"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the maelstrom of contradictory historical data, some of which credits Wiglaf with being the greatest ruler Mercia ever had and some of which indicates that he was nothing but a royal bum. It is not the purpose of this biography to try to settle the dispute. All we know for a fact is that he was a very human man who had faults like the rest of us and that shortly after becoming ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... worse than this. I ain't hurted bad. I ain't got mine just yet, old scout! Would I leave meself croak—an' that bum, Mike the Kike, handin' me fren's the ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f'r that I'll get up an'—an' go—home—" His voice flattened out and ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... tell you how I come to know you was the right party. You remember that time about two years ago when I ran you in as a suspect and down at headquarters you bellyached so loud because I took a bum old coin off of you? Well, when I went through that yellow overcoat and found your luck piece, as you call it, in the right-hand pocket, I felt morally sure, knowing you like I did, that as soon as you missed it you'd be coming ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... He even stuck a louse on the lens and located the beast in the heavens, for the benefit of a doubting Cardinal. It was all a joke, but at the time no sober, sincere man of Science could argue him down. He owned "bum" telescopes that proved all kinds of things, to the great amusement of the enemies of Galileo. The intent of Porta was to expose the frauds and fallacies of Galileo. Porta also claimed that he had seen telescopes by which you could look over a hill and around a corner, but he did not recommend ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... a Penny, or Poor Robin's Character of an unconscionable Pawnbroker, and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man; with a friendly Description of a Bum-bailey, and his merciless setting cur, or follower. With Allowance. London, Printed ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... midday we were anchored off Las Palmas (white houses backed by arid hills), the ill-fated Denton Grange lying stranded on the rocks, coal barges alongside, donkey engines chattering on deck, and a swarm of bum-boats round our sides, filled with tempting heaps of fruit, cigars, and tobacco. Baskets were slung up on deck, and they drove a roaring trade. A little vague news filtered down to the troop-deck; Ladysmith unrelieved, but Buller across the Tugela, and some foggy rumour ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... devil is there for a man to do, if he doesn't do anything? He's not going out anywhere since his mother's death; he has no clubs to go to, I understand. What does he do—go to his office and come back, and sit in that shabby old brick house all day and blink at the bum portraits of his bum and distinguished ancestors? Do you know what he ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... circus man, nor a Westerner, neither." The boss still stared. "And you don't look like a bum. ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... past is not to come, with a hey, with a hey, Now safe is David's bum, with a ho; Then hey for Oxford ho, Strong government, raree show, With a ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... locality, and here he watched the mounted police hard at work trying to again open the thoroughfare. While he thus passed the time until he could cross the street, he was accosted by a typical Chicago rum-soaked bum. "Say, friend," the semi-maudlin wretch pleaded while he edged most uncomfortably close to Joe, "would you mind assisting a hungry fellow who has not eaten a square meal in a week?" More for the sake of getting rid of his unpleasant company, than from a desire to ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... the case," said he, "and Elisha on the bum, I guess I'll take a night off. This Sherlock Holmes stuff ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... him. "You big bum, do you think I really care?" He grinned. "Don't feel too guilty, Twin. We've been back to back on ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... ... —Alas! Grosvenor, this day poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and happy a life as cat could wish for, if cats form wishes on that subject. His full titles were:—"The Most Noble the Archduke Rumpelstiltzchen, Marquis M'Bum, Earl Tomlemagne, Baron Raticide, Waowhler, and Skaratch." There should be a court mourning in Catland, and if the Dragon[133] wear a black ribbon round his neck, or a band of crape a la militaire round one of the fore paws, it will be but a ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... counted themselves a free people, and could never abide to be in bondage to any. And this was something of the reason, that they were so generally by all the Jews counted so vile and base, and reckoned among the worst of men, even as our informers and bum-bailiffs are with us at ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... thought refusing to aid the deputy marshal in kidnapping was not an act of levying war, or treason against the United States. "In so doing he is not acting the part of an honest, loyal citizen [who ought to do any wickedness which a bum-bailiff commands]; he may be liable to be punished for a misdemeanor for his ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... Life-Guards, Washerwomen, Ghosts, Clowns and God-knows-what, armed with jezails, umbrellas, brooms, catapults, pikes, brickbats, kukeries,[52] pokers, clubs, axes, horse-pistols, bottles, dead fowls, polo-sticks, assegais and bombs. They were commanded by a Highlander in a bum-bee tartan kilt, top-hat and one sock, with a red nose a foot long, riding on a rocking horse and brandishing a dem great cucumber and a tea-tray made into a shield. There was a thundering great ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... tie" (that was my cosmopolite), said he, "got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Noch aus der Ferne tnt es schwach, Ganz leise bumbumbumbum tsching; Zog da ein bunter Schmetterling, Tschingtsching, bum, ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... bum is the greatest thing about you; so that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the 205 Great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you not? come, tell me true: it shall be the ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... heard herself saying: "I'll get Chuck Mory after you—you drunken bum, you! He'll lick you black and blue. ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... "Don't know; some bum I suppose; looks like he had been on a big spree. I only hope I can keep him sober long enough to help ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... while the blacksmith spun the propeller. He would give it a couple of bats, then dodge out of the way too soon, while I sat there and tried not to look mad, which by gum I was plenty mad. Landed in this bum town, called ——, fourth in the race, and found sweet (?) refuge in this chills and fever hotel. Wish I was back in New Orleans. Cheer up, having others ahead of me in the race just adds a little zip to it. Watch me to-morrow. And I'm not the only hard luck artist. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... turned back to the lawyer. "I've a little personal business you might attend to," he said. Wilding set himself to listen, resignedly, imagining that this bum would yield him ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... When an ugly "bum," well up to trap, creeps like a rascal from the sheriff's-office, and with his capias armed, ere you are half-dressed, gives you the chase, and, as you "leg" away for the bare life, his knuckles dig into the seat of your unmentionables, gripping you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... disposition concernin' wimmen is gen'ally soured. You 'mind me of the man from New Jersey who come out west to buy a ranch. A hawss throwed him five times hand-runnin'. He ropes a steer that happens to run into the bum loop he was swingin' an' it snakes him out'n the saddle. A pesky cow chases him when he was afoot, a couple calves gits a rope twisted round his stummick an' lastly a mule kicks him into a bunch of cactus. Whereupon he remarks, 'I don't figger I was calculated for runnin' a cattle ranch,' sells out ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... person?' I says. 'While I ain't sayin' it's pure joy to have him around, I ain't got the heart to hand it to him. I don't mind trimmin' boobs—that's what they're for—but this Elsy thing is too soft. He must be in quite a wad on this bum hoss of his'n.' ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... door). Now, where's them people? (Looks about suspiciously.) Haven't skipped, I hope! (Goes to room Right.) Anybody in here? Humph! Looks like they're hard up! A bum lot! (Belle appears Left with shawl over shoulders and a loaf of bread in her hand.) Oh! Here you ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... hungry. The first lieutenant did not forget his promise: he sent us a good dinner, and a glass of grog each, which we discussed under the half-deck, between two of the guns. We had some money in our pockets, and we purchased some sheets of paper from the bum-boat people, who were on the main-deck supplying the seamen, and I wrote to Mr Drummond and Mr Turnbull, as well as to Mary and old Tom, requesting the two latter to forward our clothes to Deal, in case ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... out to Sergeant M'Snape, "a body can breathe withoot swallowing a wheen bluebottles and bum-bees. A body can aye streitch himself doon under a tree for a bit sleep withoot getting wasps and wee beasties crawling up inside his kilt, and puddocks craw-crawing in his ear! A body can ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... no, hang him, the rogue has no manners at all, that I must own; no more breeding than a bum-baily, that I grant you:- 'tis pity; the fellow has fire ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... said. "They're Frenchmen. We'll follow them. They have two packs on their backs! Grub! And maybe we can bum ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... blacksmith, who I aye jealoused was my rival, came up and asked Jess, with a loud guffaw, "Where is the tailor?" When I heard that, I took to my heels till I found myself on the little stool by the fireside with the hamely sound of my mother's wheel bum-bumming in my lug, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... ever'thing. I puts my foot in my hand and went out and seen the world. I tramps up to New York, works my way over to England, tramps and peddles, and gits enough dough to pay my way back. Say, it's bum slow over there. Why, they ain't even on to street-cars in London! I makes more in a week at home than I do in a month in England. Say, where you goin' at when ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... Benny the Bum: "I wanna know kin I borry a red lantern off'n you? I find I gotta sleep in the street to-night an' I'll harfta warn the traffic ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... Trumpeter, each of whom fell to and consumed a bottle with much assumption of inebriety. After dissembling complete disintegration and coma, Mr. Glotch raised his head from the ground and mourned, "Oh, boy! The guy that named this juice sure was a bum judge of distance." "You said it," echoed Mr. Trumpeter, and they were rewarded by a series of titters from the ladies which encouraged ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... New-palace-yard, Who used to Jerk the Bum of his Wife; And she was forced to stand on her Guard, To keep his Clutches from her Quoiff: She poor Soul the weaker Vessel, To be reconcil'd was easily won; He held her in scorn, But she Crown'd him with Horn, Without Hood or Scarff, ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... sassafras blossom hab de keen smell o' de root, An' it hab rich er tender yaller green! De co'n hit kinder twinkle when hit firs' begin ter shoot, While de bum'le-bee hit bum'le ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... not by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And every second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!—bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum—and the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit—and then RIP comes another flash and another sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes, but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it became dark, the camp fires were allowed to bum low; and shortly afterwards the whole corps, with the exception of the sentries, were sound asleep. At four o'clock they were roused, and marched silently off in the appointed direction. By five o'clock each party was at its post and, for half ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... "I'm a theorist, and a real theorist doesn't have one theory; he has dozens. Let me see; let me think, reflect, cogitate, tickle the thinker. Best way is to start at the A, B, C—first principles, all that sort of thing. Supposin', supposin' you come into the room with that hat on—it's a bum hat, by the way—and some one pipes up; 'Get that at the fire sale?' What are you ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... morning I was awakened by a scratching noise on the iron quilt which covers my repose. A cold perspiration broke out on my forehead. I buried my head in the hardwood pillows and waited the end. Just then M. Stepupski, the Minister of the Department of Bum Shells, walked in through the ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... that sound like the Plaza Major in old Chihuahua by moonlight?" cried McKinney, as a swinging band march came squealing out through the door. "That's a piece by a Mexican band. Can't you hear the choo-choo, and the wee-wee, and the bum-bum? They're all ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... life you are laying out for yourself? And then bum-by you will get old or sick ma' be, and who is going to want you around then? Every woman needs a husband of her own to take care ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... still coaling up. Every thing working smooth and nothing to stop, it is a beautyfull night and the Southern Cross looms up with more beauty than I ever seen befor. But the ships bum Boat is all right too, she loomed up with a big ketle of hot Steaming cocoa, Just the thing a man wants when he has the mid watch. the wether is very cold down hear. a few of the men is going ashore to morrow. I dont think I will be able to go as I will have the afternoon watch, any ...
— The Voyage of the Oregon from San Francisco to Santiago in 1898 • R. Cross
... and dried like horn, Or if more arid aught ye know, By suns and frosts and hunger-throe. Then why not happy as thou'rt hale? 15 Sweat's strange to thee, spit fails, and fail Phlegm and foul snivel from the nose. Add cleanness that aye cleanlier shows A bum than salt-pot cleanlier, Nor ten times cack'st in total year, 20 And harder 'tis than pebble or bean Which rubbed in hand or crumbled, e'en On finger ne'er shall make unclean. Such blessings (Furius!) ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... The cantie auld folks crackin' crouse, The young anes ranting thro' the house— My heart has been sae fain to see them That I, for joy, hae barkit wi' them!"... By this, the sun was out o' sight, An' darker gloamin' brought the night: The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone, The kye stood rowtin' i' the loan; When up they gat, an' shook their lugs, Rejoic'd they were na men but dogs; An' each took aff his several way, Resolv'd to meet some ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... she on the footstool of the throne, her eyes and his were on a level. She laid hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes until he could see his own twin portraits in hers that were glowing sunset pools. Heart of the Hills? The Heart of all the East seemed to bum in her, rebellious! ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... seen me and Buck the next night you'd have had to go to a little bum hotel over near the West Side ferry landings. We was in a little back room, and I was filling up a gross of six-ounce bottles with hydrant water colored red with aniline and flavored with cinnamon. Buck was smoking, ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... tourists," said he. "That's the leading industry. They can't see it, and they don't want to. They have just one road through the county. It's a bum one. You'd think it was a dozen, to hear them talk about the immense undertaking of making it halfway decent. Any other place would do these things they've been talking about for ten years just on the side, as part of the get-ready. Lucky they didn't have to do anything in the way ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... assembled; ten thousand fans had come To see the twirler who had put big Casey on the bum; And when he stepped into the box the multitude went wild. He doffed his cap in proud disdain—but ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... trying out all the darned benchest you've got—and there ain't a one I'd give a punched nickel for but Silver. I'd a rode Shootin' Star, only he wouldn't stand still so I could get onto him. Whoever broke him did a bum job. The horse I break will stand, or I'll know the reason why. Silver'll stand, all right. And I can guide him pretty well by slapping his neck. You did a pretty fair job when you broke Silver," the ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... they're going to be right comfortable. I've shipped a maid for the girls, and the cook this time is several degrees superior to the average maritime specimen, for there's nothing like a couple of days of bum cooking to upset tempers—and I'm taking no chances. Also, just before I left I gave your future daughter-in-law her quarterly dividend—you see, when her father died I had to sort of look after the family, and I ran a bluff that Kenyon had some Ricks Lumber ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... and watch every single last movement of a fool girl that can't even run the adding-machine, why, he'd get green around the gills. He'd never do anything but make mistakes! Well, I guess the old codger must have had a bum breakfast this morning. Wanted some exercise to digest it. Me, I was the exercise—I was the goat. He calls me in, and he calls me down, and me—well, just lemme tell you, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... said Manning. "Report me to the Council? They'll listen to me before they'd pay attention to complaints from a nobody who's been drifting around the outworlds for most of his life. That's all you are, you know, Lee—a drifter, a bum, like the rest of them. That's what everybody out here on the Edge is ... unless he does ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... a word out of 'im yet, an' I've been sittin' 'ere ever since eight o'clock s'mornin'. I'm a conwivial cock, I am,—a sociable cove, yes, sir, a s-o-s-h-able cove as ever wore a pair o' boots. Wot I sez is,—though a bum, why not a sociable bum, and try to make things nice and pleasant, and I does my best, give you my word! But Lord! all my efforts is wasted on ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... went "Bum, bum, bum, diddle dum," and pranced around on a pair of short, fat legs in red stockings. Two fat little arms beat the drumsticks on the top of his head, or what appeared to be the top of his head, which was in reality a funny face, which winked and blinked as the drumsticks traveled ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... "but when I come back from my vacation, I'll let you in on it. I don't like to say this, Mac—but when I was slippin' it to you, I never asked whether you wanted it to get a hair cut with or to try and put Wall Street on the bum. If—" ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... slice of her cargo out to-night; for those who cut her adrift know what's on board of her. Then we have the Heavy Horsemen—they do their work in the daytime, when they go on board as lumpers to clear the ships. And then we've the Coopers and Bum-boat men, and the Ratcatchers and the Scuffle Hunters, and the River Pirates; and, last of all, we have the Mudlarkers: all different professions, Jack; never interfering with each other, and all living by their wits. I'm too old now; I was a flash pirate once, but I'm ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... them Kalmucks of his'n," he said crossly. "He's gettin' worse and worse. Them first two scenes I painted he kicked enough about: said the forest scene looked like a roast-beef sandwich, and asked me if the parlor scene was a bar-room or a cow-pasture, but when I do a first-class old bum castle and he wants to know if it's a lib'ry interior, I get hot. ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... said, "Come in—come in—for the love of heaven come in, else you will ruin me entirely." "How so?" cried Opie "Marry, thus," replied the other, "my neighbors over the way will see you, and say, 'Fuseli's done,—for there's a bum bailiff,'" he looked at Opie, "'going to seize his person; and a little Jew broker,'" he looked at Northcote, "'going to take his furniture,—so come in I tell ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... went home. He was feeling very well satisfied with himself for some reason which he did not try to analyze, but which was undoubtedly his sense of having saved Bill from throwing away six hundred dollars on a bum car; and the weight in his coat pocket of a box of chocolates that he had bought for Marie. Poor girl, it was kinda tough on her, all right, being tied to the house now with the kid. Next spring when he started his run to Big Basin again, he would get a little ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... "forgettin' what a great man you are so long as Father's payin' the bills, let's figure on just what your standin' is now. You're a bum bond clerk, on the ragged edge ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... to the Y. M. C. A. (which had for one of its aims the assistance of young men out of work) and confided my homelessness to the secretary, a capital young fellow who knew enough about men to recognize that I was not a "bum." He offered me the position of night-watch and gave me a room and cot at the back of his office. These ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... "a bum joke you're trying to put over, or what? Come home at once!—Don't you know a packed house is waiting to see Miss Burton in her act? What do ye ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... pulmonary subject I, Tra la la la la, bum bum! It can't last long until I die, Tra la ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... they spoke about it in the daytime. "Majority rules," they said, "and there's three of us against you. We can't sleep while you have that lamp burning. The light keeps us awake and it also makes the room so hot that the devil couldn't stand it. If you stay up reading to-night we'll give you the bum's rush." ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... {170} trying to get something. It does not increase his respect for Christians to find them easily deceived, and it outrages his sense of justice to see that laziness, drunkenness, and vice are rewarded by church workers. Even among tramps, the variety known as the "mission bum" is looked down upon by his fellows, and there is a lesson for the mission worker in ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... o' what's reasonable—that is anes and awa'—a glisk and nae mair; but he's crack-brained and cockle-headed about his nipperty-tipperty poetry nonsense—He'll glowr at an auld-warld barkit aik-snag as if it were a queezmaddam in full bearing; and a naked craig, wi' a bum jawing ower't, is unto him as a garden garnisht with flowering knots and choice pot-herbs. Then he wad rather claver wi' a daft quean they ca' Diana Vernon (weel I wet they might ca' her Diana of the Ephesians, for she's little better than a heathen—better? ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and her beguile In very likeness of a roasted crab; And when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale; The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And rails or cries, and falls into a cough, And then the whole choir ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... three miles to Starfish Cove," said Jack, anxiously. "Can you make it all right on that bum leg, Bob?" ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... little tobacconist! Sot, you Cherokee!" screams out Mr. William. "Jump out of bed, and I'll drive my sword through your body. Why didn't I do it to-day when I took you for a bailiff—a confounded pettifogging bum-bailiff!" And he went on screeching more oaths and incoherencies, until the landlord, the drawer, the hostler, and all the folks of the kitchen were brought to lead him away. After which Harry Warrington closed his ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in there that belong in the 'bum bunch,' and six or eight with wrong earmarks. We'll have to catch them." Kate set the example by walking in among them, and immediately a cloud of dust arose as the frightened sheep ran bleating in a circle. Above the din Kate's voice rose sharp and imperative as her trained eye ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... scene of history has ever written itself so deeply on my mind; not because Balfour, that questionable zealot, was an ancestral cousin of my own; not because of the pleadings of the victim and his daughter; not even because of the live bum-bee that flew out of Sharpe's 'bacco-box, thus clearly indicating his complicity with Satan; nor merely because, as it was after all a crime of a fine religious flavour, it figured in Sunday books and afforded a grateful relief from MINISTERING ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... funniest thing I ever heard of, sure," continued Owen. "He's crazy, that's what. Who'd ever think of looking in that bum old coffee pot for anything worth while, tell me ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... happiness has wrecked more poems than sorrows ever helped to flow in sparkling jets. Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne taking his ease, smoking a cigar after breakfast, his face beaming as he basked like a lizard in the sunshine, could not summon up courage enough to make herself the bum-bailiff ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... murmured the tramp. "Him still making good in the business, and me a bum! Well, it's all my own fault. If I'd stuck to the fire-eating and not drinking fire-water I'd be somewhere to-day. Just ask Bill Watson what sort of an act Ham Logan had—'Coal-fire Logan!'" exclaimed the man. "That was ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... noon and I was in the barracks reading about the world serious game in Chi yesterday and Florrie says she asked 1 of the boys where I was at and he told her I was polishing the general's shoes and wouldn't he do just as well. How is that for a fresh bum Al and of course I don't have to polish the general's shoes or any shoes and if I could find out who it was that Florrie was talking to I would polish their jaw ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... With the exception of a busted drive-shaft, a cracked crank-case, a loose steering-wheel, a bum battery, a dilapidated differential and faulty ignition, it is just as good as new. Outside of buying four sets of tires, three new springs, a new top, two rear axles, a couple of batteries, having the valves ground sixteen times, the clutch tightened every week and the ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... place around me. Says Corder, struggling with his pack, "Bann, will you help me into my corset." Pickle says to Reardon (out of David's hearing) "Ten cents for a bum piece of pie that you have to eat with your hands! That gets my goat." And just now has come a hoot from every part of the camp when from I company, in line to start and loading guns for a skirmish, sounded the pop of an accidental discharge. But the men of ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... Yes, I got it now," answered the proprietor, with some animation, as if suddenly interested. "He come in the week we opened—worst-lookin' bum you ever see—toes out of his shoes, coat all torn. Said he had no money and asked for something to eat. Billy here was goin' to fire him out when one of my customers said he knew him. I don't let no man go hungry if I can help it, and so I sent him downstairs ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... you know your own affairs best. But with all your money, you'd better take to the tall pines yourself, like these old guys in the 'Lobster Club.' That's the advice of a man who's in the business for money not glory. This is a bum game. They'll get me some day, some of these yeggs or bunk artists that I've sent away for recuperation, as the doctors call it. But I'm doing it for bread and beefsteak, while it lasts. You run along and play—a good way from the fire, ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... respect of every one who knows you, and the affection of every one who knows you well; in fact, you have nothing to work for, and every reason to be contented. So I suggest that you learn, in your later years, how to bum. I have no doubt that Mike will come across something very good in Colombia, if he doesn't get the fever, or break his blooming neck. I have never seen so aggressive a group of old men as you fellows are. You will not admit that you are more than ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Jack Tier built like, sir, but I did n't hear the conwersation, habbin' the ladies to 'tend to. But Jack was oncommon short in his floor timbers, sir, and had no length of keel at all. His beam was won'erful for his length, altogedder—what you call jolly-boat, or bum-boat build, and was only good afore'e wind, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... no good bum!" the old man shouted at me. "That no-good from nowhere! I'll fix him! Thinks he's something, does he? I'll show him! Anything he can do ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... Vida's happiness, because I wished we could all be as happy as she was. All the same I took pains to go round to that boarding house a couple times more because it seemed like the girl's happiness might have a bum foundation. Darling Clyde was as merry and attentive as ever and Vida was still joyous. I guess she kept joyous at her work all day by looking forward to that golden moment after dinner when her boy would sing Good night, good night, beloved—he'd come to watch ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... room," invited Herbert, leading the way. "It's a pretty bum joint, but it's the best in the house—the best I could find in this wretched hole of a town. I'm mighty glad to see you, old pal, though I may not appear to be. Oh, blazes! but I ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... player of legitimate roles, a man who could play any juvenile Shakespearian role without a rehearsal, a member of The Lambs and The Players Clubs. And here I was sitting out on the end of a wharf because I didn't have money enough to hire even a bum rowboat. And the three first launches that had passed by were all owned by Vaudeville players—whom my legitimate friend 'did not know at all.' I thought it all out and then I turned to my ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... shoulder seams is split; his slippers are run over; and his shirt should have gone to the wash last week. Also his chin is decorated in two places with surgeon's tape and has a thick growth of stubble on it. As I drifts in he's makin' a bum attempt to' roll a cigarette and is gazin' disgusted ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... to go into so much detail in breaking in a political recruit. When he resumed, it was in a good-natured tone of dismissal. "That's what you do, kid. To-morrow you get a sprained wrist, so you can't work for a few days, and that'll give you a chance to bum round and hear what the men are saying. Meantime, I'll ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... textbooks since I was old enough to read. Or why I wanted the radar deck instead of the control deck. I didn't want to have to make a decision! My father had to make a decision once. As skipper and pilot of the ship he decided to save a crewman's life. He died saving a bum, ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... all the tunes in the world, ringing such peals! It has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is beginning "Turn again, Whittington." Buz, buz, buz; bum, bum, bum; wheeze, wheeze, wheeze; fen, fen, fen; tinky, tinky, tinky; cr'annch. I shall certainly come to be condemned at last. I have been drinking too much for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a consumption, and my religion getting faint. This is ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... Sailor Mike's place, not wishin' to deprive you of your share o' the sport. But I met a big policeman who said: 'Tell that red-headed Irish bum that it'll be better for his health to stay away ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... his hand clutchin' at his side, an' his pink checks gray an' twisted. He coughed a dry, short cough, an' groans out between his set teeth. "It 's my heart; I got a bum pump. You tell George Jordan that I never breathed a word of it, but that Jack Whitman—Oh, my God! Get me a drink of whiskey! Get me a drink ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... of superior acumen that she saw even vaguely the real Bill Siddall, the money-maker, beneath the General William Siddall, raw and ignorant and vulgar—more vulgar in his refinement than the most shocking bum at home and at ease in foul-smelling stew. Every man of achievement hides beneath his surface—personality this second and real man, who makes the fortune, discovers the secret of chemistry, fights the battle, carries the election, ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... twice before taking a stranger into my family," said Belding, seriously. "Well, I guess he's all right, Laddy, being the cavalryman's friend. No bum or lunger? ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bum for his throttle, and a fresh application to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... himselfe in betwixt the legat, and the archbishop of Canturburie. And where belike the said archbishop of Canturburie was loth to remooue, he set his buttocks iust in his lap, but he scarslie touched the archbishops skirt with his bum, when the bishops and other chapleins with their seruants stept to him, pulled him away, and threw him to the ground, and beginning to lay on him with bats and fists, the archbishop of Canturburie yeelding good for euill, sought ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... a cool customer," the man appraised, "but if you think you're going to put anything over on us this time, you've made a bum guess." ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... Minky, wiping his broad forehead with a colored handkerchief. The heat in the dining-room was oppressive. "I've never see 'em before, an' they didn't seem like talkin' a heap. They were all three hard-lookin' citizens, an'—might ha' been anything from bum cowpunchers to—" ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... desperate young fellow took the lead, and the rest marched after. He moved off down the street, shouting through his closed lips "Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum!" The rest took up the drum-like cry, and marched after him two and two. They made straight toward Judge Brown's office, where they knew Bradley was. They halted ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... first pop, if old Grif is in town. You remember, I once told you all about him—M. F. Griffith, my old engineer—man who boosted me from a bum to a transitman. Whitest man that ever was! Last I heard, he'd located here in Chicago as a consulting engineer. He'll give me work, or find it for me; and Mollie—that's Mrs. Grif—she'll board me, if she has to set up a bed in her parlor ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... hear where they lived. I'm afraid I wasn't interested. Aren't you glad the fire didn't bum the cupola? I almost wish they could leave the house that lovely weathered brown tone, instead of painting it white with green blinds again. Dad would like it that way, too. I suppose everybody would say it was flying in the face of tradition, after the ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... outer dis deal. You oughter know that. I'm on de bum all right enough, but dat other t'ing don't go wit' me. Burglary is no good. I'll say good ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... his name is Jack Hoag; he's a little bit of a trapper and a big bit of a bum; stuck me last year. He doesn't come out this way; they say he goes out by the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... to steal it from Miss Valdes and her people. Ain't I making enough money up at Cripple Creek for my needs? No, Steve! I'm playing for bigger game than that. Size up my hand beside Don Manuel's, and it looks pretty bum. But I'm going to play it strong. Maybe at the ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... they'll try to put the place on the bum, sir?" cried Pete, the irrepressible, his ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... even intelligence by which many troubled souls solve their problems. A sudden withdrawal from the world we call stupor. When the same thing happens insidiously, the condition is labeled according to the financial and social status of the victim. He is a bum, a loafer, a mendicant or, more politely, a disillusioned recluse. Frequently this undiagnosed dement has satisfied himself with a weak, cynical philosophy that life ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... darkness I am conscious of a big thrill of pride. The overland has stopped twice for me—for me, a poor hobo on the bum. I alone have twice stopped the overland with its many passengers and coaches, its government mail, and its two thousand steam horses straining in the engine. And I weigh only one hundred and sixty pounds, and I haven't a five-cent piece ...
— The Road • Jack London
... (feet) in depth. The Osho[u] began the recitation of the sutra. The priests stood by in vigilant attention. As the last word reverberated on the bishop's lips they seized the sutra wrapped bamboo, slipped it in the long box—bum! the lock snapped. The congregation was tremendously impressed. For a decent time Shu[u]den remained in prayer and meditation. "The charm is complete. O'Iwa no longer wanders, to her own penance and the disaster of men. Henceforth he who says she does so lies. Hearken ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... father might have been, his son was able to uphold the family pride, and I had my revenge. Some day soon now my boy will read his father's story[25] himself, and I hope will not be ashamed. They read it in their way in the other boy's house, and got out of it that I was a "bum" because once I was on the level of the Bowery lodging house. But if he does not stay there, a man need not be that; and for that matter, there are plenty who do whom it would be a gross injury to call by such a name. There are lonely men, who, with no kin ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... dicker was pending, a young clerk from a store door, yelled to a passer-by on the opposite side of the street: "Were you at the circus?" The other yelled: "Yes." "How was it?" "Bum, but the concert's good. That Al. G. Field that was here last winter in the opera house, is with them. The concert's the best part of the whole thing. I guess the minstrels are busted, or Field wouldn't be with such ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... brief adventure there ... a bum for a few weeks, hanging around soldiers' barracks, blacking shoes for free meals ... till Provost Marshal General Bell, in an effort to clear the islands of boys who were vags and mascots of regiments, gave me ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... ragged clothes and disreputable soft hat. The image was photographed upon his brain for life—the honest, laughing eyes, the well moulded features harmonizing so well with the voice, and the impossible garments which marked the man hobo and bum as plainly as though he wore a placard suspended from ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... at him with her large, spiritual eyes, whose fire seemed now to bum into his soul, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... heretofore has been hard. It crinkled the hair and put the complexion on the bum. It cost more money for cosmetics to set these complexions right than a couple of $30,000 rain barrels. But now the seediest lady in the land has only to make a pilgrimage to Hinsdale and return ready to make faces at the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... snapped off, and Malone sat back in his chair and sighed. He spent a few minutes regretting that he hadn't chosen, early in life, to be a missionary to the Fiji Islands, or possibly simply a drunken bum without any troubles, but then the report Mitchell had mentioned arrived. Malone picked it up without much eagerness, and began going through ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... was not a gentleman came to your house in your t'other wife's time, I hope! nor a lady, nor music, nor masques! Nor you nor your house were so much as spoken of, before I disbased myself, from my hood and my farthingal, to these bum-rowls ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... shot gun, to keep impecunious guests from going away from the tavern via rope ladder. And then imagine an Oshkosh man in a Milwaukee hotel, his head full of big schemes, and his skin full of beer. He has been on a "bum," and is nervous, and on being shown to his room he sees the rope ladder coiled up under the window, ready to spring upon him. He stares at it, and the cold sweat stands all over him. The rope ladder returns his gaze, and seems to move and to crawl towards his feet. For a moment he is powerless ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... by Vespa's reply to a mother who had written him," he went on. "Her daughter ended up in a Bohas camp for schizos, and her son had left his wonderful home and brilliant future to become a bum. She wanted to know why. Vespa took six long paragraphs to give six explanations, all equally valid and all advanced by equally distinguished sociologists. He himself favored the mass hysteria theory. But if you looked at his gobbledegook closely, ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... arrest me. I told him that I had a great fear of going to gaol, and asked him if he would go and ask his brother, Mr W. M. Scott, the high bailiff, to allow me until 9 o'clock on the following morning in which to make an effort to raise the money. The "bum" had scarcely got out of sight ere I was in consultation with John Parker, the landlord of the Bay Horse Inn. John rather pitied me. He agreed to lend me his horse, and I borrowed a van from Mr Joseph Wright, cabinet maker, determined ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... seems they've got some autocratic rule that you have to keep over five hundred dollars there or they won't carry you. They wrote me a letter a few months ago and told me I'd been running too low. Once I gave out two bum checks—remember? that night in Reisenweber's?—but I made them good the very next day. Well, I promised old Halloran—he's the manager, the greedy Mick—that I'd watch out. And I thought I was going all right; I kept up the stubs in my check-book pretty ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... may think you've got 'em going,' said the bar-keep to the bum. 'But cheer up And beer up. The ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... people gets to thinking I am a hobo. Even one or two judges in police courts I got acquainted with had that there idea of me. I always explains that I am not one, and am jest travelling around to see things, and working when I feels like it, and ain't no bum. But frequent I am not believed. And two, three different times I gets to the place where I couldn't hardly of told myself from a hobo, if I hadn't of knowed ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... going to skin me outen three-fifty, one-fifty, or one measly cent, you need some medicine, an' I'll give it to you in pill form! You'd make a bum-looking angel, so get up an' hand over that cayuse, an' ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... And Elinor's sporting. She isn't the kind that needs six butlers to live—she doesn't live that way now. That's just pride, Ted, thinking that—and a rather bum variety of pride when you come down to it. I hate these people who moan around and won't be happy unless they can do everything themselves—they're generally the kind that give their wives a charge account at Lucile's and ten dollars a year pocket money and go into blue ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... locked when we git there. Hold on till I git my internal machine to work on the fence. Dad! Where's that ole morepoke? O, you're there, are you? Fetch the jack off o' your wagon—come! fly roun'! you're (very) slow for a young fellow. Bum," (abbreviation of "bummer," and applied to the red-headed fellow) "you surround them carrion, or we'll be losin' the run ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... BUM-BOAT. A boat employed to carry provisions, vegetables, and small merchandise for sale to ships, either in port or lying at a distance from the shore; thus serving to communicate with the adjacent town. The name is corrupted from bombard, the vessels in which beer ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... loosened the drag and threw it under the hind wheel, and at this abrupt braking the wagon leaped mightily into the air, like a startled rhinoceros. One of the poles on the side cracked, and the smaller cask toppled over and fell from the cart with a heavy bum-bum-bum-bum. Florie had tried to throw his weight against it, but the cask gave his head a severe slanting blow before dropping ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... can't do that!" wailed the invalid. He wheeled his chair toward his nephew. "You wouldn't do that if my friend Lopez was here, you big bum!" he ended, as ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... He was just dyin' for a kind word, an' he sniffed the smell of the ink and the hot metal like it was June roses. He kind of wanders over to his old desk and slumps down in the chair, and tips it back, and puts his feet on the desk, with his hat tipped back, and a bum stogie in his mouth. And along came a kid with a bunch of papers wet from the presses and sticks one in his hand, and—well, girl, that fellow, he just wriggled he was so happy. You know as well as I do that every man on a morning paper spends his ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... best, when the days is warm, With his bum Prince-Albert on his arm— He likes to size up a farmhouse where They haint no man ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... that the widow Clark, who was a sensible enough woman in the matter of roomers and household management and knew a bum from a modest paying laboring man as well as any one in the profession, was perplexed in the present situation as to the course of true wisdom? Incredible as it may seem, it was Adelle who during this time of doubt gave her aunt strength to resist much bad advice. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... the corner the couple quickly met, And the tramp produced the specie for to liquidate his debt; And the man who did the preachin' took his twenty of the sum, Which you see that out of thirty left a tenner for the bum. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... becoming compulsory everywhere, that colourful class of ancient lineage, the bums, is quickly becoming persona non grata to our civilisation, and will soon be extinct. To the next generation, in all probability, the word bum will be but an empty name. I doubt whether it would be a feasible plan for Dr. Hornaday to undertake to preserve a small number of this species in the Bronx Park. The bum nature, I fear, would languish in captivity. The creature would likely lose its health, and, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... dadblasted bum!" exclaimed Bunker in a rage as the miner passed over the first hill and, stumping across the street, he rolled up the tumbled blankets. "The dirty dog!" he grumbled vindictively, hoisting the bed upon his shoulders; but as he ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... day before I ran away with the circus," he soliloquized in the midst of the throng milling up the Elevated station stairs. "And later, when I had come back from the circus, I took that long bum on brake-beams. And when I had come back from that, a little later I went off in the forecastle of the 'Tropic Bird' to Tahiti. And each time that flapping business came first. Every time I've done something wild and foolish, I've flapped first like this. First I'd flap, ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... and there is nothing doing. He shows up at last and hands me a species of coma and leaves me with twenty-five dollars! That's what I get. What I've been doing is a longer story. I apologize for not having seen your friend who brought the letter, but it's up to you to apologize for a bum epistle ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... makes it easier. It's the woman's suit-case, and if we can't find out who she is from that, we're pretty bum, eh?" ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... Joe; "I wos goin' to tell ye how we made him eat horseflesh. He carried a revolver, too, this natter-list did, to load wi' shot as small as dust a'most, an' shoot little birds with. I've seed him miss birds only three feet away with it. An' one day he drew it all of a suddent an' let fly at a big bum-bee that wos passin', yellin' out that it wos the finest wot he had iver seed. He missed the bee, of coorse, 'cause it wos a flyin' shot, he said, but he sent the whole charge right into Martin's back—Martin ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... "You think that all the college graduates turn out lawyers and doctors and professors? Some of 'em are mighty glad to sweep out banks in hopes of a clerkship; and some take any sort of a place in a mill or a business house, to work up; and some bum round out West 'on cattle ranches; and some, if they're lucky, get newspaper reporters' places at ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cool," said Ide, "if you've told it to me straight. I should think a man put on the bum from a good job just in one day ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... o'clock in the morning, she seems to drift off into a peaceful slumber, but awakens on the moment and hurrying all the way up to the other end of Main Street she slams the bass keys a couple of hard blows—bumetty-bum! And so it goes for quite a long spell after that: Tippy-tap!—off to the country for a week-end party, Friday to Monday; bumetty-bum!—six months elapse between the third and fourth acts; tippetty-tip!—two years later; ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Cecilia, kid," said Hetty, poising her knife, "is it as bad art as that? I ain't a critic; but I thought it kind of brightened up the room. Of course, a manicure-painter could tell it was a bum picture in a minute. I'll take it down if you say so. I wish to the holy Saint Potluck ...
— Options • O. Henry
... "Charlie says it's a good Monday night town because two through freights lay over there till daylight. Tuesday night we have to double back to Greenwich, and that's where Charlie gave us the bum deal. This gag of chasing us back over the same route is rotten, because somebody may be sitting up for us with a rock. But Charlie says Greenwich has developed into a great show town since five new families' moved there last ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... dan, Bobs o' vinegar, gentleman, Kiss, toss, mouse, fat, Bore a needle, bum a fiddle, Jink ma jeerie, jink ma jye, Stand you there, you're ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... playing a tune in McGuffy's saloon, and it's cheery and bright in there (God! but I'm weak—since the bitter dawn, and never a bite of food); I'll just go over and slip inside—I mustn't give way to despair— Perhaps I can bum a little booze if ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... refer no further," pulling down his neckcloth with a smile. "That man exists no more: by an exercise of will I have destroyed him. There is something like it in the poets. First, a brilliant and conspicuous career—the observed, I may say, of all observers including the bum-baily: and then, presto! a quiet, sly, old, rustic bonhomme, cultivating roses. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Fannie, would you be so kind as to bring me another box of caramels?" Annie, without stopping her work or so much as looking up, raises her voice and calls down the room—and in her heart she is the same exactly as Elizabeth W.—"Fannie, you bum, bring me a box of car'mels or I'll knock the hell clean ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... said, "what I'm a-tellin' yer. I wanter be a good boy. My pa, he drinks. He drinks like—" The word he used, in description, was not the sort of a word that should have issued from childish lips. "An' my big brother—he ain't like Pa, but he's a bum, too! I don't wanter be like they are—not if I kin help it! I wanter be th' sort of a guy King Arthur was, an' them knights of his'n. I wanter be like that there St. George feller, as killed dragons. I wanter ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... Mrs. Petty. "In my belief it's come on through reading those newspapers. If I had my way I'd bum the lot. Can I trust you to watch him while I go and get the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a-bumming, For the yellow butter's coming. It will come, come, come, With a bum, bum, bum, All the buttermilk a-bumming, ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... "Cruel, cruel Polly Hopkins, treat me so,—oh, treat me so!" till they fell, at last, into an indistinguishable jumble and clamor, from which extricated themselves now and again and prevailed, the choruses of "Upidee," and "Bum-bum-bye," with an occasional drum-beat of emphasis ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... everybody. You come in here and claim by the right of personal interest that we should be most willing to tell you our business. Then in the next breath you defend the installation over on the other side of town for their attitude in giving the bum's rush to people who try to ask questions about their business. Go read your Constitution, Mr. Fisher. It says there that I have as much right to defend my home against intruders as the A.E.C. has to ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith |
