawl. I had rammed it rather viciously under the coal, and it was a filthy object. The superintendent held it up by finger and thumb and asked to whom ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... his maternal grandfather had returned to Stratford. To that place he very frequently resorted in his youth, and there, in the well-stored and well-arranged library he pursued the studies he loved. The tradition is that he conned his Greek lessons lying flat on the floor with his thumb in his mouth, and the fingers of the other hand employed in twisting a lock of the brown, hair on his forehead. He took no pleasure in fishing or in hunting; I doubt whether he ever let off a fowling-piece or drew a trout from the brook in his life. ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... eyes again, and turning with her thumb an opal ring on her finger, she began to use the blandishments which had never failed ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... said Matthew, jerking his thumb towards a row of old buildings, "and them's the cow-houses," with a jerk the other way. "Old pony's with master's mare, as he drives hisself. I've nought to say to pony; it's your business. And I'll want a hand with cart-horses and plough-horses. Young folks ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... gem carelessly between his thumb and finger, he watched the face of his companion and saw it ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... that were his own earnings, begotten by his labour; he loved them all. He spread them out in heaps and bathed his hands in them; then he counted them and set them up in regular piles, and felt their rounded outline between his thumb and fingers, and thought fondly of the guineas that were only half-earned by the work in his loom, as if they had been unborn children—thought of the guineas that were coming slowly through the coming years, through all his life, which spread far away before him, the end quite hidden by ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... to whom she made this remark, assented to it, at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently appropriated with great refinement of manner,—taking it between her thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get out ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of sunlight the size of my thumb," said the priest, holding up his hand, "is worth more than mines of gold. With one such drop," he continued, turning to Ali Hafed, "you could buy many farms like yours; with a handful you could buy a province, and with a mine of diamonds ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... war, "fighting Indians" and the one "fighting Yankees," was found on the slope, just in front of the enemy's breastworks, leaning against a tree, resting on his left knee, his loaded rifle across the other. In his right hand, between his forefinger and thumb, in the act of being placed upon the nipple of the gun, was a percussion cap. His frame was rigid, cold, and stiff, while his glossy eyes seemed to be peering in the front as looking for a lurking foe. He was stone dead, a bullet ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Phil, raising his caubeen, and scratching his head in pretended perplexity, with his linger and thumb, "fwhat am I to say to that, ma'am, and all of yez to the fwhore? But the sarra one av me will give ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... removed, the burners of the chandelier heightened, and the Snuffle family had their row of little noses polished by the eldest sister, preparations begin:—Miss Jemima playing the pretty little "Hop o'my Thumb Polka," and Tom, who has been sitting very quietly beside Mercy Merry (vowing to marry her at fourteen, for "his father is so rich that he would give him five pounds a year to live upon"), leads off, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... mouthful of pie, and rammed the rim of crust into his cheek with his thumb, and leisurely devoured it ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... worse and worse you mislay your exercise-book, you drop your arithmetic in the mud, your pencil breaks, and when you open your knife to sharpen the pencil you split your nail. On such a day you jam your thumb in doors, and muddle the messages you are sent on by grown-ups. You upset your tea, and your bread-and-butter won't hold together for a moment. And when at last you get to bed usually in disgrace it is no comfort at all to you to know ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... tell-tale!" said Dotty, slipping off half a dozen rings in haste. "There, I won't wear but just two—one on each thumb. Who wants the old watch? Tick's all out of it. You don't know, Prudy, how tight those rings fit. I could wear 'em on my forefinger, but I shan't, you make ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... a battered felt hat and a slouchy old tweed suit—stood by the sorter's table, his wide-ranging, vigilant eye suddenly fixed upon it. As each fleece was brought up, shaken out, trimmed, tested with thumb and finger, rolled into a light bundle, inside out, and flung into one or another of the adjacent racks, he followed the process as if it were something new to him. The shade of difference in the texture of the staple of one fleece as compared with another appeared of more concern ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... poor little man, if he would only grow, but he is so small, that I am fairly ashamed to show such a hop-o'-my-thumb. But he is coming out quite a genius; he reads as well as I do, and ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... wanted to get repaired, I came upon the chest, and opening it, discovered my boys' hoard, and in it this packet of books. I sat down on the top of the chest and read them all through, from Jack the Giant-killer down to Hop o' my Thumb without rising, and this in the broad daylight, with the yellow sunshine nestling beside me on the rose-coloured silken seat, richly worked, of a large stately-looking chair with three golden legs. Yes I could tell you all those ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... he noted how the great muscle of the thumb was torn across. "I don't see how you ever done that on a gun-hammer. I've nursed a good bit—I was in Cuby last year, an' I was detailed for juty in the hospital more'n half my time," he went on, eagerly. "This here hand, it's bad, 'cause it's torn. Ef you had a cut o' that size, ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... about "arretez," and "Francais," and "champ- d'honneur;" but we walked on, Gus putting his thumb to his nose and stretching out his finger at Master Frenchman. This made everybody laugh; and ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... drawing of the breath, he took his seat again. The movement roused Donald Ward. He fumbled in his pocket and took out his tobacco box and pipe. He held up the box—a round metal one—between his finger and thumb. Neal, watching, noticed with surprise that his uncle's hand trembled. Donald held the box without opening it for perhaps two minutes. Then, when he was satisfied that his hand had become quite steady, he filled his pipe. He rose, took ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... my cousin Helen, was bound to surrender his independence and creep under her thumb. I am grateful to you for having saved me from that fate. As no doubt she has told you, she refused me shortly before she ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... ecclesiastical and political offenders were abolished. No more irregular financial expedients, such as the imposition of ship-money, were to be adopted, except by the consent of Parliament. As if this were not enough to put the king under the thumb of his Parliament, the royal prerogative of dissolving that body was abrogated, and meetings at least every three years were provided ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... seemed not to feel the pounding fists. Slowly the fingers managed to reach their goal. Muldoon felt the darkness of death closing over him as his breath became a tortured dying gasp. His hand found Robert's face, came gently over it until his thumb pressed on one eyeball. And Robert screamed as the thumb became a hooked instrument ...
— Lease to Doomsday • Lee Archer
... each yeoman laid one hand upon his weapon, and with the other, thrust an exulting thumb into his neighbor's ribs. But they did not turn to look at each other; every eye was fastened upon the two by the fire. Freeman and his leader, or feudal lord and his dependant? For the moment they stood forth as representatives of a mighty ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... like motion without thought, her fingers teased out the fleece, drawing it down to a fairly uniform thickness: brown, old, natural fingers that worked as in a sleep, the thumb having a long grey nail; and from moment to moment there was a quick, downward rub, between thumb and forefinger, of the thread that hung in front of her apron, the heavy bobbin spun more briskly, and she felt again at the fleece as she drew it down, and she gave ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... Prompt and Expert Medical Advice.—The recognition of syphilis in the primary stage does not follow any rule of thumb, and is as much an affair for expert judgment as a strictly engineering or legal problem. In the great majority of cases a correct decision of the matter can be reached in the primary stage by careful study and examination, but not by any slipshod or guesswork means. ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... two steps towards me. "Doctor," said he gravely, "you've got to consider this. It's important. I'm not here to play marbles. It's a sure thing. I give you up there"—he made a movement of his thumb to the quarterdeck—"just this chance. Strike a bargain and I'll see you through. There's not a hap'orth of harm will come to any. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... mingled hum of happy voices, spelling aloud life's first lessons, prophesied the future glory of the State. The curriculum of the old field school was the same everywhere—one Webster's blue backed, elementary spelling book, one thumb-paper, one stone-bruise, one sore toe, and ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... for pension, alleging an accidental wound in the right thumb while extracting a cartridge from a pistol in August, 1861. There is no record of any such disability, though it appears that he was on a furlough about the date of his alleged injury. It appears that he served nearly four years after the time ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... fairies!" said little Millicent hopefully. "Don't you know about fairies, Anne?" and Millicent came close to Anne and laid the beloved "Martha" in her lap. "I'll tell you," she went on, in response to Anne's puzzled look. "Fairies are little, oh, littler than my thumb. I've never seen one, but Caroline's grandmother saw one, and real good children ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... a thing as an immediate turning from the evil to the good? It does not take long to change the current of one's actions, if one is determined and energetic. But we shall see, we shall see;" and the good man leaned back in his chair, with his spectacles between his thumb and forefinger, and suffered himself to be carried away into a brighter past. He was not long in forgetting Mrs. Kinalden, and Mrs. Flin, and even his young protegee, and, looking off upon the surging ocean, he dreamed of a distant land where his ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... reckon? I am six foot one and a half out of my shoes. But what of that? In my business, 'tis true that strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgment and knowledge are what keep it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae; bad at figures—a rule o' thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse—I can see that. I have been looking for such as you these two year, and yet you are not for me. Well, before I go, let me ask this: Though you are not the young man I thought you were, what's the difference? ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the darning-needle; "no, but high-minded! There were five brothers, all descendants of the 'Finger' family. They always kept together, although they were of different lengths. The outermost one, little Thumb, was short and stout; he went at the side, a little in front of the ranks: he had, too, but one joint in his back, so that he could only make one bow; but he said, if a man were to cut him off, such a one were no longer fit for military service. Sweet-tooth, the second ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... Posidippus (Fig. 175), an Athenian dramatist of the so-called New Comedy, who flourished in the early part of the third century. The preservation of the statue is extraordinary; there is nothing modern about it except the thumb of the left hand. It produces strongly the impression of being an original work and also of being a speaking likeness. It may have been modeled in the actual presence of the subject, but in that case the name on the front ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... right and jerked his head toward the man beside the saw. The twins walked around to where they could get a look at the workman's left hand. Then they understood. There was nothing left of the fingers but the stub of one, and the thumb! ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... hand on me. And so long as I have your love, dear, I'm safe enough. Don't fear. O, it's been terrible not seeing you! I've craved for you ceaselessly. I've never been out since we came here. They wouldn't let me. They kept in themselves. He bade them. He has them both under his thumb. But now, for some reason, he has relaxed. They're going to open a restaurant downtown, and I'm to ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... proceeded, in company of the other gentlemen, to examine the papers and other articles taken from the assassin. The pistol with which he had done the deed was lying upon the floor; a naked poniard, which he would probably have used also, had his thumb not been blown off by the discharge of the pistol, was found in his trunk hose. In his pockets were an Agnus Dei, a taper of green wax, two bits of hareskin, two dried toads—which were supposed to be sorcerer's charms—a, crucifix, a Jesuit catechism, a prayer-book, a pocket-book ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the farm hands laughed and pointed with his thumb to the waiting-room. Uncle Jimpson tiptoed to the window and peered in. All that he could see was the back of a very imposing lady and the top of ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... intimation that she is to open the folding-doors, and he makes an effective entrance into the dining-room, his thumb in his waistcoat. There is a delicious clapping of hands from the committee, and the door closes. Not till then does MAGGIE, who has grown thoughtful, tell her maid to ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... growling texts out of a Quran on his lap, the Orakzai Pathan sat and sunned himself in the cave mouth, emitting worldlier wisdom unadulterated with divinity. As King went toward him to see to whom he spoke he grinned and pointed with his thumb, and King looked down on some sick and wounded men who sat in a crowd together on the ramp, ten feet or ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... to abuse us to the people, bidding them look upon us for English dogs, Lutherans, enemies of God, sweepings of the English sink of iniquity, for whom neither rack, thumb-screw, nor stake was sufficient reward. Me he denounced to the people as a runaway criminal, describing me in such terms as made my blood boil within me, and my hands itch to take him by the neck and crush the life out of his ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home; He was perfumed like a milliner, And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose and ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... brigade, after a little time, came marching airily out again with its fine formation in nowise disturbed. There were no traces of speed in its movements. The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... competition. It is an ill look-out for the cycle mechanic who is not prepared to tackle the new problems that will arise. For all this next century this particular body of mechanics will be picking up new recruits and eliminating the incompetent and the rule-of-thumb sage. Can it fail, as the years pass, to develop certain general characters, to become so far homogeneous as to be generally conscious of the need of a scientific education, at any rate in mechanical and chemical matters, and to possess, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... grim, kindly face of old Doctor Jordan facing him. He carried in the crook of his arm a brown shawl with something round and small muffled up in it. There was one slit in front, and through this came a fist about the size of a marble, the thumb doubled under the tiny fingers, and the whole limb giving circular waves, as if the owner were cheering lustily at his own successful arrival. 'Here am I, good people, hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!' cried the waving hand. Then as the slit in the shawl widened Frank saw that behind the ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... sharp—it was sung so at the Salzburg opera. The Portier snapped his thumb at the Salzburg opera. Things were looking serious; they walked back to the locale in silence. The sentry coughed. Possibly there was something, after all, in the ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... days those who use it are not very much inclined to expose the article. He used to carry it in his coat-pocket, which was made of leather; and every few minutes, instead of taking it in the usual manner, with thumb and finger, would take out a handful and snuff it from between his thumb and clenched hand. We might infer from this circumstance that his voice could not have been very pleasant ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... man, after groaning to think that he was dependent on this shrew and under the thumb of a peasant of the Vosges, was bewitched by her coaxing ways and by a maternal affection that attached itself solely to the physical and material side of life. He was like a woman who forgives a week of ill-usage for the sake of a kiss and ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... did." And the old man took the remains of the hen from Pete and "hefted" those remains with a critical finger and thumb. "One laig left, and a piece of the breast." He sighed heavily. Young Pete stared up at him, expecting praise for his marksmanship and energy. The old man put his hand on Pete's shoulder. "It's all right this ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... whom they first rejected, rendered it the general subject of discourse at Venice. Numberless were the instances he gave of a magnanimity and greatness of mind worthy of a more exalted throne than that of Poland; but I shall only mention one, which, like the thumb of Hercules, may serve to give a picture of ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... for instance here's one who's double-crossin' you," said Pearce, in slow, tantalizing speech, as if he wore out this suspense to torture Kells. And without ever glancing at Joan he jerked a thumb, ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... driven between them, with astonishing force, and are generally ruptured rather than yield. If not ruptured, they close again, as Dr. Canby informs me in a letter, "with quite a loud flap." But if the end of a leaf is held firmly between the thumb and finger, or by a clip, so that the lobes cannot begin to close, they exert, whilst in this ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... Mr. GEORGE ROSBROOK, Saddler, of Barrow, near Bury, Suffolk, was attacked with a scrofulous complaint in his left thumb, from whence it removed to his left hip and thigh; from thence to the left knee, and then into his face and the glands of his throat; from whence issued a clear water, insomuch that he was under the necessity of keeping ...
— Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer • John Kent
... "knowledge of the human heart" so often ascribed to dramatists and novelists, represents, I take it, a very real kind of knowledge; but it is rather an instinct than a set of definite principles; a power of somehow estimating the tendencies and motives of their fellow-creatures in a mass by rule of thumb, rather than by any distinctly assignable logical process; only to be gained by long experience and shrewd observation of men and cities. Such a faculty, as it reaches sound results without employing explicit definitions and syllogisms and inductive processes, sometimes inclines its possessors to ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... 'benefit of clergy.' Before 1487, a man who could read and write might commit murder as often as he pleased, subject to an indefinite chance of imprisonment by the 'ordinary.' At a later period, he could still murder at the cost of having M branded on the brawn of his thumb. But women and men who had married two wives or one widow did not enjoy this remarkable privilege. The rule seems as queer and arbitrary as any of the customs which excite our wonder among primitive tribes. The explanation, of course throws a curious ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Miss Mewlstone reached her. A gardener's boy brought it: "it was very particular, and was to be delivered immediate to the young lady," he observed, holding the missive between a very grimy finger and thumb. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... I do not forget it, I will send you, per next mail, a pinch of decom. (decomposed rock) which I pinched with thumb and finger from Wide West ledge a while ago. Raish and I have secured 200 out of a company with 400 ft. in it, which perhaps (the ledge, I mean) is a spur from the W. W.—our shaft is about 100 ft. from the W. W. shaft. In order to get in, we agreed to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... flawless crystals are not common, as you may possibly know. Such a crystal has recently been found, and is now owned by Mr. Appleman. It takes about four or five years to grind and polish it. Most of the polishing, as you may or may not know, is done by the hand—smoothing it with the thumb and forefinger. The time, judgment, and skill of an optical expert is required. To-day, unfortunately, that is not cheap. The laborer is worthy of his hire, however, I suppose"—he waved a soft, full, white hand—"and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... voice had a relieved, almost condescending tone in it. He had taken his thumb and forefinger from his eyebrow now and sat drumming with his stiffened knuckles on ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... him under his thumb. The Colonel liked to rule, and he wished everyone around him to be dependent on ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... as he did when in for his viva voce examination at college; and of experiencing a difficulty when called upon to place the ring on one of the fingers of the white hand held forth to him, and of his probable selection of the thumb for the ring's resting place, had not the bride considerately poked out the proper finger, and assisted him to place the golden circlet in its assigned position. Mr. Verdant Green had also a misty idea that the service terminated with kisses, tears, and congratulations; ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... halted on the edge of the pasturage ground, glanced quickly over his field of vision, and then, placing a thumb and forefinger between his teeth, he emitted a blast like that of a steam whistle. It was a signal he had taught the stallion, and he knew that if the horse was within a mile he would come toward him on a full gallop. Deerfoot ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... people who will never understand this story, people who live their lives by rule of thumb. Little lives they are, too, measured by the letter and not the spirit. Quite simple too. Right is ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in to her, between a red finger and thumb, rather steamy from washing-up, and busied herself about the room while her lodger read the closely-written pages. Mrs. Penticost was frankly curious, and if Blanche did not tell her what was in that letter she meant to ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... at the vessel's sudden heave and the unexpected noise, he had let his hand slip and the creature had seized him by the thumb. With a roar of pain the professor flung it from him and ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... handle them tenderly, as if you loved them. Do not grasp at the open flower as if it were a peony or a hollyhock, for then it will come off, stalkless, in your hand, and you will cast it blighted upon the water; but coil your thumb and second finger affectionately around it, press the extended forefinger firmly to the stem below, and with one steady pull you will secure a long and delicate stalk, fit to twine around the graceful head of your beloved, as the Hindoo ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... With a thumb jerk toward the beating engine, Bob took up again his story. "Got a bunch of thugs over there right now ready for business if necessary. Imported plug-uglies and genuwine blown-in-the-bottle home talent. Shorty's still one of the gang, and our old friend ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... the shark 'long the beach, And no osprey in ether soared out of my reach; And the bear that I pinched 'twixt my finger and thumb, Like the lynx and the wolf, perished ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... bending low over the ball held up thumb and forefinger of his right hand, formed in a circle, for a brief instant. That ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... passed the Devil's Thumb, over 9,000 feet high. From the top rises a naked shaft 1600 feet high—this is the thumb. Our first glacier, too is here, a great mass of whitish ice settled low in the ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... not budge. A finger and thumb, both dirty, rolled a portion of her pinafore into a pointed thing like a string, distinctly black. She waited for the visitor to withdraw. But this particular visitor did ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... terrified that they offer no resistance in a body, but each flies, neglecting even his wife and children; but when overtaken, like wild animals, they fight against any number to the last moment. One dying Indian seized with his teeth the thumb of his adversary, and allowed his own eye to be forced out sooner than relinquish his hold. Another, who was wounded, feigned death, keeping a knife ready to strike one more fatal blow. My informer said, when he was pursuing an ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... those at breakfast could get on satisfactorily with their food. It was not altogether that the chops were tough, but that the knives were all so blunt. Being a guest, he, of course, made no sign; but presently saw Joshua draw his thumb across the edge of his knife in an unconscious sort of way. At the action Mary turned pale and ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... that very early on in the world's history the twisting together of strands of wool and cotton would force itself upon the attention of the ancients. If the reader will take a little cotton wool in the left hand and by means of the first finger and thumb of the right take a few cotton fibres and gently twist them together and at the same time draw the thread formed outwards, it will be seen how very easy it is (from the nature of the cotton) ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... kind of rest-cure that'll agree with you, nor I guess any of us at Champo. There ain't no trouble with her that's bothering you?" He pointed with a backward jerk of his thumb ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... considerable time, for with their masts they would have to clear away the branches to a considerable height. Down near the water the branches by which we pushed ourselves along were those of the undergrowth, with many rattans and other creepers varying from the thickness of one's thumb to that of one's wrist, and these would take a great deal of chopping before one of their war boats could be pushed through, but higher up they would probably have much thicker branches to contend with. It may be that they can lower their masts; but even if they could do so, I should think that ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... drinks more, the more that he protests, Sees, One by One, his Fellows slip from Sight, And then himself beneath the Table rests. * * * * * * Some walk the Sinuous Crack for Test, and Some Judge by the throbbing Fullness of the Thumb— But lo! the Fool continues till the Guests Are changed to Pairs of Twins as in ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... innumerable ways of making money were beautifully present to him; he could have handled them, for his newspaper, as easily as he handled everything. He was quite aware how he handled everything; it was another mark on his forehead; the pair of smudges from the thumb of fortune, the brand on the passive fleece, dated from the primal hour and kept each other company. He wrote, as for print, with deplorable ease; since there had been nothing to stop him even at the age ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... say that, my dear," she cried, appalled. "It is not your affair at all, and the Turners are not to blame because the Sheriff is under the thumb of his madam. The Turners have their good points as well as ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... problems; they attempt to deal with each one as it arises until they are weary of the seemingly endless procession and abandon the task. Their endeavors are based on faint memories of such problems in their own youth or on rule-of-thumb proverbial philosophy about morals and children. Does not the development of moral ability and culture deserve at least as much attention as any other phase of the child's life? After all, what do we most of all desire for all our children—position, fame, ease? or is it not rather simply this, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... imaginary axis, as you may have seen youth of tender age and limited pugilistic knowledge, when they show how they would punish an adversary, themselves protected by this rotating guard,—the middle knuckle, meantime, thumb-supported, fiercely prominent, death-threatening. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... battle practice. It was on the flagship that I saw a device which Sir John referred to as the next best thing to having the Germans come out. He took as much delight in it as the gun-layers, who were firing at German Dreadnoughts of the first line, as large as your thumb, which were in front of a sort of hooded arrangement with the guns of a British Dreadnought inside— the rest I censor myself before the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... swing his arm forward from the elbow. The table has become his covert and the rug beyond is his pool. And sometimes even when the rod is not in his hand he will make the motion forward from the elbow and will drop his thumb. It will show that he has jumped the seasons and that he stands to his knees ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... be guardedly thrown out against him in the Senate, which he parried off with the cool and audacious skill of an expert fencer, knowing that for the immediate moment at least, he had a "majority" under his thumb. This majority was composed of persons who had unfortunately become involved in his toils, and were, therefore, naturally afraid of him;— yet it was evident, even to a superficial student of events, that if once ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... frown as I passe by, & let the[m] take it as they list Sam. Nay, as they dare. I wil bite my Thumb at them, which is a disgrace to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... sir. I don't like writing lessons. They are a perfect plague. They give me the cramp in my thumb, and ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... "I had my thumb on the man who would have stolen it for me at the time," rejoined Judson, "but he was discharged for some minor dishonesty before I had ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... alongside of the substitute stimulus. Here a natural stimulus calls out a motor response different from its natural response. The muttered imprecation of the adult takes the place of the child's scream of pain. The loose holding of the pen between the thumb and the first two fingers takes the place of ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... rail. The snow, curling and eddying across the little blaze of lamps, whitened everything alike, tender and wheel and rail, the jackscrews, the bars, and the shoulders and caps of the men. The priest bent forward again and touched the lips and the forehead of the switchman with his thumb: then straightening on his knees he paused a moment, his eyes lifted up, raised his hand and slowly signing through the blinding flakes the form of the cross, gave him ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... upon her thumb, that she might have nothing to do but admire Grace's courage, as the girl ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... gamblers and some were horsemen. I selected one of the horsemen, and took him to my room to teach him the ropes. I said to him: "I will cold deck you, and give you three kings, a seven and a eight, and you must put your thumb over one of the spots on the eight, so that the Jew will think you have a king full on sevens when he sees your hand. I will have an ace full, and will bet you $200 or $300 before the draw; then you raise me $5,000." After giving him full ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... 'a been, unless it might be a razor. You don't cut ropes with your thumb-nails, do you? Of course it ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... one at the sight of which his indifference vanished as though by magic. It was a heavy, square envelope, a coronet upon the flap, addressed to David Drexley, Esq., in a handwriting distinctly feminine. He singled it out from the rest, held it for a moment between his thumb and broad forefinger, and then turned his chair round, abandoning the rest of his correspondence as a matter of infinitesimal consequence. A letter from her was by no means an everyday affair, for she was a woman of caprices, as who should know better than he? There ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... seldom ruffled, led the way into the entry. "That's the butter's pantry," she said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... theirs, almost simultaneous in the two minds, was not wholly a failure as a thumb-nail sketch of Mr. George Crooper. And yet there was the impressiveness of size about him, especially about his legs and chin. At seventeen and eighteen growth is still going on, sometimes in a sporadic way, ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... thing, you're quite clever to-night! What difference does it make? They never know—they never dream! I wish I could dig." Alicia looked pensively at the olive between her finger and thumb. ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... grotesquely, in an attitude of mirth, On a damask-covered hassock that was sitting on the hearth; And at a magic signal of his stubby little thumb, I saw the fireplace changing to ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... direction—she listened coolly, then stowing the letter in her bosom, she stood still for a moment with a look of deep deliberation—her head on one side, her forefinger on her cheek-bone, her thumb under her chin, and the knuckle of the middle-finger ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... surprise for her as for me. She could not tell how I might take it; but she quickly rallied, burst into a loud screeching laugh, and, with her old Walpurgis gaiety, danced some fantastic steps in her bare wet feet, tracking the floor with water, and holding out with finger and thumb, in dainty caricature, her slammakin old skirt, while she sang some of her nasal patois with ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Her dress was perfection—so were her jewels. One saw that her corsetiere was an artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand—it was well-shaped, save that the thumb turned back in ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... and then drew it, and held it out to the gunner, who went below, and by the time the young officer had had a good inspection of the lugger, Billy came back with his left thumb trying the edge of ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... 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
... natural channels, issued periodically from vesicles on the leg for a period of six months, when the seat of the discharge changed to an eruption on the left arm, and continued in this location for one year; then the discharge shifted to a sore on the thumb, and at the end of another six months again changed, the next location being on the upper eyelid; here it continued for a period of two years. Brierre de Boismont and Meisner describe a case apparently identical with the foregoing, though not ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... finds it hard to say a plain thing in a plain way. He is too anxious to show in every sentence what a fine scholar he is. He carries in his mind an accumulated treasure of quotations, allusions, and scraps and tags of history, and into this, like Jack Horner, he must needs "stick in his thumb and pull out a plum." Instead of saying, "It is a fine morning," he prefers to write, "This is a day of which one might say with the melancholy Jacques, ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... degenerate policeman of the rapacious crew who hide in hedges and lie in wait for poor unfortunate automobilists who may have slipped down a sloping bit of clear roadway at a speed of twenty and one-tenth miles per hour (instead of nineteen and nine-tenths), all figured out by rule of thumb and with the ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... Freddy smiled at this very pleasantly; and little Ken, the very small baby, cooed and sucked his thumb. ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... different part of the building, and joined another crowd, this time surrounding the illustrious Tom Thumb, at that time one of the attractions ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... ladies are in the habit of chewing snuff! Some of them become so addicted to it as to use enormous quantities in this way. "One of these snuff eaters," I was told, "was accustomed to take herself by the under lip with one hand, and with the thumb and four fingers of the other to fill in an embankment between her lips and teeth." Shocking! Yet, what young lady who carries a concealed snuff-box, can be sure of not coming ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... taken a view of the frightful place, which may rather be imagined than described. One part of the water was formerly so narrow, that a wager was laid by a gentleman that he could span it with the thumb and little finger, and which he would have accomplished, but his adversary, getting up in the night time, chipped a piece off the rock with a hammer, and thus won the wager. It is now, however, little more than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... independent of its fellows through long use in grasping limbs and rocks. This is remarkable of the Marquesans; each toe in the old and industrious is often separated a half inch from the others, and I have seen the big toe opposed from the other four like a thumb. My neighbors picked up small things easily with their toes, and bent them back out of sight, like ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... time it takes for each kind of tea to draw is calculated to a second. When the can is emptied it is passed around among the company for each tea-drinker to take up as many leaves as can be held between the thumb and finger; the leaves ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... shortest, will condescend to finish one in a few months. The stalk of the fern, which is about as thick as a lucifer match, is split into four strips. The workman then takes a strip in his left hand, and, with his thumb on the back and his forefinger on the edge, draws the strips up and down against the knife blade until the soft pithy parts are cut away, and what remains has become fine enough for the next process. The cases are made on pointed cylindrical pieces of wood almost a couple of feet long. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... must now turn this opportunity to the best account. I was only this very minute lamenting that I had no help at my disposal. There's Pao-yue, it's true, but he too is made of the same stuff as the rest of them in here. Were I even to get him under my thumb, it would be of no earthly use whatever. Senior lady is as good-natured as a joss; and she likewise is no good. Miss Secunda is worse than useless. Besides, she doesn't belong to this place. Miss Quarta is only a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... those against this last of the prisoners convicted on this occasion, it would not be easy to find; who was hanged, for all that appears, because one person was suddenly "pinched on her thigh, as she thought, with four fingers and a thumb," and because another was "sore pained with a great ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... said, as we appeared. He jerked a thumb towards the classroom. 'I've locked dem in. What's doin', Buck?' he asked, indicating me with ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... Then we both gave the closest attention to the end of my thumb while I triumphantly squeezed a tiny drop of blood out of it. I sucked it. The incident was closed. She was no ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... being, as his first boon, a progeny of ghosts and goblins, of an aspect so loathsome and dreadful, that he was ready to faint away. At one time, after profound meditation, different beings spring forth: one from his thumb, another from his breath, a third from his ear, a fourth from his side. But ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... stranger. He took Don Diego's wrist between thumb and second finger. And then, at last, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... risked your neck for a perfect stranger! I happen to be a rich man, and my life is of some value. I came from Barcelona to Majorca on business—business with a good profit. If I had gone over there"—he paused, and jerked his thumb towards the blue and hazy space that lay below them—"the transaction would have fallen through. You have enabled me, by your prompt action, to return to Palma this evening and sign the papers connected with this affair. ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... guns, or expose your codware before your master. Many other improprieties a good servant will avoid.' 'Sir, pray teach me how to carve, handle a knife, and cut up birds, fish, and flesh.' 'Hold your knife tight, with two fingers and a thumb, in your midpalm. Do your carving, lay your bread, and take off trenchers, with two fingers and thumb. Never touch others' food with your right hand, but only with the left. Don't dirty your table or wipe your knives onit. Take a loaf of trenchers, and with the ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... craft, holding on to the stays with one hand, jerked his thumb expressively towards Miss Cringle, ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... numerals. Originally men counted by their fingers; thus, to mark the first four numbers they used an I, which naturally represents them. To mark the fifth, they chose a V, which is made out by bending inwards the three middle fingers, and stretching out only the thumb and the little finger; and for the tenth they used an X, which is a double V, one placed topsy-turvy under the other. From this the progression of these numbers is always from one to five, and from five ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and shrank a little; between finger and thumb he kneaded a fragment of bread, his eyes upon it. "I scarce ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... Toby's most modest spirits fled, at each expulsion, toward the Corporal; he stood with the rapper of the door suspended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why. Bridget stood perdue within, with her finger and her thumb upon the latch, benumbed with expectation; and Mrs. Wadman, with an eye ready to be deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window-curtain of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... who heard a pair of birds disputing in one of the two trees which sentineled the hospital. They had built a nest therein; it was bedtime, and they wished to retire, only something prevented. Upon investigation he discovered the cause—"and there you were, my dear, no bigger than my thumb!" ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... he said presently, in the tone of a man who has fallen into the habit of talking aloud to himself. He looked about in a hesitant, doubtful fashion. "God!" he said abruptly and snapped his fingers and thumb. He looked angry. Again he bent over Pierre, examined him with thoroughness and science, his face becoming more and more calm. At the end he rose and with an air of authority he went in again to Joan. She lay with her ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... six-shooter from his side pocket. A red bandanna handkerchief protected the shiny barrel; he unwrapped this, regarded the weapon doubtfully, and rubbed his fat thumb over the butt. ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... the shingle men lifted the stretched string between his thumb and his forefinger, and he let it go, and it snapped down hard ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... Perissodactyla the number of toes is reduced to a minimum. Supposing, for example, we compare the foot of a horse with one of our own hands, we shall see that those parts which correspond with the thumb and little finger are altogether absent, while that which corresponds with the middle finger is largely developed, and with its hoof, the equivalent to our nail, constitutes the whole foot. The small splint bones, however, resting behind the principal bone of the foot represent those portions (metacarpals) ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... remember the Great Frode putting his hand to the sinews of birds, or tearing the rump of a cooked fowl with crooked thumb. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... he, jerking grimy thumb at his companion, "will ye 'ark to this brimstone witch—been clackin' away all along from Sevenoaks, she 'ave! Gimme a tanner an' she's yourn—say thrippence—say a penny!" At this the woman started to berate him again and ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... groin; Adjutant James has a wound from a grape-shot in his ankle, and a flesh-wound in his side from a glancing ball or piece of shell. Captain Pope has had a musket-ball extracted from his shoulder. Captain Appleton is wounded in the thumb, and also has a contusion on his right breast from a hand-grenade. Captain Willard has a wound in the leg, and is doing well. Captain Jones was wounded in the right shoulder. The ball went through and he is doing well. Lieutenant Homans wounded by ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... the shelf in the wall above the stove, and took a pipe, which he filled with tobacco, and then he drew some coals out on the stove hearth. But before he dropped one of them on his pipe with his horny thumb and finger, he asked politely, "You ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... paused. The rifle flew into the ready position and his chilled thumb drew back the hammer. "What's this?" On the snow at his feet was a bright, scarlet splash, dreadfully distinct against the white background. While his dazed brain struggled to register what his eyes saw, he looked to ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... to his wife at home. True, he had been taking a dram, but he was mindful of the family for all that. He confronted me with the air of an old acquaintance; gave the military salute; and then, laying hold of a corner of my plaid with his thumb and forefinger,—"I know you," he said, "I know your kind well; ye're a Highland-Donald. Od, I've seen ye in the thick o't. Ye're reugh fellows when ye're bluid's up!" He had taken me for a grenadier of the 42d; and I lacked the moral courage to undeceive him. I met nothing further ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... was human natur', Squire," said the Clockmaker, "there was pride even in that hovel. It is found in rags as well as King's robes, where butter is spread with the thumb as well as the silver knife, NATUR' IS NATUR' WHEREVER ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... quite enough; be quick before the ground opens. The name of one—and this cross will save you. Lay your thumb on ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... the mingled hum of happy voices, spelling aloud life's first lessons, prophesied the future glory of the State. The curriculum of the old field school was the same everywhere—one Webster's blue backed, elementary spelling book, one thumb-paper, one stone-bruise, one sore toe, and ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... and when he did join in the conversation it was like an empty nut between the teeth—dusty and bitter. He kept a pocket-book, in which he held an account of his reading. Holding the pocket-book between finger and thumb, he would say, "Last year I read ten plays by Nash, twelve by Peele, six by Greene, fifteen by Beaumont and Fletcher, and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... until but little more than half its bulk remains. The upper edges being carefully worked to a fine edge, the only housewifery implement that the blacks possess is perfect. With the implement in the right hand, between the thumb and the second finger—the sharp edge resting on the thumb-nail—the beans are planed, the operator being able to regulate the thickness of the shaving ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... and they will believe in those eminent ladies having "spoken on Sundays to five hundred thousand hearers"—small audiences, by the way, compared with the intelligent concourse recently assembled in the city of New York, to do honour to the Nuptials of General the Honourable T. Barnum Thumb. At about this stage of their spiritual education they may take the opportunity of believing in "letters from a distinguished gentleman of New York, in which the frequent appearance of the gentleman's deceased wife ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... doth not know what logic lies concealed, Where diving finger meets with diving thumb? Who hath not seen the opponent fly the field, Unhurt by argument, by snuff ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... worse," he said, as he nursed it gently, "for I shouldn't like to be under her ladyship's thumb. She ought to be called to order. Talk about a hen that can crow; she's nothing to my lady here. I wonder Bracy stands it. Hullo! ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... Third. The inefficient rule-of-thumb methods, which are still almost universal in all trades, and in practicing which our workmen waste a large part of ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... have succeeded. Now that the print of a man's hand or foot or ear is enough to distinguish him from all other men, it is impossible to believe that the mask of his mind, the very imprint, form and pressure of his soul should be less distinctive. Just as Monsieur Bertillon's whorl-pictures of a thumb afford overwhelming proofs of a man's identity, so it is possible from Shakespeare's writings to establish beyond doubt the main features of his character and the chief incidents of his life. The time for random assertion about Shakespeare and unlimited eulogy of him has passed away ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... Faith gayly. "Not yet," and she picked up the lively one. "See, you hold them this way;" she held the shell between her thumb and middle finger and the sharp little claws sawed the air in vain. "There, cunning," she added, looking into the turtle's bright eyes, "go see your auntie or uncle, or whoever it is," and she put it into her dress with the other one, and ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... admit that I'm not much at taking up with second-hand opinions. Now, here's another idea of mine." He held up a walnut between his thumb and finger. "There's a tree in that, ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... instinct had led him to endeavour to knock the wasp away. Now, Flamby extending one motionless hand, the gaudily-striped insect alighted upon her finger and began busily to march from thence to the rosy tip of the next, and so on until it reached Flamby's little curved thumb. Holding the thumb upright, so that the wasp stood upon a miniature tower, she pursed her lips entrancingly and blew the insect upon its way as gently as if borne upon ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... in shipbuilding were generally better than the English. The French, then and afterwards, were more scientific, the English more rule-of-thumb. Yet when it came to actual handling under sail, especially in action, the positions were reversed. The English seafaring class was far larger in proportion to population and it had far more practice at sea. Besides, ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... braced, and the body, though perfectly strait, not perpendicular, but inclining as far to the right as a firm position on the right leg will permit. The right arm must then be held out with the palm open, the fingers straight and close, the thumb almost as distant from them as it will go, and the flat of the hand neither horizontal nor vertical, but exactly between both. The position of the arm perhaps will be best described by supposing an oblong hollow square, formed by the measure of four arms, as in plate the first, where the arm ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... away towards the desert, Owen galloping after them, watching the aerial battle from his saddle, riding with loose rein, holding the rein lightly between finger and thumb, leaving his horse to pick his way. Again a hawk had reached a sufficient height and stooped; again the heron dodged, and so the battle continued, the hawks stooping again and again, but always missing the heron, until at last, no doubt tired out, the heron failed to turn in time: heron ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... Tunis, whom he was sailing to meet. He knew they were glowing with pride because of their triumphs over the Crusaders in Palestine. He knew they were blazing with anger because their brother Moors had been slaughtered and tortured in Spain. He saw ahead of him the rack, the thumb-screw, and the boot; the long years in a slimy dungeon—at the best the executioner's scimitar. He simply ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... to measures—and only the most conspicuous, the most interesting men.... Of these outstanding figures there are full length portraits—biographies, indeed, in ample detail strung on a long thread of politics, while very many minor characters have thumb-nail sketches. Few of the good anecdotes available, it would seem, have escaped Mr. Alexander, and good stories do not suffer at his hands."—The New ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... explained. "And about the red-faced man: we sha'n't take him into court. But I'd rather you wouldn't buy him, if you can help it. Can't you get him like this, some way?"—she held up a thumb and ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... I think his fist gapes, finger and thumb, to seize Monna Beatrice," he said, and he said no more, but looked as if he ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... roared, his passion full to the surface now. "Cut out the bunk—cut it out! Anything! No, it isn't much of anything—for you—out all night with Thornton. Do you think I'm going to stand for it! Do you think I'm going to sit and suck my thumb and ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... instructions to proceed to a certain point, so that no plant may be passed over. On the small basket being filled, the leaves are emptied into another large one, which is put in some shady place, and in which, when filled, they are conveyed to the manufactory. The leaves are generally plucked with the thumb and forefinger. Sometimes the terminal part of a branch, having four or five young leaves attached, is plucked off. All old leaves are rejected, as they will not curl, and ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... be there in the paper?" Imber's voice sank in whisperful awe as he crackled the sheets 'twixt thumb and finger and stared at the charactery scrawled thereon. "It be a great medicine, Howkan, and thou ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... and only about so large," the ex-theological student assured them, indicating the circle formed with his index finger and thumb. "Press hard on the plugs so that they won't ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... repeatedly scrutinized every acre of land in the vicinity looking for these guns, we had fairly accurate directions how to find the battery, but even then it required some search and doubling back and forth before a languid artilleryman lounging by the roadside pointed with thumb over shoulder toward ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... "theory" is unscathed by me. Not a doubt about it: but how does he himself come off? I should never think of refuting a theory proved by assumption of itself. I left Mr. Smith's [pi] untouched: or, if I put in my thumb and pulled out a plum, it was to give a notion of the cook, not of the dish. The "important question at issue" was not the circle: it was, wholly and solely, whether the abbreviation of James might be spelled Jimm.[224] This is personal to the verge of scurrility: ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... pints of water. Four of these were given for the ordinary, and eight for the extraordinary. The executioner inserted a horn into the patient's mouth, and if he shut his teeth, forced him to open them by pinching his nose with the finger and thumb.] ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... his frequent comparisons of war, "fighting Indians" and the one "fighting Yankees," was found on the slope, just in front of the enemy's breastworks, leaning against a tree, resting on his left knee, his loaded rifle across the other. In his right hand, between his forefinger and thumb, in the act of being placed upon the nipple of the gun, was a percussion cap. His frame was rigid, cold, and stiff, while his glossy eyes seemed to be peering in the front as looking for a lurking foe. He was stone dead, a bullet having pierced his heart, not leaving the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... can guess what happened. Tommy climbed up, and tried the apples with his thumb to see if they were ripe. Then he reached out to get a fine big one, and the branch broke, and over he went, with the branch, and the sign, and a shower of ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... fiance. fid-i to rely upon, trust. fidel-a faithful, loyal. fier-a proud, haughty. fil-o son. filozof-o philosopher. fin-i (trans.), to finish, end. fingr-o finger; "dika fingro", thumb; "montra fingro", index finger; "longa fingro", middle finger; "ringa fingro", ring-finger; "malgranda fingro", little finger. firm-a firm, steady. fisx-o fish. fizik-o physics, physical science. flag-o flag, banner, small standard. ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... case. From it he took a letter-knife, a pencil sharpener, a glass globe paperweight, a box of thumb tacks, a stapler, some clips, a plastic ashtray, and some things Thacher could not identify. He placed the objects in a row in front of him on the table top. Then he closed ...
— The Crystal Crypt • Philip Kindred Dick
... man at the wheel struck eight bells (four o'clock in the morning), and "All starbowlines, ahoy!" brought the other watch up, but there was no going below for us. The gale was now at its height, "blowing like scissors and thumb-screws"; the captain was on deck; the ship, which was light, rolling and pitching as tho she would shake the long sticks out of her, and the sails were gaping open and splitting in every direction. The mizzen-topsail, which was a comparatively new sail and close reefed, split from ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... them? Nonsense! you don't know how to go about it. Look. I'll show you. Open them with your first finger and thumb—so; and now do you see them?" triumphantly producing a round brown article on ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... I think, master. Good company for laymen when she was sinner, and good for priests now that she is saint. For the rest, I could snore well here after a cup of yon red wine," and he jerked his thumb towards a long-necked bottle on a sideboard. "Also, the fire burns bright, which is not to be wondered at, seeing that it is made of dry oak ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... he have him thumb upon you; but now, must do what tink most proper. By de powers, he catch ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... presenting the instrument in different positions. When one side of the tablet was full, the other was to be filled. If it was small, it was sufficient to turn it over, continuing to hold the edges between the thumb and third finger of the left hand. But if the tablet was large and had to be laid on a table to be written on, the face that was finished would be pressed to the hard surface, and the clay being soft, the writing would be effaced. This was guarded against by a contrivance as ingenious as it ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... he, a-puttin' his hands together, turnin' his toes out an' makin' a funny little bow. 'I am General Tom Thumb,' he says in a deep, gruff voice, 'an' I've been before all the crown-ed heads of Europe, Asia, Africa, America an' Australia,—all a's but one,—an' I'm waitin' here for a team of four little milk-white oxen, no bigger than tall cats, ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... round with poles; it remains thus a certain time, but not a fixed space; this is sometimes extended to three or four months, but seldom more than half that time. A certain set of venerable old Gentlemen, who wear very long nails as a distinguishing badge on the thumb, fore, and middle finger of each hand, constantly travel through the nation (when I was there I was told there were but five of this respectable order) that one of them may acquaint those concerned, ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... head, regarded her fixedly a moment, and then pressing her hand between her thumb and forefinger she rejoined with as little ceremony as though they had met the day before: "Moufflard does very poorly indeed, my dear. He died two months ago ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... the skin of the eye, which is shed with the rest of the slough, becomes then opaque, when Mr. Cops, wishing it to feed, held a fowl to its head. The snake darted at the bird, but missed it, seizing the keeper by the left thumb, and coiled round his arm and neck in a moment. Mr. Cops, who was alone, did not lose his presence of mind, and immediately attempted to relieve himself of the powerful constriction by getting at the snake's head. But the serpent had so ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... and he'll kill himself, or be killed at it as sure as I'm alive. You'll see, the shells won't miss him. He's escaped so far but he may not always be so lucky. He's already had a steel splinter in his thumb, and one of them tore a hole in his cap and in his waistcoat. That's close enough, I should think. But there's no use of my talking; he just won't listen to me. He's mad about gardening. That's ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... heart instead of his head. Had he been content merely to retain his present advantage, unconsciousness would soon have overcome his victim, but he tried to improve his grip, and the attempt proved disastrous. His thumb, seeking better vantage, fell into Harris's gasping mouth. Harris was no more depraved than most of mankind, but when fighting for life, and choking to death in the hands of an unknown enemy, he was ready to seize any advantage, and with ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... the reins drop over the saddlehorn, and brought the fiddle round in front of him. There was no hurry, he would be there before daylight. And he laughed as he ran his right thumb ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... the churchyard is a monument called the "Giant's Grave," said to be the burial-place of Owen Caesarius, who was "sole king of rocky Cumberland" in the time of Ida. Not far distant is another memorial, called the "Giant's Thumb." Sir Walter Scott, on all occasions when he visited Penrith, repaired to the churchyard to view these remains. The new church, recently built at the foot of the Beacon Hill, is in the Gothic perpendicular ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... admitted. The fortunate discoverer of the secret soon accumulated a large fortune, and he used to chuckle, years after, as he told that the process consisted in smearing the second coat of colour, while still wet, with the fleshy part of his thumb, which happened to have a peculiarly open or coarse "grain." It will be seen at once that in this way he could produce an infinite variety. Mr. Lloyd, the other partner, belonged to a very old Welsh family, which, as landed proprietors, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... upon one knee. His revolver was yet in his right hand, gleaming in the starlight, but before he could raise or fire it I had grasped the steel barrel firmly, and the hammer came down noiselessly upon the flesh of my thumb. The next instant we were locked close together in fierce struggle for the mastery. He was the heavier, stronger man; I the younger and quicker. From the first every effort on both sides was put forth solely to gain command ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... Between thumb and forefinger he balanced a sugar-crusted comfit of coriander seed steeped in marjoram vinegar, and having put his question he bore the sweet-meat to his mouth. The ladies looked at him, and from him to me. Then Madonna Paola spoke, and ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... regardless of the tremendous fire of the Bavarians, carrying the wine upon her head, when a bullet struck the cask, and compelled her to let it go. Undaunted by this accident, she endeavoured to repair the mischief, by placing her thumb upon the orifice caused by the ball; and then encouraged those nearest her to refresh themselves quickly, that she might not remain in her dangerous situation, and suffer for her humane ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... felt her sag, betted when she'd break; Wondered every time she raced if she'd stand the shock; Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake; Hoped the Lord 'ud keep his thumb on the plummer-block. Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal; Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul; Last we prayed she'd buck herself into judgment Day — Hi! we cursed the Bolivar knocking round ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... use the like of such words, Christina. The minister would tell you it is a very loose expression and a very dangerous doctrine. He was reproving Elder McInnes for them very words, and any good minister will be keeping his thumb on such a wide outgate. Andrew knows well that he has to have the particular and elected grace of God to keep him where he ought to be. This hid-away money has given him a sore tumble, and I will tell ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... to know all, Old Curiosity, in order to place your thumb upon the throat of opportunity! (Monipodio nods assent.) Is ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... forth one leg that is hid deep. Unto him that beholdeth that leg (viz., Turiya) as put forth for the purpose of guiding the other three, both death and emancipation are the same. That Eternal One endued with Divinity is beheld by Yogins (by their mental eye). Of the measure of the thumb, ever Full, and different from this eternal organism, coming in contact with the Vital airs, the Will, the Intellect, and the ten Senses, it moveth to and fro. That Supreme Controller, worthy of reverential hymns, capable of everything ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his brother's daughter, a little lass about twelve years old to whom he has left his property, a pretty creature, gentle as a lamb, a nice little girl, so pleasant. She has such blue eyes, long as that," he added, marking a line on his thumb, "and hair like the cherubim. When you ask her: 'Tell me, Perotte' (That's how we say Pierette in these parts," he remarked, interrupting himself; "she is vowed to Saint Pierre; Cambremer is named Pierre, and he was her godfather)—'Tell me, Perotte, what ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... a fool!" he growled. "That ain't nothin'. Once I bu'sted up a Mingo camp to git my dawg. They'd caught the critter an' was cal'latin' to sculp him alive. Got him free, too, an' the damn pup was that stirred up by his feelin's that he couldn't tell who was his friends, an' he chawed my thumb somethin' cruel." ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... twisting a charming riding-whip while he talked with a woman; there were specks of mud on the ample folds of his white trousers, he wore clanking spurs and a tight-fitting jacket, evidently he was about to mount one of the two horses held by a hop-o'-my-thumb of a tiger. A young man who went past drew a watch no thicker than a five-franc piece from his pocket, and looked at it with the air of a person who is either too early or too ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Dutch caps and big muslin aprons that he took off his spectacles and cleaned them carefully so as to have a thoroughly uninterrupted view; and as they stood at a quarter to four gazing round the room, he stood gazing at them, and when they said "It's perfect," he said, indicating them with his thumb, "Same here," and then they all laughed for they were all very happy, and Mrs. Bilton, arrayed exactly as Mr. Twist had pictured her when he engaged her in handsome black, her white hair beautifully brushed and neat, crossed ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... this to them," put in the cowboy who appeared to know him, and suiting act to word he placed his thumb to his nose and twiddled his finger. "Do that, Pan. That'll shore shut ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... an' acres wide, O' his bawsand youd that I should ride When I was made his bonny wee bride, Returning lo'e for lo'e; That I a lady to kirk should gang, Ha'e writ my virtues in a sang; But I snapp'd my thumb, and said, "gae hang, Gin that's the best ye can do." O sirs, but he was a silly auld man, Nae mair he spak' o' his gear an' lan'; An' through the town like lightning ran, The tale o' auld ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... locks that waved in the wind; a beauty that might have moved her Barbarian destroyers to pity and remorse. 10. The manly or divine form of Hercules, [96] as he was restored to life by the masterhand of Lysippus; of such magnitude, that his thumb was equal to his waist, his leg to the stature, of a common man: [97] his chest ample, his shoulders broad, his limbs strong and muscular, his hair curled, his aspect commanding. Without his bow, or quiver, or club, his lion's ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... see how much people will believe," she said, putting out her candle and snuffing it with her thumb and forefinger. Then she began to arrange the boxes she had brought, setting them in order upon the shelves. Still neither of the men answered her. But she was not the woman to be reduced to ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... the first sound of the Boom, had hastened on the wings of the wind to the Magic City. His frock coat radiated newness, his patent leathers shone, and a portion of the brim of a tall silk hat rested daintily between thumb and fingers ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... bolted out with the message, had sent his car rushing through the city streets, and had become a still muddier and wetter figure than before when he stood upon the porch of the old Gray homestead, well out in the edge of the city, and put thumb to the bell. ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... when he saw her. His color rose and he began to mark up the table with his thumb nail. I could see he felt his fix. The girl—Indian right through—showed no surprise at seeing him there, but that did not mean she would keep her mouth shut about it next ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... Cigales appear about the summer solstice. Along the beaten paths, calcined by the sun, hardened by the passage of frequent feet, we see little circular orifices almost large enough to admit the thumb. These are the holes by which the larvae of the Cigale have come up from the depths to undergo metamorphosis. We see them more or less everywhere, except in fields where the soil has been disturbed by ploughing. Their usual position is ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... labyrinth and clue, 600 The miracle fades out of history, But faith and wonder and the primal earth Are born into the world with every child. Shall this self-maker with the prying eyes, This creature disenchanted of respect By the New World's new fiend, Publicity, Whose testing thumb leaves everywhere its smutch, Not one day feel within himself the need Of loyalty to better than himself, That shall ennoble him with the upward look? 610 Shall he not catch the Voice that wanders earth, With spiritual summons, dreamed or heard, As sometimes, just ere sleep ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... they meant by this impertinent intrusion upon a student's privacy. Cosh certainly jumped once in his seat as if he had been stung by a wasp, and it is certainly true that at that moment there was a piece of elastic on the thumb and first finger of Speug's left hand, but his right hand was devoted to literature. The language which Cosh allowed himself to use in the heat of the moment was so unvarnished that it came under Bulldog's attention, who told ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... the samurai sword. My hands were very hot and dry, but perfectly steady, and I tested the edge of the heavy weapon upon my left thumb-nail as quietly as one might test a razor blade. It was keen, this blade of ghastly history, as any razor ever wrought in Sheffield. I seized the graven hilt, bent forward in my chair, and raised the Friend's Sword high above my head. With the heavy weapon poised there, I looked ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... Jerome (Prologue, super Marc.) says that "it is related of the Blessed Mark* that after receiving the faith he cut off his thumb that he might be excluded from the priesthood." [*This prologue was falsely ascribed to St. Jerome, and the passage quoted refers, not to St. Mark the Evangelist, but to a hermit of that name. (Cf. Baronius, Anno Christi, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour. And this, good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist. Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for impatient ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... my good friend?' said Mr Chester, twirling Dolly's note between his finger and thumb, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Darling, in which it builds a nest of small sticks, varying in length from eight inches to three, and in thickness, from that of a quill to that of the thumb. The fabric is so firm and compact as almost to defy destruction except by fire. The animals live in communities, and have passages leading into apartments in the centre of the mound or pyramid, which might ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... he accompanied the words was fatal. Instinctively he had jerked his thumb towards the window, thereby drawing the soldier's eyes in that direction. The fellow's glance fell upon the twisted bar, and a sharp exclamation ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... and a very familiar one. She holds in her arms a pretty child, a little boy— quite naked, like the son of a goddess; he has a medal hung round his neck by a little silver chain. I see him sucking his thumb and looking at me with those big eyes so newly opened on this old universe. The mother simultaneously looks at me in a sly, mysterious way; she stops—I think blushes a little—and holds out the little creature to me. The baby has a pretty ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... phrases. They are usually malignant, though there are instances of their doing men a good turn. They are always very powerful, and are usually very large. It is told of one troll that, had she not made a misstep, she would have succeeded in wading from Norway to Iceland; and of another, that the thumb of his glove held four bushels, good measure. In some instances, however, it is possible for many trolls to enter one room of an ordinary dwelling house. There are trolls with three heads, with six heads, with nine heads, and with twelve heads. Sometimes they are one-eyed, ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... it could scarcely be discerned at all, but the moment she was aroused, the delicate network of veins stood out round and full, forming what seemed to be a tiny hand without the thumb. It showed a little now in the firelight, and Mrs. Worthington shuddered as she glanced at what brought so vividly before her the remembrance of other and wretched days. Adaline observed the shudder and hastened to change the conversation from herself to Hugh, saying by way of making ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... else just as bad! Probably she'll withdraw her permission and keep you under her thumb as ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a Christian church, and fell before an image which attracted his attention, at the base of which was the real arm of a saint. The sacristan handed the holy relic to Pithyrian, who kissed it, and then restored it to the sacristan; but the servitor did not observe that a thumb was missing. Off ran Pithyrian with the thumb, and joined his daughter. On came the dragon, with tail erect, wings extended, and mouth wide open, when Pithyrian threw into the gaping jaws the "sacred thumb." Down fell the tail, the wings drooped, the jaws were locked, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... a great hurry!" said he to his neighbour clerk. "What's he got that great big ring on his thumb for?" And the other replying: "Don't you know 'em—rheumatic rings?" he added: "Doesn't look a rheumatic customer, anyhow!" And then both of them pinned up cheques, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... feet. Very well—we'll see! 'Every dog has his day,' and 'the longest lane has its turning,' and you're near about the end of your tether, and George Parmalee has you and your fine lady under his thumb—under his thumb—and he'll crush you, sir—yes, by Heaven, he'll crush you, and strike you back blow ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... fire. Then he will swing his arm forward from the elbow. The table has become his covert and the rug beyond is his pool. And sometimes even when the rod is not in his hand he will make the motion forward from the elbow and will drop his thumb. It will show that he has jumped the seasons and that he stands to his knees ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... angle against the spying of my neighbors. As the young woman was of a more open nature, she laid hers out flat. It is my weakness to pry upon another's book. Especially if it is old and worn—a musty history or an essay from the past—I squirm and edge myself until I can follow the reader's thumb. ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... greater understanding than Dante's, "make the angels weep." (Dante, by the way, has introduced in his heaven no such angels as those; though he has plenty that scorn and denounce.) Lope de Vega, though a poet, was an officer of the Inquisition, and joined the famous Armada that was coming to thumb-screw and roast us into his views of Christian meekness. Whether the author of the story of Paulo and Francesca could have carried the Dominican theories into practice, had he been the banisher instead of the banished, is a point that may ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... When we got on deck, the man at the wheel struck eight bells, (four o'clock in the morning,) and "All starbowlines, ahoy!" brought the other watch up. But there was no going below for us. The gale was now at its height, "blowing like scissors and thumb-screws;" the captain was on deck; the ship, which was light, rolling and pitching as though she would shake the long sticks out of her; and the sail gaping open and splitting, in every direction. The mizen topsail, which was a comparatively new sail, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... found its way into the aristocratic precincts of Crompton Place. If it had he had not seen it, and he wondered who could have sent this one. He found his master taking his breakfast, and, holding the letter between his thumb and fingers, as if there were contamination in its touch, he ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... the wacht-meester applied the thumb of his right hand to the end of his nose, and the thumb of the left hand to the little finger of the right, and spreading each hand like a fan, made an aerial flourish with his fingers. Anthony Van Corlear was sorely perplexed to understand this sign, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... moist. It leaves a mark on any cold smooth surface it may touch. That bowl was moved by somebody with a rather moist hand quite lately." He sprinkled the powder again. "Here on the other side, you see, is the thumb-mark—very good impressions all of them." He spoke without raising his voice, but Mr. Cupples could perceive that he was ablaze with excitement as he stared at the faint gray marks. "This one should be the index finger. I need not tell a man of your knowledge of the world that the pattern ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... snoring of a certain enormous, but peaceable, giant—the giant Skrymir, who lay peaceably sleeping near by; and this, that they took for a house, was merely his glove thrown aside there: the door was the glove-wrist; the little closet they had fled into was the thumb! Such a glove! I remark, too, that it had not fingers, as ours have, but only a thumb, and the rest undivided—a ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... after giving his son a severe beating he then cut the thumb and forefinger off of the slave. The only things that were taught the slaves was the use of their hands. Mr. Womble says that all the while that he was working in the master's house they still found the time for him to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... slight inflammation. Attention to diet is necessary. Fold a linen handkerchief, dip it in cold water, and bind it over the eyes at night on retiring, and you will experience relief. Pain in the eyeballs is also relieved, by gently rubbing the finger and thumb over the lids towards the nose. This was published some years since, and I have known it give relief ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... watching us out of the tail of his eye, and motioned to me with his hand that I should make him welcome. My father spoke with his hand so that White Quiver should understand—" The Mound-Builder made with his own thumb and forefinger the round sign of the Sun Father, and then the upturned palm to signify that all things should be as between brothers. "I was perfectly willing to do as my father said, for, except Ongyatasse, I had never seen any ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... hold of the chair with his left hand, raised it up, and with his right hand deliberately thrust the knife, up to the hilt, into Anthony's heart, and as deliberately drew it out, and wiping off the blood with his thumb and finger, retired near to the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... 'im, that's all," was the answer. "Z—— tries to get the best of everything. Give ye a drink from 'is water bottle when your own's empty; 'e wouldn't. I wouldn't trust 'im that much." He clicked his thumb and middle finger together as he spoke, and without another word he vanished into ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... not ringed, though, like the earth-worm, but smooth and glossy, dappled with darker spots, especially on one side, which may be the upper one. Put round its mouth twelve little arms, on each a hand with four ragged fingers, and on the back of the hand a stump of a thumb, and you have Synapta Digitata (Plates IV. and V., from my drawings of the live animal). These hands it puts down to its mouth, generally in alternate pairs, but how it obtains its food by them is yet a mystery, for its intestines are filled, like an earth-worm's, with the mud ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... short time Debby came racing back again, a plate in her hand with a slice of bread on it. "It's all right," she cried triumphantly, "it hasn't fell'd, I put my thumb on it so's ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Mahometan, believed himself charmed against poisonous reptiles, and used to bring me centipedes and scorpions in his hands, saying they never hurt him. He left our service and was employed by the Borneo Company, about half a mile from our house. One day, while cutting rattans in a shed, a cobra bit his thumb. He thought nothing of it, but, putting away his work as usual, went home, cooked his rice and ate his supper. By this time, however, his arm began to swell and his head to swim. Instead of going to the doctor, who then lived close by, he must needs go ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... they were unable to save their country from the devastations of the enemy, and disappointments began to thin the numbers of the soldiers. Henri, while fighting in a hollow road, was struck in the right hand by a ball, which broke his thumb in three places. He continued to direct his men, but they were at length driven back from their post. He was obliged to leave the army for some days; and though he soon appeared again at the ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one of the tiny ears betwixt the finger and thumb of each hand, and pulled. The body of the horse came asunder, divided down the back, and showed inside of it a piece of paper. Cosmo took it out. It was crushed, rather than folded, round something soft. He ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... with me, is to act. Grasping Thuvia by the arm, I whispered to Tars Tarkas to follow me. Quickly we glided toward a small flier which lay furthest from the battling warriors. Another instant found us huddled on the tiny deck. My hand was on the starting lever. I pressed my thumb upon the button which controls the ray of repulsion, that splendid discovery of the Martians which permits them to navigate the thin atmosphere of their planet in huge ships that dwarf the dreadnoughts of our earthly navies into ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... designs found on neolithic pottery, continue to measure in finger breadths, finger lengths, and hand breadths as did the ancient folks who called an arm length a cubit. Nor has the span been forgotten, especially by boys in their games with marbles; the space from the end of the thumb to the end of the little finger when the hand is extended must have been an important ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... time of the Romans, by whom, also, it was used: its lengths in different places varying not much more than men's feet vary. The heights of horses are still expressed in hands. The inch is the length of the terminal joint of the thumb; as is clearly shown in France, where pouce means both thumb and inch. Then we have the inch divided ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... active; the innumerable ways of making money were beautifully present to him; he could have handled them, for his newspaper, as easily as he handled everything. He was quite aware how he handled everything; it was another mark on his forehead; the pair of smudges from the thumb of fortune, the brand on the passive fleece, dated from the primal hour and kept each other company. He wrote, as for print, with deplorable ease; since there had been nothing to stop him even at the age of ten, so there was as little at twenty; it was part of his fate in the first place ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... the old man's secret, and capable of making trouble and spoiling things when he does. 'Better give him the same sort of secret of his own to keep,' says Levy, 'then they'll both hold their tongues, and I'll have one of 'em under each thumb till all's blue.' So he goes for Teddy till he gets him, and finances father and son in watertight compartments until this libel case comes along and does make things look a bit blue for once. Not blue enough, mind you, to compel the sale of a big rising property at a sacrifice; but ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... haughtily his reason he's begun, And to the King: "Believe not any one, My word nor theirs, save whence your good shall come. Since he sends word, that King Marsiliun, Homage he'll do, by finger and by thumb; Throughout all Spain your writ alone shall run Next he'll receive our rule of Christendom Who shall advise, this bidding be not done, Deserves not death, since all to death must come. Counsel of pride is wrong: we've fought ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... reels and lines on the market. Nothing in life hurts so much," he said impressively, "as to get a three-pound bass to the top of the water and have your line break. I've had a big fellow get away like that and chase me a mile with its thumb on its nose." This last, of course, was ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... heart, as being myself one of the most merciful of critics. Indeed, his stock required some considerable powers of commendation in the salesman; there were several ancient friends of mine, the novels of those happy days when my affections wavered between the Scottish Chiefs and Thomas Thumb; besides a few of later date, whose merits had not been acknowledged by the public. I was glad to find that dear little venerable volume, the New England Primer, looking as antique as ever, though in its thousandth new ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... want to cut shaped pieces as well as straight. You cannot break these directly the cut is made, but, holding the glass as in fig. 12, and pressing it firmly with the left thumb, jerk the tool up by little, sharp jerks of the fingers only, so as to tap along the underside of your cut. You will see a little silver line spring along the cut, showing that the glass is dividing; and when that silver ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... Slim, sucking his thumb, which he had that minute gashed with the knife. He rose and carried the dish of pared potatoes over to the kettle of boiling water waiting to receive them, but half way over he tripped on the apron, which had ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
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