"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and dark and solemn in the woods. They knew about the storm that was coming. Now and then Flax heard the leaves talking in queer little rustling voices. She inherited the ability to understand what they said from her father. They were talking to each other now in the words of her father's song. Very likely he had heard them saying it sometime, and that was how he happened ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... that I have taken the modern scientific theory of etheric vibration as our starting-point. The universe is one great whole, and the laws of one part cannot contradict those of another; therefore the explanation of such queer happenings is not to be found by denying the well-ascertained laws of Nature on the physical plane, but by considering whether these laws do not extend further. It is on this account that I would lay stress on the Mathematical side of things, and have adduced instances where various ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... out of Nice and up the hill to Villefranche, I turned over the whole of the queer facts in my mind, but could discern no motive for Pierrette's secret journey South. Why was she, so young, a nun? Why had she left her convent, if not at the instigation ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... Vanity Fair. Who but Thackeray could have borne to use the famous matter of the Waterloo ball, a wonderful gift for a novelist to find in his path, only to waste it, to dissipate its effect, to get no real contribution from it after all? In the queer, haphazard, polyglot interlude that precedes it Thackeray is, of course, entirely at home; there it is a question of the picture-making he delights in, the large impression of things in general, the evocation of daily life; Brussels in its talkative suspense, waiting ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... his comfortable fireside one cold winter's night. He was a widower, and lived alone on his plantation; that is to say, he was the only white person there; for of negroes, both field hands and house servants, he had enough and to spare. He was a queer old man, this Mr. Cleveland; a man of kind, good feelings, but of eccentric impulses, and blunt and startling manners. You must always let him do everything in his own odd way; just attempt to dictate to him, or even to suggest a certain course, ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... "He is a queer fellow," Pinkerton said, "one never knows what he can do and what he can't. At the last exam Glover said that the papers he sent in were far and away the best, but that he had only done the difficult questions and hadn't sent in any answers at all to the easy ones, so that instead ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... queer woman talked to Giglio on a variety of subjects, in which the poor Prince showed his ignorance as much as she did her capacity. He owned, with many blushes, how ignorant he was; on which the lady said, 'My dear Gigl—my good Mr. Giles, you are a young man, ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... good people were not in the least disturbed, nor did they know that other people, when they can get nothing to eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very queer marches, which ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Gilchrist's cart to the Stanin' Stanes, and the walk home again with little Marjorie in his arms. No wonder that he was a little upset, he told himself. He was tired, and it was time he was in his bed. So with a glance at the moon which was showing her face from behind a cloud—she had a queer ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... ready to go to pieces. But that hand was weighty and hard. There were signs, in the upper classes at all events—the only classes then taken into account—of a sort of muffled revolt against this implacable disciple. Besides, the Prussians entertained queer illusions as to the future. Frederick had deceived his subjects just as he had deceived himself regarding the durability of his work. They did not understand to what an extent their power was the personal power of their King. Proud to the point of infatuation of the role he had made them ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... countries that are represented in Columbuses doin's. She wuz the first country to respond to the invitation to take part in it, and I spoze mebby that is the reason that Chicago gin her this beautiful place to hold her own individual doin's in. The temple is a gorgeous-lookin' one, but queer as anything—as anything ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... as we know, is a queer fellow. They grow 'em in Vermont, where they love steep mountains, ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his jaws hard, "the day is before us still; and we're well primed for the business of hunting that pack to their den. Look at that bunch of rocks a few miles off; that must be where they hang out, Bob! Queer that none of the boys have ever thought of hunting in this quarter for that old ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... chilled through when I go out. I'll stand here while your sister reads that letter. He said the answer would be just 'yes' or 'no,' and I shouldn't have to wait long. 'She ain't one to teeter long on a decision,' says he; 'she finds her footin' one side or the other.' He talks queer, queerer'n ever sence he was hurt. I pity anybody ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... he's a real Baron, all right; an odd-looking, dried up little chap with a wig and painted eyebrows. Yet he's hardly sixty. I got to know him at Atlantic City, where I had a Board Walk pitch one season. Queer? That's no word for it! Shy and lonesome he was; but after you got to know him, one of the brightest, jolliest old duffers. Our first talk was out on the end of one of those ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... was yet in this attitude of humility, enters behind him a portly gentleman, with a little girl of four years old in his hand. The gentleman burst into a great laugh at the lady and her adorer, with his little queer figure, his sallow face, and long black hair. The lady blushed, and seemed to deprecate his ridicule by a look of appeal to her husband, for it was my Lord Viscount who now arrived, and whom the lad knew, having once before seen him ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... is a queer girl. I don't know how she can marry Sir Peter, I must say. I suppose he is awfully rich, and Adelaide has always said that poverty was the most horrible thing in the world. I don't know, I'm sure. I should be inclined to say that Sir ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... Dunham. "Of course, I know what a simple and humble fellow you are, but you've no idea how that exterior of yours might impose upon the agricultural imagination; it has its effect upon me, in my pastoral moods." Dunham made a gesture of protest, and Staniford went on: "Country people have queer ideas of us, sometimes. Possibly Lurella was afraid of you. Think of that, Dunham,—having a woman afraid of you, for once in your life! Well, hurry up your acquaintance with her, Dunham, or I shall wear myself out in mere speculative analysis. I haven't the aplomb for studying the sensibilities ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... ask for poison: But it was late, few customers were there, The eyes of all the clerks would freeze upon her, And she would wilt, and cry . . . Here, by the river, She listened to the water slapping the wall, And felt queer fascination in its blackness: But it was cold, the little waves looked cruel, The stars were keen, and a windy dash of spray Struck her cheek, and withered her veins . . . And so She dragged herself once more ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... mean that Victoria says she won't marry me if she has to live with you. She's afraid of you. I told her you wouldn't interfere with her, but she wasn't satisfied. It's your own fault, Eunice. You've always been so queer and close that people think you're an awful crank. Victoria's young and lively, and you and she wouldn't get on at all. There isn't any question of turning you out. I'll build a little house for you somewhere, and you'll be a great ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... too," said that lady's brother, with a sigh. "In fact, Mr. Watson, it's a queer world, and the longer I live in it the queerer I find it. Once I thought it would be a good idea to regulate things myself and run the world as it ought to be run; but I gave it up long ago. The world's ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... S.," he read aloud. Then he looked at me with a queer expression beginning to form ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... officials, on whose green frock coats dangled medals and badges, mounted the stairway to receive the report of the vessel and examine and vise the passports of the passengers. The stewards collected the passports and handed them to the Sultan's officers, who afterwards returned them stamped in queer-looking characters with the official seal of ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... is rather queer," assented Winnie musingly; "but I like Miss Latimer dearly. She is awfully good, Dick; and fancy her being the author of those books after all. Is it ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... it. He remembered. And—and I ought to have explained before. Mrs. Gray told me to, at once—about this red gingham dress, you know, and why I'm not in black. She said you'd think 'twas queer. But there weren't any black things in the last missionary barrel, only a lady's velvet basque which Deacon Carr's wife said wasn't suitable for me at all; besides, it had white spots—worn, you know—on both elbows, and some other places. Part of the ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... friend, upon this, said to him, "Well, certainly you have got queer tastes. What on earth are you going to keep ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... wait until I come back. I think I gone with him. Always I want to see the Islands. I work long enough now: go to travel some and see the world. So queer to think is so much world outside California. When you go to Europe, I go too. And you, too, Eeram. You no can go with us, for both cannot leave the bank, but when we coming back you take ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a corner of a front room, by a window, stood a high chest of drawers. On top of the chest stood a tin box, decorated with figures of queer people with queer flat parasols; a Chinese tea-box, in a word. The box had a lid. The lid was shut tight. But I knew what was in that gorgeous box and I coveted it. I was very little—I never could reach anything. There stood ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... great marvel. When I first heard the low, soft, solemn sound I thought it must be made by some strange disturbance in my head or stomach, but as all seemed serene within, I asked David whether he heard anything queer. "Yes," he said, "I hear something saying boomp, boomp, boomp, and I'm wondering at it." Then I was half satisfied that the source of the mysterious sound must be in something outside of us, coming perhaps from the ground ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... the greater part of the nitrogen of the soil, it makes no difference to the cowpea; for the cowpea will get its nitrogen from the air and not only provide for its own growth but will leave quantities of nitrogen in the queer nodules of its roots for the crops coming after it in ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... again like A winged thing, And from tree to tree With a vaulting spring; Then he sits up aloft, And looks ragged and queer, As if he would say: "Ay, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... article, signed "Veritas," discussed the question as to how far it was in the power of the Allies to make use of the economic weapon against their enemies after the war. That such a question should even be mooted as an end to a war undertaken with these objects, shows what a number of queer cross-currents are at work in the minds of many of us to-day. But some people go much further than that, and are advocating policies by which we should even restrict our commercial and economic intercourse with our brothers-in-arms. If the clamour for Imperial ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... not say th' advantage is all on his side, for all I take credit for improving him above a bit. Sometimes he says a rough thing or two, which is not agreeable to look at at first, but has a queer smack o' truth in it when yo' come to chew it. He'll be coming to-night, I reckon, about them childer's schooling. He's not satisfied wi' the make of it, and wants for ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... fair base runner, but excelled as a batsman. I have said that he was a fair fielder, and in that respect perhaps I am rating him too high, as his poor fielding cost us several games that in my estimation we should have won. Dalrymple was a queer proposition, and for years a very steady player. He was never known to spend a cent in those days, and was so close that he would wait for somebody else to buy a newspaper and then borrow it in order to see what ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... thrums a preliminary chord or two, just to let her and the family know he's not working on the sly; then he says in effect: 'I think of thee, my little Tessie, when the moonlight is shining on the world; your bright eyes have me going for fair, kid, and due to a queer pain in my interior, I know I'm ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... a sudden, he laughed right out To see me sit quietly listening so; And began to tell us stories about Some queer little fellows in Mexico. ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... instead of simply resuming where he had left off, from force of habit he first gave the leader's usual three sharp taps upon his music desk, and then—so queer a thing is an audience—those people, brought to their feet in an agony of terror, of fire, panic, and sudden death by a woman's cry, now at that familiar tap, tap, tap, broke here and there into laughter. By sixes and ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... great gates locked, and whoever wants to go in, no matter on what errand, must ring the lodge-keeper's bell, and it's only her own visitors, or the tradespeople with meat and groceries and such like as are admitted. They say she's gone almost queer in her head ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... out laughing at Joe's queer notions, and thus the day slipped by in pleasant chat. With returning strength, hope had revived, and with hope came the courage to do and to dare. The past was obliterated in the presence of the ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... believing perhaps that the queer freak of fortune which had turned the gambler's luck would not hold. In a few minutes there was more money on the table than the one-eyed man had stood before ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... seeing a naked Indian, whether it is that the bronze colour of his red skin looks so artificial, or that white flesh is so rarely observed, except in fashionable ball-rooms, I do not know; but I do know that I should most unequivocally feel queer, if I suddenly saw twenty or thirty naked Cockneys squatting and smoking under the trees on the banks of the Serpentine River, even if the thermometer was at 110 deg. at the moment. Such is custom. A naked Indian looks ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... up - FRENCH, to be shure, The faithfu' FRENCH, an' twa-three mair; The auld prezentor, hoastin' sair, Wales out the portions, An' yirks the tune into the air Wi' queer contortions. ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Bob, First in every wicked job, Son and brother to a queer Brain-sick brute, they call a peer. We must give them better quarter, For their ancestor trod mortar, And at H——th, to boast his fame, On a chimney ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... confessed that when an error, however flagrant and pestilential, has ceased to shock and scandalize the general body of the commonwealth; when the people listen to the doctrine without indignation, and their worst sentence upon it pronounces it merely "queer," there is little hope of legal restraints there enduring long or effecting much. Penalties for the expression of opinion are available only so far as they tally with the common feeling of the country. When public opinion ceases to bear them out, it is better not to enforce them: for that were ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... Berwick as the northernmost point of his country, as we shall all do, no doubt, when Scotland has secured Home Rule. We are, therefore, not surprised to find Scotland added, in a kind of hurried appendix, in special honour to James I and VI. The introduction to the Scottish section is in a queer tone of banter; Camden knows little and cares less about the "commonwealth of the Scots," and "withall will lightly pass over it." In point of fact, he gets to Duncansby Head in fifty-two pages, and not without some considerable slips of information. Ireland interests him more, and he ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... Should he be very thirsty, and your manners frank and assuring, it is, however, not impossible that after draining a pot of beer at your expense, he may recall, with a grin, the fact that he has heard that the Gipsies have a queer kind of language of their own; and then, if you have any Rommany yourself at command, he will perhaps rakker Rommanis with greater or less fluency. Mr Simeon, in his "History of the Gipsies," asserts that there is not a tinker or scissors- grinder in Great Britain who cannot talk this language, ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... going over beaten tracks; for he had kept many a queer secret with the loyalty which does his profession so ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Ethel is far the nicer name. We didn't think once that you would ever be telling me you were going to be married to someone else, did we? It feels queer, and it hurts me—a little, I think. Good-bye, Jack. I see now why you could not kiss me—it would not be right of you. She is a young girl and she might find it hard to forgive you if she knew. I am going. You used ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... one. They're queer animals; they don't run like the other deer, but they trot as fast as the others run, so it comes to the same thing. They are very shy, and difficult to get near, except in the heavy snow, and then their weight will not allow them to get ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... are full of queer people, who not only talk but act in a sort of dialect. Their one interest is their winning oddity. They are as truly native to the soil as are the people of 'Widow Guthrie.' In both books the humor is genuine, and the local coloring is bright ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... "That's a queer kind. I've seen the kind they use in some guns on the battleships. That powder was in hexagonal form, about two inches across, and had a hole in the centre. It ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... girl's father. Jew Westbrook knew that Shelley was related to rich and titled people, and that he was certain, if he lived, to become Sir Percy, and to be the heir of his grandfather's estates. Hence it may be that Harriet's queer conduct was not wholly of her ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Castle" and was so known over the United States from the manner in which the inmates lived. The strange fashion in which dogs, goats, chickens, or any animal on the place was made welcome in the drawing room was very queer and gave cause ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... of the world, And little recks of strife or angry brawl, If 'gainst a host his banner be unfurled, Be his heart stout, it matters not at all. With woman 'tis not so; for she seems hurled From hand to hand, as is a tennis ball. How queer that such a difference should be Between a human he ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... O dear! What have we here? What a nondescript, huge NID-NODDY! None know, I'm sure, what I have to endure. It's enough to frighten a body! They are always up to some queer new game, and a giving me some fresh master; But this one is a crux from the sole of his foot to the crown ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... suddenly stirred, gave a sigh, surged like the sea whipped by a gale, and, sinking at each step into the mud, the entire regiment rolled forward, over the expanse of the shoreless fields which now suddenly looked strange and dreadful. The soldiers, their faces haggard and queer, were crossing themselves as they ran. They marched in disorder, and when they were stopped on the hill-crest, they turned the regiment into a confused mob of breathless and perplexed men. Some even forgot ...
— The Shield • Various
... nodding south-east. "I caught sight of him when I first woke this morning, ever so far away, and then forgot all about him for hours, when I saw him again, and he had crawled nearer, about a hundred yards an hour, I should say. He looked so queer that I went over to him, and tried, as soon as I had got over the first look, to find out ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... softly, but there was a queer ring in the laugh, and he came over stumblingly and put his arm round his mother's shoulder. "Never mind how I get such sense as I have, mother; I have so much time to think, it would be a wonder if I hadn't some. But I think we had better try to study her, and coax her along, and not fob ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... but I didn't pay much attention. They inquired when Mr. Hazlehurst was coming home; I said I didn't know. The one with the curly hair said he guessed they knew more about the family than I did; and he looked queer when ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... looked around for a solution of this queer conduct on the part of the ais. No explanation appeared. At length he bethought himself of going up to them. Perhaps, when nearer, he might learn what set ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the inner office, and he had a last glimpse of the queer, deformed little figure, book under arm, velvet hat cocked over one ear, in the act ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... puzzle," replied Captain Baker. "Two of them were up at that farmhouse last night. The queer thing about it is that the woman up there saw the 'Red Rover' lying down here yesterday. Then the boat was gone when she looked again. I don't ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... seems queer that I haven't been to see you ... but you'll understand, I couldn't. There was ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... wonders of all kinds, but Aldonza's bird was found one morning dead, and Giles consoled her by the promise of something much bigger, and that would talk much better. Two days after he brought her a young jackdaw. Aldonza clasped her hands and admired its glossy back and queer blue eye, and was in transports when it uttered something between "Jack" and "good lack." But Dennet looked in scorn at it, and said, "That's a bird tamed already. He didn't catch it. He only bought it! I would have none such! An ugsome ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... had another musical evening all to himself, and so it went on for a week. Then he began to lose his appetite and sleep; and one morning Dick found him sitting on the sand looking very queer indeed—as well he might, for he had been "seeing things" ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... others of a different stripe. "We had a man with us at Menlo called Segredor. He was a queer kind of fellow. The men got in the habit of plaguing him; and, finally, one day he said to the assembled experimenters in the top room of the laboratory: 'The next man that does it, I will kill him.' They paid no attention to this, and next day one of them made some sarcastic ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... the Editor leaves the book to children, assuring them that the stories are true, except perhaps that queer tale of 'Orthon'; and some of the Sagas also may have been a little altered from the real facts before the ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... boy, as he tossed back a lock of dark hair which had straggled down over his eyes. They were dark, too, and, just now, were shining in eagerness as he looked at a queer collection of a barrel, a box, some chairs, a stool and a few boards, piled together in the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... fast to save her Temple mite. Nor was this the end of her pitiful plight, for her only son, as he was treading the wine-press, was smitten on the head by the sun, and died. Anna and her brother went to the funeral to help make mourning, and never hath she seen so queer an ending to shrill wailing as she saw that day. 'Ah, if thou couldst have been there,' said Anna. 'From Endor to Nain was Rabbi Jesus journeying accompanied by many. Shouting his praises were the men. Waving olive branches were the women ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... as the horse was going a little too fast, and Tom was calling out, 'Gently! gently!' two strangers came up. 'What an odd thing that is!' said one: 'there is a cart going along, and I hear a carter talking to the horse, but yet I can see no one.' 'That is queer, indeed,' said the other; 'let us follow the cart, and see where it goes.' So they went on into the wood, till at last they came to the place where the woodman was. Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried out, 'See, father, here I am with the cart, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... amusing French pictures at that place in Suffolk Street? There's a man there—a Parisian—I forget his honoured name—Leblanc, or Lenoir, or Lebrun, or something—but he's a most humorous artist, and he paints monkeys and storks and all sorts of queer beasties ALMOST as quaintly and expressively as you do. Mind, I say ALMOST, for I never will allow that any Frenchman could do anything QUITE so good, quite so funnily mock-human, as your ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... to mischief o' some kind, I guess," said Abel. "I jest happened daown by the mansion-haouse last night, 'n' he come aout o' the gate on that queer-lookin' creatur' o' his. I watched him, 'n' he rid, very slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn to somebody. I shouldn't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Listening, as we did, then and afterwards, to the tale, as it was told by his own sympathetic lips, much of the incongruity, otherwise no doubt apparent in the narrative, seemed at those times to disappear altogether. The incongruity, we mean, observable between the queer little ticket-porter and the elfin phantoms of the belfry; between Trotty Veck, in his "breezy, goose-skinned, blue-nosed, red-eyed, stony-toed, tooth-chattering" stand-point by the old church-door, and the Goblin Sight beheld by him when ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... not produce moral as well as legal unity. A constitution was therefore invented which disunites the two countries for the purposes of domestic legislation, but leaves them united for the purposes of foreign relations. This may be a queer arrangement. Although it has worked well enough thus far, it may not continue to work well, but it does work well now. It has succeeded in converting Hungary from a discontented and rebellious province and a source of great weakness to Austria into a loyal and satisfied ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... will he appreciate the mingled exactitude and beauty of its name: for no story ever had a name which fitted it with such curious precision as this one. For the essence of a dream is always that along with its weird beauty, it counters expectation, often in such queer, ludicrous, kaleidoscopic ways. So it ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... a queer man, Mr. Merrick," he said, quietly. "I can only excuse your insults on the grounds of ignorance, or the fact that you have been misinformed. Here is the newspaper report of the Almaquo fire, which ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... are two Italian stories which bear some resemblance to this queer legend: In the fourth novel of Arienti an advocate is fined for striking his opponent in court, and "takes his change" by repeating the offence; and in the second novel of Sozzini, Scacazzone, after dining sumptuously at an inn, and learning from ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... three decks the operation of holy-stoning begins, so called from the queer name bestowed upon the principal instruments employed. These are ponderous flat stones with long ropes at each end, by which the stones are slidden about, to and fro, over the wet and sanded decks; a most wearisome, dog-like, galley-slave ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... a queer joyous lift inside her as of some weight that had gone. In a single breath Johnnie had blown away the mists of misunderstanding that for weeks had clouded her vision. Her heart went out to Clay with a rush of warm emotion. The friend she had distrusted was all she had ever believed him. He was ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... was bending now and resting his elbows on the head of the couch, instead of his hands, and he held his hands themselves opposite to each other, crooking first one finger and then another, and making one finger bow to the other, as children sometimes do, and laughing vacantly to himself, with a queer little chuckle of enjoyment. Veronica stared. Matilde held her breath. Still he ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... making these discoveries quietly, "yes, Verrall, you have a good voice. Queer I never ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... bronc!" he released the reins and his hand slid off the clump. Suddenly a queer thing happened. Bud felt the ground below him give way, and the next moment he found himself in a hole just large enough to admit his body, and about four feet deep. Above him the bushes had closed again, effectively screening him from the view of anyone above ground. He had accidentally solved ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... musical, or else that they were too busy with other things to have much time for relaxation. There was a deep veranda in front of the window and a lot of flowers planted in pots and tins. Beyond the veranda he had glimpses of a gorgeous garden, with sweetpeas, marguerites, queer-looking cactus plants, blazing-red geraniums, and a coral tree in ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... might be some kind of mourning for babies—a local custom, you know, though it did seem queer. What can ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... on one side, there was a door. I wondered whither it led, but found it locked. At the moment James approached from the stables. 'Where does this door lead?' I asked him. 'I will get the key,' he answered. 'It is rather a queer old place. We used to like it when we were children.' 'There's a stair, you see,' he said, as he threw the door open. 'It leads up over the kitchen.' I followed him up the stair. 'There's a door into your room,' he said, 'but it's always ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... I've a notion I could put my finger upon her now, if I choosed. Captain, you haven't got a coil of two-inch which you could lend me—I ain't got a topsail brace to reeve and mine are very queer just now. I reckon they've been turned end for end so often, that there's an ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... not mad, far from it. He's just a bit queer—he's got 'bats in the belfry', as men say. He gets these attacks when he's at home in the dark winter days and has nothing to occupy him. But there's little sign of it in the summer. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... The queer convulsions by which he amazed all beholders were probably connected with his disease, though he and Reynolds ascribed them simply to habit. When entering a doorway with his blind companion, Miss Williams, he would suddenly desert her ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... "One queer thing about it," she resumed, "was that while Sally Ann was talkin', not one of us felt like laughin'. We set there as solemn as if parson was preachin' to us on 'lection and predestination. But whenever I think about it now, I laugh ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... year or two afterward—was never well after that night—and the other is here, alive and well, with a queer seam down the middle of his ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... a pretty queer book to read," he went on. "And there aren't any pictures to it, either. Most of us living up here have opened its covers, and some of us have read. But I guess Allan's read deeper than any of us. I'd say he's read deeper even than John Kars. It's for that reason I sold my interests ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... mean by that?—No, don't be angry with me; I will tell you something, I am a queer sort of person. You cannot understand it. You think because I wear good clothes, I must be a fine man. My father was a fine man; I have been told that he knew no end of things, and I daresay he did, since he was a district-judge. I know nothing because mother and I were all to each other, ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... be queer work getting back!" he said to himself, then pressed onward to reach the side of the gulch, where now he could see Mary Selincourt crouched on a narrow ledge or shelf against a perpendicular cliff, while the water ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... of bankbills and put them into your pocket. Oh, I know it must be all right, Mr. Adams. But it looked queer." ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... and vain, and I've punished my dear husband and children by my follies, and I do so, so repent them!" Here Jemimarann at once burst out crying, and flung herself into her mamma's arms, and the pair roared and sobbed for ten minutes together. Even Tug looked queer: and as for me, it's a most extraordinary thing, but I'm blest if seeing them so miserable didn't make me quite happy.—I don't think, for the whole twelve months of our good fortune, I had ever felt so gay as in that dismal ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it all," said Luclarion. "He's a good soul, Tipps; as clever as ever was. He was just in on his early rounds, at four o'clock in the morning,—an awful blustering, cold night, night before last was,—and he was coming by Graves Alley, when he heard a queer kind of crazy howling down there out of sight. He wouldn't have minded it, I suppose, for there's always drunken noise enough about in those places, but it was a woman's voice, and a baby's crying was mixed up with it. So he just flung his reins down ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... reports that Jack was knocked off the foretopsail yardarm, and they never see'd him again. He shouted 'Guidbye, I cannot hold on any longer.' I asked God to have his body picked up and sent home, and while I was doing it, a queer thought came over me that little Bobby was being washed overboard from the Savannah. I hope it's not true, and that God won't take him from us as well. ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... than done. In union queer Together yoked were soon winged horse and steer. The griffin pranced with rage, and his remaining might Exerted to resume his old-accustomed flight. 'Twas all in vain—his partner stepped with circumspection, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... barkeeper's own heart. Drinking steadily, until just manageably tipsy, he contrived to continue so; getting neither more nor less inebriated, but, to use his own phrase, remaining "just about right." When in this interesting state, he had a free lurch in his gait, a queer way of hitching up his waistbands, looked unnecessarily steady at you when speaking, and for the rest, was in very tolerable spirits. At these times, moreover, he was exceedingly patriotic; and in a most amusing way, frequently showed his patriotism whenever he happened to encounter ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... which could be used at will either as arms or legs. Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of their heads a trifle above the center and protruded in such a manner that they could be directed either forward or back and also independently of each other, thus permitting this queer animal to look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a precedent. In the case of clothes, the next representative after him, and the next, had to imitate it. After that, the thing was custom; and custom is a petrifaction: nothing but dynamite can dislodge it for a century. We imagine that our queer official costumery was deliberately devised to symbolise our Republican Simplicity—a quality which we have never possessed, and are too old to acquire now, if we had any use for it or any leaning toward it. But it is not so; there was nothing deliberate about it; it grew naturally ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... settled it by shaking each offered paw and saying very seriously: "You must stay and take care of the ladies, William. I trust you." William looked wistfully after the tall figure that went down the road with the queer, light, jumpetty tread of ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... as we heard, I sent two of the Sisters who knew her best, to try and see her if possible. They managed to see her for two or three minutes, but found her hopelessly hard. Every bit of care was gone. She laughed in a queer, strained way, they said. It was no use my trying to see her. But I determined to see her. I cannot go over it all again, it is like tearing the skin off a wound; so the letter written at the time may tell the ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... for the first and last time. I see it now with its long, narrow, uncovered tables, stretching between clammy iron stanchions, and supported by iron legs fitting into sockets in the deck. It was lighted by hanging lanterns which threw queer, moving shadows in all directions, and ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... thought he, chuckling to himself; "queer business! Capital trick of the cull in the cloak to make another person's brat stand the brunt for his own—capital! ha! ha! Won't do, though. He must be a sly fox to get out of the Mint without my knowledge. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... will go," she promised, with a queer little smile. "It is against my husband's orders, and I am not sure that my sister will be particularly glad to see me. But ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... opinion of the song he could make if he should try, is quite a stranger here. And now, as if for the very purpose of helping the knight, comes another young man, who turns out to be a prentice, and he begins arranging benches and chairs in some queer sort of way, while the looks that he casts at the maid and the looks she throws back at him show that they are not total strangers; and he tells them that these very poets and singers are to meet here in a few minutes, and that if anybody wants to join them ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... well as his father; he was well read, and two histories were dedicated to him, William of Malmesbury's, and Geoffrey of Monmouth's wonderful chronicle of the old British kings, whose blood flowed in Robert's veins; that chronicle—wrought out of queer Welsh stories—that served as a foundation for Edward's claims on Scotland, and whence came our Lear ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... listen, Felix thought: 'I wish to God I were made of leather; then I shouldn't feel as if I'd lost the warmth inside me. I mustn't let her see. Fathers ARE queer—I always suspected that. There goes my work for a good week!' Then ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... yes—I remember it very well—very queer indeed! Both of you gone just one year. A very strange coincidence, indeed! Just what Doctor Dubble L. Dee would denominate an extraordinary ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... memory that Indian camp, Where men lay in ambush, every one with a lamp, Each light darkly hid in a vessel of clay, Till the sword should be drawn, and then on came the fray. 'Twas so in the fortunes of this queer earthen race, (It happened before they were more than a brace). The fact of a fall Did break upon all! The lamp of each life being uncovered by sin, The pitcher was broken, and the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... full of a number of things as since a Coalition Government came into power—queer, delightful things, for instance, like policemen who call judges "bastard," as who should say: "Cheerio, old thing!" Our grandfathers would not have seen that joke. That is one of the things that convince me of the reality ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... her arm was under my head; my father stood at the foot of the bed, kind and compassionate; Mam' Chloe was putting a bottle of hot water to my feet, and there was a strong smell of cologne in the air. I was very weak; my head felt queer and light, and although I was not crying, something seemed to grab me inside and shake me every little while—a short, sharp shake that made me gasp. Before I could open my eyes I heard my mother's ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... fellows in Bristol are numbers, some Who so modish are grown, that they think plain sense cumbersome; And lest they should seem to be queer or ridiculous, They affect to believe neither ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Quarles' Divine Emblems, book ii. emblem ii. Beyond all question, Quarles was a poet that needed not "apt alliteration's artful aid" to add to the vigour of his verse, or lend liquidity to his lines. Quarles is often queer, quaint, and querulous, but never ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... they were caught, Dick dressed them and prepared them for the chowder pot or the frying pan. There were some queer fish caught, including quite a number of sculpins, "a wolfer eel,"—so Captain Briskett called him,—and a large catfish. The latter was an ugly monster, having dangerous-looking teeth, with which he laid hold of everything that came in ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... you want me to have something queer?" he blurted out, while the thermometer wiggled with every ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... left the brook at a tannery, and a most singular fellow was in the shed shovelling bark. I tried to get him to talk, and told him about some new tanning machinery I had seen. Suddenly he turned on me and asked me if I was 'callatin' to set up a mill.' He gave me a queer feeling. Do you have many such odd characters in Coniston, Miss Cynthia? ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... raged and he cursed, 'I bore this at first, The rheumatics were awful, but this is the worst.' With awful rage heated, The demon defeated, In his passion used words that can't be repeated. Feeling shaken and queer, In spite of his fear, At the dyke he worked on until midnight drew near. But when the glass turned for the last time, he found That the head of his pick was stuck fast in the ground. 'Cease now!' cried St Cuthman, 'vain ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... of the darkness came a blinding flash of light. And at the same time a queer click sounded ...
— The Tale of Brownie Beaver • Arthur Scott Bailey
... John? Are yeh hurt much? 'No,' ses he. He looked kinder surprised, an' he went on tellin' 'em how he felt. He sed he didn't feel nothin'. But, by dad, th' first thing that feller knowed he was dead. Yes, he was dead—stone dead. So, yeh wanta watch out. Yeh might have some queer kind 'a hurt yerself. Yeh can't never ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... over queer things in the ground, and, as he had never seen big guns before, it took him a moment to fix them. Presently one went off at his elbow with a roar like the Last Day. These were Austrian howitzers—nothing over eight-inch, I fancy, but to Peter they looked like leviathans. Here, too, he saw ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... it. And he's got rid of the lad he had already. Ay, a curious man, a queer sort of man, that Aronsen, 'tis sure. Sends away his lad could be working on the place getting in winter fuel and carting hay with that horse of his, but keeps on his storeman—chief clerk, he calls him. 'Tis true ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... "Yessir, they're queer game. When they ain't tattoin' theirselves with Scripture tex's they git from the missionaries, they're pullin' out the hairs all over their bodies with two clam-shells. Hair ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... got his seat. He started to look for another, and on his way he found a cent in the path, and he bought an apple with it—a small one that the dealer especially picked out for cheapness. It seemed pretty queer to Lemuel that a person should want anything for one apple. The apple when he ate it made him sick. His head began to ache, and it ached all day. Late in the afternoon he caught sight of one of ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... prisoners bade us a sad farewell, but many friends accompanied us to the station, and the rotund major and his rounder wife did us the like honour. Our major was a queer mixture: he was jolly because he was fat, and he was stern because he had a beaky nose, and in any interview one had first to ascertain whether the stomach or the nose held the upper hand, so to speak. With the wife one was always sure—she had a snub nose. On this occasion ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... The male, which is much smaller than the female, runs round her, and they butt one another, standing face to face and moving backward and forward like two playful lambs. Then the female pretends to run away and the male runs after her with a queer appearance of anger, gets in front and stands facing her again; then she turns coyly round, but he, quicker and more active, scuttles round too, and seems to whip her with his antennae; then for a bit they stand face to face, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... procession came nearer, and finally stopped outside the little hut, Babouscka was frightened at the splendor. There were Three Kings, with crowns on their heads, and the jewels on the Kings' breastplates sparkled like sunlight. Their heavy fur cloaks were white with the falling snow-flakes, and the queer humpy camels on which they rode looked white as milk in the snow-storm. The harness on the camels was decorated with gold, and plates of silver adorned the saddles. The saddlecloths were of the richest Eastern ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... are queer, indeed; They seem to come of a three-legged breed. They have no tails, their bark is on their back; They hunt in couples, never in a pack. The day's work over, 'tis a pleasant sight To find them waiting by the fire ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... "Well, this is a queer time of the day to be asking for a cleaning woman. It's likely I can get you old Lizzie, if she's not drunk. I'll send Willy ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... they arrived at Loschwitz. The sledge wound its way through the sloshy streets of the queer little village, and finally drew up in front of the Gasthaus. It was a black sunburnt chalet, with green shutters, and steps leading up to a green balcony. A fringe of sausages hung from the roof; red bedding ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... we value here Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer. In fact, there 's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth. (This is a moral that runs at large; Take it.—You ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... came and went Colonel Ogilvie lost interest in his property, and handed over the care of the greater part of it to agents and stewards, and came very near to hating the lands which some day would go to his nephew. A queer restlessness was upon him, and his wife watched him and said nothing; until one day, seeing him reading a certain paragraph in a newspaper, she said to him, smiling slightly, as they stood together on the broad stone terrace at Bowshott, 'Why don't you go ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... we all get money out of corporations that are compelled to do all sorts of queer things. But we can't abolish the system—we've got to reform it. That's why I'm in ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... corner of the room, over a small, red-hot stove, was a queer-looking little man. There was a tin plate on the stove from which the odor of melting cheese arose, and mingling with the odor of burning tobacco, contributed from the little man's pipe, burdened the atmosphere with dense and by no means delightful fumes. The little man had a fork in one hand ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... woman had many queer ways. Typical of her eccentricities was her iron clad refusal to touch one bite of food in our house. If she wished a dish she was preparing tasted to see that it contained the proper amount of each ingredient she would call some ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... from a distance, still more did I feel as if I were in a strange town in a strange land as I heard the babble of strange tongues about me and saw the picturesque costumes of the habitans, so unlike anything I had ever seen in Philadelphia or Kentucky. Negroes were chattering their queer creole patois, and Indians of many nations were gathered into groups, some of them bedizened with the cheap finery of the stores, some of them wearing only bright-hued blankets, but with wonderful head-dresses of eagle feathers, and all of them looking gravely on with ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... knoll in some degree protected the advance of the Lincoln Regiment, but in both Highland battalions soldiers began to drop. The whole air was full of a strange chirping whistle. The hard pebbly sand was everywhere dashed up into dust-spurts. Numerous explosive bullets, fired by the Arabs, made queer startling reports. The roar of the rifles drowned even the noise of the artillery. All the deployed battalions began to suffer. But they and the assaulting columns, regardless of the fire, bore down on the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... had finished his portrait of Mr. Chase he stood off and admired the work. "Beautiful! Beautiful!" was his comment. Chase, who had irked under the queer companionship, retorted, "At least there's nothing mean or modest ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... interest in his meals, and a greedy animal enjoyment of eating and drinking as much as he could get—and that was all. "This morning," the honest gardener said to me at parting, "we thought he seemed to wake up a bit. Looked about him, you know, and made queer signs with his hands. I couldn't make out what he meant; no more could the doctor. She knew, poor thing—She did. Went and got him his harp, and put his hand up to it. Lord bless you! no use. He couldn't play no more than I can. Twanged at ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... all of his ten fingers, for it was irritating to have her refuse to understand. "If we took Mary Rose in here to live don't you s'pose all those up above," he jerked his thumb significantly toward the ceiling, "'d know it an' make trouble? God knows they make enough as it is. They're a queer lot of folks under this roof, Kate, and that's no lie. Folks—they're cranks!" explosively. "When one isn't findin' fault another is. When I've heat enough for ol' Mrs. Johnson it's too hot for Mrs. Bracken. Mrs. Schuneman on the first floor has too much hot water an' Miss Adams on ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... see—oh, yes, I see!" said Mr. Sherwin, rattling a bunch of keys in his pocket, with an expression of considerable perplexity; "but this is a ticklish business, you know—a very queer and ticklish business indeed. To have a gentleman of your birth and breeding for a son-in-law, is of course—but then there is the money question. Suppose you failed with your father after all—my money is out in my ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... his way to see his father at the bank, or conducting his brothers on after-school expeditions, he liked to look at a certain tank in front of one store where were kept odd specimens of sea-life brought in by the Delaware Bay fishermen. He saw once there a sea-horse—just a queer little sea-animal that looked somewhat like a horse—and another time he saw an electric eel which Benjamin Franklin's discovery had explained. One day he saw a squid and a lobster put in the tank, and in connection with ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... affirmed; he wanted me to have some ambition; why not stand for our county at the next general election? He offered me his Welsh borough if I thought fit to decline a contest. This was to speak as mightily as a German prince. Virtually, in wealth and power, he was a prince; but of how queer a kind! He was immensely gratified by my refraining to look out for my father on our return journey through London, and remarked, that I had not seen him for some time, he supposed. To which I said, no, I had not, He advised me to let the fellow run his length. Suggesting that he held it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you make me want to be straight with you; but I've seen it wouldn't be fair. I must just slip out of your path and you'll forget me, and then you'll meet a much better man than I and be happy. I'm queer—I have funny moods that last for days and days sometimes. I seem to do every one harm I come in touch with. There's my father now. I love him more than any one in the world, and yet I make him unhappy all the time. I'm a bad ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... a shawl, and, stepping across the landing, stood in the light, the flare of the candle making a queer, lovely picture of her. The shawl she had wrapped carelessly over her white night-dress was one of Lady Throckmorton's gracious gifts; and although it had been worn by every member of the family in succession, and was frayed, and torn, and forlorn enough in broad daylight, by the uncertain Rembrandt ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Peter at twelve o'clock noon, the Red Crown Inn, Druttledge, on the road to Exeter, a little house where thiccy bandy-legged man you've heard me tell about is Keeper and a good fellow and there's queer enough company in kitchen now to please you. A rough lot of fellows: and a storm coming up black over high woods that'll make walkin' no easy matter on a slimy road, and, dear boy, I've been thinkin' strange about you and 'ow you'll pull along with your ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... have sold my claim, and for a generous sum, too. Mr. Heath is no haggler, and gave me my price without a demur; but I think that it is very queer that a young man of his stamp should care to engage in any ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... wants hosses an' clowns to make it all complete," said Slagg. "Now, that tank is 58 feet 6 inches in diameter, and 20 feet 6 inches deep, an' holds close upon 900 miles of cable. There are two other tanks not much smaller, all choke-full. An' the queer thing is, that they can telegraph through all its length now, at this moment as it lies there,—an' they are doing so continually to make sure ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... with conviction; "vain to the last degree, as fond of display and colours as a child, unconsciously selfish, but in the presence of physical danger quick, resourceful, and as brave as Alexander. What queer mixtures we are!" ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... hair and pointed beard, the ruff, short cloak, and tight hose in which he appeared as Philip II. in Tennyson's play Queen Mary. One hand is thrust into his breast, and his legs are stuck wide apart in a queer stiff position that Mr. Irving often adopts preparatory to one of his long, wolflike strides across the stage. The figure is life-size, and, though apparently one- armed, is so ridiculously like the ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... little while, and then they heard only the light sweep of the rain. On the roof it became a patter, and here and there a drop made its way between the boards and fell on the floor. It was soothing to Paul after the excitement of those terrible moments, and he felt a queer, pleasant languor. His eyes half closed, but his vague look fell on somber, dark spots on the floor, and the sight was repellent to him. He went to the hearth, heaped up the whole of the embers and ashes, and sprinkled them carefully over ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pillow; his mouth was open and, at times, the lips moved. There was fear at any moment of nightmare or his awakening. Unconsciously he threw an arm over toward the table where the glass of narcotic stood. Then he lay still again and snored lightly. The night-lamp on the mantelpiece caught queer yellow reflections from the corners of the furniture, from the gilded frame of a picture on the wall and from the phials and glasses on the table. But in all the chamber Matrena Petrovna saw nothing, thought ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... intelligences among the men of his generation; it was heartrending to see him fall every day more and more into the power of unscrupulous people who did nothing else but exploit him for their own benefit. South Africa has always been the land of adventurers, and many a queer story could be told. That of Cecil John Rhodes was, perhaps, the most wonderful and ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... cut, but rubs, its way through. The round holes in the tops of washstands are cut by saws like this, only bent in the form of a cylinder and turned round and round, going in a little deeper at each revolution. A queer sort of saw is coming into use. It is a cord made of three steel wires twisted loosely together. This cord is stretched tightly over pulleys and moves very rapidly. Every little ridge of the cord strikes the stone and cuts a little of ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... the cave was discovered. 'In 1842,' he replied. 'And by whom?' I continued. 'Why,' rejoined our guide, 'Mister Howe was a huntin' for caves, and he came across this one.' Rather a queer thing to be hunting for, I thought, though without comment; but in future I allowed Bob to carry on the conversation as best suited himself. He plunged at once into a dissertation on the state of the country, gravely stating that 'Washington was taken.' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a queer idea it is to waste all that upon a thing that nobody will ever look at," said Dolly, her round eyes opening wider ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... passionate voices and the sound of crying and storming in the room above; but Cotsdean was secure in his shop, apparently fearing no evil, as he had seen as he passed, peering in with curious eyes. What it meant he could not tell; but it was queer, and did not look as if the ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... I thought the other fellows were not going to have much use for my queer notions. I thought they stood for me because Don is very nearly the most popular Scout in camp. I was kind of pleased when they chose me to come over to camp and extend the olive branch to you ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook |
