"Sponging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passed her life in a kind of legal childhood. She had been remarkable, when a tender prattler for an uncommon talent in counterfeiting the walk and manner of a bailiff: in which character she had learned to tap her little playfellows on the shoulder, and to carry them off to imaginary sponging-houses, with a correctness of imitation which was the surprise and delight of all who witnessed her performances, and which was only to be exceeded by her exquisite manner of putting an execution into her doll's house, and taking an exact inventory of the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... doctor, "you couldn't have borne this so patiently.—Now, hold up the bucket, Ned. That's the way. I dare say the sponging feels comforting and takes off ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... he had travelled Europe in a chaise and four, drawing bridle at the palace-doors of German princes; queens of song and dance had followed him like sheep and paid his tailor's bills. And to behold him now, seeking small loans with plaintive condescension, sponging for breakfast on an art-student of nineteen, a fallen Don Juan who had neglected to die at the propitious hour, had a colour of romance for young imaginations. His name and his bright past, seen through the prism of whispered gossip, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... watching the sergeant, who had evidently had some practice in ambulance work, and skilfully enough he set to work sponging and bandaging injuries. But all the time a couple of marines stood, one on either side, ready to hold the prisoners down, for each seemed to look upon the dressing of his wounds as a form of torture which he was bound to ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... tint on paper it should be first moistened on the back by sponging, and blotting off with bibulous paper. It should then be pinned on a board, the moist side downwards, so that two of its edges—the right and lower ones—project a little over those of the board. Incline the board ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... obliged to cut up every flag and ensign that could be spared, to render them serviceable, so as to prevent the men's arms being blown off whilst working the guns, and also to prevent the constant necessity of sponging, &c. which, from the time it consumes, diminishes the effective force of the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... after leaving the lying-in room, carriage exercise, where it can be obtained, is to be preferred, to be exchanged, in a week or so, for horse exercise, or the daily walk. The tepid, or cold salt-water shower bath, should be used every morning; but if it cannot be borne, sponging the ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... woman, and whatever her private opinion on the matter generally may have been; she could not resist this appeal. She took the little fellow out of Jack's arms, and carried him away to her own kitchen, where, after sponging his bruised face and forehead, and giving him a drop of something in a teaspoon, and brushing back his matted hair and loosing his ragged jacket at the neck, she succeeded in restoring him to his senses. It was with a thrill of relief that we saw his eyes open and a shade of colour come ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... hypnotist recovered his senses, his head ached severely, his back was against Denton's knees and Denton was sponging his face. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... trust, dear Nell, that you are all well at Brookroyd, and that your visiting stirs are pretty nearly over. I compassionate you from my heart for all the trouble to which you must be put, and I am rather ashamed of people coming sponging in that fashion one after another; get away from them and come ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... appear in the paint on wooden articles, this usually indicates that the varnish has cracked. If this is the case, the article can easily be prepared for a fresh coat by sponging it over with strong ammonia water, and two or three minutes later scraping off the varnish with the broad end of a spatula before the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... sponging," said Billy; "but maybe I can get even some day, and I sure do want a smoke. You see I was frisked. I ain't got nothin'—they didn't leave me a ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... from the floating islands. In this spot the river is from 1500 yards to a mile wide; the country, flat and uninteresting, being the usual scattered thorn bushes and arid plains, the only actual timber being confined to the borders of the river. Course, always south with few turns. My sponging-bath makes a good pinnace for going ashore from the vessel. At 4.20 P.M. one of the noggurs carried away her yard—the same boat that met with the accident at our departure; hove to, and closed with the bank for repairs. ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... gentleman's blood would lie on his soul, for the mission of that gentleman was to continue his existence by sucking out the life of others, and his last thought was to destroy his own; and it is hardly necessary to announce that he is still alive and sponging. Indeed, a courageous merchant must ever by ready to face the fact that he will be called a curmudgeon, if he will not ruin himself to please others, and a weak fool, if he does. Many a fortune has melted away in the hesitating utterance of the placable "Yes," which might have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... flowers, bows, and ribbons as soon as removed, adding buttons and taking up dropped stitches when needed,—all these little attentions if given promptly will keep a wardrobe fresh and in good order. New braid on the bottom of skirts, sponging and pressing, little alterations and addition of new trimming to collar and cuffs, will help to preserve the original freshness of the gown and cause the wearer to ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... opposite side of the tree were other persons. A woman with an albino type of countenance was sponging the suppurating glands of her neck; a little girl's face half disappeared under her blue glasses; an old man, whose spine was deformed by a contraction, with his involuntary movements knocked against Marcel, a sort of idiot clad in a tattered blouse and a patched pair of trousers. His ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... sand darkened and shook the pane. Taffy, sponging himself in his tub and singing between his gasps, looked up hastily, then flung a big towel about him and ran ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hot weather, is very useful; but the water should be very little cooler than the skin of the child. When the constitution is delicate, the water should be slightly warmed. Simply sponging the body, freely, in a tub, answers the same purpose as a regular bath. In very warm weather, this should be done two or three times a day, always waiting two or three hours ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... masculine; his scenes are in the street, the tavern, the sponging-house, and other places unmentionable. By the end of his century the Novel of Manners had fallen into very different hands, and to these it owes mainly the shaping, both as to tone and subject, that ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... gaol, cage, coop, den, cell; stronghold, fortress, keep, donjon, dungeon, Bastille, oubliette, bridewell^, house of correction, hulks, tollbooth, panopticon^, penitentiary, guardroom, lockup, hold; round house, watch house, station house, sponging house; station; house of detention, black hole, pen, fold, pound; inclosure &c 232; isolation (exclusion) 893; penal settlement, penal colony; bilboes, stocks, limbo, quod [Lat.]; calaboose, chauki^, choky^, thana^; workhouse [U.S.]. Newgate, Fleet, Marshalsea; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... time. She was too easy, she knew that, always had been. Look how long she had put up with Mrs. Hewitt's snooping around. And then in the end she had got cold feet and had had to sick 'Gene on to her, to tell her they didn't want her sitting around all the time and sponging off them at meal-times. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... days. He obeyed me punctually, demanded his money, and finding himself amused with bare promises, arrested me that very day in the street. I was not much shocked at this adventure, which, indeed, put an end to a state of horrible expectation: but I refused to go to a sponging-house, where I heard there was nothing but the most flagrant imposition: and, a coach being called, was carried to the Marshalsea, attended by a bailiff and his follower, who were very much disappointed and chagrined at ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... externally strong mustard, mixed, with equal parts of aqua ammonia and water, to a thin paste, every hour, until it produces an effect upon the skin; sponging the parts each time with warm water before applying the mustard. The animal should not be bled. Give upon the tongue, or in drink, half-drachm doses of nitrate of potassa, every three or four hours, until relief is obtained. If suffocation ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... mother which had conquered the Hickses. There was fascination in the thought that, among the rabble of vulgar uneducated royalties who overran Europe from Biarritz to the Engadine, gambling, tangoing, and sponging on no less vulgar plebeians, they, the unobtrusive and self-respecting Hickses, should have had the luck to meet this cultivated pair, who joined them in gentle ridicule of their own frivolous kinsfolk, and whose tastes were exactly those of ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... so that if any one not accustomed to her saddles her I soon find the girth three or four inches too large. When I saddle her a gentle slap on her side, or any slight start which makes her cease to hold her breath, puts it all right. She is quite a companion, and bathing her back, sponging her nostrils, and seeing her fed after my day's ride, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime. Maurice Blum started out as an anarchist of principle, a father of the poor; he ended a greasy spy and tale-bearer that both sides used and despised. Harry Burke started his free money movement sincerely enough; now he's sponging on a half-starved sister for endless brandies and sodas. Lord Amber went into wild society in a sort of chivalry; now he's paying blackmail to the lowest vultures in London. Captain Barillon was ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... general. We thought you would perhaps prefer to see her alone," said the surgeon, "for when I endeavored to bring her to, and was sponging her face and head to discover her injuries, her color came off! She was a white woman—stained and disguised as ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... he must work—manhood demands it. He cannot possibly go on sponging upon your father ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... any one be surprised that her illness was increased, and her fever arose and her senses wandered all night? When her mother was ill, Jacquelina could not sleep. Now she sat by her bedside sponging her hot hands and keeping ice to her head and giving drink to slake her burning thirst and listening, alas! to her sad and rambling talk about their being turned adrift in the world to starve to death, or to perish in the snow—calling on her daughter ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... anticipated this without wholly knowing to what he had looked forward. He thrust aside with his foot the ice-cold tub in which it was his custom to rejoice—as befitted an Englishman of his years—and, hastily sponging his face and hands, made a hurried toilet, listening meanwhile for any sound which might bring definite tidings to his mind. When he descended the carriage was still at the main entrance to the hotel, and Victor was pulling on to ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... are always idealists. That is our curse. Our religion is, unfortunately, an obsession, for any drunken scoundrel can become a "holy man" by simply making such declaration, and ever afterwards "sponging" upon his neighbours. Rasputin was ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... aniline pencil. The skin of the prepuce is slit and removed up to the aniline line. The mucous membrane is next cut away, leaving only a free edge of about one-eighth of an inch in width. Any bleeding which occurs should be entirely arrested, and asepsis must be insured by frequent sponging with carbolic or sublimate solution. Numerous coarse-hair stitches are then inserted, so as to bring accurately together the fresh-cut edges of the skin and mucous membrane, and subsequently, after a further ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... far-traveling, vapor-born rain; the impartial, undiscriminating, unstinted rain; equable, bounteous, myriad-eyed, searching out every plant and every spear of grass, finding every hidden thing that needs water, falling upon the just and upon the unjust, sponging off every leaf of every tree in the forest and every growth in the fields; music to the ear, a perfume to the smell, an enchantment to the eye; healing the earth, cleansing the air, renewing the fountains; honey to the bee, manna to ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... The daily sponging bath is to be given by the nurse, and should be rapidly and skilfully done. It may follow the first food of the day, the early milk, or cocoa, or coffee, or, if preferred, may be used before noon, or at bedtime, which is found ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... into a nunnery, under the eyes of Dagobert's wife. But she had been bound against interfering by the influence of the Jesuit confessional. The fourth was M. Hardy, a manufacturer, and the fifth, Jacques Rennepont, a drunken scamp of a workman, who were more easily fended off, the latter in a sponging house, the former by a friend's lure. Adrienne de Cardoville, daughter of the Count of Rennepont, who had also been Duke of Cardoville, was the lady who had been unwarrantably placed in the lunatic asylum. The fifth, unaware of the medal, was Gabriel, a youth, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... our illustrious Prison; and was either had to Newgate, or else incarcerated in the lodgings of a King's Messenger till his examinations were over, and he was either committed or Enlarged. These Messengers kept, in those days, a kind of Sponging Houses for High Treason, where Gentlemen Traitors who were not in very great peril lived, as it were, at an ordinary, and paid much dearer for their meat and lodging than though they had been at some bailiffs lock-up in Cursitor Street, or Tooke's Court, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... you can get at the real heart of people as you can never do if rich. People are your friends from pure friendship and love, not from sponging self-interestedness. It is worth being poor once or twice in a lifetime just to experience the blessing and heartrestfulness of a little genuine reality in the way of love and friendship. Not that it ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... let Marshlands to great advantage, and there are many reasons for the flitting. I ought to be at head-quarters, and besides there are the Sundays. We are too many now for picnicking in the class-room, or sponging on the rectory." ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him. And, having seen the alleviating effects of cold water in fevers and inflammations, and knowing that there were no other remedies within reach, she at once decided on its application. Accordingly, with her cup of water at her side, and a piece of soft, clean moss in her hand, she began sponging his face, neck, and the flesh around his wounds; and repeating this process at short intervals, she continued the tender assiduities, with only occasional snatches of repose, till the welcome morning light broke over ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... conversing upon the topic for some time, Mr. De Younge being meanwhile engaged in sponging and cleaning some coats he had purchased the day before; in so doing, he was obliged to remove the paper he had picked up from the floor, and it occurred to him to ask Mr. Walters to read it; he therefore ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... it will be expedient to exercise them without giving the several detailed commands, by directing them to "load and fire!" At this command the different individuals should, each in proper order of time, silently perform his prescribed duties of sponging, loading, running out, training, and pointing, the Captain of the gun regulating the elevation and depression, by raising or lowering his hand, and by holding it horizontally and steady when the gun is "well;" and in pointing, by moving his hand to "right" ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... enough doctor for the bilious fever. He wants plenty of cold lemonade, cold sponging, and ice to suck when the fever is on him. When the chills intervene he wants blanketing, hot bottles at his feet, and hot tea, or something stronger. In the rest between the attacks of fever and chill, he wants calomel and Peruvian bark, and if these ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... younger than herself. Oliver, the youngest and her favorite, was about thirty, and called himself a barrister. As he had no briefs, however, it was currently reported that he lived by means of light literature, play, and judicious sponging upon his sister. The elder brother, Francis, was a ne'er-do-weel, and seldom appeared upon the scene. When he did appear, it was always a sign of trouble and want ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and were well inclined to believe the tales of the young adept on whom his mantle had fallen; but the dungeons of the Bastille were yawning for their prey, and Aluys and his mother decamped with all convenient expedition. They travelled about the Continent for several years, sponging upon credulous rich men, and now and then performing successful transmutations by the aid of double-bottomed crucibles and the like. In the year 1726, Aluys, without his mother, who appears to have died ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... very generous, after all, when you come to examine things closer. Don't forget, Thad, that he's been sponging on that poor couple for a good many weeks already; and then, if our calculations are correct, he means to fasten on them ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... Let me tell you something, Dan: a woman that will stoop to the petty leg-pulling, sponging, grafting that she does to save two bits or less has got a thief's make-up. Her mania for money, for getting, for saving it, is a ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... to be reduced by cooling drinks, [Footnote: By cooling drinks. Macnish cannot surely mean drinks of a low temperature, for these would be somewhat injurious in the evening. He means by cooling, not heating or irritating.] exposure to the open air, sponging, or even the cold bath. If too cold, it must be brought into a comfortable state by warmth. For both cold and heat act as stimuli, and their removal is necessary before ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... she stood staring at her dressing mate, and slowly, questioningly repeated, "Spoonge? spoonge? w'at is that spoonge?" And received for answer, "What is it? why, it's stealing." Semantha gave a cry. "Yes," continued the straightforward one, "it's stealing without secrecy; that's what sponging is." ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... then picked up the tatters of his threadbare comic speech. Speed, munching a stale sandwich, came strolling over to where I stood sponging out my horse's mouth with ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... was spread out with the trowel, it remained still colourless, but after it had undergone the process of pressing, which generally took place immediately before sponging, it presented to the astonished workmen the appearance of one sheet of gold; and when it had been exposed to the sun, it acquired the highest ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... live in a tent by night, and to form a shady nook beneath some mimosas by day. On the 15th of September the entire male population of Sofi turned out to assist us across the river. I had arranged a raft by attaching eight inflated skins to the bedstead, upon which I lashed our large circular sponging bath. Four hippopotami hunters were harnessed as tug steamers. By evening all our party, with the baggage, had effected the crossing without accident—all but Achmet, Mahomet's mother's brother's cousin's sister's mother's son, who took advantage of his near relative, ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... was sponging off the mud from Hotspur's body and legs Dolly came in, looking very full ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... captain, as if he was bound on an Arctic Expedition. Dunn's eyes glistened as he saw the money passing into Paul's hand; but he was not to be troubled with the dunnage, and after hurrying him a few times, marched him off. He went through the regular system of grog-shop sponging; but his suavity and willingness to acquiesce in all Mr. Dunn's demands, saved him some rough usage. There was this difference between John Paul and Manuel, that the former, not understanding the English language, mistook Dunn's deception for friendship, and moved ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... taken in all these operations of sponging, washing, and cleansing the skin, not to expose too great a surface at once, so as to check the perspiration, which would renew ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... could do to relieve his sufferings beyond sponging his hot body with a wet cloth and giving him sparingly of the water that he called for incessantly. At last he sank into a kind of a stupor and the heavy-hearted watchers stole outside for a ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... without grub for sixty hours. That is literally true. I was ashamed of sponging on Paunchy, and could not bring myself to come back to the saloon where he would willingly have fed me. I did get a job for two days as a deckhand on an Erie ferryboat, but they found out I did not belong to the union. I had two dollars in my pocket—a fortune—but while I was dozing ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... advice in strange, obsolete ring-jargon, which no one could understand. His dull eyes were shining, his parchment face was quivering with excitement, and his strange musical call rang out above all the hubbub. The two men were hurried to their corners, one second sponging them down and the other flapping a towel in front of their face; whilst they, with arms hanging down and legs extended, tried to draw all the air they could into their lungs in ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in Wood Street, was a sponging-house, well known to the rakehells and spendthrifts of Charles II.'s time. "I have been too lately under their (the bailiffs') clutches," says Tom Brown, "to desire any more dealings with them, and I cannot ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... dark hair and her black dress beyond emphasised the deathly whiteness of his face on which the candlelight fell; his mouth was open, like a dead man's. Mistress Margaret was kneeling by his left hand, holding it over a basin and delicately sponging it; and the whole air was fragrant and aromatic with some ointment in the water; a long bandage or two lay on the ground beside the basin. The evening light over the opposite roofs through the window beyond mingled ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... these sponging fools who call themselves my friends!" The Chevalier staggered off toward the dining-hall, from whence still came the rollicking song. . . . It was all so incongruous; it was all so like ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... The people of the Bahamas have made frequent complaint to the governor about the conduct of the Spanish authorities in Cuba. In August this year the Governor of the Bahamas sent a memorial to the Captain-General of Cuba about the impediments to the Bahama sponging trade caused by the arbitrary acts of the Spaniards. No notice has been taken of this. It has not even been acknowledged. In 1870 complaints were made to Sir James Walker (my predecessor) that James Fraser and three other British subjects were captured in a Bahama schooner, taken ashore to Cuba, ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... sponging. Brian is welcome here, as you have heard. Lady Palliser likes him very much, and we all get on ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... no arrest for debt, with the attendant sponging- houses, Cursitor Street, sheriffs' officers, and bailiffs; and no great Fleet Prison, Marshalsea, or King's Bench for imprisoning debtors. There are no polling days and hustings, with riotous proceedings, ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... other side. The Majestic therefore fought on both sides. Throughout the whole ship the stalwart, half-naked men heaved at the huge guns. Everywhere, from stem to stern, was exhibited in full swing the active processes of sponging out, passing along powder and ball, ramming home the charges, running out, working the handspikes, stepping aside to avoid the recoil—and the whole operation of working the guns, as only British seamen know how to work them! All this was done in the midst of smoke, flame, crashing ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... furs that in four years amounted to half a million of modern money. In ten years he had brought half a million dollars worth of furs to the English company.[1] Yet he was a poor man, threatened with the sponging-house by clamorous creditors and in the power of avaricious statesmen, who used him as a tool for their own schemes. La Chesnaye had saved his furs; but the half of the cargo that was the share of Radisson ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... thousands, you fools, and you hang a leg! You'd be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it's here, and you stand there skulking. There wasn't one of you dared face Bill, and I did it—a blind man! And I'm to lose my chance for you! I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I might be rolling in a coach! If you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit, you would ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... catastrophe in the earl's fortunes to the cunning of the rascal now sponging on Fleetwood and trying to dress like a gentleman: a convicted tramp, elevated by the caprice of the young nobleman he was plotting to ruin. Sir Meeson quoted Captain Abrane's latest effort to hit the dirty object's name, by ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... something that would bring you down," Mrs. Candy said composedly and pleased; and in the same manner proceeded to strip off Matilda's clothes, put her in the bath-tub, and make thorough application of the hated element as she had said, from head to foot; scrubbing and dousing and sponging; till if Matilda had been in the sea she would not better have known how cold water felt all over her. It was done in five minutes, too; and then, after being well rubbed down, Matilda was directed to put on her clothes again ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... the Eureka, and of the wooden airpipes that were being used to ventilate deep-sinkings. There was nothing Ned did not know, and could not make entertaining. One was forced, almost against one's will, to listen to him; and on this particular evening, when he was neither sponging, nor acting the Big Gun, Mahony toned down his first sweeping judgment of his young relative. Ned was all talk; and what impressed one so unfavourably—his grumbling, his extravagant boastfulness—was ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... never respected me. I may have had a mass of weaknesses. Yes, I have sponged on you. I speak the language of nihilism, but sponging has never been the guiding motive of my action. It has happened so of itself. I don't know how.... I always imagined there was something higher than meat and drink between us, and—I've never, never been a scoundrel! And so, to take the open road, to set things ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... The sponging over, the old man Pascoe handed her a bandage and, at a sign from her, lifted my shoulders a little while she passed it under my back. To do this her two arms must needs go around my body under the shirt: ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... all, Desmond, you know what I mean. You and your wife have done too much for me already. There are limits to a man's capacity for sponging on other folks' generosity." ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... is sponging on them," grunted Iky, who always had an eye to the main chance. "You know what I would do if the ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... patient in too hot a room; fresh air is of great value. Do not leave her for nine days in an unchanged bed. The necessary sponging and changing should be done daily. Cleanliness means comfort here, and comfort health. It is not early sponging and washing, but a nine days' steaming in unchanged bedclothes which causes chills. After cool sponging, a gentle rubbing under the bedclothes with hot olive ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... in order to get Farm-Hands. As soon as the Children were able to Walk without holding on, he started them for the Corn-Field, and told them to Pay for the Board that they had been Sponging off of him up to that Time. He did not want them to get too much Schooling for fear that they would want to sit up at Night and Read instead of Turning In so as to get an Early Start along before Daylight next Morning. So they ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... says, "the space between the pterygoid muscles was void—the auditory tube was fully exposed—the articular capsule of the jaw was brought into view—the finger could trace the length of the styloid process, and on sponging the wound of its blood, it could be seen by those who surrounded the chair." The haemorrhage was restrained by a sponge firmly lodged at the bottom of the wound, covered by compresses of lint, and the whole ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... and no less hard to get out. Ay, there indeed lay the difficulty, for there is no getting loose without a pass and discharge in due course from the bench. This for no other reason than because folks go easier out of a church than out of a sponging-house, and because they could not have our company when they would. The worst on't was when we got through the wicket; for we were carried, to get out our pass or discharge, before a more dreadful monster than ever was read of in the legends of knight-errantry. They called him Gripe-men-all. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... palace to the servants who brought in the meals and kept things tidy about the houses; and then, in accordance with a good old custom handed down from generation to generation, the first thing every body did on getting out of bed was to take a bath. Such a washing and scrubbing and sponging off and rubbing down as went on in every house, you can imagine. It made no difference what kind of work one was going about,—plastering, brick-laying, or digging of ditches,—like a sensible fellow, he went fresh and clean ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... perhaps, of shock, is necessary for the beneficial effects, a warm bath very often increasing the malady. I speak from my experience of the effects of sea-bathing, and would strongly urge the propriety of preparing children for plunging in the sea, by getting them accustomed to cold sponging at home, as this plan will often supersede the need of visiting the sea for their benefit, and enable them to bear the sea ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... The sponging cleaned the flesh of the ghastly stain, and the small wound with its blackened rim lay revealed in all its horrid significance. The girl's eyes fixed themselves on it, and for some seconds she watched the blood as it welled up to the surface. The meaning ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... getting it entered on the list of arts. When any one asks what the art is, how do we describe it? Letters we know, Medicine we know; Sponging? ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... always been an ass therein? Doth he refuse to render to Nicholas Bottom 10 shillings per week when he can get L10 or even L11 for a beggarly play, which is nought unless it be acted? Many a time hath he paid me from a sponging house; often hath he given me groats for sack, and for purges when sack hath undone me; and did I ever insult him to offer to repay him a penny? Say to him, remembereth he not when the horses ridden by Duncan and Macbeth upon the stage did break through the floor, who, affrighted, did run howling ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... sponging her face off with ice-water?" he asked in a low tone. Susan fled to the kitchen. Mary Lou, seated by the table where the great roast stood in a confusion of unwashed plates and criss-crossed silver, was ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... with Dick Steele when he set up his coach and fine house in Bloomsbury: they began to forgive him when the bailiffs were after him, and abused Mr. Addison for selling Dick's country-house. And yet Dick in the sponging-house, or Dick in the Park, with his four mares and plated harness, was exactly the same gentle, kindly, improvident, jovial Dick Steele: and yet Mr. Addison was perfectly right in getting the money which was his, and not giving up the amount of his just claim, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... decent, respectable man," Mr. Henchy admitted. "Poor old Larry Hynes! Many a good turn he did in his day! But I'm greatly afraid our friend is not nineteen carat. Damn it, I can understand a fellow being hard up, but what I can't understand is a fellow sponging. Couldn't he have some spark of manhood ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... lying-in woman perspires freely, her skin ought to be frequently cleansed by sponging with a weak solution of alcohol in tepid water; this should be followed by friction with a towel until the skin is in a glow. Cleanliness of the bed is promoted by the use of a draw-sheet, which is a sheet folded to four thicknesses and placed ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... the emotions of a lady who went up every afternoon in a balloon, that when we met near the end of the season in Broadway I thought I must have seen her somewhere in society, and took off my hat to her (she was not at the moment in trunk-hose). We like going about to the great hotels, and sponging on them for the music in the forenoon; we like the gaudy shops of modes kept by artists whose addresses are French and whose surnames are Irish; and the bazaars of the Armenians and Japanese, whose rugs and bric-a-brac are not such bargains as you would think. We even ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the waste places the snow is sardonic. Sponging out the world of the outliers, it gives no foothold on another sphere in return. It makes of the earth a firmament under foot; it leaves us clawing and stumbling in space in an inimical fifth element whose evil outdoes its strangeness ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... retreat slowly, under heavy fire from the fort, being hit eight times. The heavy fire of the other vessels, however, soon drove the Confederate gunners from their guns. The sailors worked untiringly, and seemed enraged by the deceit practised by the enemy. One man, while sponging out a gun, preparatory to reloading it, dropped his sponge overboard. Quick as thought he vaulted the gunwale, and re-appeared on the surface of the water swimming for the sponge. Recovering it, he in a few ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... looking, but good looks will not support you honestly. Go home and go to work, if it is only to be a bar-maid at the George Hotel; and when I see you have reformed, I do not say I will not do something for you, but just so long as you go round sponging your living and making eyes at men—and boys, too, for that matter—not a penny of my money shall you ever touch. I've said my say, and there comes the boy Allen ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... all, you have been sponging off them for a full year. The adjective is not ill-chosen, from what I hear. I fancy Mrs. Hardress has found you better company after she had mixed a few drinks for you, and so—But a truce to moral reflections! for I am ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... "Well, get that sponging idea out of your head, Phonzie. There's always plenty for two in my cupboard. Like I says the other night, what's the use being able to afford my little flat if I can't get some pleasure ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... part the native population, informers, and false witnesses, and common barrators, and agents of chicane, and above all, a banditti of bailiffs followers, compared with whom the retainers of the worst English sponging- houses, in the worst times, might be considered as upright and tender-hearted. Many natives, highly considered among their countrymen, were seized, hurried up to Calcutta, flung into the common gaol, not for any crime even imputed, not for any debt that had been ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a pump just beyond the enclosure. Ned ran to it, and soon Frank was sponging Bob's face with ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... to support myself without sponging on you," explained Sam, "you can have as many millions as you like; but I must first make enough to keep me alive. A man who can't do that isn't ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... minister or pastor or lecturer or whatever it was, to the congregation without seeking to get out of doing his share of the State service. The hours of obligatory work would be so short and the work so light that he would have abundance of leisure to prepare his orations without sponging ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Well-ventilated room, sponging the body when hot with cold or tepid vinegar, or spirit and water; aperients, No 4; diaphoretics No. 8. If dropsy succeed the disappearance of the eruption, frequent purging with No. 5, succeeded by ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... accustomed to cold baths may continue to take them during pregnancy, but others should not. If, however, the temperature of the water is modified so that it will not produce a shock, no one need omit the morning plunge or shower which most persons find invigorating. Sponging answers the same purpose, for the intent of the morning bath is not to cleanse the body but to arouse the circulation. A thorough rub-down assists in bringing the blood to the surface of the body. Bath and massage together thus constitute a kind ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... have done," said a little beggar girl who had been passing, and had been arrested by the horrible fascination of the combat, and forced against her will to stand and watch its issue. The shepherds jeered; those who had backed the victor were sponging his wounds beside a runlet of water which was close at hand; those who had lost were flinging stones on the vanquished. The girl knelt down by the dying ram to save him from the shower of stones; she lifted his head gently upward, and tried ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... weather, is very useful; but the water should be very little cooler than the skin of the child. When the constitution is delicate, the water should be slightly warmed. Simply sponging the body freely in a tub, answers the same purpose as a regular bath. In very warm weather, this should be done two or three times a day, always waiting two or three hours after ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... out of window; but nothing came of this most ungentlemanlike behaviour on Noocob's part, further than remonstrance and delay in the proceedings; and Honeyman preached a lovely sermon at Lady Whittlesea's the very next Sunday. He had made himself much liked in the sponging-house, and Mr. Lazarus said, "if he hadn't a got out time enough, I'd a let him out for Sunday, and sent one of my men with him to show him the way ome, you know; for when a gentleman behaves as a gentleman to me, I behave as a ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the actor as on the stage: he always thinks of us as in the boxes. In justice to the poets of the present day, it may be noticed that they have improved on their brethren in Johnson's time, who were, according to Lord Macaulay, hunted by bailiffs and familiar with sponging-houses, and who, when hospitably entertained, were wont to disturb the household of the entertainer by roaring for hot punch at four o'clock in the morning. Since that period the poets have improved in the decencies of life: they wear broadcloth, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... to two or three pounds. Latania borbonica and Phoenix reclinata are good and cheap. Sandy-peaty soil, with a little leaf-mould, is what they like, and this should be renewed (with a larger pot) every second year. Thus, with the most moderate care, and an occasional sponging, or a stand-out in a soft shower, the exiled Princes of Vegetation, whose shoots in their native forests would have been of giant luxuriance, will live for years, patiently adapting themselves by slow growth to the rooms which they adorn, easier of management than the next fern ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... A big sponging-bath full of fresh water stood ready in the room to which Imogen was conducted; the white bed was invitingly "turned down;" there were fresh flowers on the dressing-table, and a heap of soft cushions on a roomy divan which filled the deep recess of a range of low windows. ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... no mention of the weaver between them since the time, twelve years ago, when it was their boyish sport to deride him; and, besides, his imagination constantly created an alibi for Dunstan: he saw him continually in some congenial haunt, to which he had walked off on leaving Wildfire—saw him sponging on chance acquaintances, and meditating a return home to the old amusement of tormenting his elder brother. Even if any brain in Raveloe had put the said two facts together, I doubt whether a combination so injurious to the prescriptive respectability ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot |
